What's the most effective grind for EDC use?

#16 452

#16 452

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What's the most effective blade grind for EDC use? I've used knives everyday for years and never gave it mich thought until i started carrying 2 knives with different blade geometry. Knife one is my tough work user. A Spearpoint flatgroung Spyderco Lil'T It excels on firm cuting jobs where the material doesn't give much. i.e. Thick cardboard or paperboard. It also however isn' a great whittler. By that I mean when trying to whittle a point on a 1 inch thick oak branch it wouldn't cut as deep as my 440V Spyderco Native. The native features a Hollow gring and while It isn't as quick on cardboard, it works better on carving at wood and has a much finer tip than my flatground knives. Both seem to work the same on hemp rope and food prep. I've also had a true chisel ground CQC7B from Emerson knives. It got sharper than both (I suspect because of the chisel gride) but had limited cutting ability on wood carving and cardboard. It's the lighter of my knives so in hot weather it usualy rides with me dispite it's few limitations. Any other grinds out there that are worth looking into for EDC? I have a Flatground Strider GB on it's way but I'd lik ethat to be SD only and I'm looking for a nice Gents folder for what I really use my knives for. ATTACKING BOXES AND PACKAGE TAPE. it's a scary world out there the damn boxes.
 
Well Dennis, if you are not looking at cutting to deeply, I think that a hollow grind will do a little better job than a flat or convex grind. The blade is thinner just above the edge and this helps with the type of cutting you are looking at doing. If a flat ground blade is thin enough, it will also do an excellent job. After all, the blades on those boxcutters are flat.
 
I'm thinking about the William Henry Lancet . Decent prices and the ones I've held at the Chesapeake Knife and Tool in Annapolis ae second to none in every way.
 
More of a factor than the type of grind is how the grind is executed. A shallow hollow grind for example which leaves a thick edge will be readily outcut on all tasks by a convex grind which tapers to a fine edge.

If you want high cutting performance get a knife with an acute edge angle which is thin right behind the edge, and has the thinnest blade stock that is functional. An Opinel is a good place to start, and is really cheap besides.

-Cliff
 
For the type of chores you are looking at doing I am in full agreement with Cliff. The Opinel is a great choice. At the price you will not be worried about what might happen if there happens to be a staple or two in the box you are opening. The WH will do a great job and if you are comfortable using it as box opener/cutter.
 
All of my weekday carry knives have fairly thin, pointy blades. The grind is of little importance to me except that some grinds make sharpening more difficult and use of a particular grind can give a knife a certain look (e.g. Sebenza).
The William Henry Lancet is a nice little workday knife. The thin blade and spearpoint is very handy for an office environment. I want something a little beefier for skinning packages and chopping up boxes so I use a BM940S for that that task. Lately I have been carrying my Delta-Z/Darrel Ralph Osprey during the day. It is still in the relm of "gentleman's knife" but the blade has several distinct areas that make it a good all-purpose blade. The tip tapers toward the point making it good for opening plastic-enclosed items. The rear portion the blade is a concave curve about where the serrations would be on other knives. I find this excellent for zipping open envelopes because the curve holds the edge of the cut for the entire stroke. The blade also has a bit of a convex belly so it can chop and cut things against a surface.
 
I'm also in firm agreement with Cliff on the type of grind for EDC. For EDC, I want a knife that will cut everything really well (i.e., with high performance), and while I might want it to be able to serve as a backup defensive knife in a pinch, I'm not going to be subjecting it to super heavy use. For this, my top choice is a knife with a full flat grind (not a sabre grind!), second choice being a well-executed hollow grind that leaves the edge thin. In addition, I tend to prefer a fine-grained steel that can take a really sharp edge (VG-10, etc.).

The William Henry Lancet probably fits the bill generally for what you're looking for. It's a very handsome gents' knife, I'd love to own one myself. However, also consider the Spyderco Calypso Jr. lightweight: although it's nowhere near as handsome as the WH, it will give you better handle for slightly harder use (including multiple choice of grips for finer work), better steel, better edge geometry, easier opening, and a much cheaper price. I think these are being discontinued, so grab one while you can. You will absolutely love it for what you've described. It would be practically criminal for a knife knut whose jobs spec out like yours do, not to have one of these.


Joe
 
Whether a high-hollow grind or a full flat grind, I find either works best when the overall profile (height) of the blade is shallower rather than taller.

There are some exceptions to this, such as when you are making very long cuts in fibrous material, like carpet or other kinds of flooring. Then I find that a blade with a high profile helps guide the blade and provides additional control, like surfing.

The weaker performers (offer less precison and control) are those with thick blade stock (3mm or greater) and a sabre grind.

