Why the "backwards" lefty chisel grind ? Just seems wrong !

Esav Benyamin said:
Nope. Kershaw had the same bottle-opener hook on the back of the blade first, but for whatever reason never challenged Emerson on "prior art". I still have my Kershaw, great little knife: ATS-34, titanium slabs over full steel liners.
Click to expand...

That's just weird ! Emerson certainly holds the patent . Why would Kershaw let so much $$$ slip away ?
 
I do wish the edge was ground on the other side so that it would be easier to carve wood. Having said that, Emerson knives aren't marketed as bushcraft blades, so I don't let it bother me. I prefer a fixed blade when I'm in the woods anyway. As for most everything I cut when I'm not in the woods, I don't find that it makes that much of a difference. My Commander cuts cardboard, hose, rope, strap, food, and so on, just fine.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
Nope. Kershaw had the same bottle-opener hook on the back of the blade first, but for whatever reason never challenged Emerson on "prior art". I still have my Kershaw, great little knife: ATS-34, titanium slabs over full steel liners.
Click to expand...

Are you referring to the Kershaw Talon? Wasn't the model that had the bottle opener tip down only thus making it not setup to wave? Unlike the Emerson wave the Kershaw one can apparently readily opens bottles. It is a bottle opener that doubles as a wave. Emersons have a wave that doubles as a bottle opener. Sounds similar but the Emerson wave is terrible at doing duty as a cap lifter.
 
Last edited:
Kershaw Talon. Kershaw didn't lose money, martial arts guys begged them to continue making them. They had so much more still selling they weren't worried.

They had a sister piece, the Starkey Ridge, with a regular blade, and the ATS-34, ti handle, steel liners. The end of the tang was jimped. Put your thumb on the jimping and rotate and the blade opened up and locked.

Hold an Emerson around the handle, gripping the length of the blade, and tip up or down doesn't matter: pop the top off another beer!
 
Esav Benyamin said:
Kershaw Talon. Kershaw didn't lose money, martial arts guys begged them to continue making them. They had so much more still selling they weren't worried.

They had a sister piece, the Starkey Ridge, with a regular blade, and the ATS-34, ti handle, steel liners. The end of the tang was jimped. Put your thumb on the jimping and rotate and the blade opened up and locked.

Hold an Emerson around the handle, gripping the length of the blade, and tip up or down doesn't matter: pop the top off another beer!
Click to expand...

I probably use my wave more for this than actually what it was intended for.
 
I love the chisel grind but boy is the Spyderco Leaf blade nice too.
rolf
 
1. Maybe it was for the knife glamour shots that seem to be uniformly and ubiquitously on the left side of the blade.

2. Maybe it was so that a right handed operator scraping material off of a steel hull in preparation for mating a limpet mine could have the barnacles, etc. fall away from the blade's edge.

3. Maybe it was for some super-secret reason that is need-to-know compartmentalized and therefore cannot be disclosed.

4. Maybe it is the way in which magnetic forces in the electrolytes of the human body - majority of which being right handed, interact at the molecular level with the structure of the blade in such a way as to provide a tactical advantage (however slight it may be) for the grind to be as it is.

Maybe the further one strays from point 1. the harder it is to believe ... I mean understand.

Whichever way it is, I do appreciate Emerson knives and vote with not only my money but with my pocket real estate as well.

All of that said, I do wish that the chisel grinds and edges would be the other way.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
Kershaw Talon. Kershaw didn't lose money, martial arts guys begged them to continue making them. They had so much more still selling they weren't worried.

They had a sister piece, the Starkey Ridge, with a regular blade, and the ATS-34, ti handle, steel liners. The end of the tang was jimped. Put your thumb on the jimping and rotate and the blade opened up and locked.

Hold an Emerson around the handle, gripping the length of the blade, and tip up or down doesn't matter: pop the top off another beer!
Click to expand...

