Flat, hollow or convex grind?

A hollow ground with a convex edge.
What really matters most is the steel and heat treat.
I'm 100% sold on Doziers and Crotts designs and quality.

Who here has rolled or damaged a Dozier hollow ground to the point it was unserviceable?

Let the bigger tools do the heavy lifting. In a true survival situation, safety and injury prevention is crucial. Right tool, right job.
 
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I won't repeat what has already been covered (except to say there is no good reason to dismiss the scandi grind - it seems to have functioned quite well for quite some time), but I do want to note that one factor that should be considered when comparing these grinds is the method of sharpening.

To maintain a true scandi edge, you need to lay the cutting bevel flat on a sharpening stone. I use my pocket ceramics for field touch-ups, and Japanese water stones (which stay at home!) for more thorough work. If you don't correctly sharpen the single bevel, you will produce a micro-bevel at the edge. Some will argue that this makes scandi maintenance a bit of a drag, but I would argue that - as a knife knut - one should not view sharpening as a chore.

Convex edges can be maintained using the sandpaper / mouse pad method, and / or with a strop, which can make for easy field sharpening. Having access to a slack belt sander and some decent fine sandpaper is also helpful.

'V' -ground edges (on flat or hollow ground blades) are easy to sharpen with any ceramic stone, which is one of their selling points. I have a flat-ground Grohmann no. 1 that I can use for hours and then return to hair-splitting sharpness using my pocket stones in just a few minutes. My friends who moose hunt swear by hollow-grinds with V edges, as they find them very easy to touch up mid-moose. And since they keep me in regular supply of moose chilli, who am I to argue? :D

All the best,

- Mike
 
kvaughn said:
What do you use your knife for other than carving/cutting/slicing?
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You remember this is Baton World Headquarters, right?

I have read a few posts about the guys chuckling with satisfaction when using their Moras to baton - with no ill results! Only at BWH.

No other knife or camping/hunting forum is nearly as obsessed with batoning as this place.

Then of course, there are the true survivalists that take the striker blade off their ferro rod when carrying their bug out or EDC bag home from the office when they know they will be stopping by a park on the way home. Using a Mora or similar knife as a striker allows the practice fire making to simulate not having a Bic, water proof matches, a Pelican box with a lighter or matches, or a match safe or any other common fire making equipment in your bag under emergency conditions.

So there's two examples right off! :eek::eek: :D

I am sure others will have their own thoughts.

Robert
 
Les said:
A hollow ground with a convex edge.
What really matters most is the steel and heat treat.
I'm 100% sold on Doziers and Crotts designs and quality.

Who here has rolled or damaged a Dozier holow ground to the point it was unserviceable?

Let the bigger tools do the heavy lifting. In a true survival situation, safety and injury prevention is crucial. Right tool, right job.
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:thumbup: I agree 100%

I have never had any problems with hollow ground knives, good heattreat and proper edge geometery in any grind style will make a decent tool but useing the right tool for the task at hand is extremely important, I carry a saw in the bush everytime, along with a knife it great combo and safe.

cya
jimi
 
I'm a bit mystified that hollow ground blades get so little love. They're among the easiest to sharpen and often have the best slicing profile. All predicated on the condition that the actual edge bevels are thin and acute, of course. Which is my biggest gripe with knives of any design. Factory edge bevels are typically way more thick and obtuse than is optimal.
 
Les said:
A hollow ground with a convex edge.
What really matters most is the steel and heat treat.
I'm 100% sold on Doziers and Crotts designs and quality.

Who here has rolled or damaged a Dozier hollow ground to the point it was unserviceable?

Let the bigger tools do the heavy lifting. In a true survival situation, safety and injury prevention is crucial. Right tool, right job.
Click to expand...

I've never been able to afford to Dozier to get the chance, I'm sure if someone wanted to lend me one I'd give it some good tests !:D:thumbup:

Convex or full flat for me although sabre grinds can be good also !;)
 
baldtaco-II said:
Convex works for me 'cos it does a bit of everything. It incorporates three things that I prize:

1] Flow. I strongly believe that what follows the cutting edge can be as important as the edge itself. The way whatever you have cut flows across the rest of the blade is not something I can ignore. I'm hoping one day someone with the facilities will examine this with ballistic gelatin and post up some photo illustrations.

2] Traditional way to make a strong edge that I have found nothing else to better.

3] By far the easiest for me to maintain.

