Are most knives today too thick.

Hawgsnawt said:
This right here is the answer you are looking for... yes, a thin knife can do the job, but how many can do the job daily for years and still preform well afterwards...

Till metals exist that can withstand that kind of daily abuse in wafer thin blades, adding thickness is the only way to add durability...as long as broken blades = bad press and less knives sold, makers will overbuild to preserve their own reputations....

I'd come a lot closer to buying a knife advertised as " unbreakable, able to handle ANYTHING you throw at it " than I would one advertised as " Thinnest knife you can get and still get by, for awhile, if you baby it "
Click to expand...

Dude, I don't know if you've seen tests I do with knives or the stories I have to tell of using knives, but I am definitely not one to baby knives. Is the one in the OP just a little too thin for my personal uses? Yeah, to be honest it is. Take that same steel heat treated the same way and make it a little thicker and I'd have a great all around knife.

I don't need a stupid thick knife and I abuse my knives quite a bit. You don't have to believe me if you don't want to, that's cool. MOST people, on the other hand, can get by just fine for years and years and years with a knife this thin and this hard. I'm not blowing smoke just to blow smoke.
 
The thing is, most knives are designed with a certain context of use in mind, and for that setting and set of tasks, they are generally overbuilt. When the context of use is taken into account in the design of a tool, that tool should be able to perform that set of tasks reliably and without fail, plus a certain degree of insurance factor in case strain above the norm is applied. That insurance factor has been ballooning over time to the point where the knives are now well thicker than required for them to be extremely durable, and to such a degree that function within their original set of intended applications is actually suffering. If I were to sell a splitting maul as a felling axe I think we could say that it was overbuilt. This is effectively what is happening to a lot of knives.

While it's better to have "too much" than "too little", there becomes a point where "too much" becomes "much too much"...and what's really best is "just right."
 
I've skinned a lot of cattle and elk, and I like to use a large, thick heavy knife. It cuts my time in half. If I was skinning coons or slicing tomatoes it would be a different story. After skinning elk I usually have to chop wood to make something to elevate the game bags off the ground for air flow and the same knife with good heft makes for a good chopper as well, so I think there are good places for .25"+ thick knives, and places where they might seem ridiculous. I know the knife that I use for these tasks will last year after year, decade after decade and I never have to inspect the edge to see what damage has incurred. When you are doing things out of necessity , there isn't much time for that or the worry. I also believe that in a lifetime of using thin folding knives, you will eventually break a handful of them with out misusing them. I have.
 
It depends on the use.


The other day I was trying to split a branch to help my son build a marker for our stringer. So I was hitting my ESEE 6 with a rock trying to drive it through this piece of wood


If I was using a thinner knife I'd have a smaller target and it wouldn't split the wood as well
 
Sunyata said:
It depends on the use.


The other day I was trying to split a branch to help my son build a marker for our stringer. So I was hitting my ESEE 6 with a rock trying to drive it through this piece of wood


If I was using a thinner knife I'd have a smaller target and it wouldn't split the wood as well
Click to expand...

If you can give me approximate dimensions I'll go out tomorrow and do the same thing with this same knife. I'll take photos and post the results, good, bad, or ugly. I just showed I can use a carpenter's hammer to baton the knife through between an inch and four inches if wood. I'll do it with a rock or a piece if concrete, too. I'm not worried.

And you wouldn't believe how much easier it is using a thin knife.
 
That's where appropriate tool choice comes into play. There are plenty of applications for which a thicker and/or heavier knife is totally appropriate. Do you cut down a tree with a paring knife? Do you you cut your vegetables with an axe? Technically either of those tasks could be done if you were, for some odd reason, forced to...but obviously it would be best to use the other tool for the respective tasks. Thick knives are not inherently bad. Thin knives are not inherently bad. But right now there's a culture encouraging the use of knives of a thickness in excess of what is actually optimal. If you look at historical knives, you'll find that thick cutting tools existed back then just as they do today, but--as a rule of thumb--they were more appropriately targeted to situations that actually called for that kind of geometry. The average thickness of knives was much thinner despite the simple steels, and the thickness just behind the edge was often similarly thinner.
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
That's where appropriate tool choice comes into play. There are plenty of applications for which a thicker and/or heavier knife is totally appropriate. Do you cut down a tree with a paring knife? Do you you cut your vegetables with an axe? Technically either of those tasks could be done if you were, for some odd reason, forced to...but obviously it would be best to use the other tool for the respective tasks. Thick knives are not inherently bad. Thin knives are not inherently bad. But right now there's a culture encouraging the use of knives of a thickness in excess of what is actually optimal. If you look at historical knives, you'll find that thick cutting tools existed back then just as they do today, but--as a rule of thumb--they were more appropriately targeted to situations that actually called for that kind of geometry. The average thickness of knives was much thinner despite the simple steels, and the thickness just behind the edge was often similarly thinner.
Click to expand...

