Balance point on a gyuto

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Barmoley

Barmoley

Rant specialist extraordinaire
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I am currious about general preference for the balance point on a gyuto. I prefer blade heavy knives, but it seems to me that most here and especially pros prefer more balanced feel where balance point is right under or very close to the pinch grip. With such balance the knife feels lighter, more controllable, but less powerful. So do most care or do you adjust to whatever
 
i prefer ever so slightly blade forward, but like just barely past pinch point. i would call it a gentle bias for power but still nimble enough for finesse? as long as it is reasonably close to balanced, it's not a big deal for me as i can adjust. it's when its too forward or backwards that it becomes a deal breaker.
 
Thanks guys. I agree, I strongly dislike handle heavy. I am starting to think that maybe I should give more credit to balanced gyutos though. I see the benefits, blade heavy feels better in my hand, but maybe i should stop requesting every knife to be blade heavy. For some grinds and sizes it is just not simple to do.
 
I used to be a more blade forward guy but now I seem to gravitate more toward a neutral balance, just feels more natural and nimble. I like the balance right at the pinch. Cannot tolerate handle heavy though!
 
Ive been on an integral kick lately, and imo nothing comes close to balance compared to integrals
 
right at the pinch, or slightly blade heavy for some 'leverage'. I had a custom handle that was really heavy and sold the knife immediately. Couldn't do it
 
Balanced. I like to be able to do a rapid up and down chop when necessary, and if it’s too blade heavy then that’s difficult to do. But I can’t deal with the level of handle heavy that you get with a western anymore—no tip control.
 
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I'm definitely a neutral-to-handle kinda guy. If the centre of mass is anywhere within the grip, I'm a happy camper.

I can try to explain why. Grab a neutral balanced knife, hold it in the pinch grip with three fingers, but with the tip of the knife facing up to the sky and your arm parallel to the ground. Now shake it side to side like it owes you money....
With the balance point within the pinch, the knife will go as fast as you want with no real loss of control.

If you do the same thing with a knife that has a balance point towards the tip, things get a little wild if you try to go faster than the knife allows. The max speed is dictated by the knife's rhythm, rather than your own, and this feeling is very noticeable over the board during push-cutting.

With balance toward the handle, so long as it's still within the grip of my hand it doesn't bother me much. I can simply tighten the grip with my pinky and ring fingers. I enjoy using handle-heavy petty/paring knives, as they're often used with a different grip that makes more use of the palm.
 
I prefer 'neutral' as well, although I will caveat that a properly designed knife generally allows you move your grip around.

So if you want tip forward, you should be able to grip to get this, and if you want 'near' neutral, you should be able to alter your grip to get this. If you are lucky to pick up a knife that acts like this you can tell right away. IMHO thats a sign of knife design that has been well thought out.A balance point roughly close to the pinch is fine, a finger forward is generally fine, etc.

The handle and emoto design starts to come into play at this stage.

I often wonder if these aspects of knife design are often overlooked and underappreciated.
 
I don’t find myself altering the *location* of my grip much at all. I’ll use a pointer grip when I need more weight on the blade (mostly when using petty knives, though), I’ll clock my grip when making certain sideways cuts, and I’ll probably grip the handle more tightly from time to time like Kip suggests, but the forward/back position and the majority of the finger locations are always the same.

Similar for the rest of y’all?
 
Kippington said:
I'm definitely a neutral-to-handle kinda guy. If the centre of mass is anywhere within the grip, I'm a happy camper.

I can try to explain why. Grab a neutral balanced knife, hold it in the pinch grip with three fingers, but with the tip of the knife facing up to the sky and your arm parallel to the ground. Now shake it side to side like it owes you money....
With the balance point within the pinch, the knife will go as fast as you want with no real loss of control.

If you do the same thing with a knife that has a balance point towards the tip, things get a little wild if you try to go faster than the knife allows. The max speed is dictated by the knife's rhythm, rather than your own, and this feeling is very noticeable over the board during push-cutting.

With balance toward the handle, so long as it's still within the grip of my hand it doesn't bother me much. I can simply tighten the grip with my pinky and ring fingers. I enjoy using handle-heavy petty/paring knives, as they're often used with a different grip that makes more use of the palm.
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This makes a whole lot of sense as Kip's explanations usually do:D This also explains why pros like more neutral or slightly forward balance, control is more important. Also, handle heavy for shorter and especially paring knives make sense too, for in hand work in general, plus it would be a very strange small knife with blade heavy design wouldn't make much sense and would be difficult to do without making the blade unreasonably thick.

I sometimes adjust the grip when I want the blade to be slightly longer on a shorter gyuto, then I grab a little back almost pinching emoto if it is tall enough to allow it.
 
so I just picked up my Munetoshi and the balance seems to be way blade forward, about an inch past the pinch point. On my butcher it's about a 3/8" past the pinch point. is this to be expected or is there a solution to this or does it really not matter.
 