I was referring to the way the Kershaw Talon came in multiple models. They had a version with thumbstuds and a version with a bottle opener where an Emerson wave would be. The version with the bottle opener where the wave would be came with a metal body (not sure if steel or Ti) and was only equipped for tip down, thus making it not able to be waved from a position clipped to the pocket. The G10 version came tip up oddly.

The way that I try to use my Emerson waves to open bottles is with the knife closed just use the wave like you would use any other bottle opener. But for some reason I have terrible luck opening bottles with it. The wave seems to be too small to get a good grip on most beer bottle tops. My Spyderco Endura's wave on the other hand is a phenomenal bottle opener.
 
Lapedog said:
I was referring to the way the Kershaw Talon came in multiple models. They had a version with thumbstuds and a version with a bottle opener where an Emerson wave would be. The version with the bottle opener where the wave would be came with a metal body (not sure if steel or Ti) and was only equipped for tip down, thus making it not able to be waved from a position clipped to the pocket. The G10 version came tip up oddly.

The way that I try to use my Emerson waves to open bottles is with the knife closed just use the wave like you would use any other bottle opener. But for some reason I have terrible luck opening bottles with it. The wave seems to be too small to get a good grip on most beer bottle tops. My Spyderco Endura's wave on the other hand is a phenomenal bottle opener.
Click to expand...
Same here.

I use my Emerson to open bottles, but I simply open it and use the spine against the underneath of the cap and sort of twist it upward.

Works great.
 
Using the spine like that to open bottles will work with pretty much any knife featuring a spine.
 
SALTY said:
1. Maybe it was for the knife glamour shots that seem to be uniformly and ubiquitously on the left side of the blade.

2. Maybe it was so that a right handed operator scraping material off of a steel hull in preparation for mating a limpet mine could have the barnacles, etc. fall away from the blade's edge.

3. Maybe it was for some super-secret reason that is need-to-know compartmentalized and therefore cannot be disclosed.

4. Maybe it is the way in which magnetic forces in the electrolytes of the human body - majority of which being right handed, interact at the molecular level with the structure of the blade in such a way as to provide a tactical advantage (however slight it may be) for the grind to be as it is.

Maybe the further one strays from point 1. the harder it is to believe ... I mean understand.

Whichever way it is, I do appreciate Emerson knives and vote with not only my money but with my pocket real estate as well.

All of that said, I do wish that the chisel grinds and edges would be the other way.
Click to expand...

I really naively thought my question would have a simple and straightforward explanation , alas !

EE hisownself , seems evasive / defensive ." It doesn't matter" and " It's proven to work " are NOT answers to " why did you do it ? "

Hell maybe it was just cheaper to manufacture that way and nobody wants to just admit it ?
 
You sound like my kinda guy Jamesh Bond. :)

About EE answering "it doesn't matter" I want to say it kind of doesn't. Emersons were never made to be knives for making accurate straight line cuts. It isn't a work, hobby or craft knife. They are made to be tough knives first used mainly for military or law enforcement/ first responder type uses. Military uses for a knife consist mainly of opening MREs. Their other designed purpose is that they should be able to be used as a defensive knife in a pinch. In a defensive cut it hardly matters which side the grind is on. What matters is the knife is sharp and easy to make sharp again, both benefits of chisel grinds. As it doesn't matter which side the grind is on for these tyoe of uses Emerson felt like why not put it on the side that he felt looked better.

Now maybe it is possible he understood nothing about grind geometry when he started making his first tactical knives and is just too stubborn to change up his style now. There are much better designed knives that are made to make straighter more neat cuts. Just use an Emerson as a rugged work/ SD knife and you won't care what side the grind is on either. Atleast not as much.
 
Lapedog said:
You sound like my kinda guy Jamesh Bond. :)

About EE answering "it doesn't matter" I want to say it kind of doesn't. Emersons were never made to be knives for making accurate straight line cuts. It isn't a work, hobby or craft knife. They are made to be tough knives first used mainly for military or law enforcement/ first responder type uses. Military uses for a knife consist mainly of opening MREs. Their other designed purpose is that they should be able to be used as a defensive knife in a pinch. In a defensive cut it hardly matters which side the grind is on. What matters is the knife is sharp and easy to make sharp again, both benefits of chisel grinds. As it doesn't matter which side the grind is on for these tyoe of uses Emerson felt like why not put it on the side that he felt looked better.

