Pro and cons Scandi grind

[JLKII]

I did not see this discussed in much detail in a search of the forum, so I pose it as a question:

What are the pros and cons of the Scandinavian grind, and when would it be most useful on a knife?

 

[Zanuha]

In my experience, scandi grinds are very simple to sharpen freehand and makes a great carving edge. I don't use my knives in the outdoors all that much, so the only con I can find is that sharpening it makes the grind look pretty bad.

 

[hardheart]

easy to sharpen, and the one grind to the edge gives good control in making shallow cuts in wood.

the scandi grind is about 4 or 5 times more obtuse than a typical flat ground primary, so parting cuts require more force.

 

[HoosierQ]

Pros are many. Easy of resharpening at the same angle. Longevity of the blade over many years of re-sharpening. Mora is a scandi grind...that right there is a huge pro. Easy to touch up in the field with a micro-bevel which can be removed later by going flat on a stone.

Cons in my experience are few. I don't like to use a steel on a scandi but I am starting to get away from the steel on anything but kitchen knives anyway. Presumably the single wide bevel is a little weaker for tough use. That can be mitigated with a micro-bevel or a full-fledged secondary bevel but then it isn't a scandi anymore.

I really like the scandi grind a lot. Get a basic Mora clipper, carbon or stainless, for about $12 and see how the blade performs for you. Step up to about $30 and get the Mora Bushcrafter in 12c27 Sandvik stainless and I'll bet you like it a lot. Scandis are not perfect for every use but they're pretty good at just about everything, and fantastic at most things they are called upon to do.

 

[foxx]

When looking at pics of knives, it's often hard to see a micro bevel. Some convex grinds still have a micro bevel. Most scandi edges do not, at least to my knowledge.

 

[hardheart]

Longevity of the blade over many years of re-sharpening.

how do you mean, more metal is removed when sharpening a scandi. The bevel (area in contact with the stone) is many times wider.

 

[shecky]

Scandi grinds, as exemplified by the Mora knife, are very inexpensive to produce. They yield very sharp edges due to the sufficient acuteness of the single edge bevel and zero edge (this is the key to good performance found in Mora knives, and just about any knife when you get to the nitty gritty). They are simple to sharpen on a flat stone. They allow for maximum lateral blade stiffness when blade stock is relatively thin. Notice Mora knives are less than 1/8" thick. Going full flat or hollow grind on blade stock that thin would yield a blade with significantly less lateral stiffness and durability.

The downsides are that a Scandi grind works less well as the blade stock gets thicker. Also, sharpening, while easy to do, takes more effort, since a wide, flat bevel has to be ground away rather than just a thin secondary bevel.

 

[KeithAM]

easy to sharpen, and the one grind to the edge gives good control in making shallow cuts in wood.

the scandi grind is about 4 or 5 times more obtuse than a typical flat ground primary, so parting cuts require more force.

This reflects my experience as well.

To the OP: you've come to the internet to get opinions on this, and that's fine--it's part of what Bladeforums is about. But since a scandi grind Mora costs less than $20, I think you owe it to yourself to get one, use it, and form your own opinions.

 

[marknett1]

anyone got a pic of a scandi grind

 

[HoosierQ]

I got a pic. This is a scandi grind Roselli Grandfather. The entire grind area that you see is the one and only bevel.

Here is a Mora. A little more typical but not as good a picture. That one and only grind you see goes all the way to the edge. This is the quintessential scandi grind knife.

This is the old original Mora # 1. Ditto on the edge. This blade is laminated.

 

[MTguy]

As others said scandis are incredibly easy to sharpen, you just need to lay the bevel flat on the stone. Very easy to maintain the angle freehand compared to most other grinds.

 

[JLKII]

I think you owe it to yourself to get one, use it, and form your own opinions.

I have a Mora 760, which I sharpened yesterday and am quite impressed with: it is among the sharpest of my extensive collection of cheap knives.

However, I like to seek out the opinions of others to take advantage of their experience, and that is why I posted. One of the things that I like about BF is the very low signal-to-noise ratio of the answers, and that fact that there are very few people whose courtesy leaves something to be desired, e.g., whose answer is a curt "Use the search function" or "Google" and can never bother to post a link to the answer (one of my pet peeves).

So thanks to those who answered, but I would ask if someone would care to comment on the usefulness of a scandi-ground knife for such tasks as general field or camp use, or skinning, and if one was forced to carry only one knife (whoever heard of such heresy ) as in a survival kit, if it would be the best choice of grinds.

 

[cramsey3006]

I've used my Mora clippers for just about anything a knife can be used for. I've cleaned game, prepped food, carves, batoned, whatever. One of the key things is that the blade stock isn't too thick if you want to use if for food, etc. When it gets thicker, you are going to lose some slicing ability. I wouldn't want a blade thicker than 5/32" with a scandi grind. Of course, the Blind Horse Knives Pathfinder knife by Dave Canterbury is 3/16" and gets tremendously great reviews.

I've used them with and without a micro bevel. Frosts of Sweden themselves recommend a secondary micro bevel of 20 degrees or so if you're going to use the knife as a general purpose blade. If you are going to use it to work wood extensively, then the 0 degree bevel is recommended.

I would be absolutely comfortable with a scandi bevel on a survival knife. It can't get any simpler to field sharpen a knife. You have a wide bevel keeping the angle correct, VS a tiny bevel on any other type of grind. If you don't have a sharpener with you, touching up your blade on a flat stone or rock is going to be MUCH easier with the wide bevel than it would be without it.

