>What can a plain edge do that a combo edge cannot? What can a combination profile not do?
Thank-you for your responses. I've been reading the thread all day, and after some thought realized I hadn't quite gotten the question right, leading to the reframing above.
I get the problematic sharpening. I've been working on my sharpening, thus far with blocks and a diamond embedded 600grit card. But I've bought a spyderco sharp-maker which should include rods for serrations. I imagine sharpenning serrations, especially 64hc ones, will be inconvinient. I hadn't planned on dulling them, meaning I thought I'd put most of the wear on the plain section with the serrations as reserve.
But why does the serrations mean I only have 1/2 the blade? I find if I'm careful I can make clean, full blade cuts across the both blade profiles. There's a little bit of striation resulting from the serrations but it's minimal to none-existent.
re: my bad examples - sorry, I admit they're all over the place
re: bread - a bit of serrations across the top to make an openning, than deep plunging cuts using the serrations to handle the top crust. Bread crust was one example where I find the multiple angles of the serrations more effective than shaving-sharp PE, even very thin ceramic PE.
Shaggy, in my business/messenger bag, I edc a leatherman Wave (with mint blades), this knife will be on-my-person edc (along with a light, this being cpf and all). So I agree with you, the multi-tool edc is awesome. The metal upgrades on the TTi would be nice, future upgrade may be between that and SOG multi.
WRD65 - so what is it that had you switch from combo to a PE? I've come across this sentiment on blade forums (just lurked there) and some indicate combo as an 'intro' profile though I can't see why.
Best,
Linger
p.s. re: size - I was thinking ~3" blade. I'm based in an office but spend a lot of time out in the community, usually a pair of casual pants and a button down shirt. I haven't found myself carrying the 3.5" SOG unless its after hours and I'm wearing cargo's. Again, i've got the Wave near at hand, but it could be outside in the car if I'm not carrying my messenger bag.
So here's the thing, when you're using serrations you are generally using a sawing motion with significant force to "chew" threw the material you're cutting. Sawing requires a sort of back-and-forth motion. The longer section you have of serrations the easier it is to cut. Imagine trying to saw a tree that is 10" in diameter with a 12" saw. You are going to be making tons of tiny back and forth motions and it's going to suck up all your energy and take forever to cut. Compare this with using a 24" saw that can take long, slow strokes across the tree. You'll have it cut in no time. So the trick to having a serrated cutting surface is to have that serrated section as long as possible (i.e. a dedicated knife). This is the opposite of what you get with a combo edged knife. You're lucky to get 2" of serrations on a 6" knife. For standard 3" EDC knives you get even less. What are you going to cut with 1" of teeth?
I also have to point out that there's different teeth for different purposes. Most of the serrated edges on combo edged knives are terrible for sawing through wood or bone, but will work great on a lot of man-made stuff (cloth, rubber, rope, seatbelts).
You also have the issue that the serrations rear their ugly head when you don't want them to. You might be slicing through material (let's take cloth as an example) when one of the teeth catches and then causes the material to tear/rip when what you wanted was a clean cut.
The short answer is that with a combo edge you're limiting the amount of tool you have for the job. When you need a plain edge the serrations take up valuable space. When you need a serrated edge the plain edge takes up valuable space.
The question shouldn't be whether the serrations are useful (they are), the question is how often do you
need them. If you're cutting rope all day long then you want serrations. But if you're cutting rope all day and need serrations all day then you need a knife who's entire edge is serrations and not a combo edge. You can still use a plain edged knife to cut things that would be better cut with a serrated knife, it will just be a little bit harder and might wear the edge down a little quicker. But if you're only doing it on occasion then it shouldn't really matter.
There's basically three thought processes that people go through when considering a combo edge:
"I need serrations" - If you
need serrations, you need a dedicated serrated knife
"Serrations might be useful" - Just about anything that you can cut with a serrated knife you can cut with a plain edge, as mentioned above it just might take a bit more work. You have to realise that the plain edge of the knife will always be useful, the serrated edge will not be always useful, and so for most tasks you are wasting valuable space on your knife. Your best bet is to just get a plain edge knife and work a little bit harder to cut the few things that would be easier with serrations.
"Serrations aren't useful" - In this situation you also would just be getting a plain edge.
So in none of the situations above is a combo edge really worth sinking money into.
With the exception of tactical hand-to-hand fixed blade combat knives I can't think of any situation where a combo knife might be useful, and even then I would give pause. Perhaps a folding rescue tool for the car they would be useful, but I would prefer a knife with a dedicated seatbelt cutter instead.
The reason why combo edges are referred to as "intro" knives is because having a small section of serrations causes an increase in
perceived value by the general populace who have no idea how useless the short section of serrations really are. Combo edged knives sell really well at Wally world, but that doesn't mean they're more useful. People are quite often looking for that "one knife" that does "everything". But there's no such thing. Knife users who figure that out migrate quite quickly to dedicated PE or SE knives and away from combo knives.
One thing that I have noticed as well among people who own CE knives is that they let the plain edge get dull because they don't know how to sharpen a knife and then they're stuck with just the serrations which they end up using for everything. And the serrations are dull as well, but because of the shape of the teeth they get at least some cutting power with them but they have to expend a lot of energy to do it and the knives quickly become dangerous.
Also, you mentioned that you didn't plan to use the serrations that often so you don't think you'd need to sharpen them that often, but even the best stainless steels will still corrode over time just from moisture in the air. It will just happen slower (actually, it happens pretty quick when the knife is in a pocket where sweat accumulates). So you will still need to sharpen those edges on occasion (maybe once a year or something if you're not using them), but if you're using the serrations so infrequently that they only need to be sharpened due to corrosion and not due to use I would argue you don't need the serrations at all.
As I mentioned before, if you want both you're way better off with a nice multi-tool like the Charge. That's just my .02. There are people I know who swear by CE knives and that's just fine. But I find them useless and the lack of a plain edge option has kept me from buying several knives that I thought were pretty sweet otherwise.
