Favorite type of blade grind (full flat, scandy, sabre, ect.)

G

G.Moll

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Mar 20, 2012
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What is your favorite grind on a knife and why? Personally, i like the full flat grind because of its splitting/ batoning capabilities and its versatility. I realize all grinds can cut, but i believe that certain grinds excel while doing certain things. For example, scandy grinds are great for wood carving, and full flat grinds baton well. The scandy grind can baton, and the full flat grind can carve, but not as well as the other grind. (opinion)
 
I actually like hollow grinds for typical EDC tasks. They slice well, don't have relief grind issues, and sharpen quickly. For a field blade I like a FFG.
 
I actually find that Saber grinds baton better than FFG. It makes a better wedge (more obtuse angle), and it has more steel behind the edge. Plus, all of my Saber ground knives have their coating wear off right below the shoulder of the grind, but not on the flat above the grind, so there is actually less in contact with the wood.

For woods processing work, saber is my choice right now. Scandi seems great for whittling/carving, while hollow seems great for folders :).
 
I am starting to like a shallow high hollow grind more and more. Similar enough to ffg in that I dont have shouldering problems, but still keeping that thin tip
 
V with a thick spine or a slightly thinner convex with roll/micro-bevel for working knives, deep full-height hollow-grind and zero-sharpened on an oil stone for self-defense. :)

oh, and right-hand chisel grind for my machetes.
 
Full Flat Grind offers the best slicing ability to edge strength ratio in my opinion. I'd take a FFG over any other grind for most of what I want a knife for. That having been said, if I needed to baton or anything like that, I'd go with a scandi or sabre over a FFG. I prefer my knives to be good slicers than good choppers though, so thin ffg's are my favorite. Hollow grinds may be better slicers to start out, but they're notoriously difficult to maintain and I just don't think they offer as strong of an edge.
 
full flat with a convex edge and nice distal taper.
 
I like a Scandi for the woods, I don't do a ton of batoning and I like the easy sharpening. I think it's the best bushcraft grind and that is what I do. I love ffg for my edc folders, melts through cardboard and whatnot.
 
@ocnLogan may have to take another look at saber grinds. I never thought about the less friction on the wood. Sounds good!
 
ocnLogan is right about the saber grind being better for chopping and especially battoning through wood because of it having less contact area . I far prefer a saber grind on my big knives and a thin full flat or "slight" hollow grind on me smaller knives for better cutting or carving .


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HOLD MY BEER AND WATCH THIS !
 
Mike-The-Knife said:
ocnLogan is right about the saber grind being better for chopping and especially battoning through wood because of it having less contact area . I far prefer a saber grind on my big knives and a thin full flat or "slight" hollow grind on me smaller knives for better cutting or carving .
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NOT better for chopping unless it's of equal grind angle to a full flat, in which case it's actually weaker than the FFG because of its thinner stock. A saber grind has less surface area, yes, but also must displace more material during the cut, which prevents it from biting as deep during a chop. It loses energy because it has to push a larger volume of wood to the either side of the blade than a FFG ground from stock of equal thickness. This increased matter displacement also happens to be why saber grinds are better for batoning, as they push material further to the sides per inch of vertical travel than a full flat. :)
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
NOT better for chopping unless it's of equal grind angle to a full flat, in which case it's actually weaker than the FFG because of its thinner stock. A saber grind has less surface area, yes, but also must displace more material during the cut, which prevents it from biting as deep during a chop. It loses energy because it has to push a larger volume of wood to the either side of the blade than a FFG ground from stock of equal thickness. This increased matter displacement also happens to be why saber grinds are better for batoning, as they push material further to the sides per inch of vertical travel than a full flat. :)
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Yep, this is it. I'm not quite sure where my previous post said that sabers were better at chopping, but the bolded parts up above exactly describe it. The Saber acts as a much better wedge for splitting wood. But the part that makes it better for splitting, also does hurt it when it comes to chopping if the blades are the same height. But I'm willing to sacrifice a little bit of chopping performance for a stronger knife for batoning, as a folding saw does most of my cutting while camping.

Saber grinds also put a bit more mass behind the blade compared to a FFG of the same size, so that extra mass might help some when there is not much penetration, but I'm not really sure how that would counteract the more obtuse edge angle, as I'm no scientist, and am not the most experienced person around.

Also worth noting, is with thicker blades (aka, my BK2), the edge doesn't even actually hit the wood once you're really batonning with them(typically). The edge angle on the BK2 with the saber grind is actually splitting the wood sheerly by the wedging action (keeps the edge nice and sharp :)).

And finally, I personally feel that grinds make proportionally more of a difference on thicker blades. For instance, a 1/4in thick knife with a scandi grind would be ridiculously obtuse (why we don't see any most likely), but a FFG would be much thinner at the edge. But on an 1/8in thick blade I don't feel like the difference would be as drastic, but I really have no "proof" to back this part up, it just makes sense to me.

And I noticed someone said right hand chisel ground for machetes... is that common? I've never heard that.

:D.
 
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I like a full zero,or 3/4 convex edge.I don't like secondary bevels,unless they are on large choppers..
 
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