Delica conundrum

[elena86]

I love the Delica. I tried them all, I go back and forth but at the end of the day I have to admit... Delica is probably the most iconic 3 incher edc spydie and best seller for a reason. It's almost perfect as it is, at least for and in my hand...but ...there is a big ''but''.
You have a 2.5 mm blade stock and yet the VG10 Delicas are ground sooo thick behind the edge... more or less 0.025'' bte. My k390 Delica is 0.018'' and all my laminated Delica sprints or exclusives are more or less the same. I also noticed that the laminated ones have a slightly thinner blade stock and a slightly more acute distal taper and that's great ! My laminated HAP40 burnt orange Delica is a slicey beast ! I know VG10 is not a very tough steel and that might be the reason they don't grind them thinner bte but hey, I am sure it could take around 0.018'' bte with no problem. Why don't they do it ... your guess is as good as mine but I would like to see the VG10 Delicas ground way thinner bte. It's well deserved.

P.S Please, please, don't give me the ''warranty issues'' argument.

[Evil D]

Well, like it or not I think you answered your own question/request. It's either that or cost or something the maker doesn't want to do. There's not much else to say that justifies it. It's either a response to something or someone feels that it's best this way. They're not grinding blades and going "well, it ends up at whatever it ends up at I guess".

[Ramonade]

You might be interested in something they are working on right now. Called the High Performance Delica. A VG-10 Delica with an even better geometry than on the K390 Delica or other "special" versions.

[WyoJon]

Buy yourself a sabre ground manix 2. That will cure you of thinking a delica blade is thick. I reallyy dont see the issue here. I like thin blades, and find the delica and endura are much thinner than most blades from any competing nanufacturer. My 531 benchmade is the only one coming to mind thinner as a folder. Most mainstream knives you see out there, the kershaws, the bucks, the company that makes baby toys, a lot of benchmade designs, are all significantly thicker. As a guy who only buys thin blades i have never found myself wishing my endura had a thinner blade. Maybe try reprofiling to 12° or so, polish that and then sharpen at 15 or 20 on the sharp maker?

[elena86]

Buy yourself a sabre ground manix 2. That will cure you of thinking a delica blade is thick. I reallyy dont see the issue here. I like thin blades, and find the delica and endura are much thinner than most blades from any competing nanufacturer. My 531 benchmade is the only one coming to mind thinner as a folder. Most mainstream knives you see out there, the kershaws, the bucks, the company that makes baby toys, a lot of benchmade designs, are all significantly thicker. As a guy who only buys thin blades i have never found myself wishing my endura had a thinner blade. Maybe try reprofiling to 12° or so, polish that and then sharpen at 15 or 20 on the sharp maker?

Read my post. We are talking thickness behind the edge here.

[elena86]

You might be interested in something they are working on right now. Called the High Performance Delica. A VG-10 Delica with an even better geometry than on the K390 Delica or other "special" versions.

I know about those but they are hollow ground. To each his own.

[yablanowitz]

I love the Delica. I tried them all, I go back and forth but at the end of the day I have to admit... Delica is probably the most iconic 3 incher edc spydie and best seller for a reason. It's almost perfect as it is, at least for and in my hand...but ...there is a big ''but''.
You have a 2.5 mm blade stock and yet the VG10 Delicas are ground sooo thick behind the edge... more or less 0.025'' bte. My k390 Delica is 0.018'' and all my laminated Delica sprints or exclusives are more or less the same. I also noticed that the laminated ones have a slightly thinner blade stock and a slightly more acute distal taper and that's great ! My laminated HAP40 burnt orange Delica is a slicey beast ! I know VG10 is not a very tough steel and that might be the reason they don't grind them thinner bte but hey, I am sure it could take around 0.018'' bte with no problem. Why don't they do it ... your guess is as good as mine but I would like to see the VG10 Delicas ground way thinner bte. It's well deserved.

P.S Please, please, don't give me the ''warranty issues'' argument.

You obviously know what the answer is since you don't want to hear it. My question is, why do you feel compelled to whine about it? Ask your therapist about rejection of reality.

