Survival knife enthusiasts - why wide blades?

H

Houlahound

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Aug 2, 2017
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Citing as examples BK series, Esse.... these knives are much wider regardless of length than most bushcraft, edc, fighters...pretty much every other knife style roughly speaking. Another class of wide knives are chef's knives which I believe is useful for moving piles of chopped food around a cutting board or at least that's my observation.

So what are the benefits of wide blades?.
 
possibly : More area that can be polished and used for signaling passing helicopters or boats, and also makes the blade able to take more downwards/upwards force (chopping, pushing down) :) (one at least must be right)
 
calm said:
possibly : More area that can be polished and used for signaling passing helicopters or boats, and also makes the blade able to take more downwards/upwards force (chopping, pushing down) :) (one at least must be right)
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Creating more mass by adding width for chopping makes sense I guess but so does adding more thickness but adding more thickness also increases blade strength.
 
I would guess that a lot of it comes to having a lower overall edge angle for a given thickness/strength. Also, a taller blade can be more easily used as a scraper with the hand almost or fully on the blade. So in the grand game that is compromises for certain aspects, a lot of folks don't find a taller blade to be an overall disadvantage, if it gives them enough of the other aspects that they desire. Last thought, from a batoning perspective, all else being equal, the wood is only going to split when the blade its a certain depth and if force can be maintained downward on the center axis, then the taller blade has the advantage for depth. A lot of breakage can be attributed to the torsion of impact around the fulcrum of the wood being split.
 
gadgetgeek said:
I would guess that a lot of it comes to having a lower overall edge angle for a given thickness/strength. Also, a taller blade can be more easily used as a scraper with the hand almost or fully on the blade. So in the grand game that is compromises for certain aspects, a lot of folks don't find a taller blade to be an overall disadvantage, if it gives them enough of the other aspects that they desire. Last thought, from a batoning perspective, all else being equal, the wood is only going to split when the blade its a certain depth and if force can be maintained downward on the center axis, then the taller blade has the advantage for depth. A lot of breakage can be attributed to the torsion of impact around the fulcrum of the wood being split.
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Good points.
 
tony281sc2 said:
Room enough to drop down to a reasonable thickness BTE, while still having a thick blade (.18-.2”) that is durable? That’s just a guess
^ and what he said
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This exactly. I want a strong blade with a reasonable amount of weight behind it, but I also want it extremely thin behind the edge so that it slices well.

A tall blade allows even 1/4" stock to slice decently because there's room for a full-flat-grind to taper all the way down to nearly zero before the actual primary bevel and edge are set. If you then go ahead and slightly convex the edge itself, you end up with something pretty slicey but still decently strong.

This won't help against wedging, of course - 1/4" is stll 1/4" of material you have to push through whatever you're cutting. But if whatever you're cutting is thin enough (like cutting a carrot on a cutting board), this doesn't matter in the slightest.
 
Maybe pure esthetics? Looks are a big part in some of my purchases.
I like full flat grinds on my fixed blades. That could possibly be one reason for having a tall blade height.
 
I had ML knives make a Hudson Bay knife from 1/8 thick steel 8 inch blade so I can have a thinner thickness than the regular 3/16 one I have, but I still wanted some heft too without being too heavy so he made a profile of a 1 3/4 wide. It is very lively in hand and still a light chopper, but still less weight than the 3/16 one. The two middle knives in the pic.DF084AB2-A65C-4118-B6E7-5E38C2E21FF2.jpeg
 
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