Does blade width alone increase cutting power?
A common explanation I hear for the purpose of a fuller is to "make the blade wider without inceasing weight".

Say we have two blades with equal mass, length and thickness. One has a fuller, thus making it wider. Does this in any way increase it's driving force in the cut?
Re: Does blade width alone increase cutting power?
Sam Arwas wrote:
A common explanation I hear for the purpose of a fuller is to "make the blade wider without inceasing weight".

Say we have two blades with equal mass, length and thickness. One has a fuller, thus making it wider. Does this in any way increase it's driving force in the cut?


It does allow a more acute bevel angle so easier to cut into the target.
Re: Does blade width alone increase cutting power?
Sam Arwas wrote:
A common explanation I hear for the purpose of a fuller is to "make the blade wider without inceasing weight".

Pretty sure that's nonsense, actually. A fuller makes a blade either lighter without decreasing rigidity (because it reduces mass but not thickness, and thickness largely determines how stiff the blade is) or more rigid without increasing weight, depending on how you look at it - the exact same engineering principle as on I-beams. Nothing at all to do with width.

PS. On second thought, making a blade wider without any other change would make it heavier, and adding a fuller would make it lighter again, so in that sense a fuller does allow you to make a blade wider without making it heavier.

Quote:
Say we have two blades with equal mass, length and thickness. One has a fuller, thus making it wider. Does this in any way increase it's driving force in the cut?

The wider blade can, as Lancelot said, have a more acute cross-section that creates less drag as it moves through the target, which doesn't increase the force as such but does make more efficient use of it. The wider blade can also have more cross-sectional volume, placing more mass behind the blow right where it helps the most, without being thicker (which would hinder cutting) - or, alternately, making a blade wider can make it thinner, which helps cutting, without making it lighter, which would reduce cutting power.

So... yes and no. Width alone doesn't really mean anything, just like any other measurement, but an increase in width in context with all the rest of the blade geometry can make a better cutting blade.

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