When I went from German to Japanese knives I truly understood it wasn't just a matter of weight.. Neutral or a bit forward balance is my preference as well. It depends what knife I'm using and what's the task.
Not impossible at all but I'll be surprised if anyone commenting here is going to prefer handle heavy knives (at least in a Gyuto). Ready to be proven wrong.. :D
 
DaBishop said:
so I just picked up my Munetoshi and the balance seems to be way blade forward, about an inch past the pinch point. On my butcher it's about a 3/8" past the pinch point. is this to be expected or is there a solution to this or does it really not matter.
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Try it for a while. (Few weeks.) If it really bothers you, you can replace the handle with something heavier.
 
DaBishop said:
so I just picked up my Munetoshi and the balance seems to be way blade forward, about an inch past the pinch point. On my butcher it's about a 3/8" past the pinch point. is this to be expected or is there a solution to this or does it really not matter.
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Yeah, you'll get used to it--to the point that when you pick up a handle-heavy German knife in a few weeks, that's what'll feel weird. Try adjusting your technique a little too, realizing that the blade can do some of the work for you. With forward balance, the knife will feel less "whippy", and this can just take a little time to bond with.
 
DaBishop said:
so I just picked up my Munetoshi and the balance seems to be way blade forward, about an inch past the pinch point. On my butcher it's about a 3/8" past the pinch point. is this to be expected or is there a solution to this or does it really not matter.
Click to expand...
I like blade heavy knife. When I use light knives, sometimes I even loosely hold the middle or tail of the handle to make it as blade heavy as possible to gain that power in chopping. I also pinch grip to gain control when necessary for sure. You could try the knife in various ways to understand and/or develop your own preference.
 
Neutral balance for me. Slightly blade heavy (a few mm not cm forward of the pinch) is certainly acceptable, but handle heavy or strongly blade heavy are non-starters. I do find that I often tend to move my pinch forward on more blade heavy knives to at least partially restore balance.
 
McMan said:
Yeah, you'll get used to it--to the point that when you pick up a handle-heavy German knife in a few weeks, that's what'll feel weird. Try adjusting your technique a little too, realizing that the blade can do some of the work for you. With forward balance, the knife will feel less "whippy", and this can just take a little time to bond with.
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I like forward weight knives and I use all German knives. My German chef knives are forward weighted. I think my German filet knife is more neutral which I like. What German knives are handle-heavy? I have 30 or so Henckels and Wusthof German knives and I don't recall any being handle heavy, maybe a paring knife.
 
I enjoy a blade forward balance. I like my blades to do the work themselves and the forward balance helps with that. I had a k&s mazaki with the ebony handle that made the balance super neutral and I wasn’t a fan. I can see why it jives with some people. But I really dig a more blade forward balance.
 
coxhaus said:
I like forward weight knives and I use all German knives. My German chef knives are forward weighted. I think my German filet knife is more neutral which I like. What German knives are handle-heavy? I have 30 or so Henckels and Wusthof German knives and I don't recall any being handle heavy, maybe a paring knife.
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Have you tried many Japanese knives? I think you'll find that many (likely most) will have a balance point forward to German knives (the standard cast or characters--Wusthof, Henckels, F.Dick, etc.). The Wusthof Grand Prix that I had was handle heavy and it was a chefs knife. I had a couple bigger Henckels from the 60-70s, also handle heavy (this was a weird transition period where the blades were still ground somewhat thin but the handle were getting blockier). By handle heavy, I mean a balance point slightly behind the bolster.

The full bolster pulls the weight back as compared to a bolsterless Japanese knife (plus, ho wood is a pretty light handle material). Of course, balance point depends on a bunch of factors--blade length, distal taper, blade height, etc. etc.

If you're fortunate enough to have some of the pre-WWI German and French stuff than the balance can be a thing of beauty exactly at the bolster or slightly in front of it (a well-tapered tang helped as did a whisper-thin tip).
 
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Maybe it is the way I hold the knife. I don't pinch so maybe it is the way I hold them. It could be I don't understand. I played with an Asian knife back in the 70s or 80s. I did not like the handle and I had no idea how to sharpen it. I think my mom brought it back from Japan. I did something with it and any way I don't have it any more
 
Definitely, if you hold the knife in a hammer/racket grip then the balance that you perceive will be very different. Most here use pinch grip and depending on how deep the pinch grip is you’ll prefer different physical balance on the knife.
 
^
I don't think any regular shaped German knife is forward heavy. At best they're neutral. I have a Wusthof classic Ikon 23 cm (so without the full bolster) and that one balanced pretty far back; not at the bolster, but at the point where the POM in the handle starts. Guess their philosophy is that it's useful if your handle can double as a hammer or something. Kinda fits with the whole axe geometry. ;)
My Japanese stuff is balanced further forward, tends to be around the place where you pinch the knife in a pinch grip.
 
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