Hollow grinds I've probably had more than anything else simply because they have been the most vogue and available over the course of my lifetime. For the most part I have moved away from them. For me they violate [1] Flow. That is important to me because with a utility field pattern I'm concerned just as much about how well a blade cuts through as I am just a sharp edge cutting. Move away from a utility pattern and well executed hollow grinds are acceptable to me. As far as I'm concerned I'd take a hunting pattern in a hollow grind but not an all round field knife. The closest thing I have at the moment is a little hollow ground Moki. It works great for taking critters apart and other shallow cutting but it isn't so good on whole blade disclosing things like onions, potatoes, apples. Poor flow makes it tend to try cracking them like a wedge rather than severing them. I've never encountered a hollow grind for which that isn't the case, and I don't see how it is possible. I do have a thin hollow ground Taylors somewhere that makes a fair stab at cutting through, but that is deceptive. It is just product of the thinness. Stick something else that thin in a more suitable grind against it and it is soon outed.

I've no time at all for the bushcraft bandwagon blades whether it be a Mora or TV prop Scandi knife. These represent the exact opposite of what I want in a field knife. The notion of flow just doesn't happen. They are whittling tools for edge cutting. I think they are great to send bundled with a copy of My First Little Basket in a christmas present for a child. Said child can then go off, and in the absence of genuine cutting chores, can sit and replicate something whittled. Better than throwing into a tree or whatever. I don't tend to that excuse to go cut something thing so they have no appeal. The last bit about what I said of hollow grinds also applies here. In particular I think it accounts for all those episodes of 'this Mora grind is so sharp it can make fuzz sticks'. I once commented here on what follows the cutting edge being the large part of that. I gave the example of a Stanley blade that one had quite deliberately blunted on a rock, that still makes fuzz sticks. Interestingly Scott Gossman agreed on this function of geometry. The larger heavier TV grade Scandis I see make no sense for me to carry. They've got to be the hardest of all to sharpen correctly in the field and excel at edge only stuff. If I thought I was likely to be bored out in the sticks rather than taking a book and an overbuild Scandi for whittling, I'd take the kind of small folding whittler than has been working for generations from Cowboys to contemporary gardeners and florists. That liberates my primary blade to concentrate on genuine work.

Flat grinds with convex edges, like a Laconico, seem like a good choice to me too. They are built to solve certain kinds of problems. This to me is the bottom line. Field knives to me require a really good ability to cut through because those are the kinds of tasks that present themselves in addition to cutting string, or pointing twigs, or dissecting something .etc. The Mears knife and similar come across as toys to me. The raison d'etre is that someone can rush off to the trees and play let's cut twigs up. My knives are not for that purpose, they are for solving real world tasks. As such they join hammering, sawing, chopping and so on as things that are incidental and not ends in themselves requiring their own specialist device.

I'm in a minority on this forum for thinking this way, and it is certain others will disagree, but this is where I'm at.
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Well said, sir! :thumbup:
 
For me, in order of preference, full flat, convex, then hollow. Full flat has the best combination of cutting ability and strength for me. Hollows I have to be a little careful with, but they would work too. Scandi grind wouldn't even make my list.
 
Ravaillac said:
You realize what you say is completly pointless, do you?
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If this has something to do with the topic at hand, please explain. Otherwise, PM me. I wouldn't want to hijack the thread.



kvaughn said:
What do you use your knife for other than carving/cutting/slicing?
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What I mean is that a scandi grind is designed more or less for woodwork. They're great carvers. They aren't meant to be general purpose utility type knives. These types of knives have grinds that are sharp AND durable. As an example (I related this in a similar post recently), I recently used an Enzo Trapper to punch a hole in an Altoids Tin so I could make some char cloth. To open up the hole a bit, I punctured the tin and twisted the knife a bit. The thin scandi ground edge immediately deformed. Not catastrophically, but enough that I had to spend several minutes straightening it out. As far as I am concerned, it is folly to assume that in a survival situation, you would only use a knife for cutting tasks. As a result, you don't want a knife that you have to spend significant time on a stone with every waking hour to keep the edge in shape. You would want to find a happy medium between usability and maintenance requirements. I am of the opinion that a scandi ground edge requires too much maintenance to keep the edge true when using it in tasks other than simple carving, and for it to be valuable as a "survival" type grind.

Hope that clarifies my meaning a little better. I am by absolutely no means an expert - this is just my opinion. These topics are highly subjective, as everyone is going to have a different preference for different reasons. I am of the opinion that each person should try things out for him/her self - because a lot of this will depend on personal preference and feel.
 
baldtaco-II said:
Convex works for me 'cos it does a bit of everything. It incorporates three things that I prize:

1] Flow. I strongly believe that what follows the cutting edge can be as important as the edge itself. The way whatever you have cut flows across the rest of the blade is not something I can ignore. I'm hoping one day someone with the facilities will examine this with ballistic gelatin and post up some photo illustrations.

2] Traditional way to make a strong edge that I have found nothing else to better.

3] By far the easiest for me to maintain.

