For a hunting skinning knife, polished or toothy edge?

August West said:
I hunt a lot, I just sharpen my knives till they cut hair and go to work. I use a spyderco double stuff pocket stone most of the time, I do take breaks to touch up my edge if needed, hogs will really dull an edge.

Not much knife work skinning, so I don't think it much matters, you are mostly pulling the hide off and only use your knife on the tight spots, small game you make a few initial cuts then pull the hide off. Most of the knife work is in butchering afterwords, I use a butcher knife and a steel to keep the edge right. Birds are even easier, a pair of game shears works better than a knife for them. Chris
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Now there is a hunter that as figured it out. Make your initial cuts on the skin and fist it off using knives as little as possible. Especially if you are going to braintan the hide, no score marks to weaken the hide. Never did a hog, probably tougher to do that a deer.
 
Hey great comments from all you guys and a great subject that I wanted to know more about. Just recently I had a thread somewhat related to this one on the GENERAL section of BF. I don't know if many of you are aware that Spyderco had one of the very few outdoor fixed blades that was available in full Spyderedge ( serrated). I'm speaking specifically of the older FB-05 Temperance SE model. And let me tell you I really love using a fully serrated fixed blade for many outdoor chores. The first time I used the SE TEmp 1 was field dressing a snapping turtle. It was a lifesaver on that job.

Yeah I know that most of your cutting chores can be done with a great, well honed plain edge. And I like the polished and "toothy" plain edges both very well. And if you want a really good "toothy" plain edge I encourage you all to do your sharpening with a medium to fine grit diamond hone. The one that Spyderco has for their 204 Sharpmaker makes a great toothy edge.

But don't overlook the advantages that a great fixed blade outdoor knife can provide you with either. One other consideration is the blade design and/or geometry. I like a fixed blade with just a little bit of belly to it for outdoor use. It doesn't have to be radically pronouned like some of the "skinner" knives you see but just a bit of belly can really get you started on tough jobs like skinning a deer or other game with tough hides.

Also keep a medium to fine grit stone on you when in the field. I've found that to be a lifesaver as well.
 
Until I started hanging out at this site, I gave edge geometry and finish very little thought..... although I have been a hunter and knife fancier all my life.

To me, a good practical test for a hunting/butcher knife is how well it cuts thin membrane or connective tissue that is not pulled very tight. This is typically the semi-transparent stuff you find between muscles and many other places on a carcase.

For instance..... when I have a carcase hanging up and I am trying to gut it without making a mess, I can often have my 'off' hand occupied holding the guts while I'm trying to delicately cut away the tissue that connects the guts to the body. It can be frustrating when the tissue just rolls in front of the knife.

When I'm cutting up an animal I generally like to trim up the meat portions to make them tidier and remove the membrane from the kidneys etc. Once again, it is good to have a knife that will neatly slice into the membrane.

I'm inclined to think that a toothier edge is best for this work. I'm not a physicist, but if cutting ability is likened to pressure ..... and pressure is force over area ..... then to get the best cutting ability we need to have the most force applied over the least area. We can have a super thin blade honed to an extremely fine polished edge and that can cut nicely. But if you further reduce the area of the cutting edge by having the high points of a mini serrated or toothed edge, then (theoretically) all the force applied to the knife might be acting through just a few 'teeth' on the edge.... in other words there is a very high cutting pressure.

Furthermore I'm inclined to think that the edges of the teeth can grab the fibers you are wanting to cut in a sickle or 'kukri' type of action.

I'd be happy to live the rest of my life with a medium whetstone and a coarse steel as my only sharpening tools. Dang, I'd even settle for a fine, sharp file if my blades were soft enough. I understand the fascination about knife steel and edge configuration, but my interests lie more with the activities that use the knife rather than the knife itself. But I do have to say that when I've been unable to get out and use my knives, I find myself getting more interested in the knives themselves.

So do I think (factory) serrated blades are better than plain blades?..... hmmm.... maybe they are for slicing bread and tomatoes. I would always prefer to have a plain blade. But when I'm cutting up meat, or other foodstuffs, or things like rope... then I think it can be advantageous to have the very fine serrations or teeth that are created by a coarse steel or abrasive hone.
 
I just use 600 grit & 1200 grit dmt credit card stones & hit it a couple times with a leather strop, I've gutted turkeys and deers with them and had no problems......
 
coote said:
Until I started hanging out at this site, I gave edge geometry and finish very little thought..... although I have been a hunter and knife fancier all my life.

To me, a good practical test for a hunting/butcher knife is how well it cuts thin membrane or connective tissue that is not pulled very tight. This is typically the semi-transparent stuff you find between muscles and many other places on a carcase.

