Plain Vs Serrated Blades

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There are many options available, and this is not meant to cover every knife blade design configuration, but it will serve as a handy reference to some of the most common, with an indication of their intended purpose.

The three most commonly used knife blade shapes:

	Clip Point: The length and angle of the concave curve on the non-cutting portion of the point determines whether a clip blade is just a "clip" (short, pronounced curve), a "California" clip (longer, gentler curve) or a so-called "Turkish" clip (very elongated). The sharp point is effective for detail work, but is not as strong as a thicker blade.
	Modified Clip: A recent design development that has proved popular on high-tech, one-hand opener knives. Exact shapes vary.
	Drop Point: This blade has a gentle, sloping convex curve to the point without the concave curve of the clip blade. Its thicker point is stronger for heavier tasks. The thicker tip is a positive for abuse but a negative for easy penetration.

Other Knife Blade Shapes:

	Sheepsfoot Got its name from the shape of the point resembling the hoof of a sheep. With its distinctive flat, straight-line cutting edge and rounded point, it's well suited to giving you a clean cut, especially on a flat cutting surface.
	Spey Point As the name indicates, this blade was originally developed to neuter farm animals. Rather blunt point avoids poking through a surface by accident, and the overall blade configuration makes the spey function well suited for skinning and sweeping knife strokes.
	Spear Point Spear points are more popular in Europe , while in America , the clip blade is the preferred option.
	Pen Point Pen blades are usually on pocket knives as a handy, all purpose blade. It was originally developed to trim quill pens, and that name has stuck through the years.
	Coping Point A narrow blade with a sharp, angular point, almost like a miniature sheepsfoot blade, designed to be used for cutting in tight spots or curved patterns, much as you would with a coping saw, only without the teeth.

See A Glossary Of Knife Terms for additional blade options.

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Introduction
There's been a jump in recent years in the popularity of serrated knife blade edges, and there's often confusion as to when a serrated knife blade edge is advantageous, versus when a plain knife blade edge is advantageous. This question comes up often.

For purposes of discussion, we'll need to talk about what we're doing with the knife. Think about what you can do with a knife: you can shave, slice, slash, saw, hack, chop, etc. For our purposes, we'll divide all knife uses into two very broad categories:

Push cuts: The main cutting is done by pushing the knife edge through the thing-to-be-cut. For example, when you shave, you push the edge of the knife through your beard. When peeling an apple, you push the knife edge under the skin of the apple. When chopping wood, you try to push the knife edge into and through the wood.

Slicing cuts: The cutting action is substantially done by dragging the knife edge across the hing-to-be-cut. When you slice meat or a tomato, you drag the knife edge across the tomato as you cut through it. Slicing and sawing are examples of slicing cuts.

Plain vs. Serrated - The Conventional View
In general, the plain knife edge is better than the serrated when the application involves push cuts. Also, the plain knife edge is superior when extreme control, accuracy, and clean cuts are necessary, regardless of whether or not the job is push cuts or slices.

In general, the serrated knife edge will work better than the plain knife edge for slicing cuts, especially through hard or tough surfaces, where the serrations tend to grab and cut the surface easily. Some of the cutting power of the serrated knife edge is due to its format alone; thus, even a dull serrated knife edge knife will often perform competently at slicing jobs. The serrated knife edge gets its slicing ability from a number of factors. The high points on the serrations will touch the material first, and this gives those points higher pressure per area than if the same pressure was applied to a plain knife blade; this allows the serration to puncture more easily. In addition, serrations are normally chisel-ground into the knife blade, which means they are thinner (and thus cut better) than the comparable plain knife blade.

The plain knife edge will work better for applications like shaving, skinning an apple, skinning a deer. All those applications involve either mostly push cuts, or the need for extreme control. Serrations work really well on things like tough rope or wood, where the serrations bite through quickly.

Generally, the more push cuts are used, the more necessary it is for the plain knife edge to have a "razor polished" knife edge. A knife edge becomes more polished when you move to higher and higher grit stones. Generally, 1200-grit is considered polished; a 6000 grit Japanese water stone would polish the knife edge further.

One interesting case is cutting a tomato. In theory, you can just push a knife blade through a tomato, so a razor polished plain knife edge would work fine. However, the tomato is soft, and unless your plain edge knife is very sharp, the tomato will simply squish when you start pushing. You can (and many people do) use a slicing motion with your plain knife blade, but if it's even a little dull it won't cut well and it may not even break the skin. Use a sawing motion with a serrated knife (even a dull one), and your tomato will slice fine.

You will read about test after test where the above view is confirmed. That is, the plain knife edge excels in push cuts, and the serrated excels in slicing cuts. This confirms the conventional view ... to an extent.

Plain vs. Serrated - Re-Thought
Since actual tests confirm the truth of the conventional view, what more is there to be said? The problem is that the tests are often not as thorough as they need to be. That is, when testing plain vs. serrated performance, most tests are comparing a plain polished knife edge to a serrated knife edge. Given that, it is no surprise that the serrated knife blade easily outperforms the plain knife blade when cutting (for example) rope.