Hollow grinds I've probably had more than anything else simply because they have been the most vogue and available over the course of my lifetime. For the most part I have moved away from them. For me they violate [1] Flow. That is important to me because with a utility field pattern I'm concerned just as much about how well a blade cuts through as I am just a sharp edge cutting. Move away from a utility pattern and well executed hollow grinds are acceptable to me. As far as I'm concerned I'd take a hunting pattern in a hollow grind but not an all round field knife. The closest thing I have at the moment is a little hollow ground Moki. It works great for taking critters apart and other shallow cutting but it isn't so good on whole blade disclosing things like onions, potatoes, apples. Poor flow makes it tend to try cracking them like a wedge rather than severing them. I've never encountered a hollow grind for which that isn't the case, and I don't see how it is possible. I do have a thin hollow ground Taylors somewhere that makes a fair stab at cutting through, but that is deceptive. It is just product of the thinness. Stick something else that thin in a more suitable grind against it and it is soon outed.

I've no time at all for the bushcraft bandwagon blades whether it be a Mora or TV prop Scandi knife. These represent the exact opposite of what I want in a field knife. The notion of flow just doesn't happen. They are whittling tools for edge cutting. I think they are great to send bundled with a copy of My First Little Basket in a christmas present for a child. Said child can then go off, and in the absence of genuine cutting chores, can sit and replicate something whittled. Better than throwing into a tree or whatever. I don't tend to that excuse to go cut something thing so they have no appeal. The last bit about what I said of hollow grinds also applies here. In particular I think it accounts for all those episodes of 'this Mora grind is so sharp it can make fuzz sticks'. I once commented here on what follows the cutting edge being the large part of that. I gave the example of a Stanley blade that one had quite deliberately blunted on a rock, that still makes fuzz sticks. Interestingly Scott Gossman agreed on this function of geometry. The larger heavier TV grade Scandis I see make no sense for me to carry. They've got to be the hardest of all to sharpen correctly in the field and excel at edge only stuff. If I thought I was likely to be bored out in the sticks rather than taking a book and an overbuild Scandi for whittling, I'd take the kind of small folding whittler than has been working for generations from Cowboys to contemporary gardeners and florists. That liberates my primary blade to concentrate on genuine work.

Flat grinds with convex edges, like a Laconico, seem like a good choice to me too. They are built to solve certain kinds of problems. This to me is the bottom line. Field knives to me require a really good ability to cut through because those are the kinds of tasks that present themselves in addition to cutting string, or pointing twigs, or dissecting something .etc. The Mears knife and similar come across as toys to me. The raison d'etre is that someone can rush off to the trees and play let's cut twigs up. My knives are not for that purpose, they are for solving real world tasks. As such they join hammering, sawing, chopping and so on as things that are incidental and not ends in themselves requiring their own specialist device.

I'm in a minority on this forum for thinking this way, and it is certain others will disagree, but this is where I'm at.
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I'm not sure I could possibly agree more with your statements. Well said.
 
Lost of good food for thought in this thread (esp baldtaco's statement). I'm by no means an expert as well, but I prefer a full convex or flat w/ convex edge for a survival/general purpose knife for the reasons already mentioned. The biggest selling points for me are edge strength and ease of sharpening in the field. The scandi does excel at whittling type woodwork though, in my limited experience.

For these reasons I keep a convex on my belt as my survival/general knife (Bravo-1), and a Mora in my pack for play time or detailed carving. :thumbup:
 
midnight flyer said:
You remember this is Baton World Headquarters, right?

I have read a few posts about the guys chuckling with satisfaction when using their Moras to baton - with no ill results! Only at BWH.

No other knife or camping/hunting forum is nearly as obsessed with batoning as this place.

Then of course, there are the true survivalists that take the striker blade off their ferro rod when carrying their bug out or EDC bag home from the office when they know they will be stopping by a park on the way home. Using a Mora or similar knife as a striker allows the practice fire making to simulate not having a Bic, water proof matches, a Pelican box with a lighter or matches, or a match safe or any other common fire making equipment in your bag under emergency conditions.

So there's two examples right off! :eek::eek: :D

I am sure others will have their own thoughts.

Robert
Click to expand...
BWH!LMAO--I'd forgotten about the batonning pre-occupation around here. Fifty+ years of hunting, fishing, camping, canoing,military duty and I have never batonned any of the hundred+ knives Ive owned. Never found the need. I may starting a s#^t storm here but Ive also started any number of fires in the rain with wet wood and the proper tinder. Maybe I'll try it but usually when i need to split small wood I've got a hatchet. To each his own I guess.:)--KV
 
I'm puzzled by the claim that convex blades are easier to sharpen. Light edge honing is pretty easy on any blade. And when it comes to more intensive sharpening involving the primary grind, hollow ground is probably easiest since much of the steel is already removed. I think the biggest advantage of the convex grind lies with the manufacturing, not really with the end user.
 