Well stated.
 
So ill just throw out my meat clever since a thin knife can chop threw just the same. Sometimes a thick knife is need for the purpose of weight.
 
Constant Gardener said:
So ill just throw out my meat clever since a thin knife can chop threw just the same. Sometimes a thick knife is need for the purpose of weight.
Click to expand...

No need for hostility. Obviously a cleaving type of knife still needs to be thicker, same with a chopper. Most people don't carry cleavers or choppers with them so your point, while valid, isn't really applicable. Axes should probably have a little heft to them, too. A knife that a person carries everyday? Well, that's on them to decide. I beat the hell out of knives and think most are almost obscenely thick, especially after testing what is basically a kitchen knife in a manner more abusive than most people ever do with their edc.
 
They absolutely are for my needs. My 2mm thick Moras and Victorinox knives have always been plenty thick for my needs.

My Bushcraft Black feels outrageously thick to me, but compared to the rest of the genre some consider it downright flimsy.

I need a knife to slice things and appreciate good edge geometry and sharpness.
 
I believe that many who are doing things out of necessity are not testing thin knives to see what will work. And...there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, if that's what you do. I obsess over weirder things. But many buy what they know will handle the task, and call it good. I'm sure I could get by with a slightly thinner knife, but why would I? I process about 10 cords a year and up until about 2 years ago I was doing it with a 40cc saw. I didn't burn near as much fuel and it was light and easy to carry around and it would still be getting me by today, but now I have a 50 and 70cc saw and they all have their place. Arbitrary analogy but I say if you hate thick knives, stay away from them and purchase the thin ones. That's what I would do.
 
I was sharpening a friends benchmade 810 yesterday and thought the exact same thing. I talked him into the knife cause it is m4, but after handling the knife, it is wayyyyy too thick to utilize the steel. Over time, i will thin it out while i sharpen, but its kinda pointless (no pun intended) from the factory.
 
True, but we're the knife guys. We're supposed to know what works and what doesn't. That's the difference between some rich jerk who buys a land Rover and someone who actually off roads and knows what works and what doesn't. Would you carry a chainsaw with a 48 inch bar to trim some small shrubs around your house? You're probably knowledgeable enough to tell someone that that's ridiculous and so far out of whack with what they're doing they may actually be stupid for wanting to try it. If they want to, cool, but it probably isn't the best tool for the job since it's too over built for what they're really doing. It's like driving a tank to the mall. If that's what someone can afford and wants to do, cool, but for most people it's ridiculous and they should be looking at a minivan, truck, or small car instead.

Don't get me wrong, I like big, stupidly over built knives too. But I know when I need one and when I don't. I don't carry one just for the hell of it.
 
Last edited:
I see it as some city slicker telling me I don't need a truck that can haul 6 plus tons. Oh really? I suppose the Ford Focus you told me I'd be fine with will haul my 5th wheel just fine.

It's all perspective. You see a thick useless blade, and all they see you doing is food prep in a kitchen. My kitchen is the best stocked room in the house with knives so I don't need a thin slicer in my pocket for that.

If someone doesn't want to carry a hatchet and likes to chop stuff with a knife then it will need extra weight to chop. You get more weight by making it longer or thicker. An 8" blade will have twice the edge life of a 4" blade because you have twice the edge, also takes twice as long to sharpen.

With that said my thickest blade is a Buck reaper at 5/32" and it does anything a 1/4" thick blade will do and the edge life matches 1095 of the same length. The geometry makes it one heck of a chopper too. Yeah it loves to stick in on the first couple chops but after them first couple strokes it's all good. 3/16" is about as thick as I will go.

