sodak said:
There are lots of knives that I would choose over them, but in the context of the original question, then they probably win.
They dominate in price, similar to machetes which are the same type of grind, flat stock, one bevel. For some work the advantages of other grinds are not significant. If you are cutting grass then a machete does just as well as a forged parang with dual convex tapers, differential hardening and tapered and annealed tang. Similar if you took a really sharp Trailmaster and one of Kirk's or Cashen's bowies and cut some alders you would likely notice no difference there either, that wood is just too soft, anything cuts it easily.
Moine said:
I may be wrong, but I think Cliff is just saying that a secondary bevel makes an edge tougher.
It can, but I was speaking more of versatility, fundamentally ask yourself the question, should the edge be the same angle as the primary grind? If you allow them to be different you can raise cutting ability, ease of sharpening and durability all at the same time.
In regards to profile, I don't run the edges on wood working knives as thick as the scandinavian blades, mine are way more acute and much thinner. The mora's and such are ground way thicker than even the coarse blades I use for sod grubbing and similar, both in edge angle and *MUCH* more in thickness.
Even the heaviest ground chopping blades I have are not as thick at the edge as the typical mora's (in fact I have never seen any tactical which is that thick) and are only slightly more obtuse, and even then just at the very edge. My reground SHBM for example is actually thinner than a Mora for the vast majority of its cutting profile.
If I was to take a mora and turn it into a wood cutting blade I would apply a full convex grind (because I can't do flat/hollow) and bring the edge thickness down to about 0.005" from the massive 0.125" that most of them run. I would leave the edge at the stock 10/12 angle if I wanted heavy knot cutting ability, otherwise I would reduce it.
This will outcut a stock mora many times over and sharpen more than ten times faster. It also depends on the steel, the harder and finer grained carbon steels can go more acute and some scandinavian blades have fairly coarse stainless steels, some have soft carbon blades and some of them now even have really hard alloy steel blades which should be able to take fairly fine edges.
Hollow grinds perform even better than flat scandis for cutting. And they're just as easy to sharpen : just put the blade flat on an abrasive surface (both ridges of the hollow blade on the abrasive) and sharpen it as a scandi. Japanese do that with wood chisels and it does outperform a scandi... but it's weaker too.
It depends on how it is ground, Hardwood axes for example actually have primary hollow grinds. The felling ones run convex edge bevels and the carpentry ones usually v-ground. The influence on toughness/strength depends mainly on how far does the hollow penetrate into the primary and how close does it get to the edge. If the edge is left above 0.015", it isn't going to weaken the edge for cutting because it is near impossible to actually do that much damage by hand, that is an impact class thickness.
This would then give you all the benefits of the hollow on sharpening (reduced metal contact) and would even reduce side binding, which is more for utility applications than wood though. I would change the primary grind and not just add a hollow. You don't need to be that obtuse, even large chopping bowies are ground at about 5 degrees, you don't need 10/12 on your primary, that is the same type of grind you find on the sabre tacticals.
Jim Craig said:
I guess the Scandinavian people that have been using this type of edge for a zillion years for woodwork, butchering, everything, don't know what they are doing?
Yes because they are the only culture which uses knives so logically you should ignore all others.
Have those people specifically said what other knives they had used, have they tried the other grinds I described? Does every "expert" agree with them? Does every "native" culture use that type of bevel?
Ten times as much steel to sharpen?
Yes, you have to sharpen the entire primary grind. This is so inefficient that you can actually sharpen one of Wilson's CPM-10V blade faster than the single bevel carbon blades once dulled because Wilson's edge is only 0.005" thick. Yes, that is the right amount of zeros, the typical 1/8" mora's are 25 times thicker at the edge.
As for just laying the blade flat and sharpening, you don't need the actual primary grind to be at that angle, Boye showed how to do that years ago with his knives. Plus as noted the Japanese have been doing the same thing with hollow relief grinds and of course people have been sharpening blades by hand without any of that for a long time either.
Some people have a bias against the cheap thin moras, because they are not good for chopping cinderblocks of breaking open nailed wooded crates.
Sorry, wrong strawman, I was talking about cutting ability and ease of sharpening. Ironically the profile you describe is actually far more obtuse than the one I described, so I can make that arguement to you as the knives I use for those tasks are *far* slimmer and more acute than a mora, so it is actually you who is recommending the prybar and I who is describing the more optomized cutting tool.
-Cliff
My Gerber AF folder is WAY thicker than any Mora I have!!!