Patent ID: 8056454

Claim:
A method of severing a rope, comprising the steps of: providing a knife having a handle and a blade secured to said handle, the blade having a first cutting edge and a second cutting edge, each of said cutting edges being provided with a plurality of notches oriented at an acute angle in relation to a longitudinal axis of the blade, each of said notches being defined by a first linear side and a second linear side, each of said first side and said second side being formed with sharpened surfaces, said blade having a front and a back; providing said first linear side with a bevel surface formed on the front side and a bevel surface formed on the back, the bevel surface on the back being a mirror-image of the bevel surface on the front, and wherein the bevel surfaces of the front and the back intersect along a sharpened cutting edge; providing said second linear side with a bevel surface formed on the front and a bevel surface formed on the back, and wherein the bevel surfaces of the front and the back intersect along a sharpened cutting edge, the sharpened cutting edge of the first side and the sharpened cutting edge of the second side extending at an acute angle in relation to each other; engaging the rope with said blade such that strands of the rope enter the notches; and causing the blade to move against the rope strands, tensioning the rope strands within the notches, and applying a cutting force on the rope by opposing sharpened cutting edges of the first side and the second side.