Choils, when do they make sense?

james terrio said:
I gots two words for all the folks who love to extol the supposed brilliance of "choking up" on a large blade with a giant chunk ground out of it...


pinch grip.
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Problem with the "pinch grip" is some of us find it very uncomfortable. (By that I mean, just doesn't feel right)

Also, the type of leverage in the pinch grip vs a choil is completely different.
The pinch grip gives you two options for cutting, towards yourself or straight down. I am not a big fan of either....
 
Sosa said:
Choils make me not want a strider. Smf wastes about an inch of blade.
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I said the exact same thing many years ago, and then I bought an SnG.

Using that knife is what made me realize what a well designed choil can do, in terms of cutting options....

On the SnG you are giving up way too much blade, going from 3.5 to 3 inches.
To some people that may be idea, but I really prefer the SMF.
3.5 inches of cutting edge + a flawlessly executed choil are magic for grip and task options.
 
Thank you for this thread. I look at so many knives and wonder why, since I'm so obviously suposed to put my hand there, the maker forgot to cover that part of the shank with handle material?!? Ten inch chunk of steel, little over 3 inches of sharpened blade? Seriously?

Don't get me started on the uselessness of the whole Randall aesthetic - knives for people who don't use knives :/
 
Not really what most are actually discussing but...
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On a small folder they can add handle when open and help hold the knife open when gripped.
images
 
davek14 said:
Not really what most are actually discussing but...
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On a small folder they can add handle when open and help hold the knife open when gripped.
images
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Choils like those make sense to me. The picture of the knife I posted is so far from that, though.
 
I like choils on large knives and find them useful. You really can choke up and do detail work with them and not have to carry a smaller, dedicated blade. "Pinch grip" in this type of application simply doesn't work. Simply whittling a point on a stick using a large knife with a choil will show you that.

On small knives, no way. All it does it waste edge and make the blade hang up like crazy cutting chit.

"Sharpening choils" and "elf choils" can go straight to hell IMO. At work (all day long) I use my knives to poke into packs of plates and zip them open along 3 edges. The packages are basically cardboard impregnated with aluminum. The parts of the blade I use the most are the tip (to poke the packs) and the 1 - 2 inches just in front of the handle (to cut them open).

Any kind of choil just gets hung up and in the way. They hinder the hell out of what is an easy task with a knife with no choil. With no choil I don't even have to pay much attention to it. Just poke, zip, zip, done. With a choil it's poke, snag, zip, snarl, damn I better look what I'm doing...
 
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For the bottom knife, the choil allows the user to choke up and change where the best point of leverage is I'd think. Also, though there's less cutting edge there's still just as much reach. But I could see how others wouldn't like it, particularly on a large fixed like that.

I personally LOVE 50/50 choils on small-mid sized folders. Grip options, safe 1 hand closing for backlocks. I never realized choild are so controversial![emoji33]
 
AntDog said:
I like choils on large knives and find them useful. You really can choke up and do detail work with them and not have to carry a smaller, dedicated blade. "Pinch grip" in this type of application simply doesn't work. Simply whittling a point on a stick using a large knife with a choil will show you that.

On small knives, no way. All it does it waste edge and make the blade hang up like crazy cutting chit.

"Sharpening choils" and "elf choils" can go straight to hell IMO. At work (all day long) I use my knives to poke into packs of plates and zip them open along 3 edges. The packages are basically cardboard impregnated with aluminum. The parts of the blade I use the most are the tip (to poke the packs) and the 1 - 2 inches just in front of the handle (to cut them open).

