How Thick Is Thick Enough?

gazaati said:
What is 3/16" in MM ?
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I think 3/16 inch is about 5 mm.

I agree that geometry makes a huge difference. You'll find, for instance, that Ka-Bar's "Large Heavy Bowie" model 1277 slices pretty nicely. It's ground from 1/4-inch stock, but its flat grind gives it a plenty narrow edge for surprisingly-fine slicing. I think you really could slice tomatoes quite happily with that knife. (Also, the point is shaped by a straight taper starting almost half-way up the blade, which makes it surprisingly light and fast.) Contrast this with, say, an Ontario Marine Raider Bowie or a Cold Steel SRK ("Survival/Rescue Knife"), both with saber-ground blades: the latter are much thicker and heavier, and they have a much-more-abrupt edge bevel.

I do like the thick blades, just for the peace of mind. It can be awkward to do food prep with a saber-ground SRK, but it can be done, if you adapt to the odd angle at which you have to hold it. For a survival knife, though, I operate on the assumption that it really may be the only knife I have--kind of the definition of a survival situation is that you have somehow been separated from your usual means of support, including maybe parts of your gear. Since a snapped blade is about the worst knife failure under that kind of circumstance (possibly exceeded only by losing the knife), I tend to prefer the harder-to-break ones. A full flat grind may be a compromise worth considering, since it can slice well, but also has some substance back toward the spine--and if the spine and the edge are far enough apart, it can make the blade thickness less unwieldy than with a saber grind, by quite a bit.
 
The thinnest blade I own is a hand made nessie by Jay Mulcahy at 1/16" (.0625"). My thickest blade is a 5/16" FF Battle Mistress from Busse. As long as I don't chop with the nessie or slice with the FFBM I'm in good shape. :D

Of course, I've got just about every possible variation in between the two extremes. Part of the fun is selecting the knife that is "just right" for a particular task or excursion. :)
 
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I like collecting sharpened prybars but I've always found that my thinner knives do the real work.

Let's face it, most people use knives for their primary purpose, which is to cut & slice things.

I typically end up mostly with a Scandi fixed blade.
 
Fiddleback said:
If you're gonna chop, you need weight, and thickness helps. A thin khukuri would be dumb. A thin Battle Mistress would be silly.

A thick small knife is just as silly.
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Hear, hear! :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:
 
Wow this thread generated a lot of replies quickly.

I agree that geometry plays an important role, but that role is realy to compensate for stock thickness. While a kabar heavy bowie will slice a tomato because of the full flat grind (didn't know that it was full flat btw and am intrigued) it clearly will have a tougher time than a thinner stock knife with the same grind.

So it seems, of the vote thick camps there are two main reasons:
1) adds weight/mass to facilitate chopping; 2) I don't want my knife to snap in two camp

For fun, and back to the original question but under the above constraints:

i) How thin is too thin for chopping owing to too little blade mass
ii) How thin is too thin for durability - I don't want to snap my knife?
iii) Where are the exception designs that turn out to be good sellers or exceptional performers?

Here is one
- Bravo-1 - geometry optimized for cutting (full convex)
- very thick .21"
- Skeletonized tang - removes mass (violates i)
- Bravo-1 seems to be marketted for the 'I don't want my knife to
snap' camp
-Then again why does M. Stewart then market the wet recon
that is .16" thick for the same purpose?
-Would the Bravo-1 be equally, or more effective in .170"
thickness which is a common stock for BRK&T?? How
about thinner?

