Why do KNIVES in History have One or Two EDGES? 

Matt Easton A dagger like a sword is Weapon primarily & a tool secondarily if at all! A knife or large blade like a machete is a tool primarily & a weapon secondarily. You get the odd implement that don't fit this like an axe for you have war axes being primarily a weapon & you have felling axes primarily as a tool though both are an axe. Most of the terms used in arm's & armour come from the craftsmen/producer & not the users. Even merchants & salesmen likely have more influence on terminology of items for they have to at least appear to know what they are talking about to make sell regularly. Something enthusiasts & instructor's like your self seem to forget is that Craftsmen-merchants had more status-power in practice then kings in many instances through out history. A king nor the church can enforce anything without arms. Why many monasteries took up arms production & metal works. Kings often had their royal armourers just to keep them away from the commoner so they where not armed. Soldiers & mercenaries generally where not treated well by another side in conflict. A craftsmen was often sort after by the enemy upon victory never mind someone more specialised & invaluable like a siege Engineer of renown!

''More work to created a single or double edged blade'' you say. well that really depends matt. is the edge flamberge, stright or curved et cetera. Making an edge is a simple you wrap that out at the end. The hardest most time consuming part of any commission is the over all form/shape for: how many heats are required, will it need more tools- formers to shape & are they specialised common or even exist. Some work you need to make a tool from scratch because it doesn't exist or no one produces it. A horse shoe, chandelier & most lanterns are far more difficult to make then a blade if no added trimming-flair yet none of these items have a an edge at all. I can make farm more cash making wrought iron scrolled gates then any blade be it now or hundreds of years ago. Rich people will pay out the wazoo for the nicest look regal front for their house. A Ferrier can form a blade for perspective of difficulty but few black smiths can forge a horse shoe that won't lame a horse. Ferrier's are paid more then the general smith for reason in history like my Great grand father & grand father in his free time not working his lorry yard back when they where amongst the living. I don't forge these days as you can't afford the fuel or get the permission to do it anywhere. When I'm deed & the few I like myself pass this knowledge likely dies with us! Most of what you buy is not forged these day but cut & ground to shape stock. it was never done by hammer & tong in fire. The amount that call them self's smiths when they are just novice fabricator/metal workers. I'm an engineer that can form metal in most every means known be it industrial or traditional. Take away most people tools & they couldn't make them from scratch. A for points on arm's it depends on the shape of the point as a square polyhedron is easier then a cone & a triangular polyhedron is harder still. I'd charge more for a coned spike done by traditional tools then a double edged knife as it take more precision of hand & eye let alone heats. Kind regards.

I would love to see wooden tipped fire hardened spears vs chain armor, plate armor, and leather variants

You need to try the Besh Wedge, 3 edge knife.

Haven't watched many vids then

It's not a firearm....nothing dangerous about waving a knife around a bit in front of a camera.....

@@fraserihle4847 Knives have sharp edges. They are _immensely_ more dangerous than an unloaded firearm. You can't unload a knife.

@@WJS774 They are equally unsafe, both are weapons you shall always exercise discipline reguardless...

@@WJS774 You never know it may turn around and stab you...

A Bowie was a combination fighting weapon, survival tool, like a k-bar or machete.

@@MonkeyJedi99 The Ka-bar you're thinking about is just a bowie knife by that company, not a different type of knife that fits a similar role. Machetes, on the other hand, are really mostly a tool, that is how they're designed (sans some gimmicky modern ones), being used as a self defence weapon is just an inherent side effect of being a cutting tool (always better than your bare hands if you lack anything actually designed with combat in mind)

The bowie knife though has a number of adaptations to make it more dagger-like, with a clipped point that makes it more useful for thrusting (center-line, narrower and frequently the clipped point also has a false edge) and makes the knife slightly lighter. Bowie knife is very much a work blade with point modified to stab things.

@@fiendishrabbit8259 the clipped point has something to do with edge shape too. A very wide and thick blade is hard to grind out to a point, while still maintaining the same bevel. By clipping the point, you don't get such an extreme radius of the tip of the blade. Another way to put it: If you ever break off the tip of a knife and want to grind it back to a point, leave the edge side as it is and grind on the spine instead.

Yeah, just ricasso the thing on the back (false edge). If you are not out for a wepaon.

It's entirely possible that carrying a sharpened screwdriver is completely illegal here, I've never checked...

