What was original intent of saws on spine

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will62

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Oct 18, 2002
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Over the years I have heard different stories about survival knives with sawteeth on the spine. Originally they were designed for pilots to cut their way out of aircaft.

Then the "Rambo" knife craze hit and for a couple years everybody had a knife with a saw on it.

Most of the saws I tried required too much effort to cut wood. The saw blade on my SAK did better than the Gerber BMF I carried for a while. I gave it up and went back to a Ka-bar USMC.

Was there ever a knife that had a saw that actually cut wood? Or is the story about the original intent about being used to cut youself out of an aircraft true?
 
Was there ever a knife that had a saw that actually cut wood? Or is the story about the original intent about being used to cut youself out of an aircraft true?
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will62

Welcome to the forums.

You have started off with a very interesting questions. I am sure that you will get a number of familiar answers like; sawbacks were a useless fad started by the Rambo movies; to, sawbacks will never work since they have the wrong geometry and I can far more easily chop through a stick then saw through it. These comments are correct, in as far as they go, yet the answer to both of your question is also a "yes". There have been knives with sawbacks that can actually cut wood, and the Randall model 18 did popularize the sawback concept when it was created to help a pilot escape from a downed helicopter.

The concept of saw backs is much richer than all of this. Perhaps more later...

n2s
 
I've heard it called a root saw, but I havn't found that they do well at all on cutting through wood. I have used the saw back on my USAF PSK to notch wood so that cordage/wire didn't slide the length of the wood for setting traps and building a primitive bow.
 
Just to throw something into the mix, there are not survival knives, but I was left two bayonets by my father that he had collected in the service.

Both of them were odd for several reasons, one, they were both German and he served in China/Burma, and the one more to the point of this discussion - they are saw backed.

Where the saws on all the "survival" knives I have seen don't appear to be really functional, these on these German Bayonets are.

Before he passed away, my father told me that one was an Engineer or Pathfinder bayonet with the saw to be used for cutting wood, and the other one was a "Forager" or butcher(???) bayonet that was to be used aquiring food and cutting meat.

An interesting aside he related to me was he had heard that the soldiers that had these bayonets issued to them were killed on-site as it was though that a wound from one of these caused an especially vicious wound.

I doubt that this was ever the case, as they appear to be neither fish nor fowl, neither a good bayonet or a good saw.

All in all, the saw on my SAK Trailmaster is all I need for the sawing that would be needed in most survival situations.

waterone
 
I read in a knife or survival magazine back in the 1980s that the saw-backed bayonets were intended to help soldiers cut the stakes on barb wire fences while remaining in the trench.
 
I recall reading a number of times that the sawbacks were oringinally intended to be used (primarily) for cutting notches in wood. That way, rope and twine used to lash together small-game traps and improvised tents wouldn't slip.
 
Most of the sawbacks i ever tried would notch wood and not much more. I worked with people in the eighties that spent lots of money on these knives and were never satified.

Thanks
 
I have found the sawback on my knife very usefull. I like making bows (notching the string nock and cutting a nice recess for the arrow rest), arrows (slotting the tip for a headand cutting the nock end square ), spears (slotting the tip for a head), traps (trigger mechanisms) and I also like trimming the ends of sticks on my campcraft gadgets. Also good for making sawdust! So I guess the sawback is useful to some and not to others.
 
Personally I like the sawbacks when they are done right. I admit they aren't perfect but they do add an extra "tool" to your survival kit. I have used the saws on US pilot Survival knives for field expediant filing when making other tools such as traps. Also they can help with making more acurate cuts when transforming materials such as plastics and bone. I have used models from Lile, Parrish, Randall, Reeve, and a bunch of production models. None worked as well as a nice carpenter's saw or Stihl chainsaw, but they did work. The old arguement that they weaken a blade is theoretically true but if you use the tool for what it was designed for it will serve you just fine.
 
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