For instance..... when I have a carcase hanging up and I am trying to gut it without making a mess, I can often have my 'off' hand occupied holding the guts while I'm trying to delicately cut away the tissue that connects the guts to the body. It can be frustrating when the tissue just rolls in front of the knife.

When I'm cutting up an animal I generally like to trim up the meat portions to make them tidier and remove the membrane from the kidneys etc. Once again, it is good to have a knife that will neatly slice into the membrane.

I'm inclined to think that a toothier edge is best for this work. I'm not a physicist, but if cutting ability is likened to pressure ..... and pressure is force over area ..... then to get the best cutting ability we need to have the most force applied over the least area. We can have a super thin blade honed to an extremely fine polished edge and that can cut nicely. But if you further reduce the area of the cutting edge by having the high points of a mini serrated or toothed edge, then (theoretically) all the force applied to the knife might be acting through just a few 'teeth' on the edge.... in other words there is a very high cutting pressure.

Furthermore I'm inclined to think that the edges of the teeth can grab the fibers you are wanting to cut in a sickle or 'kukri' type of action.

I'd be happy to live the rest of my life with a medium whetstone and a coarse steel as my only sharpening tools. Dang, I'd even settle for a fine, sharp file if my blades were soft enough. I understand the fascination about knife steel and edge configuration, but my interests lie more with the activities that use the knife rather than the knife itself. But I do have to say that when I've been unable to get out and use my knives, I find myself getting more interested in the knives themselves.

So do I think (factory) serrated blades are better than plain blades?..... hmmm.... maybe they are for slicing bread and tomatoes. I would always prefer to have a plain blade. But when I'm cutting up meat, or other foodstuffs, or things like rope... then I think it can be advantageous to have the very fine serrations or teeth that are created by a coarse steel or abrasive hone.
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Very good post by a man that has been there and done that. The portion in bold is exactly the way I feel as well. Chris
 
Thanks Chris. Although in my idle hours I like to read about knife theory and look at what is available, it seems that in reality our real knife needs are fairly modest .... and that we generally don't need to go to the trouble of creating the perfect edge on a knife we use for 'ordinary' tasks.

It would be cool to be able to write up a post about how I hacked open a safe with my bowie, or how I used my kukri to lever the steel tracks back into place on a bogged Caterpillar D8 bulldozer. And it is true that I would like to have knives that were this strong. But the boring reality of life is that we mostly need only a small sharp blade to do most of our knife jobs.

A thinner blade is generally better for kitchen and butchery tasks. Say under 1/8" thick. I like to have a thicker blade for my trapping or exploring expeditions where I am mostly setting up traps or chopping a twig or two (and my BRKT Gameskeeper is a good all-purpose knife for this category). But if I am only going to be skinning and butchering, then a smallish fairly thin blade is what I would use by choice. The common brand around my neighborhood would be 'Green River' or 'Victory' made by Goddard. These are decent, thin-bladed working knives made to a budget.... and used by hundreds of people who depend on a knife. They used to have racks of these things on display in farm supply stores. They had wooden handles and generally only a partial tang. Nowadays they have moulded plastic handles and might be displayed in 'blister packs'.

The Mora Clipper is a brand that most folks would have heard of. These are a darn good knife for skinning and cutting up meat (although a longer blade might be useful if cutting up a big beast).

My Dad used to occasionally sharpen a knife. I remember that he would get a small pocket carborundum stone (maybe 3.5" long and 3/4" wide)... he'd spit on it.... then move it in a circular motion down both sides of the blade. When I started to read about knives, I thought that the old man was doing it wrong... you were meant to get a big flat stone and slice forward along the stone with the knife. But now I know that there can be many ways to solve the same problem. I use the circular motion myself sometimes, and I often drag the edge over a big stone rather than push it forward. If the stone is imperfect, then I feel that dragging the blade is less likely to damage the edge.

I think that a convex edge on a chopping blade is sensible as this seems to be the strongest configuration. For slicing soft stuff then a thin blade with a long slow flat grind should work the best (would this be a Scandi grind or a flat saber grind? Dunno for sure).

I guess most of my general purpose knives have quite a wide flat grind, but end up having a convexed edge to some degree.
 
When I bought a knife from Ed Fowler many years ago, I recall being surprised that he recommended a sharpener with a moderate grit rather than really fine. If my memory is correct, he thought that produced a better hunting knife edge----at least on 52100.

DancesWithKnives
 
I've got a mountain of different high quality stones.
The one I still reach for, almost every time, is an old 6 1/2 by 2 1/2 by 3/4 ruby stone my uncle gave me 45 or so years ago.
I have no idea what grit it is but I'd call it "medium fine".
If I choose to go finer I grab a gray Arkansas. That's rare unless I'm messing with a batch of tomatoes or sharpening a fillet knife.
 
I'm a toothy edge guy for the most part.. Toothy, but can still pop hair off your arms is the way I like my knives setup..
 
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