Stupidly obvious question about USAF survival knife

[19-3ben]

Ontario's USAF survival knife is still for sale on the open market and still very highly regarded, but with the one caveat everyone always gives. The saw on the spine is meant for aluminum aircraft skin, not for wood.

Well, I don't know about yous guys but when I pack a knife to go into the woods, I don't plan on cutting up a whole lot of airplanes. On the other hand, cutting wood is totally foreseeable.

Why doesn't Ontario make a civvy version of the knife, with the exact same specs, but a wood saw instead of aluminum saw on the back. It would make for a fantastic outdoors knife. Saw a tree limb, then use it to baton the knife...

It seems so stupidly obvious that I can't believe it hasn't come up before, so is there any reason Ontario hasn't done this? I feel like an SP2 (the spec plus, modern day update of the USAF knife) with a wood saw back would be one heck of a piece of kit to throw in a get home bag.

 

[unimogbert]

Look very closely at a wood saw blade sometime. You'll see that the teeth are spread so that from side to side they are wider than the base material of the blade. This is to clear out the dust and allow room for the blade as the cut goes deeper.

How could you do that on a knife blade? Not easily.

Consider the teeth on the SP2 and the 499 to be more of a rasp than a saw. Being able to cut nice clean notches could be useful in the woods.

I'm skeptical that the teeth are for cutting aircraft skin. Another version of the why is that they are for cutting Plexiglas canopy material. The truth might be lost in the mists of time.

I've carried my SP2 for hundreds of miles over 20 years. Haven't really used it much but it's been there if needed.

 

[GrReaper]

That's right. Proper saw teeth geometry does not translate well to a knife blade spine. I'll bet no one here has ever seen a saw tooth knife that was good at sawing wood. They just don't work. Any cheap small saw would work better.

 

[Jens Schuetz]

That's right. Proper saw teeth geometry does not translate well to a knife blade spine. I'll bet no one here has ever seen a saw tooth knife that was good at sawing wood. They just don't work. Any cheap small saw would work better.

Should not be hard. Just take a saw and sharpen it's spine into a knife edge.
Flip it over and now you have a knife which has proper saw teeth geometry on its spine.

 

[sac troop]

If there weren't problems inherent in combining the two into one item it would have become a common item decades ago. All-in-one items tend to be compromises. Some work better than others, like SAK's and multi-tools. Other's not so much.

 

[GrReaper]

Should not be hard. Just take a saw and sharpen it's spine into a knife edge.
Flip it over and now you have a knife which has proper saw teeth geometry on its spine.

Yeah, I suppose you could but how good of a knife would that be then? A saw is thin with a wide blade to compensate for the thinness. If you removed a lot of the steel from the spine to make it into more of a knife shape, it probably wouldn't be worth carrying in the woods.

 

[19-3ben]

You guys are a wealth of information. Thank you for taking the time to edjumacate my dummy self. That all makes perfect sense!

 

[unimogbert]

Yeah, I suppose you could but how good of a knife would that be then? A saw is thin with a wide blade to compensate for the thinness. If you removed a lot of the steel from the spine to make it into more of a knife shape, it probably wouldn't be worth carrying in the woods.

Or you'd go thru sheaths on the side of the saw rather quickly......

I'll admit to being disappointed at the sawing action when I first tried it.

 

[dingy]

the saw on the back of Ontario's USAF is not design for cutting woods , i guess. more effecient for cutting mild metal.

there is no easy way to make a good wood saw on thick knife spine , i would like to see a leatherman or SAK type saw on the knife back.

 

[Inazone]

That's right. Proper saw teeth geometry does not translate well to a knife blade spine. I'll bet no one here has ever seen a saw tooth knife that was good at sawing wood. They just don't work. Any cheap small saw would work better.

Actually, SOG used to make a knife called the Team Leader Survivor TL-02 that had what was by all accounts a pretty effect saw. I own one, but haven't taken it out to play yet. In any case, the SOG's saw blade looks nothing like that of the Ontario knife in question - it looks like a "real" saw.