BLADE Magazine

Can You Define Knife Choil?

On a pocketknife blade, the knife choil is the notch between the cutting edge and the blade tang and serves to notify you where to stop sharpening the blade.
choil for the knife
When you think knife choil and pocketknives, Case immediately comes to mind.
A classic example of a knife choil on a fixed blade is the notch here between the cutting edge and the ricasso or the blade tang of the Baja 3.0 by TOPS Knives.

Is a knife choil a nick, a notch, a finger groove or something else? And besides, what’s the difference between a nick and a notch?

What it is is one of those knife-specific terms that seems to evade proper definition by many, everyone from knife newbies to knife aficionados.

One definition for knife choil from an unknown source describes it as “a small notch between the edge and tang of the blade.” According to the “Knife Encyclopedia” on the website of A.G. Russell Knives, a knife choil is “the cut-away area between the edge and the tang of a pocketknife blade and between the edge and the guard of a straight (aka fixed-blade) knife. The choil may or may not have enough space for a finger. Its true purpose is to allow the edge to be sharpened all the way to the tang in a pocketknife and to the end of the edge in others. Any reference of choil and finger space or choil and handle is improper.” In an old issue of the American Blade, today’s BLADE® Magazine, BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall-Of-Fame© member Blackie Collins defined a knife choil as “the area immediately in front of the guard at the bottom of the blade. It is occasionally shaped to accept the index finger to facilitate a more secure hold on certain types of knives for various operations. It actually serves a more useful purpose as it allows the full length of the cutting edge to be properly sharpened.”

To expand on the definitions of both A.G. Russell Knives and Mr. Collins, while a knife choil may have enough space to accept a finger for certain types of cutting operations, such a capability is not the choil’s stated purpose. In some instances you may hear the term for such a feature called a finger choil. According to Russell’s definition above, such a reference is “improper.” In fact, sometimes what is incorrectly referred to as a finger choil is really more of a finger groove that spans the undersides of both the handle and the ricasso or the blade tang. Meanwhile, some new factory knives seem to be downplaying the knife choil if not eliminating it entirely.

Be that as it may, the chief purpose of the knife choil, as noted by the definitions of both Russell and Collins, is to allow the full length of the cutting edge to be properly sharpened. In other words, it is simply a small notch between where the cutting edge ends and the ricasso or the blade tang begins that indicates where you should stop when sharpening the blade with a stone, diamond-coated abrasive or what have you.

 

 


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