What started the workhorse craze?

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OwlWoodworks

OwlWoodworks

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When I joined the forum in 2022, I seem to remember workhorses being all the rage. I wasn't in the knife collecting world much before that, but I certainly don't remember ever hearing anybody else discussing the perks of a beefier grind (unless for specific uses ie. cleavers, honesuki). Is this a recent trend, is it just a kkf thing? I am finding makers seem to be leaning into it more and more and the knives are just getting... worse. I won't name drop of course, but makers that used to have really lovely thin BTE grinds are pushing the convexity down more and more and the comments I hear from my friends (and my thoughts too) are that they kind of suck now. What's everyone's thoughts on this and how did it come to be? Is it a new thing? Stupid thing? Do I just not get it?
 
OwlWoodworks said:
When I joined the forum in 2022, I seem to remember workhorses being all the rage. I wasn't in the knife collecting world much before that, but I certainly don't remember ever hearing anybody else discussing the perks of a beefier grind (unless for specific uses ie. cleavers, honesuki). Is this a recent trend, is it just a kkf thing? I am finding makers seem to be leaning into it more and more and the knives are just getting... worse. I won't name drop of course, but makers that used to have really lovely thin BTE grinds are pushing the convexity down more and more and the comments I hear from my friends (and my thoughts too) are that they kind of suck now. What's everyone's thoughts on this and how did it come to be? Is it a new thing? Stupid thing? Do I just not get it?
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The word means different things to different people. When I say a workhorse I don't mean a convex axe bush knife grind. I still mean a kitchen knife and a knife is not a kitchen knife in my book if it is ground like an axe or a bush knife. So my first principle is that general purpose kitchen knives should be thin behind the edge or they suck at being a general purpose kitchen knife. From there you take what is left and classify it from laser to workhorse by essentially how thick the spine is. And I love to see a knife that is very fat where you pinch grip with excellent taper both toward the edge and the tip. And convexity is mostly important right behind the edge too. Like a really nice old Sabatier with modern steel and no finger guard.

If you want to make a knife tougher and still keep it thin enough geometry to function as a general purpose kitchen knife then you have several options:

Softer heat treat to make the knife tougher

Invest in better steel that can handle a higher hardness with thin geometry

Apply a conservative microbevel to your thin behind the edge geometry

Or keep them BNIB forever. 😂
 
I can only really speak for the knives we make and we have also jumped on the workhorse wagon, mainly because these are the knives we enjoy using the most. Also personally I feel a knife has more personality with some heft to it and a balance that makes the knife a bit nose heavy. For me, that’s a fun experience on the board. We don’t make super fancy knives (not that I don’t like fancy knives) but I truly believe that we make some very well cutting workhorse, exactly because we keep a thin grind behind the edge, an taller shinogi line that allows for more convexity in the blade road and some heft to our blades.
They work almost silent through dense products and allows the knife to do most of the work. I’m not tooting my own horn here - or maybe a little, so shoot me. But it’s also to clarify, that workhorses need to be excellent cutters, otherwise it’s just a bad knife. But I think that goes for any knife WH or not. A poorly done grind, makes any knife cut like crap.

A lot of my knife need friends aren’t on the WH train. So maybe it’s a KKF train or maybe it’s just those kind of knives that get the spotlight at the moment, because you don’t see them that often from the established Japanese makers.

But for some who’s infatuated with stones, I sometimes curse those large blade roads to polish 😂
 
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I found that I like
  • thick spine at the handle for grip comfort, and
  • sufficient blade weight so I don't have to apply much force for cutting motion.
This general recipe works well for me. It can be achieved in a number of ways ranging from cleavers that are thin behind the edge, to fatty gyutos, and plenty of stuff in between. A "workhorse" gyuto is just one of the things that more often than not meet these criteria.
 
Honestly I think it was mostly Kato, but I suppose Shigefusa contributed as well since those have always been pretty voluptuous.

When I first got into the hobby around 2009-2010, Lasers were all the rage. Thin everything thinner, always thinner. As a function of separating foods into smaller bits, it mades sense.

But as knives became thinner and thinner, many of us started to lean towards middleweights because as @tostadas mentioned above, the comfy feel in hand of a beefier spine, and slightly more "substantial feel" in comparison to the lasers that were abundant. This is when I adopted the term "Workhorse" to describe these middleweights with thin edge geometry.

Along came Kato a heavyweight that CUT. Things started to shift towards the thicker and thicker.

The Sakai Takayuki Ginsan, and Ginsan Damascus that have been surfacing on BST were also early "Workhorses," and frankly are underrated these days.
 
A bad grind is a bad grind, but I think technique is a more important factor informing whether your experience with a workhorse is positive or negative than it is for lasers or midweights too.

For a long while I was either chopping pretty much straight up and down, or draw cutting everything, which you can get away with on a laser or midweight, but will just require far too much force doing the former, or get wedged all the time on the latter.

Once I started push cutting a lot more, workhorse geometry made a lot more sense to me.

