As surprising as it may be, the essence of the Serrator Knife existed long before the appearance of Homo sapiens. And the company Spyderco, considered the progenitor of knives with serrated sharpening, has taken as its basis the creation of nature. A true and impeccable genius. Digging a little deeper into the origins reveals that this formidable jagged sharpening is also present in places you wouldn’t expect to see at all, such as on grass.
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Sure, many of us have experienced deep cuts in common sedges or wheatgrass, but at the same time, few have thought about why a blade of grass swaying in the wind could do this. bottom.
And this is made possible thanks to small serrations along the entire length of the sheet, which act as a formidable defensive weapon.
Enlarged Photo
- Hundreds of similar examples can be given, but there is another bright representative of the serrated sharpening of weapons – sharks.
- Her jaws apply massive amounts of pressure and her teeth cut through her victims like razors. And this ability is achieved thanks to the serrated “sharpening” of her teeth.
- The genius of nature’s creations has not gone unnoticed by humans. Paleolithic excavations have uncovered well-formed seratores on the tools and weapons of the ancients.
Stone Knife
- The evolution of Serreytor was closely linked to the evolution of the human psyche. The well-known European sword Flamberg (Flame Blade) is also a type of serrated blade system.
- Its Indian competitor, the Zulfiqar sword, has, for our understanding, already more familiar serrations.
- As you can see, serrated sharpening, or blade construction, has been known for a very long time and is of natural origin.
Sawtooth Type
- Perhaps the most famous and widespread type is the American Spyderco Serrator.
- This is the oldest company, founded in 1978, and has made significant contributions to the development of Knives with serrated blades.
- Thanks to her, a serrated sharpener called “Spider Edge” was invented and launched.
- It looks like an alternation of two narrow concave edges and one wide concave edge.
- This form of serrator is best suited for fibrous materials, i.e. various fabrics, braids, ropes, or products with hard shells and soft cores, but this form has some drawbacks.
- Mission Knife tested this type of Serrator when designing a knife for Combat Her swimmers.
- And in these tests, the SpyderEdge Serrator was shown to be more prone to sticking when a cutting wet rope, as the concave shape of the teeth traps particles of the cut material in the concave areas. For this reason, specialists from the Mission knife company have developed another type of Serrator, the Mission.
- This type also has a wide selection of concave, but alternating with convex rather than triangular cutting elements, which provides a self-cleaning effect and allows the sawtooth to clog with the material being cut.
The following type can be attributed to the type of serrated corrugation – scalloped.
As a rule, this type of sawtooth has the form of wavy lines or teeth with rounded ends. It was also designed for truly tactical tasks such as cutting bakery products.
On its basis, with modifications, the domestic development of the celerator was released, called the Wave celerator
At first glance, it looks like a derivative of the bread knife, but it could be. However, as mentioned above, some changes have been made. The groove radii of the teeth are increased and the tooth tips themselves are much smaller, resulting in a slightly undulating, nearly uniform edge at the output. Such serrations allow you to work comfortably with wood and cut various materials fairly evenly, but they act less aggressively on ropes and ropes, in contrast to the “classic” type I don’t.
A fourth type of serrated sharpening can be attributed to the species under the name – sawtooth, which translates as a hacksaw blade. The difference from the classic sawtooth is that the tooth vertices are not on the same line, but on two planes. This configuration makes it possible to cut wood more efficiently than a classic serrated saw, but since knives with this type of serrated blade do not have set teeth, this efficiency is less than that of a traditional saw. much lower than The cut width is slightly wider than the thickness of the bat, greatly reducing friction…
For this reason, this type of serator is not very popular.
I would also like to mention another type of serrator, the microgenerator, which is little known because it is indistinguishable by eye without optical control.
At the top of any cutting edge, there is always a small tooth, the shape and size of which vary greatly and depend on the abrasive used and the wishes of the master. Thanks to these teeth you can cut knives.
And of course, I can’t help but mention the last type of serrator, it’s hard to call it a serrator, but still, as a joke, shockteeth!
