There appears to be a demand for ever-thicker blade stock in production knives. Not sure if a single factor is driving this, but a theory based on talking to people, reading knife marketing material, and chatting in BF forums, is that there's a common idea that "thicker is better." Maybe this was sparked by the 'survival' and 'hard use' marketing trends, which have grown fast the last 20 years or so. The stereotypical case of a knife like this is the 'sharpened prybar' concept, typically a blade of 0.20 to 0.25 or thicker stock, promoted as being an all-purpose survival knife that you can pry, dig, hack, and chop with, in addition to using for more mundane knife tasks. This trend also influences folders, you hear the term "overbuilt" and with some production folders--some ZT models are good examples--you see really thick blade stock.
My theory is that for most common knife usage (kitchen, utility, hunting, EDC, etc.) we actually might want to return to "thinner is better" (when I say thinner, I mean compared to the quite thick blades that are so popular today). I think in many cases, we could use thinner blade stock, and lower angle grinds on things as well for the ways most of us commonly use our blades. Recently I was blown away to compare a cheap little Kershaw Chill with super thin blade stock, to a $240 "overbuilt" ZT folder with a super thick primary grind and over 0.160 at the spine. Now, I like both of these knives for different reasons. But when it comes to actual cutting/slicing performance in common tasks, that little Kershaw blows the ZT out of the water (both have recently sharpened 15 dps nice edges on them). Name a cutting or slicing task, the Kershaw does it better. No question, not even close. And I've heard this from multiple users on the thick ZT grinds, esp the 0561 and 0562 blades. This is why Josh at Razor Edge knives does a massive business regrinding these.
Finally, I've also noticed these thinner blades are just faster and easier to sharpen, so there's another reason to consider returning to more thin blades.
One last observation. Recently I visited a museum in the Midwest. It featured 19th century life, including tools and cutting implements used by both farmers/settlers, and by the Native Americans who lived in the area. Here's something that impressed me: a lot of the Native American stone-based cutting tools were QUITE thin. Surely they needed robust tough tools for certain digging/chopping tasks too, but when it came to cutting tasks, those folks were very practical and went "mostly thin" with their knives.
So there it is: For general purpose knives, should we promote a return to thinner blade stock, as well as lower sharpening angles, for improving cutting performance and ease of maintenance?
My theory is that for most common knife usage (kitchen, utility, hunting, EDC, etc.) we actually might want to return to "thinner is better" (when I say thinner, I mean compared to the quite thick blades that are so popular today). I think in many cases, we could use thinner blade stock, and lower angle grinds on things as well for the ways most of us commonly use our blades. Recently I was blown away to compare a cheap little Kershaw Chill with super thin blade stock, to a $240 "overbuilt" ZT folder with a super thick primary grind and over 0.160 at the spine. Now, I like both of these knives for different reasons. But when it comes to actual cutting/slicing performance in common tasks, that little Kershaw blows the ZT out of the water (both have recently sharpened 15 dps nice edges on them). Name a cutting or slicing task, the Kershaw does it better. No question, not even close. And I've heard this from multiple users on the thick ZT grinds, esp the 0561 and 0562 blades. This is why Josh at Razor Edge knives does a massive business regrinding these.
Finally, I've also noticed these thinner blades are just faster and easier to sharpen, so there's another reason to consider returning to more thin blades.One last observation. Recently I visited a museum in the Midwest. It featured 19th century life, including tools and cutting implements used by both farmers/settlers, and by the Native Americans who lived in the area. Here's something that impressed me: a lot of the Native American stone-based cutting tools were QUITE thin. Surely they needed robust tough tools for certain digging/chopping tasks too, but when it came to cutting tasks, those folks were very practical and went "mostly thin" with their knives.
So there it is: For general purpose knives, should we promote a return to thinner blade stock, as well as lower sharpening angles, for improving cutting performance and ease of maintenance?
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