[prndltech]

Every FFG delica I own/have owned, in multiple steels, has been somewhere between .020-.025” BTE. Some have had slightly thicker tips than others as well. I had a sage 1 with a thicker tip than any I’ve seen. I chalk it up to manufacturing. They won’t all be the exact same.

[twinboysdad]

I must be a rube, FFG D4’s are light sabers to me. The Sabre D4 is a clunky edge with the sliceyness of a garden tool

[elena86]

I love the Delica. I tried them all, I go back and forth but at the end of the day I have to admit... Delica is probably the most iconic 3 incher edc spydie and best seller for a reason. It's almost perfect as it is, at least for and in my hand...but ...there is a big ''but''.
You have a 2.5 mm blade stock and yet the VG10 Delicas are ground sooo thick behind the edge... more or less 0.025'' bte. My k390 Delica is 0.018'' and all my laminated Delica sprints or exclusives are more or less the same. I also noticed that the laminated ones have a slightly thinner blade stock and a slightly more acute distal taper and that's great ! My laminated HAP40 burnt orange Delica is a slicey beast ! I know VG10 is not a very tough steel and that might be the reason they don't grind them thinner bte but hey, I am sure it could take around 0.018'' bte with no problem. Why don't they do it ... your guess is as good as mine but I would like to see the VG10 Delicas ground way thinner bte. It's well deserved.

P.S Please, please, don't give me the ''warranty issues'' argument.

You obviously know what the answer is since you don't want to hear it. My question is, why do you feel compelled to whine about it? Ask your therapist about rejection of reality.

Therapist ? Rejection of reality ? It seems you know alot about these things. Talking of shiny footprints ....

[PaloArt]

I love the Delica. I tried them all, I go back and forth but at the end of the day I have to admit... Delica is probably the most iconic 3 incher edc spydie and best seller for a reason. It's almost perfect as it is, at least for and in my hand...but ...there is a big ''but''…

I am with you on this one. Quite recently I purchased Spyderco Chaparral and that little beast pushed out of pocket my 8 years old Opinel No.7 that I carried purely for BTE thickness and impressive cutting performance. Delica and Para 3 LW are now collecting dust as Para just doesn’t cut and Delica is unnecessarily thick BTE. Older I get more I appreciate slicey blades as I do not find myself too often in a situation, as opposed to many here, where I would need to pry open a hatch on a tank with my blade nor I am professional knife fighter\duellist.

Perhaps I should find therapist as well, as suggested by Yablanowitz, for expressing opinion and desire to have certain models at current BTE thickness ground more thin…

[Ramonade]

Well, it was an answer to your research of good thickness BTE.
If you want Spyderco to ask their Japan maker to change the whole VG-10 model, well that won't happen.

You can have yours reground. Or bare the terrible price of a good hollow grind.

[elena86]

Well, it was an answer to your research of good thickness BTE.
If you want Spyderco to ask their Japan maker to change the whole VG-10 model, well that won't happen.

You can have yours reground. Or bare the terrible price of a good hollow grind.

Who’s talking about changing “the whole VG10 model” ?! Just to grind them thinner bte. They are doing it with the K390 ones which are in full production so what’s the big deal ? I imagine that VG10 would be easier to grind compared to K390.

[ekastanis]

Just to grind them thinner bte. They are doing it with the K390 ones which are in full production so what’s the big deal ?

What dimension(s) are they changing to enable the K390 models to be thinner BTE? For a fully flat-ground blade, BTE thickness is completely determined by blade stock thickness, blade height, and edge bevel angle.

[Wartstein]

I love the Delica. I tried them all, I go back and forth but at the end of the day I have to admit... Delica is probably the most iconic 3 incher edc spydie and best seller for a reason. It's almost perfect as it is, at least for and in my hand...but ...there is a big ''but''…

I am with you on this one. Quite recently I purchased Spyderco Chaparral and that little beast pushed out of pocket my 8 years old Opinel No.7 that I carried purely for BTE thickness and impressive cutting performance. Delica and Para 3 LW are now collecting dust as Para just doesn’t cut and Delica is unnecessarily thick BTE........

