Work horses vs lasers vs tall vs short?? What makes it so?

Reading all this lingo about work horses and lasers, which I understand to be thicker vs thinner, as well as reading about tall knives vs shorter knives. I know there isn't a clean classification for all this stuff, and some subjectivity comes into play, but could someone attempt to describe what sizes/thicknesses a work horse would fall into vs a laser? Are we talking only a couple mm or what? What about tall knives vs short knives. When would you want a work horse vs a laser, or a tall knife vs a short knife within a single type of knife? I guess it would be best to keep it within a single knife type, so how about gyutos? Bonus points for your favorite smith who does that knife type well. Thanks.

I'll start off by saying workhorse didn't necessarily mean thick to some. To me it means a knife I'm comfortable to bang away on all day for all tasks. Some it may excel at some not.

I have two workhorses which are totally different beasts.

As for short vs tall. I personally consider anything around the 60mm mark, give or take a few mm, tall. But I love tall blades.

Tall knife+flatter profile+some heft=good push cutter.
Average height or narrow height+lighter weight=good for pull cuts

When it comes to thick and thin I think a lot of people put too much into the spine thickness. Take a look at something like a Fujiwara FKH, which has a spine thickness similar to a Gesshin Ginga but these knives are very different. The Ginga is thinner throughout the entire grind from heel to tip and from spine to edge. My Ginga, for me, is a laser and my FHK is a workhorse.

I have some knives that feel almost as if they fit into both categories. My Tanka B#2 Damascus is fairly thin at the spine, through the middle and to the edge but it keeps a little bit of meat. It feels like a workhorse ground as closer to a laser as it can get without actually being one, if that makes any sense.

Maybe I am wrong, but that is the way I see it.

And I like what labor said above. I like push and pull but use mostly G&G so a push cut and as such tend to like a tall knife. I do keep a few narrow around for specific tasks where I tend to pull cut.

There's all sorts of anomalies out there too. Plenty of hefty knives that are ground thin. Maybe it's time to just stop using the term workhorse all together.

labor of love said:

Tall knife+flatter profile+some heft=good push cutter.
Average height or narrow height+lighter weight=good for pull cuts

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Even as I reread this I realize there are exceptions, people praise the KS for being a superb pull cutter(not me) and it's not thick nor thin.

labor of love said:

There's all sorts of anomalies out there too. Plenty of hefty knives that are ground thin. Maybe it's time to just stop using the term workhorse all together.

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I don't see that happening.