SE performance is more than simply teeth vs no teeth.

[dj moonbat]

Yesterday I did the reprofile job with some 220 sandpaper taped onto the Sharpmaker rods. It takes a long time, but it’s not remotely difficult. None of my PE reprofiles have been as cleanly executed, frankly.

And unsurprisingly, Evil D was right: once I had taken the reprofiled tooth faces up through the progression of rods, the edge really took off. Now I’m thinking of polishing the back.

[Bill1170]

It would be nice to have a serrated edge that didn’t steer in the cut. It seems like doing that comes with unacceptable trade-offs.

My longest kitchen knife is an 11” bladed bread knife (Victorinox). It gets called into service for tasks that require blade length, but it is serrated, so it steers badly in watermelons, to give the most common occurrence. I know the solution is to get a longer FFG PE knife, but we would almost never use it. My wife never goes above the 6” bladed PE knife and 8” handles almost everything I need, and the bread knife does the rare non-bread tasks that need the extra length.

On a short stiff blade like my Caribbean it is pretty easy to correct for steering, but a long thin slicer gets whippy in the cut and the blade towards the tip steers much worse than the blade closer to the handle. Thin wins for cutting power, at the cost of control authority. This is why I’d be very interested in a symmetrical serrated blade that exhibited neutral cutting dynamics, no inherent steering bias.

[Evil D]

It would be nice to have a serrated edge that didn’t steer in the cut. It seems like doing that comes with unacceptable trade-offs.

My longest kitchen knife is an 11” bladed bread knife (Victorinox). It gets called into service for tasks that require blade length, but it is serrated, so it steers badly in watermelons, to give the most common occurrence. I know the solution is to get a longer FFG PE knife, but we would almost never use it. My wife never goes above the 6” bladed PE knife and 8” handles almost everything I need, and the bread knife does the rare non-bread tasks that need the extra length.

On a short stiff blade like my Caribbean it is pretty easy to correct for steering, but a long thin slicer gets whippy in the cut and the blade towards the tip steers much worse than the blade closer to the handle. Thin wins for cutting power, at the cost of control authority. This is why I’d be very interested in a symmetrical serrated blade that exhibited neutral cutting dynamics, no inherent steering bias.

I'm not sure how it can be done without making the blade rather thick above the serrations but I'd love to see it tried. The steering thing was one of my original complaints and it's still an issue in some media (that watermelon is a good example) but I guess I've just accepted it because I like the other benefits of SE.

[The Meat man]

It would be nice to have a serrated edge that didn’t steer in the cut. It seems like doing that comes with unacceptable trade-offs.

My longest kitchen knife is an 11” bladed bread knife (Victorinox). It gets called into service for tasks that require blade length, but it is serrated, so it steers badly in watermelons, to give the most common occurrence. I know the solution is to get a longer FFG PE knife, but we would almost never use it. My wife never goes above the 6” bladed PE knife and 8” handles almost everything I need, and the bread knife does the rare non-bread tasks that need the extra length.

On a short stiff blade like my Caribbean it is pretty easy to correct for steering, but a long thin slicer gets whippy in the cut and the blade towards the tip steers much worse than the blade closer to the handle. Thin wins for cutting power, at the cost of control authority. This is why I’d be very interested in a symmetrical serrated blade that exhibited neutral cutting dynamics, no inherent steering bias.

I'm not sure how it can be done without making the blade rather thick above the serrations but I'd love to see it tried. The steering thing was one of my original complaints and it's still an issue in some media (that watermelon is a good example) but I guess I've just accepted it because I like the other benefits of SE.

I've thought about that, and I wonder if it would work on a deep hollow grind like the CRK Sebenza. The thickness behind the edge on mine is around 0.020" and stays that thin for a long way up the primary grind - a good quarter inch I'd say. That should be more than enough room to grind in serrations on both sides without really increasing edge thickness.

Has anyone ever had aftermarket serrations ground into their Sebenza? I know CRK has their own serration style but it's not the same as a SpyderEdge.

[bbturbodad]

I thinned out the edge on a couple of my SE blades to reduce the steering. Works pretty well.

[Evil D]

It would be nice to have a serrated edge that didn’t steer in the cut. It seems like doing that comes with unacceptable trade-offs.

My longest kitchen knife is an 11” bladed bread knife (Victorinox). It gets called into service for tasks that require blade length, but it is serrated, so it steers badly in watermelons, to give the most common occurrence. I know the solution is to get a longer FFG PE knife, but we would almost never use it. My wife never goes above the 6” bladed PE knife and 8” handles almost everything I need, and the bread knife does the rare non-bread tasks that need the extra length.

