Convex, flat and scandi grinds, what actually changes in your hand

Walk through our shop and you'll find two grinds on two benches. The Whitetail Skinner, like most of our field and hunting knives, is hollow ground. The kitchen knives a few feet away are flat ground. And then there's the custom work, where somebody asks for a convex edge or a scandi grind, and we build that too. So when people ask us to settle convex vs flat vs scandi grind, our answer is that the job settles it, and we've got the knives on the bench to show why.

Here's our position, plainly. The grind should follow the work, not the trend. And for a field knife built on thick stock, a hollow grind gets you the slicing edge without giving up the spine.

If you want the groundwork first, our complete guide to knife blade shapes and geometry covers it. The short version: the grind is the blade's cross-section, the path the steel takes from full thickness at the spine down to the cutting edge. Same shape, same steel, different grind, and you're holding a different knife.

Why our hunting knives are hollow ground

A hollow grind has slightly concave sides, usually ground against a round wheel. The steel scoops inward on its way down, which leaves a thin cutting edge with thicker steel kept up near the spine. It's the grind you'll find on razors and on a lot of skinners, and that's no accident.

For us, the appeal is what it lets us keep. We run thicker stock on our field knives than the market average, and we explained why in why blade thickness matters, and where we landed. The catch is that thick steel, ground the wrong way, cuts like a pry bar. The hollow grind gets around that. There's very little steel directly behind the edge, so it slices cleanly and handles fine work, which is exactly what skinning, caping and cleaning birds ask for.

Put that edge on a drop point with honest belly (more on that in what belly means on a knife) and you have a blade built for the work after the animal is down.

What a hollow grind gives up

Every grind trades something, and we'd rather tell you ours than have you find it on a frozen elk.

That thin edge has less steel supporting it. It's more vulnerable to twisting, impacts and rough use than a flat or convex edge, which is why we leave enough thickness behind the edge to take incidental contact with bone. It's also why, for a field knife that's going to spend more time on wood and hard camp chores than on game, we'd point you toward a flat or convex grind instead.

On deep cuts through firm material, the thicker shoulder above the hollow can drag or wedge. And the thin edge is easy to keep up through years of sharpening, but not forever. Eventually the stone reaches the thicker upper part of the grind.

There's a cost on our side of the bench too. The wheel's diameter limits how tall and what shape the hollow can be, and grinding one consistently takes practice. Done well, though, it's a good looking grind, especially under a clean satin finish.

One last thing, because people argue grind names like they settle everything. Edge thickness, edge angle, steel and heat treatment matter as much as what the grind is called. A stout hollow grind can be tougher than a very thin flat grind.

Flat grind, and why our kitchen knives get one

On a flat grind, the steel tapers in a straight line from the spine, or from partway down, to the edge. It's predictable, it's easy to sharpen, and it's a strong all-around cutter.

In the kitchen, predictability is the whole point. A flat grind slices evenly through food, and it keeps cutting the same way after years of sharpening. You want a kitchen knife that behaves on its hundredth onion the way it did on its first, and a flat grind does that without asking much of you at the stone.

Convex vs flat vs scandi grind, when a custom customer asks for something else

A lot of what we build is custom, and people ask for special grinds all the time. We make them. Here's what the two most common alternatives do, so you know what you're asking for.

Convex. The sides curve outward on the way to the edge, like a shallow lens. That leaves more steel right behind the edge, which makes it extremely durable and well suited to chopping and hard use. It slices a touch less eagerly than a flat grind, and it takes a little more know-how to maintain. A leather strop and some patience handle it fine.

Scandi. The blade stays at full thickness most of the way down, then a single flat bevel runs to the edge. Bushcrafters love it, because that one big bevel sits flat against wood and makes controlled carving easy, and because you can sharpen it on a flat stone with no guesswork. It's less suited to food prep and skinning, where it tends to wedge. It's a good grind. It's just the bushcrafter's grind, not the hunter's.

What actually changes in your hand

You feel a hollow grind on the first cut. The edge bites right away, which is exactly what you want when you're working hide away from the carcass. Push it deep into something firm, though, and you'll feel the shoulder of the grind start to drag.

A flat grind feels even. It cuts the same from the first slice to the last, and it's the easiest of the four to keep sharp at a kitchen table.

A convex edge pushes back a little more going in, and gives that back in toughness. It's the one to reach for when the knife is going to take a beating.

A scandi grind guides your hand on wood, because the bevel does the steering. In meat or a tomato, it pushes material apart instead of slicing through it, and you'll feel that resistance quickly.

None of those is the right grind in the abstract. Each is right for something. If the work you have in mind calls for a grind our catalogue doesn't carry, that's what our custom knives are for.

Pick the grind for the work you'll actually do. Let the forums argue about the rest.