I like it because it's intuitive and doesn't require the precision necessary to maintain a properly beveled V-grind. I can simply pack a light strop and various grits of sandpaper and be reasonably well equipped to bring back a slightly damaged edge or sharpen a really dull edge. I am not that good at free-hand sharpening beveled edges yet, so for me to sharpen a V well in the field, I'd have to lug a system along (sharpmaker or other guided system). I am trying to learn how to freehand so I can just bring a simple stone or plate along, but right now, the convex is the easiest for me to maintain outside the home.

I'm not talking so much about the ease of regaining a sharp edge, in which I agree, the hollow grind excels. I'm talking about the process of sharpening, I guess.

ETA: Did I explain myself well enough Shecky? I'm not claiming to be right, it's just what I've learned from my own experience thus far.
 
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Convex or Scandi for me. Strong and easy to maintain. Better for busting-up lots of wood for shelters and cold nights and still be able to process food/game.

Hollow-ground? -ugh! Better to have steel that you can remove than the other way around. Hollow grinds have a nasty habit of binding in wood because the shape allows split wood to wrap around the blade rather than be pushed-apart like what convex blades do. There's a reason why axes are convex ground.
 
My favorite has to be convex but the convex grind can be done several different ways on the grinder. It is the one grind that to my knowledge, can only be done by hand grinding. A true convex grind is an axe grind which is thick across the mid section of the blade. Typically convex grinds are done on a slack belt attachment. The problem with stock removal knifemaking come with the spine thickness you plan to make the knife from. The thinner the stock, the better geometry you will have. If you go with 3/16" or 1/4" it's tough on a slack belt to get the geometry to where it will cut well without being a sharpened prybar. The slack belt method works much better if you forge. You can forge the bevels leaving you less to grind off. I bought the rotary platen hoping to add more resistance behind the grinding belt without sacrificing the convex profile. This worked better but still didn't seem to get the geometry I hoped for.
What I'm doing now is the best of both worlds, flat/convex. I start out on the flat platen hogging off the bulk of the steel. Then switch to the rotary platen to convex the remaining steel that has to be removed. After HT and temper, I finish on the rotary bringing the grind down to the specs I want for the final geometry for the size knife being made.
So I guess for me the grind I prefer is a combo flat/convex. The edge I finish with is a very slight micro convex edge.
Scott
 
Funny how a post as benign as what grind you like can get some guys all worked up :confused:
 
Wow, I started quit the debate here.. I believe everyone here has a very valid point. One comment I read from Baldtaco was the flow theory, I could be completely wrong here guys, and I am sure you all will let me know it, but of all the grinds it seems like the full convex has the worst ability to flow through something. A flat or hollow would be my first choice to easily flow through something because of the thin grind. Isn't that why axes don't cut with the ease of a knife?
I do agree that a convex or a flat ground knife is going to have more strength than a hollow. I don't tend to beat on my knives other than in a baton method, which is perfectly safe to do even on a hollow grind. I agree strongly with Les, it is the steel and the heat treatment. I am a big fan of Bob Dozier knives, I own quit a few of them-8 or so. I know Big Mike has much more experience with Bob's knives than I do. I have put mine through some tough work though...
When I go elk hunting, which is for about 8-10 days, I don't bring anything to sharpen my knives anymore, perhaps my moon sticks, but since I started using Doziers, I haven't had the need to sharpen them up any while hunting. While in camp, I am constantly using my knife, carving, batoning wood and starting fires, basically anything I can do with it, and my knife by the end of the trip still shaves hair.
If I were to use my knife for chopping, I would certainly for for a convex, no question, but I have never seen the need to use my knife for chopping. I do carry a kershaw saw which has come in very handy over the years.
I have only had to sharpen my knives on a very few occasions, I found no troubles doing so when needed.
There is lots of great reading here guys!
 
kvaughn said:
BWH!LMAO--I'd forgotten about the batonning pre-occupation around here. Fifty+ years of hunting, fishing, camping, canoing,military duty and I have never batonned any of the hundred+ knives Ive owned. Never found the need. I may starting a s#^t storm here but Ive also started any number of fires in the rain with wet wood and the proper tinder. Maybe I'll try it but usually when i need to split small wood I've got a hatchet. To each his own I guess.:)--KV
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Just remember that your 50 years of experience is just that, it is YOUR experience. We have well over a 100 regular members here at W&SS and most of them have several years of outdoor experience also. If we averaged 5 years experience in the outdoors per person that gives 500 years of experience - more than 10 x what you claim, and a far greater diversity of experience in terms of situations overall. Why should you be surprised that others find a technique useful where you do not? Folks experience different environments, perform different activities and have different sets of training. Please remember this when judging others and their approach.
 
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