On a short stiff blade like my Caribbean it is pretty easy to correct for steering, but a long thin slicer gets whippy in the cut and the blade towards the tip steers much worse than the blade closer to the handle. Thin wins for cutting power, at the cost of control authority. This is why I’d be very interested in a symmetrical serrated blade that exhibited neutral cutting dynamics, no inherent steering bias.

I'm not sure how it can be done without making the blade rather thick above the serrations but I'd love to see it tried. The steering thing was one of my original complaints and it's still an issue in some media (that watermelon is a good example) but I guess I've just accepted it because I like the other benefits of SE.

I've thought about that, and I wonder if it would work on a deep hollow grind like the CRK Sebenza. The thickness behind the edge on mine is around 0.020" and stays that thin for a long way up the primary grind - a good quarter inch I'd say. That should be more than enough room to grind in serrations on both sides without really increasing edge thickness.

Has anyone ever had aftermarket serrations ground into their Sebenza? I know CRK has their own serration style but it's not the same as a SpyderEdge.

I've never seen a SE or even CE Sebenza. To do it without making the blade super thick you'd have to keep the bevels really short, basically the same height/width as you see on PE blades, and the scallops would need to be curved pretty shallow since the deeper into the blade they curve the thicker you get into the blade. A thin enough hollow grind would help to reduce this though so it's a interesting idea. Apart from changing the chisel grind walk issue I'm not sure they'd have any advantages in performance but I'd love to find out if a company ever made it happen. I bet grinding the serrations and getting them matched up would not be easy.

[Bill1170]

It would be nice to have a serrated edge that didn’t steer in the cut. It seems like doing that comes with unacceptable trade-offs.

My longest kitchen knife is an 11” bladed bread knife (Victorinox). It gets called into service for tasks that require blade length, but it is serrated, so it steers badly in watermelons, to give the most common occurrence. I know the solution is to get a longer FFG PE knife, but we would almost never use it. My wife never goes above the 6” bladed PE knife and 8” handles almost everything I need, and the bread knife does the rare non-bread tasks that need the extra length.

On a short stiff blade like my Caribbean it is pretty easy to correct for steering, but a long thin slicer gets whippy in the cut and the blade towards the tip steers much worse than the blade closer to the handle. Thin wins for cutting power, at the cost of control authority. This is why I’d be very interested in a symmetrical serrated blade that exhibited neutral cutting dynamics, no inherent steering bias.

I'm not sure how it can be done without making the blade rather thick above the serrations but I'd love to see it tried. The steering thing was one of my original complaints and it's still an issue in some media (that watermelon is a good example) but I guess I've just accepted it because I like the other benefits of SE.

I've thought about that, and I wonder if it would work on a deep hollow grind like the CRK Sebenza. The thickness behind the edge on mine is around 0.020" and stays that thin for a long way up the primary grind - a good quarter inch I'd say. That should be more than enough room to grind in serrations on both sides without really increasing edge thickness.

Has anyone ever had aftermarket serrations ground into their Sebenza? I know CRK has their own serration style but it's not the same as a SpyderEdge.

I've never seen a SE or even CE Sebenza. To do it without making the blade super thick you'd have to keep the bevels really short, basically the same height/width as you see on PE blades, and the scallops would need to be curved pretty shallow since the deeper into the blade they curve the thicker you get into the blade. A thin enough hollow grind would help to reduce this though so it's a interesting idea. Apart from changing the chisel grind walk issue I'm not sure they'd have any advantages in performance but I'd love to find out if a company ever made it happen. I bet grinding the serrations and getting them matched up would not be easy.

The highlighted section is what I was referencing when I posted “unacceptable trade-offs.” I recall reading on BF that CRK sold a fixed blade with symmetrical serrations, but I don’t recall if there was a photo. Matching the two sides exactly is a CRK kind of challenge, meaning probably costly to implement.

[Holland]

I thinned out the edge on a couple of my SE blades to reduce the steering. Works pretty well.

Looks good!

[zhyla]

[I bet grinding the serrations and getting them matched up would not be easy.

Seems like it would be straight forward on a CNC. I’ve wanted to make SE blades for years but the cost/availability of serration wheels has kept me at bay. Maybe it’s time I try it on my CNC mill.

One nice thing about this approach is you can really experiment. Any pattern is possible.

