I dont know why I wont just leave this alone, but here goes
Gaston,
I dont come to the internets to argue, so my objective is not to just argue with you or prove you wrong. I appreciate the enthusiasm you bring with you, and I really like the fact that you actually use your knives, even expensive customs or production knives.
But you may want to step away from the keyboard for a bit and think about what your point really is here. Youre presently telling other experienced users and makers of knives that they dont know what theyre talking about, and that there is no reason for a neutral balance on a knife. Let me make this very simple for you: There is very good reason for neutral balance on a knife. The MAJORITY of people do not want blade heavy knives.
If you do, great. Go buy or have all the blade heavy knives you want made custom for you. If were talking intentionally blade heavy knives here, dedicated choppers and the sort, that suddenly becomes a specialized knife, read: excels at one purpose. That is the very antipode of what a survival knife is supposed to do, to be a jack-of-all trades. The neutral balance really shines here, because it allows a blade large enough to handle serious tasks such as large cuts, chopping, and light prying if need be, to feel good in the hand and be reasonably capable of fine work.
As I said, a Busse-like chopper has no fine point, and you seem to not accept the fact that the biggest limitation to versatility
is the use of a fine point profile, which is easy to put on a knife, versus chopping ability, which is much harder to incorporate on a tool not optimized for chopping in the first place: It is
because you want the versatility of a fine point that you have to make the blade/handle weight ratio as heavy as possible in favour of the blade, the blade being compromised twice: 1-By being a blade not an axe, 2-By having a fine point profile. Being guard-balanced is something the fine point and thin blade will always tend to give you: It is absolutely nothing special to strive for... Below a 10" blade, it is much harder to keep blade mass than it is to keep point profile sharpness, therefore the most difficult aspect of the design is to keep mass up front, and, if possible, off the handle: Every aspect of the Chris Reeves and many other knives shows the designer knew this.
One of the most important things neutral balance does is allow the knife to be used for finer tasks. It allows the use of a large blade, but neutral balance keeps the blade mass from feeling too heavy, thus accelerating hand fatigue during extended use. A large weight-forward blade almost immediately places strain on the wrist when being used for fine tasks. This is exacerbated if you are already fatigued or injured.
Let's get down on Earth and see what is the difference we are actually talking about here...: At best a sharp-point knife 9" or less will balance 1" in front of the guard, vs your preferred at-the-guard balance:
Are you seriously saying a 1" balance point difference will cause strain or fatigue when slicing?
It is clumsier, and maybe you'll choke on the blade, maybe over the rear edge even: For that minuscule difference in confort, the difference in chopping ability will be huge, especially in the way the weight will "kill" the impact towards your hand, because every mm of CG forward of the handle means the weight starts to work
for your hand,
otherwise the actual weight of your hand's flesh is put to work driving steel into wood... And steel dead weight being less sensitive than flesh, that's not a good trade-off.
IF the knife has to be used defensively, a blade heavy knife is a disaster in the hand, and is very difficult to use in that role. Neutral balance shines here, as well, allowing the point or edge to be placed wherever you want much more instinctively and with less fatigue.
Again, a difference of 1" or even 2" can have little effect.
It also showcases the maker or designers skill, as nearly anyone can make a big blade that is blade heavy. It requires much more work and thought to get a large blade to balance near the guard, or wherever you want, and is a sign of quality.
I'm sorry, but this just doesn't strike me as true: Nearly every knife I've ever owned balances at the guard... It is just about the least distinctive feature you could imagine for a knife between 6" and 9"... The real trick is actually to find one that manages to grapple a few mms in front of the guard, one inch being an extraodinary achievement...
Because of the sharp point requirements and inherently thin blades, making blade-heavy knives is exactly like making handle-heavy axes: It is an uphill battle, and it is a sign of design quality for knives when any blade-heaviness is achieved at all: Even the Reeves Jereboam fails drastically because of its thick-walled handle... It doesn't chop any worse because of it, but it sure feels heavy to lug around for no gain at all...
Those who want a blade heavy knife, outside of specialized use (I cant believe you want to argue with the point about full height grinds being used in cutting competitions, and not being effective. Google cutting competition knives, they are almost all full height grinds. They chop really well, or they wouldnt keep using them. Who in their right mind is going to not use a full flat grind because theyre worried the sheath might scratch the blade???!!??) are decidedly in the MINORITY here. You will find that most people prefer a more balanced knife for GENERAL USE, which is almost the definition of a SURVIVAL knife.
But how many would perform credibly at 8.75" per 1.3" wide? The Reeves matches in chopping power a BK-9 that is 3/4" longer and over 50% wider... That is true design performance...
Design a distal taper full height flat ground knife
within the profile size of the Jereboam, and it will go absolutely nowhere against it: I don't even know how this needs to be argued...
I've looked at these competition knives, and all of them have blades over 2" wide, typically 2.5" even... Are you saying in the interest of versatility I should carry something that large in the woods? 2"+ means that even with the basic mass inefficiency of the flat grind, you finally get enough mass to compensate for it. You can take sheet metal and make it 4" wide, and that will chop too: That is not efficiency...
Again, because of the high energy expenditure and fast repeated hits part, competition is obviously not guidance as to how an ordinary Survival Knife should be designed: It is like saying a Formula 1 race car should go faster in the woods...
Go to the cutting competition forums and you will find plenty of people of the same mind as you, who want dedicated choppers, which is what you seem to want. And that is FINE. But please stop telling people who know better that we dont. Just out of curiosity, how many knives have you designed or made? What has given you the inside track on all this balance knowledge that the rest of the knife world has been doing wrong for so long?
Classic authority argument. I've demonstrated many respected makers, like Becker and Chris Reeves, try as hard as they can to achieve what you deem to be undesirable... I pointed out five or six specific features on the Jereboam Mk II alone... When designing the BK-9, Becker did not choose a distal taper full height flat grind... Do they not know what they are doing? My argument is to make a regular knife more versatile, not less.
You asked for ONE advantage a knife balanced near the guard has, I gave SEVERAL. Other than chopping, give me all the advantages you can think of, outside of personal preference, that a blade heavy knife has, please.
Again, I dont like to argue on the internet, and none of this is personal, but youre starting to betray your lack of knowledge and experience on this subject. Or the rest of the knife world got it wrong, and you just stumbled onto a great discovery here.
Respectfully,
Sam Wilson :thumbup:
You need to tell me what tasks are prevented by having the balance point 1" in front of the guard. I correctly explained that a guard balance point calls on your hand's flesh mass to drive metal into wood...
Gaston
