I beat a knife into a 2 x 4 and the blade chipped.

I'm curious how thick this blade is?

When it comes to batoning/chopping I look for something designed for that sort of work (note I didn't say abuse here). Personally, I use axes and hatchets and a WWII Cattaraugus folding machete for those tough cutting tasks. I do have an ancient, 2-handed, bladesmith made, honking, 1/4+" thick, spring steel, camp knife/cleaver that seems to thrive on whatever I throw at it at the cabin in the UP (shhhhhhhhhhhhh what happens in the UP stays in the UP).

Corey "synthesist" Gimbel
 
synthesist said:
I'm curious how thick this blade is?

When it comes to batoning/chopping I look for something designed for that sort of work (note I didn't say abuse here). Personally, I use axes and hatchets and a WWII Cattaraugus folding machete for those tough cutting tasks. I do have an ancient, 2-handed, bladesmith made, honking, 1/4+" thick, spring steel, camp knife/cleaver that seems to thrive on whatever I throw at it at the cabin in the UP (shhhhhhhhhhhhh what happens in the UP stays in the UP).

Corey "synthesist" Gimbel
Click to expand...
The spine is 5/32 or .156 and the bevel is 25° inclusive; neither thick nor thin.
 
Two rounds of two hours would be best. I like 5/32" blades, but I think that might be a little thick for scandi grinds, and hat geometry isn't going to chop/baton to well. Just think of how much resistance there is going into a knot like that. I think they work better for something where the wood chip can peal away for the parent material. Just this dumb farm boys opinion, though. I was testing the geometry on one of mine the other day, and chopped
It into a pine knot and it chipped. I started looking at the how thick it was before sharpening. It was about .010 before I started to hand sand, I must have convexed it hand sanding,'and brought it down to ~.007 or maybe even a little less. No wonder it sliced so nicely! It would have been great until some one tried to split a pelvis bone, or chop into a pine knot. I backed it up to .012 and back into pine knots it went, no chipping. This was on a full flat grind Damascus blade tempered at 415 for two hours twice.
 
Two small chips - nothing special. Neither fail or abuse. You just used knife a little bit over blade abilities - knots are all different, it was random. Nothing to really worry about. Of course IF chips were small

When it comes to tempering - plain high carbon steels have peak toughness at around 350F, then it falls down to get up again at MUCH lower hardness.
You WONT get more toughness from 415 or 420.
 
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