Now maybe it is possible he understood nothing about grind geometry when he started making his first tactical knives and is just too stubborn to change up his style now. There are much better designed knives that are made to make straighter more neat cuts. Just use an Emerson as a rugged work/ SD knife and you won't care what side the grind is on either. Atleast not as much.
Click to expand...
Word, LD.

I agree with those sentiments to the T.

Fun story: last weekend I went hiking/rock hunting and found a cool little barrel cactus. I had nothing else, so I used my 7A to carefully dig it out of the dirt and rocks.

Even tho I was gentle, I expected to see a lot of edge damage, but there was none. I just reached over to the nearest smooth rock (quartz) and touched up the blade.

I poop you not, the blade still shaves after that, and the only scratches are couple small snail trails on the main bevel from scraping some hidden rocks.

I would have never attempted that with a Spyderco! And I fear the Spyderco wouldn't have fared as well.

It is in these improvised kinds of situations where Emersons shine.

Less than optimal cutting ability is a decent trade off for durability.

And frankly, if a guy has any cutting skills or common sense whatsoever, it shouldn't be hard to do some fancier stuff as well. Hell, later that day, I made a bow/drill just to see if I could.

It can be done!
😱
 
Last edited:
I want to thank all posters . I think I'm beginning a little to understand the special mystique of the Emerson Enthusiast . I'd previously heard much grousing about the expense and the many problems associated with ownership but with a fierce loyalty and faith in the ultimate performance . Like Volvo owners , maybe?
 
Esav Benyamin said:
Nope. Kershaw had the same bottle-opener hook on the back of the blade first, but for whatever reason never challenged Emerson on "prior art". I still have my Kershaw, great little knife: ATS-34, titanium slabs over full steel liners.
Click to expand...
That's an interesting one.
Thanks, I learned something.

As far as having the bevel on the left side for right handed users (viewed from the user's perspective) . . . it is clearly a diet aide . . . as you start the cut it appears you are cutting off a nice thick slice (so the mind is satisfied) but as the blade travels downward the slice gets thinner and thinner because of the unbalanced wedging action of the wedge all being on the left side driving the edge to the right (so the slice has, in fact, fewer calories) ! Thinner slices that appear hefty. Sort of.

When facts and accuracy matter.

As far as the whittling scenario : Having the bevel on the side that it is allows one to carve with the edge so you could pare out a concave curve with it on the end of the stick etc., (which you could also do with a double edged blade) if you cared to where as having the non beveled side flat on the stick point is going to limit one to cutting along a flat plane although you can steepen the angle of the cut or make the surface convex.
 
I like my Emerson CQC-10 but I could not deal with the chisel or what Emerson calls a V-grind. I put it in the Wicked Edge, and put even bevels on it. The knife is one of my favorites now. I use my knives for my job and I need a conventional V-grind.
 
Sigguy said:
I like my Emerson CQC-10 but I could not deal with the chisel or what Emerson calls a V-grind. I put it in the Wicked Edge, and put even bevels on it. The knife is one of my favorites now. I use my knives for my job and I need a conventional V-grind.
Click to expand...

If you don't mind the cheaper steel, the kershaw emerson 4KXL is about the size of the 10 but has a thumb disc.

Yes, I've always wondered about why chisels on the ones he makes with primary v bevels.

Anyway, I've just discovered my cqc-7 is great for steak. My fork is in my left hand. Lol!
 
Maybe big E is a lefty at heart and is in his right mind to begin with. I do have a lefty 7 with a lefty ground blade it's nice but it just sits in a drawer. I'm really not too crazy about it though and miss my pimped 10 that went into the river with it's v ground edge.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top