I must add more. I suppose I'm technically a museum trained professional blacksmith (1840-1860, roughly) but I'd put my skill closer to amateur Cutler, although I can and do make some rather expensive custom knives, rarely. You're very, very slightly wrong in saying it's easier to smith a single edged blade. Without a bunch of experience, when you hammer out the single edge, the spine curves backwards... So in some ways it's easier to make a straight blade double edged, because you're pushing into the centre of the blade from the outsides, so it naturally straightens. There is a ton more grinding and polishing for a double edged blade, and that's more work than most people think, particularly if you do it traditionally. Also must add... I buy cheap machetes, and we have a bit of wooded and wilderness property, but I also use them to practice sidesword and other things I don't have the money to buy or ability to make... I sharpen the back 3-5" of them to practice false edge tip shots and because it's frankly more efficient once you're used to the blade. Besides which, it can give them stabbing ability. I must say, I take everything to the grinder and change the profile, and if I'm not happy with the tempering and heat treatment, I redo it, even if the machete cost $10us. Because they're mostly used to control and trim small woody plants and the dreaded multi floral rose, I scallop the blades a bit, which isn't exactly the best for combat, but it catches prickers that otherwise would give you more scratches than a mad 20lb tomcat.

Interesting that you can’t carry a double edged knife easily, but some guns are fine. If it’s for safety of others, it really makes no sense

While I'm at it... My sharpest blade is kinda like a broken backed seax. It doesn't look like it, it looks like a broken Vietnam era machete, which is exactly what it is, I need to make a traditional looking handle for it, but there's not much reason to bother. It has no false edge or rounding on the ", broken backed" part, but it's a deadly stabbing or cutting weapon, albeit with limited reach. I'd rate it above any gladius I've handled although it's a comparable size. Also, if exact body mechanics are thought through, you can get nearly the same penetration with a single edged blade, if it's a knife. I'm not making things up, I make and test things myself. A knife that fits the user very well might not need two edges, even if it's a grab and stab knife. I have rather long and strong arms but limited height, doing something like a right hook, slightly modified, with the right knife, is almost easier with a slightly curved blade and off centre point, as long as you know what you're doing and have the right knife. But that's only up close and really personal combat. Definitely not true at any range. anything longer, straight, and pointy even if lighter is better for opening stages unless you're really fast and snipe hands. I used to be really fast and I still snipe hands. Now, anyone who knows my mobility is limited and most of my knuckles are smashed into oblivion can easily take advantage of it with almost any weapon. I've never been defeated by staff at any age. The last little HEMA event we had here, I was supposed to ref the staff, but our team's fighter was either sick or couldn't make it, we had a 4-6" ice storm the day before, first meetup we'd had since COVID lockdown. I won again, it really wasn't fair, that's why I was supposed to be the ref. I gave my opponent for the championship my medal, which actually cost like $3.50 US, and I'm the one who bought them.

Due to the recent SCOTUS case, many knife laws on the books in the USA can be challenged in court again, none of them will pass the plain text, history and tradition standards set in Bruen.

Oh yeah. In period through till this day only certain people would even have a need for a dagger but most everyone had/used a single edged utility knife.

Some hunters use daggers for animal dispatch. I also know butchers who used them for animal slaughter to pierce the base of the skull or plunge into the top of the spinal column. I was trained many years ago to work with goats, sheep and the like and we had a small, (4”-4.5” long) thin and extremely sharp but narrow “kitchen/utility” knife. It was used to plunge into the neck and slash the brachial arteries to exsanguinate the animals by slashing both front limb arteries and essentially make them pass out and die with the least pain and injuries possible. Stab at an angle and slash the first artery and turn the blade and slash the second. Very small cut about 1.5” wide and if you did it right a fountain would spray out and the animal would collapse almost immediately with little discomfort, (few nerves in the area and the blood pressure loss followed by exsanguination would make it an almost instant permanent sleep). A rough description but since you are watching a video about murder tools I figured I’d add some real life murder descriptions. I did this for four years as well as mostly butchery work and some days killed 40-60 sheep.

nice! a weapon vs a tool that can also be a weapon

The first part of your post was interesting. The end part makes me think you need to do some serious introspection. If you still love knives after having to do that job you should take good care of yourself.

@@john-paulsilke893 Exsanguination is not thought by any credible physicians to be a particularly pleasant way to die for humans so its not clear why some think its okay for mammals. If it's for religous butchery then I understand, because then they've already shown a department from reality but otherwise it just seems like plain old cruelty

I need to hear this now.

rumor has it he is working with Royal Armouries and Windlass on a replica Wakefeild...