 

[marknett1]

ok i see how it works now . thats cool.. do they usually hold the edge better since you got all that meat behind it

 

[cramsey3006]

I don't really notice that they stay poppin' sharp longer than any other grind, but to me, even when the edge is dulled, it's still easier to do work with because of the acute angle of the grind.

A blades ability to stay sharp under use is really more of a heat treat thing than a a grind thing. Edge geometry can help define cutting ability, but a steel that has a great edge geometry, good grinds, and a poor heat treat isn't going to stay sharp nearly as long as a blade with bad edge geometry, bad grinds, and a great heat treat.

 

[shecky]

Edge geometry can help define cutting ability, but a steel that has a great edge geometry, good grinds, and a poor heat treat isn't going to stay sharp nearly as long as a blade with bad edge geometry, bad grinds, and a great heat treat.

I tend to think this is backwards. Geometry is almost everything in good knife design, and outweighs steel, and heat treat when it comes to cutting ability. Thin, acute edges run soft will outperform hard fancy steel with thick, obtuse edges. This is why an Opinel in the mid-low Rc50s often makes a better actual knife than a $300 sharpened prybar in the latest unobtanium.

A knife with good geometry and soft steel retains good geometry as it dulls, while a knife with poor geometry and great steel starts off with poor geometry and maintains poor geometry much longer.

 

[goodeyesniper]

I tend to think this is backwards. Geometry is almost everything in good knife design, and outweighs steel, and heat treat when it comes to cutting ability. Thin, acute edges run soft will outperform hard fancy steel with thick, obtuse edges. This is why an Opinel in the mid-low Rc50s often makes a better actual knife than a $300 sharpened prybar in the latest unobtanium.

A knife with good geometry and soft steel retains good geometry as it dulls, while a knife with poor geometry and great steel starts off with poor geometry and maintains poor geometry much longer.

You basically just agreed with everything he said, he just said it in a bit of a roundabout way.

 

[StretchNM]

.................
So thanks to those who answered, but I would ask if someone would care to comment on the usefulness of a scandi-ground knife for such tasks as general field or camp use, or skinning, and if one was forced to carry only one knife (whoever heard of such heresy ) as in a survival kit, if it would be the best choice of grinds.

JLK,
I recently killed a hog and skinned it with two scandi knives: I started with an Enzo (scandi ground to zero) until it dulled. The green canvas one in this picture:

Then I used a Mora 510 that I keep in the truck door "pocket". The red handled one here:

Both of those knives did fine, even as pointy as both are, still I would have preferred one of my convex-ground Bark Rivers. Now, when I got the meat home, I used a Barkie for trimming and boning, though I'm sure the scandis would have done acceptably well. So, to summarize, a scandi will skin an animal...it's a knife, after all... though there might be a better edge for that. It's hard to beat a convex grind when skinning or cutting meat - raw OR cooked.

When it comes to carving wood, like making a spoon, I want a scandi. Or for feathering a stick or three getting ready for a fire, I want a scandi. The convex grind simply cannot compete with a scandi in those tasks. The convex will do it, and with practice you even think you're getting good with a convex.....UNTIL you pick up a scandi grind. D)

For batoning, a convex or a v-grind is what I would ask for. The scandi will do it, allright, but as other posters said the edge is fine (very fine) and it will chip, roll, and dull quickly when batoning. One thing it does do well here is "wedge" the wood apart. The edge though....it's just too fine for risking hitting a small interior knot or something.

For sharpening? Give me a scandi any day. So very easy for a simple sharpener like me. I use a waterstone to grind it flat to zero, until it's crisp, then I finish on the Sharpmaker white stones. Once the edge is very clean and crisp, about 5 to 7 very, very light, whispery passes on the white stones, held inward just a tad from 15 degrees, and the edge will usually pop hairs 1/8" above my skin. If not, they almost always will after stropping.

Still, as much as I like sharpening a scandi, they're only a micro-tad easier than sharpening a convex grind......for me, anyway.

Forced to carry just one knife? Tough to say.....I'm wishy washy there. I guess I'd say a scandi....or a convex..... I don;t know.

 

[StretchNM]

Here's something too. These Helle knives, with their shallow scandi grind. I can't figure these things out. For some reason, this little Symfoni knife is really nothing but a very thick razor blade. Within just a few minutes of sharpening, and usually always before stropping, this little knife will always pop hairs above the skin.

I'm just not enough of a metalurgist and/or not an expert sharpener to figure out why these knives are sharper even than the Moras. I sure want another one! I've also had my eye on the Roselli Grandfather, as in HoosierQ's picture.

 

[Adventure Sworn]

The scandi grind can't really be beat for most woodcarving tasks in the outdoors, which is why the scandi grind is the choice for some of the world's top wilderness survival & bushcraft experts. It has tremendous cutting aggressiveness, control, ease of sharpening, and it makes for a tough dependable knife. It remains my choice because it simply plows through wood.

For the cons, well many argue that because of the full-zero grind that the edge is more prone to rolling/chipping. However, I have found that a well-made scandi grind, done with a proper angle, with a proper heat-treat, can hold an edge for an incredibly long time. On the contrary, a scandi with done with a bad angle, and with a bad heat-treat, is really not a joy to use at all. It has to be done right.