While I agree that putting serrations on the back side of a knife probably weakens the knife, so does putting an edge on it in the first place. It would be much stronger as a solid 1/8" thick chunk of steel with no bevel or edge. My thought would be that if you want a knife with both a straight edge and serrations, you will do better not polluting one blade type with the other with a "partial" thing. Instead, keep them seperate - on opposite sides of the knife. Or, as I mentioned in an earlier post, get one knife with full serrations and one knife without. That would be better yet. If you require a super strong knife (for batoning I assume), I would recommend getting an axe or tomahawk instead. A straight edge knife. A fully serrated knife. And a tomahawk/axe. And a saw. That's the ticket. No compromises by combining functions into one tool.