We don’t know exactly when or why he came out, but we do know that his popularity skyrocketed thanks to the movie Rambo. This type of functionality is somewhere below zero, really is nothing more to say.
What is a Serrator?
Serrated sharpening is suitable for fibrous materials such as ropes, slings, and nets. Sawtooth was developed to meet these needs. He found used the diving knife among military units, both as a combat swimmer and as a landing force. Widely used by Life guards and water tourists.
But about the question “What are the advantages of serrations as opposed to classic simple sharpening?” I will elaborate further.
1 – Higher cutting efficiency. This is achieved due to the narrow tips of the teeth of different sizes and different angles. This reduces the contact area and therefore puts more pressure on the material being cut when the same force is applied.
2 – Increased cutting edge length. The same length as the classic blade, the cutting edge of the serrated blade is longer as it runs along the curve of every tooth. Adding all tooth lengths together gives a cutting edge that is longer than the blade itself at the output.
3 – Increased disconnect time. The tooth tips allow the serrator to continue digging into the material being cut even after the edge has been dulled. Yes, of course, you will not get a clean cut, it will be torn, but you can still cut the same rope or cut a sausage.
Disadvantages of Serrator
As for the drawbacks, everything is not so easy and clear here.
The number and type of flaws of the Serator depend on the owner’s own tasks and skills. If you need to remove thin transparent fillets from fish, serrated sharpening is clearly not suitable for this. But if the owner needs to eviscerate and dismember a large amount of fish and cut the dense scales, here the serator proves to be the best.
For ease of recognition, we classify the following nuances as drawbacks and divide them into points:
- It’s hard to cut everything evenly. Of course, a lot depends on the type of serrator, especially the shape of the tooth. This is because different manufacturers can make their own modifications to traditional types. Decrease tooth depth, increase the radius, and alternate teeth. Decrease or increase the steps.
- Working with wood is not comfortable. For example, cutting wood chips for fire. If the sawtooth has a very aggressive shape and a large tooth depth, then it is practically impossible to work with wood. Each tooth pierces the wood fibers like a needle and bites deeply to prevent cutting motion. However, there are exceptions. For example, the domestically developed Wave Serrator or other similar derivatives.
- It is difficult to restore a badly damaged tooth. This is really hard work. If you have severely damaged the serrated serrations by bending or chipping the teeth, you will need serious skills and tools, or the help of a professional to repair them.
- Difficulty in sharpening. Disadvantages of the serrated system often include the difficulty of sharpening it. Personally, I can’t agree 100% that each tooth should be polished individually. The need for sharpening with the second option only arises if the serrator is severely damaged. Otherwise, just editing on a flat surface will suffice.
How to sharpen a serrated
There are two options for sharpening. The first and easiest method is to sharpen along the flat side of the serration.
This type of sharpening requires a sharpening stone or sandpaper to be glued to a flat surface. Place the knife with the entire flat part of the serration on the abrasive and sharpen along the flat side until a burr appears on the back of the tooth. This can be done with a special radius sharpening rod or by wrapping sandpaper around a suitable diameter tube.
We do not recommend using this sharpening option all the time. Because with abuse, the serration turns into a plain (smooth) sharpening as it only removes burrs instead of undoing each groove in the tooth.
Option 2 – Sharpen each tooth.
- This is actually a very long, tedious, and painstaking job that requires sharpening skills or a sharpening device that can sharpen the serrations. Also, you can’t do without a set of profiled stones, but you can replace them with the same sandpaper wrapped around a tube of suitable diameter.
- This time, the knife is not attached to the whetstone, but the whetstone is attached to the whetstone. Each tooth groove is individually machined until burrs appear on the back flat surface. This should already be removed with a flat stone. This sharpening is similar to the first option, but vice versa. I machined the flat sides and removed only the burrs in the grooves of the teeth. Here the grooves of each tooth are ground and burrs are removed. from a flat surface.
In short, I think I’ve disclosed enough of the Serator topic.
A sharp knife for you. Let’s meet again.