Never measured the thickness behind the edge on a Delica - but if thick or not, when I directly compared a VGF10 ffg Delica to a Para 3 LW: To me very noticeable how much better the Delica performs in most cutting tasks while still having a plenty strong blade. Also overall just a better design for me personally (perhaps because they actually scaled down most aspects from Endura to Delica (in a way a "Lil Endura"),, while with the Para 3 they kept the thick PM2 bladestock, also pretty much the handle dimensions except lengthwise and so on).

Chap is great anyway, though I actually DID measure the thickness behind the edge on that one once and it was thicker than I tought (can´t recall the number anymore and misplaced my calipers).

[p_atrick]

Regarding the argument that shall not be named, here are some images of VG-10 and K390.



I'm not a metallurgist, so I'm not about to make any definitive statements about toughness. However, we do know that the larger chromium carbides and the lack of a PM process in VG-10 mean the steel is not as tough as K390. Does that mean VG-10 cannot be ground as thin as suggested? Again, I lack the knowledge to have a worthwhile opinion. But I think this and the general public's predilection to use knives for non-knife tasks point to us to a likely cause for the thicker grind.

Having said all that, I recently made a set of scales for my HAP40 Delica. They aren't perfect, but I enjoy them all the same. The knife is unique due to work I put into it. I really like the knife, but not because it's a Delica; there are models I like more. I like the knife because I "made" it. I bet you could thin out the blade and make a knife better suited to your tastes.

[Doc Dan]

The Delica is my favorite 3" folder. I am not unhappy with it, at all. I would think the bte issue has to do with the types of steel used in the blades (just an opinion). Spyderco wants to use a Japanese steel in the basic Japanese knives.

[Ramonade]

Well, it was an answer to your research of good thickness BTE.
If you want Spyderco to ask their Japan maker to change the whole VG-10 model, well that won't happen.

You can have yours reground. Or bare the terrible price of a good hollow grind.

Who’s talking about changing “the whole VG10 model” ?! Just to grind them thinner bte. They are doing it with the K390 ones which are in full production so what’s the big deal ? I imagine that VG10 would be easier to grind compared to K390.

Well changing one thing necessitate to change quite a number of other things (training, testing, etc). The VG-10 Delica 4 is a well established model intended for a broader population than the "super steel" versions. I think the thickness BTE is very much intentionally where it's at .

I won't complain ifthey suddenly drop the thickness BTE to 0.015" like on my K390 Delica's factory edge. Was just trying to say that they don't have any reason to.

[riclaw]

Interesting thread. Thanks for posting.

How does the KnifeJoy 20CV drop point Delica compare to the VG-10 and K390 bte? Stain resistance is more important to me given the light cutting tasks required, but more slicey is more nice. : -)
https://www.knifejoy.com/products/copys ... f575&_ss=r

[Cl1ff]

I prefer hollow grinds so the performance Delica will cover this for me. Although, my S30V wharncliffe delica is pretty thin and I like it.
I don’t have anything to measure with except my eyes and fingers, though.
All this knife stuff is just in my head and hands until I “level up” my equipment and skills a bit.

Ultimately, if the performance Delica is a success, I’ll be rooting for a similar version of the Rockjumper/Leafjumper because I like their design more.
They cut just fine for their intended purpose already, but I think thin hollow “Performance LeafJumper” would be a very capable knife.
There’s so much good about those knives and there’s so much potential, if they got even a quarter of the number of variations the Delica has seen.

I’ll be glad to see thinner grinds generally, though.

About the dimensions changed to get thinner geometry with full flats on blades with the same stock thickness. All that happens is a reduction of the primary grind angle. The grind tapers the blade spine, steeply at the plunge and gradually on the way out to the tip.

For example, the Bow River’s spine thickness is about 1/8 of an inch, but no part of the spine above the edge is that full thickness because the full flat’s angle is small enough to thin the whole blade. You can go however thin you want like this.

I also suspect that the laminates are probably made to slightly thinner stock originally and it’s not that Spyderco just chooses to make them thinner (stock), if they are.