The second exeption has already been mentioned
- Tramontina machete
-optimized for chopping
-violates rule 1 - thin stock but compensated with long blade length
-violates rule 2 - it should break - cause your wacking stuff with it
 
Rat Finkenstein said:
Stock thickness is not as important as geometry.
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Stock thickness is an important part of the geometry. Three pocket knives i like to use are the Spyderco Calypso jr. (flat grind), The Case Sodbuster jr.(hollow grind) and the Opinel 7 (convex grind). All are great slicers in different geometries and all are made in thin stocks.
I've used those geometries in thicker stocks, they didn't work as well for slicing tasks.
That makes me think the most important is the whole cross section. Thin to improve the cutting ability, thick to improve the strength. A matter of compromise, as always.

dantzk.
 
kgd said:
For fun, and back to the original question but under the above constraints:

i) How thin is too thin for chopping owing to too little blade mass

Depends on heat treat, length, and what you're going to chop. Machete's are choppers, and are thin. They aren't hardened so they flex rather than break.

ii) How thin is too thin for durability - I don't want to snap my knife?

If you use your knife for appropriate tasks it won't snap.

iii) Where are the exception designs that turn out to be good sellers or exceptional performers?

Here is one
- Bravo-1 - geometry optimized for cutting (full convex)
- very thick .21"
- Skeletonized tang - removes mass (violates i)
- Bravo-1 seems to be marketted for the 'I don't want my knife to
snap' camp

Yes! It certainly is. Some of us believe its a tad too thick. IMO the Rivers Edge is a better knife.

-Then again why does M. Stewart then market the wet recon
that is .16" thick for the same purpose?

Remember that knifemakers are running a business. He marketed two similar ones because he wants/needs to sell/profit from two.

-Would the Bravo-1 be equally, or more effective in .170"
thickness which is a common stock for BRK&T?? How
about thinner?

As a camp slicer, yes. For soldiers in battle (Bravo 1 was designed for this) maybe not (I'm no soldier and can't say for sure but that was the rationale as I understand it.)


The second exeption has already been mentioned
- Tramontina machete
-optimized for chopping
-violates rule 1 - thin stock but compensated with long blade length

Also compensates with soft steel. No hardened steel. Very hard to snap that blade.

-violates rule 2 - it should break - cause your wacking stuff with it
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JMHO's (in blue)
 
Return of the J.D. said:
I do like the thick blades, just for the peace of mind.
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+1

For kitchen and home use, where a snapped blade isn't much more than a passing annoyance, I generally prefer thinner blades. But for wilderness use, where I might have to depend on a knife in an emergency and/or survival situation, I'll choose a thicker blade every time. I'll gladly give up a little cutting ability for more durability and peace of mind.
 
Andy - quit exposing my circular logic ;)

Mtn Hawk - what thickness gives you piece of mind? Why doesn't .125" do it for you and why does .225?
 
I keep buying blades that are getting thinner and thinner lol. I think for heavy chopping in dense wood a thick blade 3/16 to 1/4 is good, but nothing more then that. I like my edges thin, and they should cut first over everything else, I mean thats what a knife is for right...cutting? (I find im using a GB Wildlife hatchet more then my big choppers)...

For wood working, my Bravo 1 is good, went to a Aurora and found its thinner profile, straighter edge better, now I ordered a custom bushcraft blade that is .093 thick, scandi grind, we shall see how much I like that, dont think I would go thinner then that though.

Heck, whatever you are comfortable using and it gets the job done for you, by all means be happy.

I think this is a great topic by the way, we always seem to talk about "big knife vs little knife". Now were talking skinny knife vs fat knife lol.
 
I recently purchased a Spyderco Temperance. I think it is 3/16ths but thinly flat ground. I have decided to safe queen it. I feel batoning it in a rough way could damage the blade.

Conversely, I bought a CRKT ABC which is 3/16ths with a saber ground but not a wide blade. It is stout and would not hesitate slamming it into any type of wood. I carry that blade most often. I feel more ready for all types of situations.

To me 1/8" seems too thin and fragile for blades in the 4-7" range. Of course when you get to machetes it all changes. Probably attributable to steel type. I would bet a 1/8" stock of VG10 on a machete would not last as long as 1055 but who knows?
 
I'd say the thickness must match the intended function of the knife. For a slicer or small EDC knife 1/8" or 3/32" is best.

For a knife that can still cut well and also chop 1/8" to 5/32" works.

