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My old cutting instructor said never buy a knife you haven't held, and I blew him off for a $180 online deal
Back in 2019 I was working at a shop in Grand Rapids and the guy who trained me on the block, Ray, used to say the handle has to pick your hand, not the other way around. I nodded along but then I found a 10 inch cimeter marked down to $180 from some site with no returns and figured steel is steel. First shift with it my grip kept sliding because the handle was too narrow for my palm, and by the end of the week I had a hot spot on my thumb web that turned into a blister. I limped through two more shifts with athletic tape wrapped around the thing before I gave up and went back to my beat up old knife. Ray saw it and didn't even say I told you so, just handed me his and told me to feel where my fingers sat. So now I'm curious how much handle shape actually matters to the rest of you, because I'm about to spend real cash on a new breaking knife and I don't want to get burned twice. Do you all order sight unseen or is there a trick to judging a handle from specs?
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richard61011d ago
I read a thing from a knife maker once where he said handle shape matters more than blade steel for how a knife feels in daily use, and your story pretty much proves it. What got me was how he talked about the palm swell and the taper at the back, because a narrow handle forces your hand to work just to hold on. There's no spec that tells you your own hand size, so buying blind is a coin flip no matter what the listing says. Best trick I heard is to cut a handle shape out of a bar of soap or a block of foam and squeeze it, since it costs nothing and shows you where the pressure hits. After a blister like that I wouldn't order anything I can't send back, period.
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