Why are all serrations chisel ground?

Lycosa said:
I don't "think" CRK's are.
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Right. I know that the Pacific has the serrations ground on both sides. But, most knives do only have them on one side. I guess tha's all that is really needed. Plus it is cheaper to make them this way.
 
CRK has a new style of serrations cut alternately on opposite sides. My old serrated Sebenza has them on one side only. I imagine it's for economy, but also, can you see lining up serrations cutting them on both sides. :)
 
i have always been under the impression that it is easyer to make a razor sharp blade when the grind is one sided. my chisle ground blades are the sharpest i own, and easiest to re sharpen. i cant see why this wouldnt apply to serrations as well.
 
i hear alot about serrations being hard to sharpen but i do find that most are chisel ground, so a few passes with a ceramic rod can make them sharp enough without having to get crazy with angles and etc.
 
I dunno. I'm guessing that many factories have a hard enough time getting plain edges ground evenly. Trying to get serrations ground symmetrically may be too much of a headache to be worthwhile for most companies. Anybody think this theory holds water?
 
I guess my wording was a bit too strong, but "almost all" are chisel ground. Several of you gave reasons why chisel grinds are nice, but "most" plain edges aren't chisel ground, so we need some reason that applies more to serrations than to plain edges.

I don't know enough about knife manufacturing to say if shecky's theory holds water, but it is a coherent explanation. It doesn't *seem* like it should be hard to grind plain edges evenly, but if it is, i can see serrated edges being much harder due to alignment. If the you try to grind the scallops farther forward on one side than the other, it's gonna come out all messed up looking. How's that for an exercize in 3d visualization?
 
Actually, many factory blades have noticeably uneven bevels from side to side. Add in the difficulty of lining up serrations, and I think that's a fair reason not to bother. Besides, considering what serrations are for, it isn't necessary. Chisel ground plain edges tend to curve away in fine cutting, but a strong cut will go right through, which is what serrations are generally used for.
 
blade_lover228 said:
My chisel ground blades are the sharpest i own, and easiest to re sharpen. I can't see why this wouldn't apply to serrations as well.
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That's not been my experience! My sharpest knives have been V-grind and I've never felt knives sharper than my Cold Steel Voyager (after a few swacks with the Sharpmaker). Despite my blade being five inches, the edge is so razor sharp that it easily cuts a paper to ribbons holding it only with one hand.

Even if you get chisel grind knives sharp, they don't tend to cut straight, and most of them put the beveled part of the blade on the left side, which means that to cut accurately, one has to be a south paw. If you attempt to cut, say, wood with a chisel grind of this type, the material being cut has to pass under the beveled area, which limits the angle you can cut with. If cutting rope, it really makes no difference.

To test knife sharpness, I use these big, thick rolls of toilet paper and cut from the side. My Gerber Paraframe barely cut to the cadrboard center, and my Gerber EZ-Out without serrations did substantially better, but no cigar. My CRKT Desert Cruiser was pathetic (it had a chisel grind) and took two passes to embed itself in the paper. The knives that went through these thick rolls like a light saber were: CRKT S-2, Cold Steel Voyager, Spyderco Native and Byrd Cara Cara. The Voyager and Cara Cara nearly split the roll in half with no effort. I was surprised they cut as deeply and as effortlessly as they did. Using the same knives yielded similar results cutting carboard with the Desert Cruiser faring somewhat better.

I've cut nylon cord, rope and stripped wire and, again, the Gerbers and Desert Cruiser did okay, but the others did much better. The knife that never fails to impress me bigtime, though, is the Byrd Cara Cara. I think that if someone took away all my other knives but the Cara Cara, that I could get along quite well. It's beautiful, rugged, sharp, well crafted, comfortable, easy to sharpen and strong. That they can be made that well for that cheap is really a modern marvel.

The chisel grinds may be fine for some people, but even if I could get one wicked sharp, I just don't like the configuration. It solves no problems and, as far as I can tell, primarily benefits the maker. There are some things a chisel grind isn't well suited for, but a V-grind seems suitable for anything, plus it's easier for the novice to sharpen.

Emerson's web site puts it this way: "Our knives are hard knives meant for hard users. We do not cut many tomatoes. Our tests and those of a major government agency determined that there was no difference between right and left side grinds for use as a tool or weapon. The left side was chosen for purposes of visual cue and reference."

If one used a chisel grind as a tool for exacting detail work, I think he or she would quickly discover that they lacked the ability to do precision work. So, yeah, if you're going to stick the knife into someone or cut their throats, I imagine it makes little difference what blade configuration is used. For me, I'll take V-grind any day because, despite what the CG advocates say, they're much more difficult to sharpen. I've been trying for months and have still not been able to do it.


CG1.jpg


Having the bevel on the right side makes more sense to me for
right handers.
 
Sharpening a knife with serrations chisel ground to alternating sides would be a pain in the ...... The instructions for my Spyderco Sharpmaker say that for a chisel ground knife, serrations included, sharpen the bevelled side of the blade with three passes, then make a single pass with the non-bevelled side. With chisel ground serrations on alternating sides, thats going to be kinda difficult.

Cheers, Acolyte.
 
shecky said:
I dunno. I'm guessing that many factories have a hard enough time getting plain edges ground evenly. Trying to get serrations ground symmetrically may be too much of a headache to be worthwhile for most companies. Anybody think this theory holds water?
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I have to revive this thread to blow my own theory out of the water. I recently bought an interesting set of steak knives that are perfectly symmetrically ground on both sides. All for the princely sum of $.99 at (where else?) the $.99 Store. So, the question remains, if a set of new perfectly symmetrically serrated knives can be made six for a dollar, why can't fancier knives be ground this way?
 
Having the bevel on the right side makes more sense to me for
right handers.[/QUOTE]

I agree with you and much prefer a V-grind but if you must have a chisel edge then for normal cutting with the blade facing away from you the bevel on the right works better - eg many japanese chef knives are sharpened this way

For reverse cutting - drawing the blade towards you as when peeling an apple - the bevel on the left side works better.
 
shecky said:
I recently bought an interesting set of steak knives that are perfectly symmetrically ground on both sides. All for the princely sum of $.99 at (where else?) the $.99 Store. So, the question remains, if a set of new perfectly symmetrically serrated knives can be made six for a dollar, why can't fancier knives be ground this way?
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Are they stamped blades? I can see how mass-produced knives can have tooling made to cut serrations on both sides at once, sort of like the way cheap rotary sharpeners slide the blade between two ceramic wheels.

I don't know how well that would work for more expensive knives produced in shorter runs or if the double-cutters could be moved from production line to production line.

But since chisel-ground serrations don't seem to be as much of a problem for cutting straight as a chisel-ground plain edge, what would be the incentive to do the extra work?
 
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