I know and I’m waiting on it with great anticipation.

I would be very interested in that sword

I more or less do that, though I do call certain modern single edged short fighting blades knives, as well as anything which folds or retracts. Also, if its a dirk I call it that specifically.

I do not think anyone would call a Bowie knife a dagger, despite it being primarily a fighting weapon

I like this simile: Dagger is to knife as tulip is to flower.

@@tomhalla426 Hunting knives are not primarily weapons

@@Alexander-cg1ey The original Bowie knives were dual purpose, but biased towards being a weapon.

I wish they made a modern one for the AR-15 platform... 😆

He has done videos about curved vs straight blades.

I'm designing my own knife this month for friend that makes them. This is good stuff to take into account.

The edge near the grip is excellent for whittling too.

I choke up a lot higher now, than I did first learning khukuris. Understanding the powerful blow came early, given how intuitive that knife is, but learning how fast and precisely delicate you could be took some time. To this day, I still think the khukuri is the most broadly useful knife design ever forged. Not just as a weapon, but perhaps the most robust field utility tool outside of an axe. And there are a hundred varieties to fit your needs...

Why slice when you can chop?

@@Sr_ECO Kukri = multi tool It chops! It slices! It dices! it makes French fries!

@@Sr_ECO Try to chop your ham, soyboy ;-)

With knives i don't that he was that accurate. Well at least not to me. A bowie type with a false edge is good and one where the false edge is sharpend is easier to thrust with. And something like a sharp Arkansas toothpick is even easier. There all better than a standard hunting knife that's really made to clean game or cut up the meat. I think the reason skall. Didn't see much difference is he was not actually stabbing something alive. The Arkansas toothpick is the easiest to stab with. But I think the bowie kills better. But you can clean and butcher a lot easier with the bowie than the dubble edge dagger.

The only issue with a person doing the testing is the poor calibration and repeatability of the human body. A more scientific test would involve drop tests or robots (even a gravity-powered drop arm) and/or scales or strain gauges and measurement of penetration into a repeatable target medium.

@@MonkeyJedi99 skall was using scientific methodology and even made a disclaimer that his tests may not be perfect, but he did still nonetheless actually thrust into a medium that has similar physical properties to flesh and meat. however, it would be interesting to see thrusting tests with more type of blades that have armor, without armor, sharp, dull, and various skills of users. the only thing would be getting these said blades (making sure they are period accurate and well made) and various users of various skills of various backgrounds.

It was a great video, but not anywhere close to a rigorous or extensive enough test to draw a conclusion like "There is no empirical difference between thrusting with two edges and one." I'm certain Skall himself wouldn't make a statement like that without a lot more testing. For instance: more blades, including some as similar as possible except in number of edges. Mechanical testing to take out the dude factor. More blocks of ballistic gel rather than one getting progressively more chewed up. And textile penetration involved, rather than just gel. But people can see the video for themselves here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-jBZ9Y1KSkos.html And then his analysis of the results: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fuLUO3dOP2Q.html

My takeaway from this (Matt's) video is that the main challenge was not cutting into the body but bypassing the armor, so it's perfectly possible there's negligible difference between single and double edge when facing a naked opponent, but the thing that matters is how they perform versus an armored opponent who is also trying to stab you back. Skallagrim's video is a nifty experiment and it's always cool to see people do experimental archaeology, but I'm sure he would agree that it's just the tip of the iceberg if you really want to settle this question in an empirical way.

I don't see how you could bind a sword with a main gauche. Probably just parry, though I think I would prefer a small shield. Unless you combine it with your sword maybe??

@@forevertoremain If you try rapier and dagger, you'll immediately see how you could.

All the better to backstab you with, my dear?

Not really because there were bollock daggers with a ricasso to put your thumb on for work use

The rondel dagger is an upper class thing because its hilt is impractical to wear everyday for working and its usually got a very pointy bar like blade for stabbing. But a bauernwehr or bollock dagger with a false edge would be a do it all knife for work and defense

Not really but double-edged knives are better for stabbing soft targets and generally less good as tools (less robust certainly) so they’re more likely to be dedicated weapons.

Edward scissorhands is the closest you might get

@@Sr_ECO good point

Here you see a lot of different shapes as different uses for the bajonet were envisioned. Single use: A spike for stabby-stab only? Or multipurpose: The bajonet = the army knife, or the bajonet is trowel shaped , so you can use it to dig as well,

I feel a convergence in the Force...