Well, I'll stick up for the gipper on this one. Let's forget "style" for a minute, and really look at those teeth. There's a few good reasons I don't like them.
The James Brothers have made a beautiful knife, so I know aesthetics was high on their list of objectives. Those sawteeth make an otherwise beautiful knife look cheesey. They remind me of all those crappy $15 survival knives. It's ruined the aesthetics, for me. That one's purely subjective, I know, so I better move on quickly to more substantive objections...
Sawteeth backs took the market by storm and then faded. That is, they were a fad. Why didn't they catch on permanently? Because they didn't work -- rather, they made a knife *look* more aggressive (back to "style" again), but sawteeth were simply a bad idea from day one. Many of 'em worked on some substances but couldn't cut others; most simply didn't work well on anything at all. And thrusting into something, they could catch on the way back out. It's always been a better idea to either bring a folding saw with you, or to simply chop through whatever you wanted.
And speaking of chopping, one thing often done with a big knife is splitting by placing the knife edge on the wood and driving it through by banging the spine with a piece of wood or what have you. Doesn't work so well with those sawteeth.
So ironically, the *only* reason to keep those sawteeth on is if you like the *style*. They not only don't really help functionality, they can actually impair it.
Joe
jat@cup.hp.com
PS Jim, other than those sawteeth, that knife is gorgeous
[This message has been edited by Joe Talmadge (edited 02 February 1999).]