[JuPaul]

I thinned out the edge on a couple of my SE blades to reduce the steering. Works pretty well.

Did you use a sharpmaker? Did it take long?

[bbturbodad]

Did you use a sharpmaker? Did it take long?

Yes Sharpmaker with CBN rods. Rods in the 30° slots with the blade angled in a little toward the rod then sharpened to 15°.

Not too long.

[JuPaul]

Did you use a sharpmaker? Did it take long?

Yes Sharpmaker with CBN rods. Rods in the 30° slots with the blade angled in a little toward the rod then sharpened to 15°.

Not too long.

Thanks for the info. I've yet to reprofile any of my serrated knives, but it's good to hear how others are doing it.

[JD Spydo]

It would be nice to have a serrated edge that didn’t steer in the cut. It seems like doing that comes with unacceptable trade-offs.

My longest kitchen knife is an 11” bladed bread knife (Victorinox). It gets called into service for tasks that require blade length, but it is serrated, so it steers badly in watermelons, to give the most common occurrence. I know the solution is to get a longer FFG PE knife, but we would almost never use it. My wife never goes above the 6” bladed PE knife and 8” handles almost everything I need, and the bread knife does the rare non-bread tasks that need the extra length.

On a short stiff blade like my Caribbean it is pretty easy to correct for steering, but a long thin slicer gets whippy in the cut and the blade towards the tip steers much worse than the blade closer to the handle. Thin wins for cutting power, at the cost of control authority. This is why I’d be very interested in a symmetrical serrated blade that exhibited neutral cutting dynamics, no inherent steering bias.

Yeah I've wondered about that my own self. I have to make a special effort with some of my Spyderco kitchen knives to keep the blade from literally wondering off in another direction. And it seems like the more I sharpen it sometimes the more it veers off.

I've wondered if it was the type of grind that did that. Because I have other serrated blades ( mostly kitchen) that I have gotten in the past few years from mostly German companies that are serrated and they don't do that nearly as bad as the Spyderco kitchen models do. I can keep it going in the correct direction but I've usually got to put some muscle to it.

[JD Spydo]

[I bet grinding the serrations and getting them matched up would not be easy.

Seems like it would be straight forward on a CNC. I’ve wanted to make SE blades for years but the cost/availability of serration wheels has kept me at bay. Maybe it’s time I try it on my CNC mill.

One nice thing about this approach is you can really experiment. Any pattern is possible.

I used to work in a CNC facility but it been about 12 years since I worked there. I had wondered if there wasn't a CNC program that could do serrations without cutting them with grinding wheels. But I guess it would depend on the type of serration pattern as to whether it would be feasible or not. You would probably have to use a heavy flow of lube/coolant to do it right I would think.

[zhyla]

I used to work in a CNC facility but it been about 12 years since I worked there. I had wondered if there wasn't a CNC program that could do serrations without cutting them with grinding wheels. But I guess it would depend on the type of serration pattern as to whether it would be feasible or not. You would probably have to use a heavy flow of lube/coolant to do it right I would think.

I would do it prior to heat treatment. Coolant is always a good idea but there isn’t anything especially tricky about the operation except very small endmills would be involved.

[JD Spydo]

I used to work in a CNC facility but it been about 12 years since I worked there. I had wondered if there wasn't a CNC program that could do serrations without cutting them with grinding wheels. But I guess it would depend on the type of serration pattern as to whether it would be feasible or not. You would probably have to use a heavy flow of lube/coolant to do it right I would think.

I would do it prior to heat treatment. Coolant is always a good idea but there isn’t anything especially tricky about the operation except very small endmills would be involved.

Yeah I think you're right. Especially if it's a blade steel that is notorious for cracking like D-2 or O-1. I wouldn't really want to manufacture knives doing all the detail on CNC equipment.

[bearfacedkiller]

Ya bunch of dirty enablers! I am one of the folks around here with very little love for serrations but I am gonna give it another go.

Serrated Shaman inbound!

[Evil D]

Ya bunch of dirty enablers! I am one of the folks around here with very little love for serrations but I am gonna give it another go.

Serrated Shaman inbound!

If it wasn't for the Caribbean I'd already have one of those. Despite my loss of love for choils I really really like the Shaman.

[bearfacedkiller]

It was a toss up between the Shaman and Caribbean. I am a tip down kind of guy so the Shaman won this time. I am also interested in trying some serrated S30V.

[Holland]

Let us know how you like it Darby