Any love for combo edges?

[Evil D]

For me as a newbie, I was kind of scared it feels like 2 different knives on a single handle with the transition not being smooth.
It is great to hear that is not the case.

Well, that might actually be the case until the knife is sharpened enough to blend the two together. You'll sometimes see this even with full serrated blades where they have the small section of plain edge at the tip, that last scallop is sometimes really deep and has a hard ledge that doesn't transition very well. My SE Military is like this. With a combo edge you will likely find that the edge bevels may be different between the two edge types, which will require that you spend some time reprofiling them on a Sharpmaker but this is more time consuming than difficult and once it's done you shouldn't need to do it again for a long time.

[LeDe]

Ok thanks a lot.
I guess I have a bit of time ahead of me to improve my sharpening skills before the Salt Stretch XL becomes available.

[Wartstein]

Ok thanks a lot.
I guess I have a bit of time ahead of me to improve my sharpening skills before the Salt Stretch XL becomes available.

Probably... but sometimes Spyderco likes to surprise us...

[grasshopper]

When I first started buying Spyderco knives 23 years ago I preferred
The CE. I preferred it in knives that had blades that were 3.5 inches or longer.
(I did get some smaller ones too)

I did this because I wasn’t very good at sharpening them. My thinking
Was that by using the serrated edge I was keep the plain edge pristine.
That all changed when I bought a Sharpmaker!!

Over the years I sold or traded most of my CE knives. Now I have 4 CE
Knives. (Terzoula Starmate, Wegner,Wegner jr and Vesuvius)

[Coastal]

"When I worked on a farm"

To me, this is the epitome of the work a combo edge is suited for and, in my opinion, the best for. Cutting open concrete bags, busting hay bales, and then field dressing a deer later that evening will bring out the best in a CE folder like the C15 Bob Terzuola. I never worked on a farm, but I was a ranch hobbyist at my father-in-law's place and an avid hunter. I wouldn't have considered anything but a CE.

Nowadays I don't need a CE, and never even think about buying one.

[Doc Dan]

I like combo edges on knives with long enough blades. They are great for hard work and for cutting rough stuff.

[zuludelta]

You don't have to use different sharpening strokes for the different edge areas. You can touch up a CE knife with the corners of the sharpmaker rods and do the entire blade in one stroke. That's how I do mine. Of course you may need to reprofile, especially the thicker PE part, to be able to do this.

Ah, good point.

[ykspydiefan]

I just haven't felt a need for more plain edge than most "full" SE come with at the tip. The Autonomy 1 for example has about 5/8 inch plain edge at the tip and it does pretty much everything I've needed a PE for. I wouldn't be opposed to a true combo edge but it needs to be on a longer edge length knife so you get a decent amount of both edge types.



Aaaaaand because I will never stop trying to make this a reality...this is the optimal way to do a combo edge.



You can make hard carving cuts with the PE at the heel, you'll never have material slip off the edge before the SE grabs it, and you can make detailed scalpel cuts with the PE at the tip. It's the best of both worlds and would cover most of the best uses each edge types has for me.

I would buy one of these if it came out in a price friendly model. Most logical serration placement ever.

[Kango]

I went through every spyderco knife I hade earlier looking for a gardening knife and without hesitation I grabbed a black bladed base model s30v CE native. Gifted to me by my boss. Well used. Is it hype? No. But for cutting through 20 bags of black Scott’s mulch and trimmer line I have nothing better. And I have MUCH boojier spyderco’s (z-wear shaman, joker pm2, frn chappie, etc…). Wouldn’t have bought it myself but I will replace this baby if it’s ever lost.

[RamZar]

Aaaaaand because I will never stop trying to make this a reality...this is the optimal way to do a combo edge.



You can make hard carving cuts with the PE at the heel, you'll never have material slip off the edge before the SE grabs it, and you can make detailed scalpel cuts with the PE at the tip. It's the best of both worlds and would cover most of the best uses each edge types has for me.

That’s an interesting and seemingly practical blade edge. One of my favorite folders of old is the Military ComboEdge S30V from 2005. ComboEdge makes most sense to me for longer blade lengths.

