what is so special about chisel grind?

The real advantage comes in using a chisel grind for food prep. Given a right hand chisel grind: With the left side of the blade unground and held vertically, the right side is a wedge. When the blade slices into a piece of fish, the slab of fish is cut but stays in place, while the slice that was cut off is pushed by the increasing thickness of the wedge descending. So the food is pushed aside and lays in layered pieces, cut by cut. The dance of the blade and the fish. :)
 
Mitchell Knives said:
Chisel grinds can work well depending on your intended use.

I certainly wouldn't suggest using a chisel ground kiridashi as a hunting knife, but a well made yanagi-ba cuts flesh exceptionally well.
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I agree. But consider the case of a kiridashi style blade with a rounded and chisel ground cutting edge -- an ulu. That makes a decent skinner, scraper, and filet knife, as used by our neighbors to the cold, far north.
 
Also, some chisel grinds can go through bone easy.

Deba, which is chisel, was meant for bone, maybe not thick massive bones, but mostly large fish.

They also make maguro-yanagi which is a giant chisel ground yanagiba, basically a small sword almost. Just for tuna.
 
Mitchell Knives said:
Chisel grinds can work well depending on your intended use.

I certainly wouldn't suggest using a chisel ground kiridashi as a hunting knife, but a well made yanagi-ba cuts flesh exceptionally well.

Most commercially produced chisel grinds do no perform well because they have horrible edge geometry.

That said, I typically only offer chisel grinds on my Japanese inspired knives.
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i have been eyeing some of your kirdashi and soothsayer but i wonder if chisel is good for like food prep, whittling, cutting ropes
 
Thomas Linton said:
I own real Japanese swords. None has a chisel grind. I have examined hundreds of real Japanese swords. None had a chisel grind.

Phill Hartsfield sword: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtAwbIdB1Ag
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As I stated they are not as common so I don't know what you are getting at. Without question, Phill Hartsfield was a master of the chisel grind and made a lot of them as well as double ground blades, so the vid showing a double ground Katana proves only that he made both. Check out the website, it appears his son is now continuing in the business and yes many offerings are chisel grinds. Emerson's most famous CQC6 is a zero bevel chisel grind and from what I've read was heavily inspired by Hartsfields's work. Everyone seems to be focused on geometry alone and are forgetting the effect on friction that the flat side has when slicing a target. Either way both Emerson and Hartsfield saw advantages to the Zero bevel chisel grind. Maybe Emerson himself will chime in. Just FYI, I'm not a fan at all of this blade style.
 
In a nutshell, the CG blade is for SD or combat fighting, or as mentioned, for food prep.
A secondary bevel on the CG defeats the purpose.
rolf
 
Esav Benyamin said:
The real advantage comes in using a chisel grind for food prep. Given a right hand chisel grind: With the left side of the blade unground and held vertically, the right side is a wedge. When the blade slices into a piece of fish, the slab of fish is cut but stays in place, while the slice that was cut off is pushed by the increasing thickness of the wedge descending. So the food is pushed aside and lays in layered pieces, cut by cut. The dance of the blade and the fish. :)
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Thank you for putting my thoughts into words. I wanted to describe this and to say how much I appreciate them for this but couldn't put the words together.
 
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