chisel grind VS the rest

[ouporblowup]

I am brand new to knife making and have hand files to work with

chisel grinding is so much easier to do by hand

so if is this a sufficient edge for everything from a chopper down to a pocket skinner?


i have beveled my chisel grind edge, is this better or worse for hard use??

ooo

 

[richard j]

i make chisel ground knives and one knife i made has turned out to be a really good chopper. it has a half convex edge instead of a half a v edge. i posted a link below to a vid a member posted for me. the link is in his post

in the vid i'm chopping on some ash and then push cutting newspaper. before this vid was made i made a vid of my buddy chopping on the log too.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/t...-that-factory-edge-!!!!?p=9313785#post9313785

i make small skinners with a chisel ground edge but i take the edge thin. the blade is not a full convex on the ground side but half way up the blade.

 

[Mitchell Knives]

If the edge geometry is correct, chisel ground knives actually cut quite well.

Most factory chisel ground knives don't cut well because the grind is not high enough relative to the blade width.

I make a few chisel ground knives, and they generally take me longer to make than a double ground knife.

This is likely due to the fact that he hollow is considerably deeper and more material is removed overall.

 

[hodgescl]

a sharp piece of steel will cut stuff. the angle of the edge just means you have to cut at an angle that complements the edge of the blade.

 

[Remyrw]

+1 for working fine if you do it right. Most of the knives I've made are single sided grinds. I still adjust the height of the grind to a suitable angle and take it down to a suitable thickness before the final edge is put on. I've only done one knife with a true chisel grind where there was no secondary bevel at all. Often I will do a double sided secondary bevel for the actual edge with equal angles so the final edge is not slanted one way or the other.

 

[scout_77]

I like them, I do use a 2nd bevel for sharpening, my most used knife is this way, I don't sell may and I believe it is due to all the cheap imports turning people off to them. As others have said it's all about angles.

 

[lonepine]

It would seem to me that chisel grinds would be more prone to warping because they are not symmetrical. I keep thinking that IF a chisel grin blade was as good as a regular symmetrically ground blade then that is what most knives would be, but that is not the case.

I only have one chisel ground knife, a machete, and I notice no discernible difference when using it from my other machetes. I don't know about small knives though.

- Paul Meske

 

[Mitchell Knives]

It would seem to me that chisel grinds would be more prone to warping because they are not symmetrical.

They are more prone to warping during heat treat. If you leave the edge a little thick, they usually don't warp during the quench.

 

[Remyrw]

Most knives for personal use aren't single sided (which is NOT the same as a chisel grind, which implies that the primary grind comes right down to the edge), because people in general prefer doubles for the visual aspects. If you look at the industrial world, most blades ARE single sided, it's only knives that are generally held in a person's hand that are commonly double sided grinds.

 

[Daniel Fairly Knives]

If the edge geometry is correct, chisel ground knives actually cut quite well.

Most factory chisel ground knives don't cut well because the grind is not high enough relative to the blade width.

I make a few chisel ground knives, and they generally take me longer to make than a double ground knife.

This is likely due to the fact that he hollow is considerably deeper and more material is removed overall.

I agree. :thumbup:

Most knives for personal use aren't single sided (which is NOT the same as a chisel grind, which implies that the primary grind comes right down to the edge), because people in general prefer doubles for the visual aspects. If you look at the industrial world, most blades ARE single sided, it's only knives that are generally held in a person's hand that are commonly double sided grinds.

Good point!

I prefer chisel grinds for most knives.

 

[Frank Niro]

From what is being said so far most knives are being made incorrectly since they are double edged. Hey people get over it. It's simple. Certain grinds work best for certain types of cutting. No one grind does a good job for all. Frank

 

[Josh Mason]

I like a chisel grind with a small bevel on the flat backside. Seems to work really well for me.

 

[lonepine]

Most knives for personal use aren't single sided (which is NOT the same as a chisel grind, which implies that the primary grind comes right down to the edge), because people in general prefer doubles for the visual aspects.

OK, I'm officially confused. What is a "chisel" grind as opposed to a "single sided" grind?

If you look at the industrial world, most blades ARE single sided, it's only knives that are generally held in a person's hand that are commonly double sided grinds.

