Thickness behind edge?

T

tommyg805

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Sep 5, 2010
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I am in the process of grinding down my first knife and I have been reading up on the forums regarding thickness behind the edge. Generally, .015" is advised for a general purpose cutter and around .030" is advised for choppers or knives meant for batoning wood. I bought a set of digital calipers to measure as I take off steel and I also used them to measure knives I already have. My small Sebenza and Sage 1 both measure around .020 and my Para 2 measures at around .030! I had originally planned for the knife I'm making (4.5" camp/utility/food prep in 5/32" A2 steel) to measure at .020 but now this seems rather thin in comparison.

So my question is this: why does the thickness of my production knives deviate from the advise of knifemakers here? Will a .020 edge hold up to light batoning? This knife isn't really intended for batoning but of course I will try it out. Also, a .030 edge seems rather thick for what this knife will be doing, which is mainly cutting and food prep. Should I go to .025 instead?
 
You will find production knives leave themselves a "net" so to speak. There is no reason performance wise all the traditional carbon steel knives (nearly all knives really) out there are at a lower than optimal hardness. There is also no reason to have any edge thicker than .020" IMO.
Companies do this because it lowers cost of grinding and peace of mind that it will take very out of the ordinary use to damage the edges.
Knifemakers are different because these factors don't apply with such small quantities and personal customer bases. Performance is first consideration unlike production companies.


Battoning puts little stress on the actual edge unless beating through knots. The wood is spitting with a wedge effect instead of actually cutting it like cross grain battoning or chopping.
Ive battoned with .010" ffg 52100 @ 59R.C. with no damage.
 
You also have to realize that you are measuring behind the sharpened edge, so it is further back than it would be on a unsharpened blade. .015-.020 should be a fine goal for your first try.
 
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