Full flat or saber... Which grind is best for splitting wood?

C

Charyou Tree

Joined
Mar 23, 2010
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I have an RC-5 and I think it does a great job splitting wood but I noticed that all the other ESEE knives have full flat grinds. What is the advantage of full flat over saber grind? Will one split better than the other?
 
full flat is a better slicer and starts easier when splitting wood - the saber grind will start wedging faster and so makes a better splitter, but overall the FFG is a better general purpose grind.
 
Samael said:
No doubt about it. But, um, do you have something against axes?
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not at all, when it comes to chopping or splitting wood i will always run to my axe or sometimes my hawk first.

i just baton when i have nothing to do and feel lazy
 
Samael said:
No doubt about it. But, um, do you have something against axes?
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Oh please don't start the "baton vs. Axe" deathmatch here.

People baton, you really need to deal with that. If batoning doesn't work for you so be it but not everyone feels the need to pack an axe or hatchet into the wild when a knife can do a similar job.

Not trying to bite your head off but this argument in getting to be like religion and politics around here.
 
People generally think full flat, but if you head over to the forum on Scrap Yard Knives' website, they went with saber over full flat on the new Regulator because they found it better for chopping.

Edit: Here's the thread http://www.scrapyardknives.com/ubbt...t=0&Board=Knives&Number=373477&page=8&fpart=1
Dumpster Dan said:
First up is the new saber grind on the Regulator. Our tests have shown that it makes for a much better chopper than the Regulator with a full-height grind!
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I don't know, really. I haven't seen any hard, side-by-side testing of either. And, well, we all know how much stock we can put in "conventional wisdom." It would be nice to see somebody beat a few blades to death and see how they hold up. To my knowledge, that's not out there anywhere.
 
i'd imagine if the two knives were the same thickness, the FFG would be btter for battoning, and the saber ground blade would be a better chopper due to the extra weight... my imagination gets me in trouble more often than not, though.
 
I use a rc5, rc6, and and rtak II to baton with a fair bit of regularity. Sometimes it takes a slightly harder smack to start the saber grind into hardwoods.

Overall, both work just fine, I wouldn't sweat the details. I barely notice a diffrence between the five and six.
 
I did notice that it takes a good firm smack to get it started and I suspect the thinner blade of the RC-6 would be a bit easier. I plan on getting an RC-6 eventually (I've been bitten! bitten by the RAT bug!) so I'll see for myself some day.
 
I'm not a saber grind fan, unless the blade is thin enough that you need the saber to lend strength to it. Yeah, it will tend to shift the balance toward the tip, making for better chopping, but I honestly don't chop all that much - I do a lot more slashing of vegetation, and my chopping is usually of the "de-limbing" variety, where a faster balance is more beneficial than raw chopping power.

If I really need to cut a serious log in half, I'd much rather use a folding or chain saw.

Full flat excels at the tasks I'm more likely to use a big knife for - batoning, delimbing, slicing, and brush clearing.


OTOH, a full convex can be ALMOST full flat, but enough curvature to reduce binding during batoning, slicing, and chopping, so it might be even more awesome than the full flat.
 
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