Overboard with Blade Thickness: Your Mod's Ramblings

I think part of the problem is that we as a culture no longer need to generate or sustain a living with tools such as the knife. If we did, I think our knives would look and feel very different. No question that Hollywood and would-be Rambo's are responsible for some of the massively long and thick knives to hit the market. It is a wonder to me why so many folks continue to search for the mythical excaliber to whack and chop their way through life and completely overlook the possibility of selecting a specific tool designed for the task at hand. The large thick "one knife only" concept makes about as much sense as selecting one medication to address all ills.

Our butcher, leather, and wood shop has been filled with visitors and students alike on countless occasions. I have drawers full of knives in the shops, large, thick, small, thin, etc. I try to lay them all out as the work begins...mostly out of curiosity. The older experienced folks reach for the small thin knives, the young fellas follow their elevated chemistry and reach for the larger knives. You can watch the frustration grow on the faces of the young guys as they give into the fact that you can't control a large thick blade for the finer tasks...which is mostly what we do in the wood crafts. By the end of day, or the next class, the large thick knife users have now become smaller thin blade users. Too, I can hand the novice knife user a thin blade to sharpen, after a little practice he can do a passable job with the edge. I can give the same guy a thick bladed knife and watch him give up out of fatique. A thick bladed knife has no business being in my butcher shop or any other.

Yep, my grandfathers knives (he made a living with his knives) looked quite different from the thick bladed knives being sold today.

*I have dozens of large and thick bladed knives in my collection. Most were gifts. I simply don't use them because I own better tools for the job.
 
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Oh man o man. Okay, first off, I batoned through a 1 inch oak knot in a branch today with one of the 3/32 bushcrafters. No problemo, mano. Secret is the steel. 3/32 IS going to flex, so use steel that does it well. Second secret is blade width. a nice 1.25 inch wide blade with a 3/32 spine is going to do a lot better batonning than a .75 inch blade of 3/32.

Why? Hellifiknow. Some people say it's the tracking, some the geater flex plane. *shrug* it works.

Geometry matters, yes. BUT, there are things you can do to the geometry of a thin blade that you cain't to a thick spine. like a flat profile past the scandi or convex grind. I don't know how far to get into this. A 3/16 spine with one inch of full convex grind can be pretty sweet, but it's going to cut differently than the thin blade. not worse, necessarily- I'd rather use it for cutting hemp rope on a railing when out to sea and pounding with a pin, yknow?

Heck, even my choppers are mostly 1/8.

I think factory grinding is a big part of the trend. it's easier to automate hollow grinding or flat grinding than it is convex grinding, And a lot of thicker knives I've seen are just trying to get the stiffening of a fuller, anyhoo.

I've even got 1/16 spine knives out there being used.

1/8 is probably the sweet spot for blades in the 5-8 inch range, but3/32 does pretty well at8 5 inches, too.
 
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here is how i see it:

- if my nice thick heavy choppers are not suitable for a certain cutting task (say filleting a fish), then i reach for a thinner knife. EVERY knfe i own serves a purpose, i enjoy carrying many different types of knives thick and thin when i hike, work, camp whatever. I always find a knife suitable for the task at hand.

I have been known to carry in a pack and use upwards of 15 folders and 3 - 10 fixed blades and choppers, and used them all on a dayhike. All were pure joy to use, from a ax to a Khukuri to a BRKT micro slither.


Variety is the spice of life, so to speak.

BTW, there is some knifemaker here on BF that makes 1/2" and 3/4" thick blades that can shave hair.............. :)
 
"I am always amazed when I see guys attempting to use a heavy duty knife for fine delicate tasks."

Glad I amaze ya bro !!! LOL !!!!!
A thicker blade helps us more inept forumites perform heavy duty tasks with our blades still intact !!!!!

I do find a thinner blade more efficient for finer tasks but I still manage to get most stuff done with one of my tanks !!!!!!
 
Bushman5 said:
BTW, there is some knifemaker here on BF that makes 1/2" and 3/4" thick blades that can shave hair.............. :)
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Shaving hair isn't a very refined way to gauge utility. A 90 degree angle can be very sharp. And I'm sure a 3/4" thick blade can be made to shave. But hair is only a couple thousandths of an inch thick. Slicing less compliant materials like leather or even card stock will bog that blade down to a stop.