In industrial applications the blade usually makes repetitive cuts of the same material, at the same angle of attack. The blade is carefully adjusted and then fixed in place so that it won't change. This is not like real-world, human use IMHO. I think there is a very big difference between industrial, mechanical, robotic, cutting and hand-held cutting.

- Paul Meske

 

[Remyrw]

I never said it was, simply that it's not like there's any automatic penalty in terms of cutting ability because it's only ground on one side.
A chisel grind, strictly speaking, is when you grind it like a chisel, meaning the angled grind comes right down to the edge, with no secondary bevel made for the final sharpening. You have a V shape where one side of the V is the primary flat of the steel and the other is your grind, if you sharpen it you're removing metal all the way up the grind unless you accept that you're changing from a true chisel grind to a single sided grind with a secondary bevel for the edge.

Don't get me wrong here, there ARE down sides, but they are generally because someone didn't adjust properly for making the blade single sided, or someone's got a very specific task for the knife and symmetrical is somehow important. Day to day it is very very rare for a properly made single sided knife with double sided secondary bevel to perform any differently than any other knife with the equivalent geometry. For example, if you take a double sided knife and each side is sharpened at 20 degrees, you have a 40 degree angle at the final edge. If your primary bevel is 2.5 degrees per side you've got a primary angle of 5 degrees. This is pretty decent for a slicer or light duty field knife. It's no chopper and is not quite as good a slicer as most kitchen knife designs, but it's going to perform quite well in most common NON chopping tasks. Sitting next to me I have a single sided grind knife I made with a 5 degree primary bevel and 17 degree per side secondary bevels. The HEIGHT of those secondary bevels is not the same on each side due to the primary bevel being one sided, but the actual angle involved is 17 degrees per side and I kept the edge fairly close to the flat side of the blade. When it comes down to function, the 6 degree edge difference will make FAR more impact on your cutting performance than the double/single shift. I'm willing to bet that 95% of knife users will NEVER be able to tell the difference between a single and a double in light/medium duty use if they couldn't see the blade, it's far more a psychological thing than reality.

To me, where you really want to stick to double sided grinds is things where you make a strong chop or swinging slice. A double sided blade has a clean and straight follow through if you hit in line with the spine. Even with my offset secondary bevels that is not going to be true of a single grind, far less a true chisel grind. You'll get a twisting effect that will get worse the harder your chop or swing. I would never make a single sided heavy duty chopping knife or machete style blade.

 

[Lorien]

I admit to having a bias against single beveled knives, and I'm really not sure why. I've never owned one, and the reason for that is I just don't like them.

For me, it's not that I think they won't cut as well, I'd really have no basis for that opinion because I don't have any knives like that. I easily accept when anyone with experience tells me that they work as well as a symmetrically ground blade. I'd have no reason to doubt them.

Maybe it just strikes me as lazy that someone wouldn't go to the extra effort of making their knife symmetrical. I like symmetry, so maybe it's just me.

I'm not against single beveled knives in principle, it's just that I'll never buy one due to personal preference.
Who knows though, maybe the right knife would change my mind.

 

[Remyrw]

Lorien, I wouldn't worry about changing your mind, it's definitely a personal choice. Visually there are elements that appeal to me for both styles.

In terms of making them, there's not much difference between them for the work involved. You're time spent is generally the same and the reduced difficulty in keeping the edge straight and grind lines even in grinding is traded off by the increased difficulty keeping things straight during heat treat and oddly enough there's a tendency to warp during grinding because you're only pushing against it on one side. On a thinner knife like I commonly make you can easily wind up with a significant bend even on a fairly short knife DURING grinding. I get it flexed straight and carefully normalize before hardening to make sure that bend doesn't make it out the door. On my double bevels any cant to the blade is a grinding error. It's not that one's easier than the other, just different problems and solutions. I prefer doing single grinds simply because my equipment and skill levels let me produce a cleaner and better result doing a single side. I am constantly working on my double bevels, but it's just a matter of training my hands and dealing with equipment aspects that differ between the two styles.

We've gotten pretty far off the OP's topic though. Going back to what he asked, I wouldn't do larger knives as described in my earlier post. Not every larger knife is a poor match, but you have to consider it carefully.