Well executed taper down the height and spine of the blade is pretty essential for me most of the time still though.
 
OwlWoodworks said:
When I joined the forum in 2022, I seem to remember workhorses being all the rage. I wasn't in the knife collecting world much before that, but I certainly don't remember ever hearing anybody else discussing the perks of a beefier grind (unless for specific uses ie. cleavers, honesuki). Is this a recent trend, is it just a kkf thing? I am finding makers seem to be leaning into it more and more and the knives are just getting... worse. I won't name drop of course, but makers that used to have really lovely thin BTE grinds are pushing the convexity down more and more and the comments I hear from my friends (and my thoughts too) are that they kind of suck now. What's everyone's thoughts on this and how did it come to be? Is it a new thing? Stupid thing? Do I just not get it?
Click to expand...
Well, you're not alone in preferring a thinner knife. I have the same preference and usually prefer a laser --> midweight knife. Own very few knives that people would consider workhorses, but have close friends who love a good workhorse
 
OwlWoodworks said:
I am finding makers seem to be leaning into it more and more and the knives are just getting... worse. I won't name drop of course, but makers that used to have really lovely thin BTE grinds are pushing the convexity down more and more and the comments I hear from my friends (and my thoughts too) are that they kind of suck now. What's everyone's thoughts on this and how did it come to be? Is it a new thing? Stupid thing? Do I just not get it?
Click to expand...

Also, it's important to be able to quantify what you define as "workhorse". Some use that to describe something based on mass (ie. greater than 250 grams). Some may go off of spine thickness (ie. greater than 4mm at the handle). And another important one that I rarely see mentioned, based on thickness at certain points behind the edge (ie. greater than 0.3/1.0/1.4/2.0mm at 1/5/10/20mm behind the edge). Most people dont use calipers to measure the grind, which is like the most important part of what makes the knife actually separate the stuff you cut.

It sounds like what you're describing is a thickly ground edge. So are you saying that people are becoming more attached to thicker edges, or one of the other factors that may go into what folks call a "workhorse?"
 
tostadas said:
I found that I like
  • thick spine at the handle for grip comfort, and
  • sufficient blade weight so I don't have to apply much force for cutting motion.
This general recipe works well for me. It can be achieved in a number of ways ranging from cleavers that are thin behind the edge, to fatty gyutos, and plenty of stuff in between. A "workhorse" gyuto is just one of the things that more often than not meet these criteria.
Click to expand...
This is a perfect explanation of what I like as well. It would be nice to have a "Workhorse" definition though, or all the other types for that matter. I have owned many knives that fit that description that I would not consider a workhorse but more midweight and that is my preference. Most of what I would consider a workhorse would probably be over 290 grams and I havent really loved them. My recent workhorse from Lucid changed my mind though, its one of my favorite knives of all time. It has more to do with an amazing grind than anything else. I think many people make a workhorse that is thicker behind the edge and thats just not ideal.
 
Yeah workhorse either means thick ass knife or super durable knife that you can use for everything. Even though there’s 2 definitions on the forum 90% of the time we’re talking about thick knife.
When I started checking out forums late 09-2010 lasers were extremely in style and everyone had kono hd Sakai yusuke ginga tkc etc. The workhorse as defined by Maxims Kato line and other subsequent iterations is more or less a reaction to lasery stuff that was popular before it. Like how punk exploded after years of zeppelin and Pink Floyd.
 
Well this has been very enlightening indeed. Thanks for your thoughts everyone.

It seems "workhorse" doesn't have a widely accepted and definitive definition. So it's pretty hard to discuss the pros and cons if everyone is talking about something different. But it has made me think a lot about my knives and what I like about them. I always enjoy using knives that are much thicker out of the handle, but very thin bte (similar to what others have mentioned they like here). I find this to be the case specifically with my Kaiju, Yanick and 9, which have above the heel thicknesses of 4mm, 5mm and 6mm. I don't know if it would be classified as a workhorse around here, but I think 5-6mm above the heel with drastic distal taper is what I really enjoy.
 
I’d be interested in hearing which Western makers make knives along the lines of @tostadas definition - thick spine above the choil but tapering quickly to something “normal” by midway (e.g. 1.5 - 2.2mm), very thin along the blade road / below the shinogi, and >220g.

For me, it’s the last 20mm towards the edge that’s important, I almost don’t care what happens above that. And even more critical is the last 10mm towards the edge.

I don’t know if my own mental idea of “workhorse” matches anyone else, but my Andrei Markin always springs to mind. It’s the first knife where OOTB I thought “damn this is so heavy it’s going to cut like crap” but then on the first cut I was all “what the actual f - how is this cutting like a Yoshikane?” Ok a little exaggeration there, it’s not quite like a Yoshikane but it’s pretty darn good.

Anyway, my definition of workhorse aligns with Tostadas but I’d add weight, e.g. a 210 should be around 220g or more. 180 - 210g is my midweight category. And >250g is my cutoff, I’m not touching those.
 
