kitchen knife design

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GABaus

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I am working my first kitchen knife design and am going for a fairly generalist blade. Here is the first draft of my design, any suggestions for how i could improve it.
 
Yes, but my being relatively inexperienced with a grinder will probably end up making it slightly curved whether i want to or not.
 
Add a slight curve to the blade edge.
Loose the pointed butt and make it round.
Don't add any drop to the handle. It should follow t he rise of the spine.
When completely done, add a small flat facet to the pointed heel.
 
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l9038h3n

Thanks for the tips here is a slightly modified version based on your advice.
 
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First drawing for sure. You could add a little more belly towards the tip. My general rule of thumb is the first 1/4 of the cutting edge from the heel is flat, or relatively flat. So an 8” cutting edge would have somewhere near a 2” lining flat at the heel. The handle doesn’t look very comfortable to me but that’s more preference I think. The pic below you can see what I’m talking about. You want a little rocking action but you also don’t want to have to raise the handle 10” off the board to use the tip. Just play around with some designs. It doesn’t take much to change the way a knife responds when using it.
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A great piece of advice that I received here and reccomend is go to Walmart or whatever store you frequent and find a knife shape you like. Trace it and make that. Once you get more experience you can tweak it a bit.
 
Justin Schmidt said:
A great piece of advice that I received here and reccomend is go to Walmart or whatever store you frequent and find a knife shape you like. Trace it and make that. Once you get more experience you can tweak it a bit.
Click to expand...
I prefer Target better looking women that you can ask their opinion on the design they like and why. I was amazed by how in depth they were with feedback on handle shapes and blade geometry EASE of sharpening was the big takeaway from all of them.
 
Justin Schmidt said:
A great piece of advice that I received here and reccomend is go to Walmart or whatever store you frequent and find a knife shape you like. Trace it and make that. Once you get more experience you can tweak it a bit.
Click to expand...
I loosely based the first knife off of the knife I use the most in the kitchen, giving it a bit more of a tip and slightly different handle orientation and shape.
 
marchone said:
No snark intended but you might look at classic patterns from Wusthof, Henckels or Sabatier to see what has worked for centuries.
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Not sure if this was in reference to my last post, but no snark taken, and right back at ya! Because if you talk to chefs who use knives every day, they all want some curve that comes to a stop at the heel, but not a hard stop that a flat spot would give. I have yet to have one ask for a flat heel.
 
No no. My comment was intended for the OP.

I’m not quite sure what you mean by “they all want some curve that comes to a stop at the heel.” Would you elaborate?

FYI, I am a chef, with 30 years in high end kitchens including 20 or so in my own. Which doesn’t mean my experiences are the be all and end all by any means. I am genuinely interested in the popular notion that a western style Chef’s knife should be only 8-inches. Perhaps it’s from the present culture’s fear of big knives. I can’t say.

To my mind, training and experience, a proper Chef’s knife is a 10-incher meant to cover the board. Most people I speak to about it say a 10-inch knife is too big for them when it is decidedly NOT relative to a person’s height or body weight.

YMMV. Many knife makers I have spoken to disagree vehemently. That I find amusing. But then, they are not chefs.

Many more also hate the Wusthof bolster for sharpening purposes. But they ignore its other advantages. Like the strength it affords for light cleaver tasks.
 
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marchone said:
Would you elaborate?
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I realize that my description may have been (or may be) lacking. What I've been told (in summary) is that when chopping or mincing veggies with a pinch grip, keeping the tip on the board and just using the heel half of the blade, folks like to feel the heel hit the board and not fully rock (the "stop" I mentioned above), but when you look down the edge, you shouldn't see any flat spots (or, heaven forbid, any concavity that can happen with poor sharpening technique) on the blade.
 
weo said:
I realize that my description may have been (or may be) lacking. What I've been told (in summary) is that when chopping or mincing veggies with a pinch grip, keeping the tip on the board and just using the heel half of the blade, folks like to feel the heel hit the board and not fully rock (the "stop" I mentioned above), but when you look down the edge, you shouldn't see any flat spots (or, heaven forbid, any concavity that can happen with poor sharpening technique) on the blade.
Click to expand...
Now THAT (from my perspective) is an interesting observation (from the point of view of a really nerdy mathematician). (those who design leading-edge roller coasters would get this ... the rest of you I am sure will be sending me raspberries). It is possible that what "feels right" is a "continuous curvature" on the edge without a flat spot might be equivalent to having the "second derivative of the blade profile edge go to zero at the heel" (sorry - calculus). most of you will want to run me out of town. But if you like the current "modern" roller coasters ... it might be worth asking??? I will wait for thoughts on this....
 
weo said:
I realize that my description may have been (or may be) lacking. What I've been told (in summary) is that when chopping or mincing veggies with a pinch grip, keeping the tip on the board and just using the heel half of the blade, folks like to feel the heel hit the board and not fully rock (the "stop" I mentioned above), but when you look down the edge, you shouldn't see any flat spots (or, heaven forbid, any concavity that can happen with poor sharpening technique) on the blade.
Click to expand...

Yes, the rocking bit is something I see in use descriptions quite often, and quite honestly, don’t understand it. You can use the tip as a fulcrum or raise the blade above the board and chop. Of course both push and pull cuts are also used.

All of my work knives are pretty well used but inspecting a few now I think I see what you’re referring to.
 
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