This page talks about the most common blade grinds. You can find the source of this information here.

**NOTE** For those of you who may be a little confused about what blade grinds are or what any of the pictures below represent, each of the drawn pictures represent what the different knife grinds look like head on, as if someone was pointing the tip of the knife directly at you. Each of the "actual" pictures of knives are just examples of the grind being covered at the time.

Scandi Grind

The scandi (short for Scandinavian) grind is as common as it gets. It's more often referred to as a wedge grind. Its uses include chopping, splitting, and other rough chores. It is the simplest blade to use because the lack of a secondary grind makes its edge and angle the most obvious, and therefore the easiest to sharpen. That's why this edge is recommended to sharpening beginners. The downside is that if the stock (the immediate area behind the blade) is very wide you will need to grind off more and more steel in order to attain sharpness. This often requires extensive work.

Hollow Grind

As you can see, the hollow grind is slightly different from the scandi. This is due to the concave primary grind taking from the wide spine to make a thinner stock behind the secondary grind, which is the actual blade. Review the pictures if you're unsure of what that means. The gain is that you end up with a blade that will retain a cutting edge longer than most other edge grinds. The downside, however, is that you have a blade that cannot easily split wood or other emergency chores of that nature. Another downside is that it's harder to sharpen because the angle to the edge is harder to spot. This grind is a common grind for certain combat knives, most notably the Ghurka kukri. Straight Razors also use hollow grinds.

High Flat Grind

A high flat grind is similar to the scandi grind save for the secondary grind. The primary grind ends much closer to the blade spine except for a (most likely) small, flat section nearest the blade spine. The same issues with the hollow grind apply to this.

Full Flat Grind

This blade is similar in grind appearance to the high flat, but it has no flat anywhere on the blade. It's all primary grind and the secondary edge grind. The same issues with sharpening that apply to the previous two grinds apply here as well.

Full Convex Grind

The convex grind is the dead opposite of the hollow grind. Sharpening looks to be fairly simple. This grind is commonly seen on ax blades since the shape of the area behind the edge forces wood and the like away from the rest of the blade which prevents it from getting stuck in whatever you're chopping. Note: An ax and a splitting maul are not the same. An ax uses an actual blade driven by its weight while a maul uses its weight to split wood and the like.

Originally By: misfitzseat3
Revisions By: Drewblet
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