{"id":4766,"date":"2019-01-10T20:10:19","date_gmt":"2019-01-11T02:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/?p=4766"},"modified":"2019-01-10T20:10:19","modified_gmt":"2019-01-11T02:10:19","slug":"knife-grinds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/?p=4766","title":{"rendered":"Knife Grinds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

*NOTE: This is a transcript of my segment from Assorted Calibers Podcast episode 33<\/a>*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welcome to Oddball\u2019s\ncorner pocket. This week, I thought I\u2019d talk about the various\ngrinds that are commonly used and why you would use one over the\nother. Oh, and if you\u2019re into drinking games, you can take a shot\nevery time I say \u201cgrind\u201d in this segment. Warning: you may get\nalcohol poisoning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, I think I\nshould probably explain what I mean by \u201cthe grind.\u201d While there\nare some knives where the thickness of the knife blade is the same at\nthe spine as it is where the edge, or bevel actually starts, it\u2019s\nfairly standard for the knife\u2019s material to thin out at some point,\nso that it\u2019s thicker at the spine than at the bevel. More material\nat the spine means that the knife is stronger, but a thinner blade\nmakes it easier to slice through things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Probably the most\ncommon is the saber grind. As the name implies, this was the\nstandard grind with swords like the saber, and is kind of the default\nfor knives. The sides of the blade are roughly parallel with each\nother at the spine. At some point, the grind starts with a very\nshallow angle on both sides, and then that angle is changed to a\nsteeper bevel right at the edge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like I said, this is\npretty much the default, and it\u2019s pretty much the middle ground of\nall the grinds that I\u2019m going to talk about. There\u2019s other\noptions that are better slicers, but aren\u2019t a strong. Others are\nstronger, but harder to make and keep as sharp, etc. Honestly,\nwhatever the purpose of the knife, I don\u2019t think you would be going\nwrong with this grind. It\u2019s also basically the grind that most\nother grinds are based on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The one that might\nbe considered more basic is the scandigrind. Basically, a\nscandigrind is a saber grind that skips out on bevel at the edge of\nthe blade. This results in the angle at the edge being extremely\nnarrow. This makes the knife an excellent slicer that can be\nextremely sharp. Unfortunately, there are a couple issues with this\ndesign. The first being the problem with any knife with a very\nnarrow edge: namely, a more fragile edge. It doesn\u2019t seem to be a\nhuge deal, if the manufacturer knows what they\u2019re doing, but I\u2019ve\nseen reports of well known knife makers come out with a scandigrind\nknife that constantly had it\u2019s edge roll on people. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another issue is\nthat a lot of folks have issues with sharpening this type of grind. \nIt\u2019s not so much that it\u2019s difficult, but that folks don\u2019t\nunderstand what they have. If you have one of these knives, and you\nwant to sharpen it, just think of the edge as the entire grind. \nSharpening it at more traditional angles will probably actually dull\nthe blade. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This grind\u2019s name\ncomes from the fact that it\u2019s incredible popular with Scandinavian\nknife manufacturers. In fact, the traditional Finnish Puuko knife\nuses this style grind. Of course, I can\u2019t mention the scandigrind\nwithout mentioning Mora knives, and their excellent budget knives. \nSome other knife companies that put out good knives using this grind\nare Helle, and Marttini.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, if we go back to\nthat saber grind, and push that initial angle all the way to the\nspine, we\u2019ve got a full flat grind. The advantage of this is that\nthe initial angle can be a little shallower. This makes it a little\nbetter at slicing, even though the angle of the actual edge may not\nchange. Since the angle of the grind isn\u2019t much different than a\ngood saber grind on a similar knife, you\u2019re also not losing much\nstrength to the blade. I have been noticing that Spyderco has been\nputting out a lot of full flat grind knives in the past few years,\nand some other companies have pushed the initial grind on their saber\ngrinds so far back that they might as well be full flat grinds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The classic way to\nhave a better slicer than the saber grind is what\u2019s called a hollow\ngrind. With a hollow grind, instead of having a set, straight angle\nto your grind, the grind is actually a concave curve. This means\nthat the blade thins out very quickly, and stays at that narrow\nthickness right up to the bevel. I\u2019ve seen this style grind on a\nlot of kitchen knives, and it does make for excellent slicers. Oh,\nand the stereotypical old fashioned, fold out razor blade is a hollow\ngrind. The downside is that, since more of the blade is thinner, it\ncan make for a more fragile knife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other side of\nthe coin is the convex grind. The best way to describe this is to\nthink of a spitzer bullet shape. That\u2019s basically the shape down\nthe edge of the blade. That rounded edge means that there\u2019s a lot\nof metal behind the cutting edge, which means that the edge will be\npretty durable. The downside, as you can probably guess, is that\nit\u2019s a harder grind to get super sharp. The definition of this\ngrind has more to do with the actual edge than the rest of the\nblade\u2019s construction. So it\u2019s possible to have a convex saber\ngrind, or convex full flat grind, etc. This grind is pretty much the\ndefault for axes, meat cleavers, and other blades where they\u2019re\nused primarily for chopping and will probably hit something hard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last grind that\nI\u2019m going to talk about is the chisel grind. It\u2019s the one grind\non this list that\u2019s not essentially based on the saber grind. \nSimply put, this is the grind that you\u2019d find on a chisel. One\nside of the knife is completely flat, while the other side slopes\ndown to meet it. This means that the apex of the blades edge is\nactually off center, and the blade will tend to cut in that\ndirection. If you\u2019re going to sharpen one, other than making sure\nthat the flat side remains flat, you should only sharpen the sloped\nside. This is generally considered a specialty grind were you\u2019re\nusing the tool to dig into something (like a chisel) or needing the\nsheering action of something like scissors. There are a couple\ninstances where I\u2019ve seen this grind used in knives. The most\ncommon is in very cheap blades, like my Leatherman Micra (by the way,\nI may rant about sub-par blades on otherwise good multi-tools in the\nfuture). Oddly enough, the other use I\u2019ve seen has been in some\nhigh-end traditional Japanese kitchen knives. Due to the way a\nchisel grind cuts, these knives are actually labeled for right hand\nor left hand use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think that just\nabout covers all the common grinds you\u2019ll find, so I\u2019ll stop\nhere. Oh, and if you did decide to do the drinking game and are\nstill upright: grind, grind, grind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

*NOTE: This is a transcript of my segment from Assorted Calibers Podcast episode 33* Welcome to Oddball\u2019s corner pocket. This week, I thought I\u2019d talk about the various grinds that are commonly used and why you would use one over the other. Oh, and if you\u2019re into drinking games, you can take a shot every […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4766\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunscarstech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}