Anything over 3/16" crosses the boundary and becomes more of a chopper than a cutter.

An EDC sized knife with a blade of 3" that is 1/4" thick is just asinine.

That being said I have several khukuri that are 1/2" thick at the spine. Cutting performance isn't an issue since cutting isn't the primary function.
 
kgd said:
So it seems, of the vote thick camps there are two main reasons:
1) adds weight/mass to facilitate chopping; 2) I don't want my knife to snap in two camp
Click to expand...

I kind of see the base reasoning being the same, though.
The above are issues ONLY if you are unwilling to carry more than one knife (or one "sharp").

Seems the old-timers (and the way that I was taught) is that you really need two "sharpie-thingies" to cover most of your woods tasks. One is a kniofe. As long as it is sharp and slices well, it's good enough. Doesn't matter if it's a Boy Scout Knife, a Buck 110, a puukko, whatever. The second is your "work" tool. Depending on where you live, a hatchet, kukri or machete will be the best for this role.

The only time a "mid-size" blade (like Nessmuk's famous blade) comes in handy is when you're skinning/butchering game (which, if I remember his book correctly, is why he carried it).

Other than that, the sharpened prybar is only really necessary if you can't or won't carry a second blade.
 
That's true...you can definitely make a sharp prybar work as a knife, but if you use your knife a lot, you already know why this is kind of a lousy option and don't need to hear it from me!

If you don't use you knives much anyway, then I guess there is not much of a loss going to something a quarter-inch thick. If all you want it to do is hack through the occasional bit of sausage and cheese, well, what the heck.

If you are either a. a hobbyist who uses knives a lot, or b. someone who does a lot of knife stuff at work, then a properly designed slicer - and that's really what knives are, slicing tools - will obviously tire you out a lot less, and give you a better final product.

A good example is my work/play differences...at work, I don't use knives all that much. Maybe five to twenty minutes out of the average day is spent hacking away at something. I want the ability to chop a little, and slice a little, but since I'm only doing it for ten minutes at a time, I don't care that I have an inefficient tool for either job. I just want something that will do a half-assed job of both. So I carry a Scrap Yard Guard. Does it cut well? Not really. Does it chop well? okay, I guess. Can I carry one package that will do what I need on a ten-mile-long construction site? Yes, so it's worth it.

Now, away from work, where I might spend an hour or two cutting things up because I'm making a tool for fun, or improvising something (from a shelter to a cleaning rod for a gun) there is no way I'd be using that thing. It's crude and it doesn't cut well. That's when I'd be using a mora, or more recently, my Aurora (which performs pretty similarly to the moras.)

So if you are a twenty-minuter, get yourself whatever you think looks cool! It will not make a huge difference as long as you don't care about cutting performance.

If you are a serious user, buy knives that cut well, or you will end up being miffed about the poor performance all the time.
 
ilbruche said:
I'd say the thickness must match the intended function of the knife. For a slicer or small EDC knife 1/8" or 3/32" is best.

For a knife that can still cut well and also chop 1/8" to 5/32" works.

Anything over 3/16" crosses the boundary and becomes more of a chopper than a cutter.

An EDC sized knife with a blade of 3" that is 1/4" thick is just asinine.
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I am in line with this post. 1/8" and 5/32" should be sufficient. I'm still not sure how I fee about 3/16" steel thickness though. I've only made a couple of knives from 3/16 stock. I didn't like how they cut, but that was probably from crappy grinding!:o Perhaps I'll have to give it a try again sometime. I think maybe for a mid-size to larger "heavier-duty" knife it would be good if the grind/edge was produced correctly. I am in total agreeance with the last statement here! -Matt-
 
I would err on the side of thin... Wearing a 12" Tram around my property this Spring convinced me that there are very few things that I need from a knife that the Tram won't do. I should add that I don't chop wood with knives very often (just for fun and testing), I cut way too much wood to consider a knife for that purpose. I really like my pry bars, but thin and light are a good thing in a knife...
 
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