[Jim Malone]

I used to like to carry CE as a LEO. Gave me the idea that i had the option of cutting different materials better then just one edge. I didn't carry a dedicated rescue knife then because the knife also had to function as a self defense weapon. But the added serration helped me cutting fibrous stuff ( mostly suicide victims) ,seatbelts, tiewraps, taped up packages, climbing rope etc.
This was based on my guestimation what would work without any evidence based knowledge just field use.
I still like the CE but only a few are available. They fell out of favor i guess.

[brj]

I don't have any CE Spydercos, but these days I mostly carry and use D/E OTFs ground fully SE on one side and PE on the other, so put me down as a firm believer in this form of CE

[Evil D]

I don't have any CE Spydercos, but these days I mostly carry and use D/E OTFs ground fully SE on one side and PE on the other, so put me down as a firm believer in this form of CE

I'm holding out hope that someday Spyderco makes an automatic with both edges. They do the best serrations in the business, it'll be amazing.

[LeDe]

Exciting!
I finally convinced myself to find a way to post images. Needed to convert from heic format first.

So here is my first pic.

I am travelling through Europe with wife and kids and we stopped in Vienna.
For some "unknown" reason (yes, I blame people here, and assume you wont mind), I googled for a knife shop and browsed Spydercos.
I found this UK penknife which seems to be from the 2010/2012 period. So the family took a walk and I am now the proud owner of a combo edge knife.

Feels great. Light. Kind of classy compared to my salt knives. And will be able to carry a Spyderco now in the UK (where i live most of the time). The knife is also shaving sharp like anything I had experienced so far (my left hand is definitely less hairy now).

Will have to adapt to the smaller spydie hole but should be ok.

I really like the blade shape. Now that I can compare with my wharncliff salt i will be able to see for myself hot this affect cuts for things like food prep.

For the steel nerds, this is in gin-1, so nothing people would jump about those days but it should be great for me.
I will have to up my sharpening though due to the combo edge but also the fact that the PE part is not a chisel grind so will have to be sharpened in a separate step than the SE I assume.

Really happy I got on my hand on an old model even just a basic one.

Thanks again for all the advices.

All the best,

[Wartstein]

[...

I am travelling through Europe with wife and kids and we stopped in Vienna.
For some "unknown" reason (yes, I blame people here, and assume you wont mind), I googled for a knife shop and browsed Spydercos.
I found this UK penknife which seems to be from the 2010/2012 period. So the family took a walk and I am now the proud owner of a combo edge knife.

...

Hey, very cool!

Vienna actually is the capital of Austria, the state I live in. Just for your info: This is one of the very few states in Europe (perhaps the only one ?!) where you could carry any folder you want. So save that great UKPK for when you´re crossing the border again and go with a Tatanka here in Austria...

/ Will you travel to Salzburg (both the name of a city and federal state of Austria) too?
That´s where I am, and perhaps we could meet up and talk Spydies...
(No knife shops that carry Spydercos I know of here though.. )

[LeDe]

[...

I am travelling through Europe with wife and kids and we stopped in Vienna.
For some "unknown" reason (yes, I blame people here, and assume you wont mind), I googled for a knife shop and browsed Spydercos.
I found this UK penknife which seems to be from the 2010/2012 period. So the family took a walk and I am now the proud owner of a combo edge knife.

...

Hey, very cool!

Vienna actually is the capital of Austria, the state I live in. Just for your info: This is one of the very few states in Europe (perhaps the only one ?!) where you could carry any folder you want. So save that great UKPK for when you´re crossing the border again and go with a Tatanka here in Austria...

/ Will you travel to Salzburg (both the name of a city and federal state of Austria) too?
That´s where I am, and perhaps we could meet up and talk Spydies...
(No knife shops that carry Spydercos I know of here though.. )

Hey,

Would have been great to meet but unfortunately, we have left Austria already.
We are driving from Poland to south of France and taking a couple of weeks to get there. We stopped first in Vienna and were thinking to get to some mountains in Austria but finally opted for Kransjka Gora in Slovenia and arrived yesterday evening. Beautiful place, maybe similar landscape to your home place. You would definitely have had some great picture out of it.

I got the chance to see Kitzbhuel as well this year (for just a day) for what was my first foray in Austria. Definitely planning to visit the country again.

Regarding Austrian knives law, I had a great chat with the shop owner (Lorenzi) and another customer and we got to discuss knives law in Europe. Definitely more lax in Austria than in France. Poland is extremelly open as well, you can pretty much carry any toy you want up to a katana.



Best,