- Joined
- Feb 24, 2001
- Messages
- 1,308
I got a Kershaw Vapor II combo-edged framelock knife from Walmart recently, a good bargain for $25, I think. It's a good everyday-beater kinda knife, the type that you don't have to be bashful about really using, since it's easy to sharpen and cheap to replace if you really screw it up.
I was just quite surprised that the serrations are as, well, "vampiric" as they are. They are really toothy and deep, giving the knife a pretty severe menace to its looks.
While I think they look really neat, I don't imagine that they are very well suited for actual cutting -- more like tearing. I thought that the point of serrations was to increase the length of the cutting surface without increasing the blade length, and that a benefit of serrations is that when cutting on a surface, only the tips make contact, and spare the large proportion of the cutting edge from dulling on a cutting board or plate.
It seems to me that the Vapor II's serrations are more suited for cutting with the points than with the scalloped blade edge between the points. I used mine to cut up a cardboard box and it seemed that the serrations did more catching and hanging-up on the box than cutting. I kinda had to muscle my way through the job instead of slicing.
By contrast, my Benchmade Mini-Griptilian 555 has what I would call very muted Spyder-edge-like serrations -- the points are not so acute. The points on my Delicas are about halfway between those of the 555 and the Vapor II's in terms of pointiness.
What do you think? Do you have a preference for deep or shallow serrations? (Please don't write back about how you hate serrations and hate combo edges, I'm looking for comments about severity of serrations.)
I was just quite surprised that the serrations are as, well, "vampiric" as they are. They are really toothy and deep, giving the knife a pretty severe menace to its looks.
While I think they look really neat, I don't imagine that they are very well suited for actual cutting -- more like tearing. I thought that the point of serrations was to increase the length of the cutting surface without increasing the blade length, and that a benefit of serrations is that when cutting on a surface, only the tips make contact, and spare the large proportion of the cutting edge from dulling on a cutting board or plate.
It seems to me that the Vapor II's serrations are more suited for cutting with the points than with the scalloped blade edge between the points. I used mine to cut up a cardboard box and it seemed that the serrations did more catching and hanging-up on the box than cutting. I kinda had to muscle my way through the job instead of slicing.
By contrast, my Benchmade Mini-Griptilian 555 has what I would call very muted Spyder-edge-like serrations -- the points are not so acute. The points on my Delicas are about halfway between those of the 555 and the Vapor II's in terms of pointiness.
What do you think? Do you have a preference for deep or shallow serrations? (Please don't write back about how you hate serrations and hate combo edges, I'm looking for comments about severity of serrations.)