For simple EDC stuff, I find that the Chris Reeve Mnandi is a great performer and I prefer this over the William Henry Lancet, which will "wobble" through longer cuts. I also now carry a Klotzli Sailor knife, which has a fairly high hollow grind a small amount of full blade thickness at the top. This is sturdier than the Mnandi, approaching that of the CRK Small Senbenza. The Klotzli has a thin lighweight handle, which is great for disappearing in your pocket, but provides nowhere near the grip stability of the Small Sebenza.
 
Architect :

... I find either works best when the overall profile (height) of the blade is shallower rather than taller.
Click to expand...

Yes, I have a lot of wider blades, however as of late I have been slanting towards narrower stock to increase both cutting ability and control. Thicker stock lowers the ability of the knife to turn in materials, which is why paring knives are so narrow. Essentially, the highest cutting profiles are on the older multi-blade knives with very slim and acute edge profiles. Of course, there are advantages to more steel, either in width or thickness, as it adds strength, but for most cutting, not a lot of strength is actually needed.

-Cliff
 
I hear what you're saying about wide versus narrow, but ... I find that the Spyderco Calypso/endura type shape, which is wide at one point, but tapers to a very sharp point, generally extremely useful. The wider blade excels on food prep, which I tend to do plenty of with my EDC. Well, except for the kind of food prep that favors a narrow blade (e.g., cutting a soft spot out of a peach), which is solved with a sharp tip. For jobs best-suited for a narrow blade, I favor the tip, which is narrow and incredibly sharp (sharper than, say, the Mnandi and Lancet) for the first half inch or so.

While there are jobs that would favor a blade that is narrow the entire way through, I tend not to run into them so much that the endura-type shape doesn't work well. Instead, the wide-at-the-back/narrow-at-the-tip solution has really been working for me. Plus, the wider-at-the-back accomodates a higher blade hole for easier opening, which I value a lot and overcomes the rare minor inconvenience of this blade shape.

Anyway, I'm not arguing with you guys, obviously the type of work you do will strongly influence what blade shape works best. If I take Spyderco out of the picture, so the blade hole and endura-style shape is not part of the picture, then I too might choose narrow over wide.

Joe
 
Ease of opening is obviously a pretty big disadvantage of the radically slim blades as you are pretty much left with nail nicks. Regarding cutting ability, the loss of performance due to a wider blade is very small compared to other factors like angle and thickness of edge, so it is definately what I would look for last. It is mainly critical when you want to be able to turn the blade in the material being cut. As you note you can do a decent job at that if you stick with the point on the tapered blade.

Yes, a lot of it is what you do and how much of it that you do. A friend of mine had a job which involved breaking down a lot of cardboard and he could readily notice the difference between a very slim blade (SAK) vs something like the Endura, both with similar edge profiles. I have also cut a lot of insulation with wider blades, however when I used to work doing the same thing eight hours a day, I had a very different standard for cutting performance, the small increase in drag won't be noticed on a cut or two, but pile up a few thousand and your wrist will feel the difference.

I noticed your post on rec.knives on the multi-tool faq, but it went away before I got a chance to respond. I think the ideal way to do this would be to use Bladeforums to get responces on the left out tools and then just edit them. If this seems sensible to you, and you want, I can take this over, just send me the current version and I'll make a post to this effect. I still say you should get the rest published. They set a rather strong foundation for understanding the how and why of knife performance.

-Cliff
 
For jobs like food prep I vstly prefer a wider blade. For rugular utility chores, a slimmer blade will do just fine. The 710HS is slimmer than the Sebenza, with a more acute tip, but I have not seen adifference in performance from that aspect.

What is the Mulit-tool FAQ project???
Chad
 
Cliff,

Yes, I could see how cutting the same thing over and over again would start to favor the narrower blade. On the other hand, I tend to think of the term "EDC" as applying to your everyday, general-use knife. Once I know I'm doing something over and over, I'm going to use a more special-purpose knife to do it.

I'm sitting here working on the Steel FAQ as we speak, in fact I posted an early draft on rec.knives, and plan to re-post here and on knifeforums as well. Thanks for your comments, BTW. Since I'm not convinced that having a FAQ is the best way to approach Multitools, I'm not motivated to keep it up, and so I welcome your offer to take it over. I'd like to announce it in rec.knives and go from there.

Joe
 
Originally posted by chad234

What is the Mulit-tool FAQ project???
Chad
Click to expand...

Chad, I authored a collection of FAQs on rec.knives years ago. They are currently widely re-distributed across the web, you can find them here on bladeforums. They cover steels, blade geometry, sharpening, etc. One of the FAQs is on multitools, and the differences between various tools. I feel that the Multitool FAQ made sense back when there were 10 or 15 tools, but now that there are dozens of variations, the FAQ format doesn't make sense anymore. I've tried to retire the Multitool FAQ a few times, but the rec.knives readers like the format and don't want to let it die, so I asked if anyone else would like to take it over, since I've completely ignored it and it's totally out-of-date at this point.

Joe
 
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