I don't see a need to talk down a thick knife when I find thinner blades work just as good. I tend to use a hatchet for anything thicker than a small wrist thick branch so I'm not worried about myself much. Them thick heavy blades do just as good, sometimes better at chopping so I'm not going to try to make myself feel better by bad mouthing them.
 
bodog said:
No need for hostility. Obviously a cleaving type of knife still needs to be thicker, same with a chopper. Most people don't carry cleavers or choppers with them so your point, while valid, isn't really applicable. Axes should probably have a little heft to them, too. A knife that a person carries everyday? Well, that's on them to decide. I beat the hell out of knives and think most are almost obscenely thick, especially after testing what is basically a kitchen knife in a manner more abusive than most people ever do with their edc.
Click to expand...
Wasnt trying to be hostile. Sry if it was taken that way. I was exaggerating my point, thick and thin knives both have a place.
 
I prefer blades NOT to exceed 0.140" thick blades. My Zaan or Southard AVO is just fine for any needs that I have. I want a knife to slice. I never need to baton anything; more likely to open a cardboard box than anything else.
Some of my shorter fixed blades, about three inch blades or less, are only 0.100" thick and work just fine.
I do have folders that are 0.190" thick. Nice for opening up a car, but that's about it.
 
Duane Sanders said:
I see it as some city slicker telling me I don't need a truck that can haul 6 plus tons. Oh really? I suppose the Ford Focus you told me I'd be fine with will haul my 5th wheel just fine.

It's all perspective. You see a thick useless blade, and all they see you doing is food prep in a kitchen. My kitchen is the best stocked room in the house with knives so I don't need a thin slicer in my pocket for that.

If someone doesn't want to carry a hatchet and likes to chop stuff with a knife then it will need extra weight to chop. You get more weight by making it longer or thicker. An 8" blade will have twice the edge life of a 4" blade because you have twice the edge, also takes twice as long to sharpen.

With that said my thickest blade is a Buck reaper at 5/32" and it does anything a 1/4" thick blade will do and the edge life matches 1095 of the same length. The geometry makes it one heck of a chopper too. Yeah it loves to stick in on the first couple chops but after them first couple strokes it's all good. 3/16" is about as thick as I will go.

I don't see a need to talk down a thick knife when I find thinner blades work just as good. I tend to use a hatchet for anything thicker than a small wrist thick branch so I'm not worried about myself much. Them thick heavy blades do just as good, sometimes better at chopping so I'm not going to try to make myself feel better by bad mouthing them.
Click to expand...

Who's bad mouthing anything? A big beefy blade is good for some stuff. I carry one everyday and use it more than a thin knife that I also carry. The question was about manufacturers pushing thick blades when the 90% of the 20% of the population who carry knives can be better served by a thin knife with a good heat treatment versus anything else. Or maybe knife performance is truly overrated for most.
 
Duane Sanders said:
I see it as some city slicker telling me I don't need a truck that can haul 6 plus tons. Oh really? I suppose the Ford Focus you told me I'd be fine with will haul my 5th wheel just fine.

It's all perspective. You see a thick useless blade, and all they see you doing is food prep in a kitchen. My kitchen is the best stocked room in the house with knives so I don't need a thin slicer in my pocket for that.

If someone doesn't want to carry a hatchet and likes to chop stuff with a knife then it will need extra weight to chop. You get more weight by making it longer or thicker. An 8" blade will have twice the edge life of a 4" blade because you have twice the edge, also takes twice as long to sharpen.

With that said my thickest blade is a Buck reaper at 5/32" and it does anything a 1/4" thick blade will do and the edge life matches 1095 of the same length. The geometry makes it one heck of a chopper too. Yeah it loves to stick in on the first couple chops but after them first couple strokes it's all good. 3/16" is about as thick as I will go.

I don't see a need to talk down a thick knife when I find thinner blades work just as good. I tend to use a hatchet for anything thicker than a small wrist thick branch so I'm not worried about myself much. Them thick heavy blades do just as good, sometimes better at chopping so I'm not going to try to make myself feel better by bad mouthing them.
Click to expand...

I agree. When I'm at home I use a variety of knives and they are usually thinner. Skinning an animal with a knife of 5/32 would be pretty ideal but I just take one big knife out hunting with now when I'm miles out for the reasons I mentioned above and don't usually bring extra knives. Ounces=Pounds=Pain.....sometimes. And I wouldn't bad mouth anyones selections either. I think too many of these discussions end up with people wanting others to take on their opinion. Who cares if you know what's working for you.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top