A polished knife edge is not the only choice with a plain knife blade. One can get the plain knife edge to perform much differently when sharpened with coarser stone. People who cut rope often use a plain knife edge sharpened on a file, to get an incredibly coarse, "micro-serrated" knife edge that performs wonderfully at slicing jobs. So the knife testers are testing with polished plain knife edges, whereas people experienced with cutting rope use coarsely-ground plain knife edges.

Whether or not serrated knife blades will out-slice coarse-ground plain knife blades seems to depend on the medium being cut. Harder materials (or materials under tension) do well for serrated knife blades. With softer materials, the serrations will sometimes catch and unwind the material rather than cut - in this case, coarse-ground plain knife blades may easily out-slice serrated knife blades.

So the claim that serrated knife edges work better than plain knife edges for slicing needs to be re-examined. It appears that as materials get harder or put under more tension, the serrated knife edge may slice a bit better than a coarse-ground plain knife edge. As the material gets softer and looser, the coarse-ground plain knife edge may slice a bit better. And as we go towards push cuts, the polished plain knife edge comes into its' own. The user may want to experiment on those materials that he often cuts, before choosing the knife edge format.

In addition, keep in mind that the coarse plain knife edge is much easier to sharpen than the serrated knife edge. Just grab your file or extra coarse stone, take a few swipes and you're ready to go. With the serrated knife blade, you'll need to find a sharpening rig with the special serrated knife blade sharpener. Balancing this is the fact that serrated knife blades need to be sharpened less often.

What Should I Carry?
Should you carry a serrated knife blade or plain knife blade for everyday utility carry? Unless you "know" that the majority of work you'll be doing heavily favors slicing or pushing (e.g., "I spend all my time whittling"), it may not matter much. Also keep in mind that by changing your sharpening strategy on the plain knife edge, you can significantly change its characteristics. If you do a lot of push cutting, you want to go with a razor polished plain knife edge. If you do a lot of slicing, you'll need to decide between a coarse-ground plain knife edge and a serrated knife edge. If you don't mind sharpening, lean towards plain knife blades, strategically sharpened to the right grit (polished or coarse) for the jobs you happen do be doing.

Occasionally, people mention that the serrated knife edge looks intimidating to the masses. This could be good if you're using this knife primarily for self defense and want an intimidation factor. Or it could be bad, if you're carrying for utility work and don't want to scare people (especially the nice officer who pulled you over for speeding and asks to look at the knife in your sheath). Rumor has it that airport guards are particularly strict about serrated knife edges. Other than at airports, I don't think the menacing appearance of the serrated knife edge is important enough either way to affect what you carry.

Thoughts on the Partially-Serrated Knife blade:
Another option is the combination plain/serrated knife edge. This format appears to have overtaken the all-serrated format. Typically, the 50%-60% of the knife blade nearest the tip is plain, while the back 40%-50% is serrated. There are mixed feelings on this format. Many people swear by this format, and feel that it is a good compromise, giving the user the choice of precise push cuts from the plain knife edge, and the advantage of the serrated knife edge for tougher materials. However, keep in mind that on a 3.25" knife blade, there's maybe 1.25" of serrations. The detractors of this format feel that 1.25" is too short a length for the serrations to be really useful, and the length of the plain knife edge is being sacrificed for no good gain.

A good philosophy on partially-serrated knife blades at the moment is that if you have both knife edge formats in one knife, try to let each one shine in their respective areas. Keep the plain knife edge scary sharp for push cuts, and use the serrations when needed to cut through hard or fibrous material.

Partially-serrated knife blades are often serrated at the "wrong" place. For example, for camp use, you might want the belly serrated for cutting steak, and the part near the handle razor-polished for whittling and control-type usage. However, 99.9% of partially-serrated knife blades are ground exactly the opposite: the ripping inaccurate serrations are at the control part of the knife blade, and the plain part is out at the slicing part.

In theory, one can use a plain knife blade to get similar performance to a partially-serrated knife blade. Just razor polish the plain knife blade, and then rough up one part of the knife edge on a file, to get a knife that will excel at push cuts at one point of the knife blade, and excel at slicing cuts at another.

Legal Notice to Customers:
By purchasing product(s) on this website, you agree that you have read, understood and complied with the following:

Due to the complex and changing nature of knife laws, it is your responsibility, not HIGH CALIBER KNIVES', to investigate and comply with international, federal, state and local laws relating to the purchase, possession, use, transport and resale of knives. Consult applicable laws if you are in doubt. By placing an order, you represent that the product(s) will be used in a lawful manner and you are of legal age. Absolutely no sales will be made to minors. You agree to hold HIGH CALIBER KNIVES harmless from failure to comply with these terms and conditions of sale.

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