Spyderco serrations versus competitor's Serrations

J

JD Spydo

Joined
Nov 20, 2004
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I've been an avid Spyderco fan for quite some time now. The very first Spyder I ever owned was a fully serrated GIN-1 Mariner model. I had always wanted a high quality serrated folding knife and at that time ( 1995) all my friends said that Spyderco's serrations were the best of the best. I still agree with that to a point but in the past 5 years or so I've encountered serrated blades made by other commercial knife companies and I must admit that some of they aren't bad at all.

First off the culinary knife company J.A. Henckel has some very good serrated blades. Also the few Victorinox blades I have that are fully serrated really cut decently as well. So I'm wondering are there other good, reputable knife companies that are producing high quality serrated blades? If so who do you all think are true competitors to Spyderco's Spyderedges? Let's talk blades with TEETH.
 
I may get hammered for this, but I really like Victorinox's serrations. They cut very well, and cut far more smoothly than any of my other serrated blades. So for me, my favorites are Spyderco and Victorinox.

Although Benchmade's serrations are smoothe, I don't care for them. They tend to remove too much steel for their serrations, and I didn't find that they cut exceptionally well like good serrations should (IMO).

I have a couple of knives (one Kershaw and one ZT) that have convex serrations that cut pretty smoothly, but as a pattern, I'm a bit on the fence with them.

Jim
 
I love me some SpyderEdge as much as the next guy, but I'll admit, I have a soft spot of Veff serrations. It's just too bad they aren't put on better knives.

My brother let me borrow one of his CRKT's because I wanted to mess around with that set up, and boy were they fun. Very brutal looking, and cut like they're on fire. They seemed to cut cleaner than the SpyderEdge to me as well. If I could get a Tenacious with Veff serrations I'd be a very happy man.
 
Hi JD! Serrations again, huh? ;)
I have had and used many serrated patterns and SE blades and these are my opinions on them, best to worst...

- Spyderco: best in overall toughness, grabbing-slicing ability, ease of maintenance and long term performance, clean cuts with repeatable results
- Victorinox: excellent cutting power even after heavy use, easy to touch up, not too pointy (not grabbing or tearing) and durable, quite nice and clean cut
- Leatherman, Emerson, Kershaw, Gerber: not overly aggressive scallops and peaks, rounded pattern allows for strength, not excellent but decent depth and slicing ability, medium ease of maintenance and life
- Cold Steel, CRKT: very pointy and penetrating, they'll cut really deep but for short time, they won't be durable and strong, they'll soon chip and start tearing or ripping, and are hard to sharpen or restore
- CRKT VEFF: that angle allows for very high initial cutting performance and depth of cut, but they are quite fragile and can't really be brought back with normal tools, they cut hard but short, and pretty much destroying everything without any precision whatsoever
 
Great input guys and we're off to a rolling start on what I believe is going to be a most interesting thread. PEACENT I'm just about always in agreement with your posts on both forums and I hope you agree with me on my quest for the ultimate serration pattern. As great as Spyderco's Spyderedges are I still believe that there is a lot of room for a significant amount of improvement. The spikey serrations that you see on most of Spyderco's Japan/Seki made folders are great for a lot of different cutting jobs.

But I've noticed different results with different serration patterns. Spyderco had an older version of it's C-17 Catcherman model which had an AUS-8 blade. I was lucky enough to get one of the fully serrated AUS-8 Catcherman models and it's been one of my most used Spyders since then. It basically has a similar pattern to Spyderco's Japan serrations except it's lower profile and the scallops are rounded off more. But it's become one of my favorite serration patterns.

Also on their culinary knives like the K-04 and K-05 models which have a rounded/wavy type of serration pattern that is really nice to work with food items and it's probably the easiest serration pattern to sharpen as well. I'm hoping that Spyderco will take a serious look at the possibility of new serration patterns.
 
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