I guess this is just a clumsy way to say that sharpness is a different parameter than cutting ability. Related, but not the same.
 
if i can shave hair with a fat blade, i can fillet a fish with same blade! (although it is a little more sloppy tha a nice thin fillet knife... hahahaha)
 
Bushman5 said:
if i can shave hair with a fat blade, i can fillet a fish with same blade! (although it is a little more sloppy tha a nice thin fillet knife... hahahaha)
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In other words, the fat blade is kind of a crappy cutter.

This reminds me of the typical Kabar or pilot survival knife. They can be made as sharp as any knife. But unless they are significantly reprofiled, they will always be crappy cutters, no matter how sharp.
 
true, but my uber thin fine slicers FAIL at chopping, clearing BC forest (up to 4" thick limbs)....
 
My ash-1 cuts great.
Busse does a good job of making thick knives cut well.

However, I'm handling a 1/8 full tang Frosts blade blank and I think it will become my main woods knife.

I love the ash but its just alittle heavy.
 
I believe the trend came around with STAINLESS STEEL...companies in the early 80's, trying to capitalize on the action film sales base..had to find a way to pawn off "surgical 440" to all the young rambos..(I was one) and the steel actually requires that it be 1/4" thick just to function in a bowie or chopper.
 
Whenever someone inquires about a knife the first thing I need to know is what the intended use will be. Depending on the knife's use determines what steel type, width and thickness I recommend. To be an effective cutter the most important area of the blade is the edge and 3/16" to 1/4" up from the cutting edge. I measure every knife with calipers at the edge, depending on spine thickness and use of the knife. There is a very fine line between too thick and too thin. All spine thickness is going to do is cause more resistance. The blade being thicker going toward the top means you have to push harder but doesn't always dictate that thinner is necessarily better. I've had 1/8" thick knives (other then my own) that didn't cut as well as my 1/4" choppers. Why, because of the edge geometry. Alot of the sharpened prybars and some thinner knives have very steep secondardy V bevels. They cut great in the beginning but as soon as the knife dulls and needs resharpening, then the problems begin. With each resharpening that secondary bevel thickens to the point where it's nearly impossible to resharpen by hand. Bottom line is that it all comes down to grind/edge geometry.
Scott
 
Great thread. I've come to admire .125" in my 5" pathfinder and have zero regrets on that thickness. I'm really aching to try a thin Nesmuk as a compliment to the pathfinder now.

There is something to be said about a piece of 3/16" survival steel strapped to your hip though.

Good thoughts Scott. I think you are right in that there is a lot you can do with geometry. I haven't had any success at getting a razor edge converting a V-bevel to a convex one. I get the convex bevel and get it pretty sharp, but so far not yet hair popping shop. However, I've found that after doing my best version of convex and then setting a 15o bevel with the sharpmaker I get something that meets my needs quite well.
 
I have some "thick" knives I really like, but rarely use. A 5/32" thick Busse is a thing to behold, but I take much smaller, thinner knives into the woods for hunting and camping. I'd prefer to carry one of the thick blades in a "day after the end of the world" kind of situation, though. ;-)

Horses for courses....


Stay sharp,
desmobob
 
Scott makes great points. I went from a "thick huge 1/4" chopper" kinda guy to thinner blades, and convexed edges are my favorite geometry bar none at this point. I find, with convex, I can dig as deep or as shallow as I want into wood with no copromises in blade control, and smaller knives that are convex, when batoned, bite through wood for chopping better than any other grind I've found yet, with no worries about the strength of a thinner blade. Heat treat is everything, too. A properly heat treated thinner knife will handle lateral stresses because it'll bend and return to true instead of snapping off.

Edit to add: Scott Gossman's blades seem to be setting the standard for knives when it comes to a thick blade that still slices well. His big choppers are scary sharp, and as some have said, because they are wide blades, they can chop AND slice to no end. The Bark River Bravo-1 seems to be setting the same kind of standard in "production" knives. I put production in quotes because they are still handmade blades, but more mass produced.
 
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I think the question "would you trust your life to this knife or that knife is kind of irrelevant...As I never trust my life to any knife...a knife is there to make things easier...but I trust my life to my ingenuity, my developing skills and my charectar...our ancestors had only that and manged to make schards of stone work for them...
 
