My hatred of serrations, and yours, perhaps

I have divested of almost all of my serrated knives. However I sometimes worry that I won't have one when I might need it to cut let's say an electric cable or something...in a pinch. I don't like, and won't go back to them, on "regular" knives but I am thinking about getting one of the Spyderco Rescue knives...there are various models in various steels.

If and when I get back to boating, I WILL have a serrated knife aboard and handy. There it's all about clearing line fouling and sometimes in a big hurry.

In the woods: No use for them. In an urban environment: There are uses for them. On the water: Wouldn't be without one (I'd have two or three PE's as well of course).
 
I hate poorly designed serrations. It's easy for folks to make them too deep, pointed, or large. I like the serrations used by Victorinox, for instance. Shallow so they don't dig and tear, yet not so small (like Cold Steel's) that they require a specialized stone to sharpen. Other serrations I like include those by ESEE, and CRKT's Veff serrations (in their smaller iterations.) Shallow, medium serrations come in handy for a variety of tasks, but are a specialized edge type just like there are specialized blade types. When I need a serrated edge (which is VERY rare) I go all-out. I find that a Byrd Meadowlark Rescue works just fine for all of those situations.
 
I am a real lover of plain edges, but the two Spydero Assists that I purchased to keep in the vehicles are the sharpest serrated egde I have seen. In addition, there is a small chisel ground portion at the front of the blade (plain edge) that is blazingly sharp. Was pleasantly surprised!!
 
I own exactly two serrated knives and no more because I dislike sharpening them and the half serrations on a folder usually just get in the way when what I really really want is a plain edge. OK, three if you count the bread knife in the kitchen but somebody once told me that an Opinel 13 would be a good replacement for that one...

The first is a Byrd Cara Cara 2 Rescue that sharpens up easy enough on the Sharpmaker. The second is a Cold Steel Voyager Rescue and that takes some time to sharpen on the special crok stick made for it by Lansky. I use them for cutting up heavy cardboard when the nice big fixed plain edge ESEE or whatever might be socially unacceptable.

I would find a SAK serration OK too since again that would sharpen up fine on the Sharpmaker when needed.
 
I actually want to know one thing about serrations. Why are they ALWAYS chisel-ground, instead of double-ground? They would cut better and hold a better edge as double ground.
 
2 smooth cutting surfaces for the material to travel along, and the two edges can both be refined to a finer cutting edge.
 
I got caught up in the partially serrated craze and quickly realized that I preferred the plain edge for almost every situation. However, I've held onto my BM Mini-Grip with partial serration, because there are times when it's really useful in my job. Namely, when I have to quickly cut a Cat6 cable or something like that. It's always much more handy to pull the knife out of my side pocket than to carry around a wire cutter all the time.
 
I have a fully serrated Spyderco Rescue that I really like,and edc it in a vest pocket on a regular basis.Maybe it's the blue frn handle.But that's not the only knife I carry.If it was I probably would carry a plain edge folder instead.
 
I can sharpen a straight edge to perform like serrations, but I can't sharpen serrations to perform like a straight edge.
 
Cold Kill said:
2 smooth cutting surfaces for the material to travel along, and the two edges can both be refined to a finer cutting edge.
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On a chisel ground serration, the ground edge can be refined to a finer cutting edge. And the "flat" side is smooth...so I don't see what you are getting at.
 
Dorito Monk said:
That's what I was thinking.
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Thanks! I was wondering if I was missing something obvious. It's good to know someone else was thinking along the same lines.

And by the way....APF's line

"I can sharpen a straight edge to perform like serrations, but I can't sharpen serrations to perform like a straight edge."

is right on the mark, in my book. Nicely put. You can always leave your plain edge a little toothy, if you'd like. And then refine the "toothy" out, if you'd like.
 
You could even do ghetto serrations, half toothy, half refined. All of the fun of serrations with the choice of refining.
 
Cold Kill said:
You could even do ghetto serrations, half toothy, half refined. All of the fun of serrations with the choice of refining.
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Okay.
free-confused-smileys-423.gif
 
I can not agree more, serrations are for bread. I do have two blades with serragtions, both Gerbers, and this is because they were MOLE compatible for a trip I took to Iraq. Nevertheless, a serrations provide numerus points that are small and do not do well with chopping, although it may help in cutting nylon rope. My opion is that if you have to cut nylon rope use a coursse stone to sharper the knive and leave your self so micro serrations.
 
I hate serrations on bread knives... they leave a lot of crumbs, try a knife of the same length with a mirror polished edge, no crumbs, serrations are good for some things, like rope cutting but I don't encounter that very often and I'll be darned if I'm going to spend any amount of time on serrations for EDC.
 
I have also noticed better performance of a sharp straight edge vs. a bread knife on bread. The bread knife is better for crusty bread, but for softer bread the straight edge leave a much smaller mess, and doesn't really take much longer to cut. The time spent cleaning up usually puts straight edge as faster. More knives need to do what Ka-Bar did with the Big Brother line, with the serrated spine and full straight edge. At least that way it does the jobs of both without sacrificing the performance of either.
 
I prefer the look and overall utility of a plain edge, but make no mistake about it: A nice, fully serrated knife in a good steel with proper serrations(see: Spyderedge) is an unstoppable work horse.

When I'm just grabbing a knife to carry, it's going to be a plain edge, usually. However, if I know I'm going to need to cut a lot of material and really work a knife hard, it's going to be my fully serrated Endura, hands down. A fully serrated knife just cuts and cuts and cuts. Where a plain edge will dull and whine and slow down and need a touch up, a SE is still going strong, laughing at anything you throw at it.

Plus, a well sharpened SE knife is just fearsome to behold and use.

That said, I don't care for combo edge blades, at all. While a serrated edge looks fierce and dependable and a plain edge looks sleek and attractive, a combo edge just looks and feels misshapen.
 
Bread Knives and sawing through timber, that's about the only things I've ever needed them for, oh and sawing through thick rope sometimes.
 
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