Any kind of choil just gets hung up and in the way. They hinder the hell out of what is an easy task with a knife with no choil. With no choil I don't even have to pay much attention to it. Just poke, zip, zip, done. With a choil it's poke, snag, zip, snarl, damn I better look what I'm doing...
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Normally I'd be agreeing with you but here's one that's really well done. The blade is maximized while still being easy to sharpen the heel and things don't get caught like other sharpening notches I've had the displeasure of screwing with.

pJuvS2a.jpg
 
BenchCo Spydermade said:
I never realized choils are so controversial![emoji33]
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The presence or absence of a choil is frequently mentioned supporting the use of a knife or the overall aesthetics. For small knives, I'd say most find them useful when the choil adds a little length to the handle without lengthening the handle (assuming you like or need the smaller more compact knife). On large fixed blades, it's a toss up and purely personal preference and hence the topic of this thread.

Choil = Ricasso for most; although technically they are not precisely the same thing looking at diagrams of knife shapes and terminology.
 
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40oz said:
Don't get me started on the uselessness of the whole Randall aesthetic - knives for people who don't use knives :/
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Why is that precisely? Cost? Collectability? Design? Materials? I'd like to get you started.... :rolleyes:
 
bodog said:
Normally I'd be agreeing with you but here's one that's really well done. The blade is maximized while still being easy to sharpen the heel and things don't get caught like other sharpening notches I've had the displeasure of screwing with.

pJuvS2a.jpg
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Now I am really confused.....is this thread about choils or ricasso's???!
 
The only choils I've come across that I like are on the strider pt and kershaw shuffle. I find them useless and annoying on larger knives. Spyderco pm2 would be perfect without it and so would an xm-18 in my opinion.
 
On choppers a full-blown ricasso can be nice so the balance point is closer to the hand for detail work, but it's not strictly necessary. Context of use really impacts the design decision to include or exclude a choil from a particular tool.
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
On choppers a full-blown ricasso can be nice so the balance point is closer to the hand for detail work, but it's not strictly necessary. Context of use really impacts the design decision to include or exclude a choil from a particular tool.
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So what about the knife in the first post? I'm still struggling to figure out why it's there. It seems completely misplaced, useless, and actually detrimental to the otherwise nice design.
 
I like and wish a sharpening choil on all my knives, honestly. If it's there, I understand it as a class act from the manufacturer to the consumer. If it's not there , I will do without but it bugs me whenever I sharpen the blade... The fingerchoil in the blade (within or without a ricasso), on the other hand, is something I do not understand, especially on (relatively) small blades. Why would you give up cutting edge on a 4" (or less) blade ? Forward grip ? Come on..., it's a 4" blade...Seems like an utility feature that was never requested but looks "more apt to survival stuff"...
 
Exactly my point. If the blade is well matched to the handle, why would you need less cutting edge ? It may work for some people, why not... but I see only a "need" for that feature on a huge blade ( understand "ricasso", "unsharpened heel", finger choil", whatever...) because it lends some versatility to an otherwise very specialized tool.
 
bodog said:
So what about the knife in the first post? I'm still struggling to figure out why it's there. It seems completely misplaced, useless, and actually detrimental to the otherwise nice design.
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Let's change this up a bit.....

Your index finger is the only thing that really controls precision.
If you are using something like an axe or hammer, your index finger does very little, most of the work you do with tools like that involves force, and the control part is generally controlled by your arms.

Let's look at a pencil.
Great example...
First, try to draw a line or circle without using your index finger as part of the grip.
Next, try writing your name holding the pencil as far away from the tip as you can.
Then, try it even halfway down....

Point is, you have very little control because when it comes to finer work, your index finger needs to be close to the end of that tool.
Take an exacto/utility knife as an example. Very short blade (usually an inch or less) great control.

The purpose of a choil is to give you the ability to move your index (control finger) closer to the tip, while still allowing you to keep the standard grip (something the "pinch grip" does not allow)

The end result is the ability to have much more control over the tip and the front section of the edge for work that involves more precision.

Whether that is important to you is a personal thing, but if you have tried a knife with a well designed choil, let's say an SMF, you will easily understand the point.....
 
JR.....

Great example explaining the use of the choil and benefit..............
 
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