I attribute most of it to the general symbolic function, language sophistication and thinking in the abstract imagination.

It has always struck me as odd how many people would jump on the wagon that I and some others contend; that those that are anti-knives, or guns for that matter, suffer something akin to hoplophobia, but not identify those people are far from alone.

"the most common manifestation of hoplophobia is the idea that instruments possess a will of their own, apart from that of their user." - Colonel Jeff Cooper

We can see on these very forums time and again words are used to express sentiments tantamount to a knife being a living entity one has an emotional relationship with. It's not an inorganic item like a golf club or a paint brush. So amusing is this that I have started to keenly observe many of the phrases used, usually by opponents to the advancement of metallurgy, to describe some knives as “having no soul”, “cold”, “dead” and so on. Knives without conspicuous wear marks “have no history to tell”, are “sterile”, blah blah. Yet it is breathtakingly obvious such an emotional affinity is one way traffic and an event taking place exclusively in the imagination of the imaginer. Used in such a manner the knife is simply a prop for an auto-erotic stimulation of ones own emotional fantasy. I'd venture to suggest that many of the overly hulking thick knives we see are for tapping into that same feature.

Certainly, I wouldn't level the accusation that is all there is to it or indeed that is always the case. Sometimes a bigger stronger paintbrush is ideal for the task. But I do believe the bulk of it is the river of emotional fantasy rather than the logs off genuine task requirement that float upon it. One can usually disclose the difference by the emotional twitch of folks when they are challenged - “You'd get better results with X knife” should be on a par with “You'd get better results with paintbrush X” or with “Screwdriver C”.etc. There ought to be a parity of emotional flatness, yet only in the first instance do you get emotional response equal to reminding a man that his wife is past her best or his children really are that ugly. 'Tis then you know you've struck gold and disclosed the emotional river.


How does this all hang together with knife thickness, “traditional knives from cultures unarguably known for their survival skills”, and a manifestation of sophisticated symbol manipulation and language? I believe the simple answer to that lay in the difference between proxy learning through observation and apparent vicarious learning that is pretty much exclusively symbol based. The tribal apprentice sees what works, and when he comes to perform the task 'he knows' in the same way as one knows how to ride a bicycle or a carpenter reaches for a saw. There isn't a great deal of computation occurring in the front of the mind. True mastery makes reaching almost like a reflex. By contrast one who has been got at through media and advertising is surely more disposed to the “Ive got a knife I could bet my life on” or “I've got the most bomb poof knife around”, or even “I've got the best knife”. Those that buy in to stories of daring do, the romance of the “lone wolf with his knife”, “Excalibur”, “Zombie hunter”, “I could gnaw my way out of a concentration camp with this”, .etc aren't learning the same way. They have beliefs seemingly based exclusively on language, often emotional fantasy, and they don't have grounding in the useful and relevant observation statements that little tribal apprentice could make. In fact, I think the most useful thing they know is often how to sit around drinking beer and playing party games while chopping concrete. And that's fine too. If I ever wanted to know how to do that I'll go read some adverts and look on some forums for a hint as the best and thickest tool for me to have, and then my fantasy wouldn't turn to nightmare.

It's pretty obvious that I have overstated the case here just to get the information out there. If it was as clear cut as I described I could have saved myself some typing and just written, “It comes from the difference between actual experience and experience that occurred only in the imagination”, but clearly there is grey, with some tending more to one pole that the other. For example; I'm pretty confident there are many people here that although having actual experience also learn from the printed word. I sure do. Conversely we are riddled with the safe queen[ers] that believe every faerytale they are told about their knives, in fact that's all they know about their knives. And there are all the shades between them. However, as I said, I think the bigger and thicker school often, although by no means necessarily, taps into that emotional thing of the romantic fantasy based on language. Others tend not to get hurt feelings. For illustration; on the other hand let's pick a classic using knife people tend to just reach for in a matter of fact reflex way they have got from using it: I'm going to pick on the SAK Outrider - “I think your Outrider is made from too thin soft shite steel and cheap plastic!”. Now, who got their feelings hurt by any of that, even if I meant it?

Yup, again whilst most adamantly asserting it is by no means necessary, I believe there is similarity between the hoplophobics and the proponents of needlessly thick knives in that they are pandering to an emotional need in the imagination quite apart from the actual functionality of that cold dead tool. And when they hang with the right people soothing fantasy words and images will vindicate them and make them feel that bit better. Lovely lovely.


