Why the hate for serrations?

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Love 'em ! They just cut faster and more efficiently , especially tough fibrous material .

Hate 'em ! When they finally get too dull to cut . Hard to sharpen back to original "factory" edge .

Spyderco type easier by far to sharpen than Cold Steel type , for me .

 

I don't Hate them but I feel that the Cons outweigh pros. Examples for the Good aspects: Sarations saw threw rope and heavy materials easier than most knife edges. The Bad: Sarations catch on materials like cardboard when performing draw cuts. They are a pain in the A to sharpen even when made properly and many are not. They require additional tools to sharpen . If the sarations are made aggressively the tips will bend if they come in contact with something hard like a box staple. And last but the Worst: They are right in the path of my finger when I do the one hand close or when fidget flipping and take nice little chunks of flesh out of my fingers . That said they definitely have a purpose and if I was a first responder, scuba diving, dealing with rope often, or anything nautical I wouldn't leave home without one.

 

I actually prefer the Emerson serrations on my CQC 15 to the Spyderco serrations on my Endura both can be sharpened with round ceramic rods but the the recurve on Emerson makes cutting straps a single motion vs two on the Endura.

 

I just don't like them. Straight sharp blade is good enough for me.

 

They serve no purpose for me so I don't want any usable edge area decreased by their presence, nor do I want the sharpening issue.

I see some people have posted legitimate uses/needs for them and that's fine, I know why they exist. But they're not for me.

 

At my old job I received numerous totes on a daily basis that were sealed with zip-ties...

my old Spyderco partially-serrated Military was a champ cutting these....

I now carry plain-edge millies... But partially-serrated blades appealed to the "mall-ninja" in me....

 

If I were to need a serrated edge, it would be to cut something "difficult." If I foresaw cutting something difficult as routine/semi-routine I would just buy a budget knife with partial serrations to use for that task. I wouldn't buy a nice/premium/custom knife with serrations.

I used a CRKT Fossil with Veff serrations at work and it was great for that. I did not carry it otherwise.

 

I agonized over my decision to reblade my new-to-me used Contego. What I really wanted was the Knifeworks m390 blade on my basic 810. I found this was not going to happen, BM's policy and I see the business wisdom in that policy. The original blade was combo. I intended to have this one in my vehicle as a rescue knife so I went with the combo on the new blade. The decision not to get the new blade as plain edge didn't sit well with me for the longest time. Now I'm ok with it. It is an anomaly in my arsenal but I appreciate it for what it is. Hopefully I'll never have to use it in the rescue capacity but I feel good about strap cutting with the combo edge.

I keep trying to talk myself into the Knifeworks edition for the m390 but it probably won't happen. I'm not a fan of the ostentatious handle, which also does not come with the glass breaker. Now that I'm thinking about it, a highly polished combo edge m390 blade on a plain black handle 810 with glass breaker would be the shizz!

 

I don't love or hate blade serrations. In fact, I've never actually used any of the knives that I own that have any serrations (partial or full) on the blade.

I bought many of the knives I have w/serrations on them simply because I thought they looked better that way (or they were the only version of the knife that I wanted at that time). Some examples of that are the rare G10 Lum Tanto w/partial serrations that I recently bought and the various CRKT knives (like the Fossil and M21-14SFG) with the really aggressive Veff serrations on them.

I'm a knife collector, so serrations are entirely a matter of looks to me. Never, ever plan to use them. So, it's irrelevant to me how well the cut or not and how difficult they may be to resharpen.

However, FWIW, those few knives that I actually use only have plain edged blades.

 

I don’t think anyone here will give anyone else too hard a time for carrying a serrated blade. It’s all preference. I’ve found that some things (that hard green banding that some lumber has and poly rope) will cut easier with a semi-dull serrated edge then a razor sharp plain edge.

 

I'm a *huge* Victorinox fan, but no one in the Army--expert or otherwise--"selected" this knife. A third party vendor merely jumped through the appropriate hoops to get this knife assigned a National Stock Number and get it entered into FED LOG, which allows this knife to be ordered through military supply channels from said vendor. There are tons of such items with little or no "military purpose" in the supply system. For example, on my bookshelf I have a hockey puck with a NSN stamped on it.

Back to the original question, *I* rarely perform tasks where a serrated edge would perform better than a good, sharp "plain" edge, and for many of the cutting tasks I need a knife for a serrated edge would be a disadvantage. Others' mileage may vary.

 

I used to have a couple of serrated edged (SE) in my EDC rotation. Whenever I carried SE, there were often moments I wished I had brought a plain edged (PE) instead. When I carry a PE, I have never wished I had brought a SE instead. So I quit SE blades for EDC and carry PE exclusively...never looked back.

 

The only serrations I consider to be done 'correctly' are those on the large Victorinoxes.

Anything else is just nonsense IMO.

 

As a retired medic I can see a need for an SE knife but, for most people and most situations, a plain edge is more practical, IMHO. I even own a couple of serrated knives. A Spyderco Rescue is one of them and the other is a full size Griptilian with a combo edge. I will admit, there are plans to replace the blade in the Grip this year.

I also a Leatherman Wave and a couple of modified Gerber multi-tools that offer me full serrated blades instead of the combo edges that Gerber is so fond of. Having a modified Gerber in the Jeep Cherokee is usually more serrated knife than I ever need.

 

Serrations = "saw".
They don't cut, they rip.
If I need a saw, I'll grab a real saw; not a knife.

 

I only like them full length, and a well executed design. It's a rare occasion I'll need them, but I do enjoy my Aqua Salt. It's great on the boat for cutting the line if the need arises. I find it safer too.

 

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Very interesting thread. As far as me is concerned only two of my (fixed) blades have serrations… (from a fleet of many…).

BUT, I would like to put again the question:

The German Army had as a standard knife the “108 mm GAK” with a blade with no serrations.
According to https://sakwiki.com/tiki-index.php?page=GAK : It was first issued in 1976, and continued to be used until 2003, with the introduction of the new 111 OH GAK (actually the One Soldier Knife with military green scales). The last one has serrations….

They had the option to choose from a non-serrated blade (The Victorinox Trailmaster - known as the Trekker in North America) but they preferred the blade with serrations.

Furthermore, I noticed that US Army selected also the half-serrated type of OneHandTrekker.... (see: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/victorinox-gets-us-military-knife-contract.1506927/ ).

Selecting a serrated blade, obviously all of them had something in their minds... I suppose...
What is your opinion?