blade thickness

[benchwarmer380]

The Esee 5 is 1/4 thick... Outside of customs and ceramonial khukuris, I don't think anyone makes a half inch thick blade.

If it were that thick, the 5 would weigh almost as much as a broadsword.

Ooops you're right! I put the wrong fraction in there.
Edited so I don't look so dumb!

 

[nick21]

3 millimeters is the magic thickness for me. Good mix of being strong and lightweight in my opinion

 

[grownstar]

It would also cut about as well as a sack of wet mice.

I don't know man...have you ever tried cutting anything with a sack of wet mice?

 

[Mitchell Knives]

.25" is the thickest I would make any knife, and it would have to be a very large knife in that case. (Bowie, chopper, etc)

I imagine that the average person could not swing a large .5" thick blade for very long.

 

[marcinek]

So in a downed plane scenario say like in the book hatchet by Gary Paulson in your guy's expert opinion a .25 knife would be preferable to a thicker knife??

Ontario Pilot Survival Knife: .1875"
Fallkniven F1 Pilot Survival Knife: .18"

Heck, even the Fallkniven A1 "Army Survival" with a 6.3 blade comes in at .24 thick.

 

[marcinek]

Can you get nearly the same toughness from a .25" thick knife as you can from .375"? Like I have said I haven't tried a thinner knife so I'm at the mercy of the experts hence my turning to you guys for your advice.

If, as it appears, you are making knives...you really should be trying/using knives first. :thumbup:

 

[jac_solar]

My half inch thick knife has a 17 inch long blade is 2.5 inches across, which I don't think is too huge most of my knives are around 12 13 inch blade length would that length work just as well if I skinnied up the thickness?

Got a picture of that knife?

 

[Shotgun]

As I see it thick knives are ideal in two categories when it comes to woods use. The first is in prying and .25" inch is plenty strong for any prying that a person would really do. You add a spring temper to the spine and I doubt anyone could break it by hand with prying. The second is wedging wood apart. Splitting. I haven't tried anything thicker than .25" but I haven't felt the need to either. Even if it wasn't enough a quickly carved wooden wedge could take care of it. For me weight is an issue and I think my SYCKO 711 at about 14 ounces is almost on the side of too heavy to carry. I CAN carry something heavier, I just don't want to hike that hike if you know what I mean. So I wouldn't even consider something thicker.

As a side note. I don't think a .25 thick knife is necessarily terrible at slicing. The problem with knives that thick is that they tend to be "skinny", 1.5" wide is about average from what I've seen, and the edges are ground too thick. If you make a thin edge on a 2.5" wide knife that's .25" thick it should slice pretty darn well. 2.5" wide can drop the angle on the primary grind quite a bit which would alleviate some of the wedging problem that thick knives have. Not as well as something crazy skinny like 1/16" but well enough for any field use. I've seen tv shows where sushi chefs were using thick knives at about 3/16" thick and they were zipping along without a problem. There's a lot going on in a well done knife and I don't think you can really judge it by what the spine thickness is.