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I have spent ages using and buying cheap knives , and formed a theory about thick knives on the cheap end of the scale ...

once upon a time , here in Australia stainless steel was a novelty , hi carbon was the norm .
a EDC knife was usually called on to do tasks as skinning rabbits and smallish game , opening packets , slicing cheese and bread , eating tool stuff , whittling and carving etc

I have a small collection of old knives that have been carried and used by folk I consider real bushmen all are hi carbon knives , the fattest blade is about 1/8 inch thick .

Watching the old timers do thier thing , they seemed to like a thin knife with a bit of flex for most stuff .

when stainless steel came in , I could get a knife that held an edge but the blade was brittle , if I tried anything remotely like prying the point would snap

or I could get one that would take the prying and actually have a bit of flex , but wouldnt hold an edge at all ...

the best compromise I found was to get a thick bladed stainless job , so the blade was thick enough it would take the stress of some gentle prying or twisting ( like opening oysters or getting a limpet off a rock , not prying boulders ) while being hard enough to actually hold an edge ...

over the time , the stainless knives have flooded the market here ,to get a EDC type knife that wont snap , and has some chance of holding an edge from beginging to end of skining and dressing an animal , its got to have a thick blade ...

I dont like thick blades ... but I want my blade to have some flex , and hold a serious edge and take some abusing ....

TO find a knife that would fit this bill in my price range , I ended up making my own .
 
This isn't new. Nessmuk complained about campers with their thick spines murderous looking bowie knives that were useless for most camp chores.

Nowadays we have the dreaded choil, designed to try to allow fine use of chunky munkys. This is ludacrous because any real work would be uncomfortable gripping that choil. Especially in the cold.

I agree with the thin bladed concept. Learn to use your knives without prying and abusing them. A thin bladed knife cuts better. Period. No need to bullS*** around about it. A knife where the choil moves the edge away from the handle is poorly designed. That portion of the edge is where a person can generate the most force on the edge, and needs to be as close to the handle as possible.

Oh well. To each his own.

I still like owning my Busse's and chopping with them. I won't be chopping cinder blocks if I can avoid it. And I won't be hiking with one. But they're neato, and that company is a success for a reason.

Thin bladed knives will do everything you can do in the wilderness. My nessmuks are 3/32. My EDC's are 1/8. And the bushcrafters start at 5/32 (0.156" BTW) and end up thinner than that. Their full convex grind makes them a mean slicer with a little more strength at the tip.
 
i use nothing but 3/16 1075 to make all of my knives. i have used some 1/8 1075 but i dont like grinding thin steel that much. i put a full flat chisel grind on the leather handle washer knife i made and its one heck of a slicer for its size. the overall length is 11 1/2" long with a 6 1/4" blade. 6 7/8" from guard to tip. the handle is 4 1/4. its weight is .375 grams, just under 1 pound. here is a video of it slicing newspaper.
http://www.myculpeper.com/richardj/MLNA0001a.AVI
i have some customs made from 1/4" 440c and ats34 that cut really well too. they were made by my friend art summers.
i made a chopper for brian from the same steel and it has no trouble going through osage orange or red elm.

(hey brian, i'm going to end up hurting myself with that chopper again if i hang onto it any longer;). its too much fun to chop with:D)
 
I think it has to do with mindset and a little bit of hype. We tend to dwell extensively on what/if type scenarios and the like, especially here in the Wilderness forum. Those what ifs can really have an effect on how you go about equipping yourself. Occasionally though, those who actually put their acquired knowledge and information to use can often find themselves re-evaluating their actual needs. Quite simply I cannot think of a situation that would require more than a mora and a hatchet. That does not mean that I don't take my CSK II or RAT 3 into the woods. I find myself worried consistently on my equipment failing me, and what steps do I take to reduce the risk. One of the steps can be to buy tougher equipment, but the jury is out on whether increasing thickness makes it better.
Ultimately, people need to settle on what makes them comfortable, but more importantly they need to get out there and use it. I see so many kits and so many Bug out Bags that seem so impractical to me, that I wonder sometimes if they actually get used or tested. I think you have to separate the "that looks cool, makes me feel good' from the "this is the minimum spec/criteria I need for my equipment.
 
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