Let's talk blade thickness

maximus83 said:
There appears to be a demand for ever-thicker blade stock in production knives. Not sure if a single factor is driving this, but a theory based on talking to people, reading knife marketing material, and chatting in BF forums, is that there's a common idea that "thicker is better." Maybe this was sparked by the 'survival' and 'hard use' marketing trends, which have grown fast the last 20 years or so. The stereotypical case of a knife like this is the 'sharpened prybar' concept, typically a blade of 0.20 to 0.25 or thicker stock, promoted as being an all-purpose survival knife that you can pry, dig, hack, and chop with, in addition to using for more mundane knife tasks. This trend also influences folders, you hear the term "overbuilt" and with some production folders--some ZT models are good examples--you see really thick blade stock.

My theory is that for most common knife usage (kitchen, utility, hunting, EDC, etc.) we actually might want to return to "thinner is better" (when I say thinner, I mean compared to the quite thick blades that are so popular today). I think in many cases, we could use thinner blade stock, and lower angle grinds on things as well for the ways most of us commonly use our blades. Recently I was blown away to compare a cheap little Kershaw Chill with super thin blade stock, to a $240 "overbuilt" ZT folder with a super thick primary grind and over 0.160 at the spine. Now, I like both of these knives for different reasons. But when it comes to actual cutting/slicing performance in common tasks, that little Kershaw blows the ZT out of the water (both have recently sharpened 15 dps nice edges on them). Name a cutting or slicing task, the Kershaw does it better. No question, not even close. And I've heard this from multiple users on the thick ZT grinds, esp the 0561 and 0562 blades. This is why Josh at Razor Edge knives does a massive business regrinding these. :) Finally, I've also noticed these thinner blades are just faster and easier to sharpen, so there's another reason to consider returning to more thin blades.

One last observation. Recently I visited a museum in the Midwest. It featured 19th century life, including tools and cutting implements used by both farmers/settlers, and by the Native Americans who lived in the area. Here's something that impressed me: a lot of the Native American stone-based cutting tools were QUITE thin. Surely they needed robust tough tools for certain digging/chopping tasks too, but when it came to cutting tasks, those folks were very practical and went "mostly thin" with their knives.

So there it is: For general purpose knives, should we promote a return to thinner blade stock, as well as lower sharpening angles, for improving cutting performance and ease of maintenance?
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I will open with a quote from W.C. Fields. He was talking about something else but I will insert the words Thick Knives in the quote instead : Thick Knives are like elephants; nice to look at wouldn't want to own one.

Next I will give two examples of two of my EDCs :
1. A Gerber EAB Light folding box knife; the blades I like to run in it are old school Stanley "regular" blades. Blade thickness 0.4mm (0.016inch). The Ferrari of box knife blades. Just as you won't go Jeeping with your Ferrari one needs to use these blades with a modicum of restraint.

2. A Cold Steel Pendleton Hunter in 3V that I modified. Out of the box it was 5mm thick at the spine. When I had finished regrinding it and thinning it behind the edge it was 2.2mm at the spine. It is a frighteningly effective cutting tool. I ran into a large staple while cutting up a heavy double wall cardboard box. It cut half way through the staple before I pulled my punch . . . and . . . no ding or damage to the edge. Scary. I named it Gloria.

Any questions where I land on the thick blade vs thin blade thing ? ;)
 
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HeavyHanded said:
I have only seen one knife that broke due to (possibly) being ground too thin, and if you drop a knife 4 ft on a concrete floor I guess there are no guarantees if it lands dead on the tip.
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True story : I once took an Opiel No. 12 (it's a really big sucker and as we all know they are thin), put the blade in a vice, grabbed the other end of the blade with a monster pair of Channel lock pliers and bent it way, way, way over. I was trying to get the blade to snap off at a deep groove I had put in the blade with an abrasive cut off wheel. I was finally able to break it but it took four tries or more.

What's the excuse of this turkey you speak of ? ? ? ?
Dropping it and it breaks ? ? ? ?
One word : crap.

(welllll maybe just the tip but still)
 
maximus83 said:
this "thick blade" trend continues with so many otherwise popular and well built production folder models, indicates that there's a lot of folks out there who think they want a really thick-bladed folding knife.
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Most of the reason I can't even seriously consider a WE knife. Shame; they are so cool otherwise. And once I started in with the grind grind I would just destroy a good bit of the attractive DLC blade that makes them so unique.
 
HeavyHanded said:
Thin is sharp. If it can't cut the first slice out of an apple without splitting the thing, the edge is too thick.
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This is exactly how I test a blade...slicing an apple. My CRK large Sebenza (~0.125" thick) can easily out-slice any of my fixed blades of 1/8". Of course, they are the same thickness, but the flat-ground fixed blades fall behind the hollow-ground Sebenza very quickly.
My preferred blade is hollow-ground and approx 3/32" thick, with no greater than 0.010" behind the edge. THIS WILL BE A SLICER!
 
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