Delat said:
I’d be interested in hearing which Western makers make knives along the lines of @tostadas definition - thick spine above the choil but tapering quickly to something “normal” by midway (e.g. 1.5 - 2.2mm), very thin along the blade road / below the shinogi, and >220g.
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Merion forge, simon malliet, kamon, markin, laseur just to name a few off the top of my head.
 
Somewhere in here (might have found it) was a thread started by @Kippington discussing knife profiles and geometry. If I remember right, there was quite a bit of discussion around the evolution of the WH profile. He has a separate thread on grinds and stiction which addresses some of this as well.

IMO, WH is not simply about a thick spine, thin behind the edge with a bit of convexity. Good ones have a particularly pleasing taper that creates a knife with lots of properties and areas to work with. Big, thick, durable flat spot near the heel that will go through anything, along with a fine, thin tip that is easy to position.

I remember when I tipped my Kato WH, I had it fixed by Kev. He did quite a bit of thinning after grinding the tip to return the knife to it original geometry. To this day it is one of the best cutting knives in my collection.

https://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/threads/rambling-thoughts-on-gyuto-profiles.38393/
 
Marko makes I very good workhorse.

In general people from outside of this place seem to misunderstand what thick knives can be. There are two camps, either sharpened pry bars for durability that cut like crap or super thin great cutters that work great until you start cutting lots of wet stuff and need to do it for a long time. In reality for general purpose knives midweights are probably best and we’ve gone too far into the workhorse territory similarly how some people go too far with the thinner the better.
 
MowgFace said:
Honestly I think it was mostly Kato, but I suppose Shigefusa contributed as well since those have always been pretty voluptuous.

When I first got into the hobby around 2009-2010, Lasers were all the rage. Thin everything thinner, always thinner. As a function of separating foods into smaller bits, it mades sense.

But as knives became thinner and thinner, many of us started to lean towards middleweights because as @tostadas mentioned above, the comfy feel in hand of a beefier spine, and slightly more "substantial feel" in comparison to the lasers that were abundant. This is when I adopted the term "Workhorse" to describe these middleweights with thin edge geometry.

Along came Kato a heavyweight that CUT. Things started to shift towards the thicker and thicker.

The Sakai Takayuki Ginsan, and Ginsan Damascus that have been surfacing on BST were also early "Workhorses," and frankly are underrated these days.
Click to expand...
those takayuki are damn good. i got a blue 2 by togashi thats sharpened by tosa, so goodd!!!
 
IMO half of it is just the Jurassic Park line: "Is it heavy? Then it's expensive."

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Good hefty solid tool feels good in hand. Light wispy tool might be just as good or better but past a certain point it's hard for your ape brain to take seriously. I remember trying a Kono GS+ years ago, like 235mm and 125g, and it just felt like a toy. Similarly, I was lucky enough to briefly try the Ashi honyaki passaround - beautiful blade and excellent cutter, but even if I could justify the spend it doesn't have the... gravitas, I guess, to feel like a grail piece for me.

Obviously you can go too far in the other direction...
 
This the unpopular opinion #2 thread? All of my recent commissions are to be in the 8-10mm+ range. The trick is 1) a maker who can do the grind properly and 2) extreme distal taper. With a laser thin tip and front third you can do all of the detail work you want, while having the super satisfying half inch of steel to hold onto. My markin is a monster, but even at 8+mm at the spine it still out cuts a good chunk of the other half of my collection that’s 3-4mm. I’d put it on the same level of cutting performance as my shihan, bidinger, catcheside or prendergast even though it’s got significantly more meat to hold onto. I only find it wedges in the usual suspects of thick carrots or giant taters, but the other knives basically all do as well except for the watoyama and takamura. If the grind is done right, the knife is just plain fun to use. It feels like a weapon from a forgotten age, a tool of some forgotten king used to direct your produce to separate itself instead of the magic one lasers tend to be. There’s places for both, but nothing puts a smile on my face like an ungodly thick piece of steel that can still cut beautifully
 
I’ll just add my own personal experience here with a few points that other might share

  • a beefier grind gives me more confidence in cutting. It is a balance though on grind / geometry and I’m in agreement with @Uncle Danny that a higher shinogi line can really make a difference
  • In not involved in the culinary world, just love cooking at home. I’m in the messy middle stage of life with two kids under two, a wife, lots of stuff going on around me constantly. I can’t really ever be 100% focused on a knife that’s in my hand, so many times I have to cut in quick batches. Workhorses give me more confidence to just work quick, fast and a bit rougher.
  • Also as a home cook…I don’t care if a knife is 300g or more. I’m not on the line for 10 hours, so weight and bulk don’t make a difference to me if cutting performance is fine
What I will admit to is that at times, I’ve overplayed my card and just gotten knives that were silly in size and weight (ex: Wakui 270). Thankfully these knives still have great geometry but I probably need to see other stuff soon
 
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