Kippington
A small green parrot
I've been in a few conversations with people about gyuto profiles, and I've come to the conclusion that I envisage this topic slightly differently from most others. Perhaps my way of thinking is more efficient, or maybe not. I'd like to find out so please feel free to chime in with your thoughts.
In any conversation about profiles, the major measurements we start with are the length of the cutting edge and the height of the knife at the heel. With the tip of the gyuto being a point, we can use these measurements to draw a triangle.
Easy enough, but where do we go from here? The next point people like to bring up is the height of the tip relative to the heel, kind of like this:
But in the case of this triangle, how can we tell what angle to hold the knife in order to make this reading? You might think the answer is straight forward - to hold the cutting edge down before taking this measurement (like the one below, on the left), but even then there's a problem with the spine height, which I'll get to later.
So instead, I believe the next most important aspect after length is the combination of flat-spot and belly curve. These are the defining aspects on how the knife performs in either a rock or a chop - you don't even need to see the rest of the knife to get an idea of how it moves on the board.
I could give a more in-depth explanation on the flat-spot and belly curve, but that would go too far off this topic, and I think that most people here understand it well enough. If not, let me know.
Now that we have the cutting edge set, if we lay the flat spot down against the board the next important measurement should be the angle of the spine (as well as the handle, if the two are parallel) in relation to the board. The distance of your cutting surface to your elbow height is a major determining factor for this angle. Also, we actually need less heel height to get the same amount of knuckle clearance if the handle angle is steeper.
I'd like to point out that even though the two above have exactly the same flat-spot and belly curve (meaning they would behave quite similarly), they appear totally different if described by tip height alone.
You can hopefully see how I think it's wrong to describe one of these as "low tip" compared to the other: it isn't technically true. It's also a good time to bring up what I mentioned earlier - holding the flat-spot down doesn't change the illusion that one tip appears lower than the other.
Next I think of the choil shape - an important factor for comfort and safety. This probably should be higher up on the list in importance but it's easier to slot it in here.
Then the least important aspect and final thing to be modified would be how the spine curves into the tip. The Masashi gyuto cops a lot of flack for how they do this, but I honestly think it hardly matters.
So in a nutshell, it can be really confusing to talk about the profile of a gyuto in terms of tip height, as its relative position can be a bit of an illusion and relies on a couple of other more-important factors.
There are a few other points, but before I go into them - What do you guys think? Does this make sense, or have I lost the plot...
In any conversation about profiles, the major measurements we start with are the length of the cutting edge and the height of the knife at the heel. With the tip of the gyuto being a point, we can use these measurements to draw a triangle.
Easy enough, but where do we go from here? The next point people like to bring up is the height of the tip relative to the heel, kind of like this:
But in the case of this triangle, how can we tell what angle to hold the knife in order to make this reading? You might think the answer is straight forward - to hold the cutting edge down before taking this measurement (like the one below, on the left), but even then there's a problem with the spine height, which I'll get to later.
So instead, I believe the next most important aspect after length is the combination of flat-spot and belly curve. These are the defining aspects on how the knife performs in either a rock or a chop - you don't even need to see the rest of the knife to get an idea of how it moves on the board.
I could give a more in-depth explanation on the flat-spot and belly curve, but that would go too far off this topic, and I think that most people here understand it well enough. If not, let me know.
Now that we have the cutting edge set, if we lay the flat spot down against the board the next important measurement should be the angle of the spine (as well as the handle, if the two are parallel) in relation to the board. The distance of your cutting surface to your elbow height is a major determining factor for this angle. Also, we actually need less heel height to get the same amount of knuckle clearance if the handle angle is steeper.
I'd like to point out that even though the two above have exactly the same flat-spot and belly curve (meaning they would behave quite similarly), they appear totally different if described by tip height alone.
You can hopefully see how I think it's wrong to describe one of these as "low tip" compared to the other: it isn't technically true. It's also a good time to bring up what I mentioned earlier - holding the flat-spot down doesn't change the illusion that one tip appears lower than the other.
Next I think of the choil shape - an important factor for comfort and safety. This probably should be higher up on the list in importance but it's easier to slot it in here.
Then the least important aspect and final thing to be modified would be how the spine curves into the tip. The Masashi gyuto cops a lot of flack for how they do this, but I honestly think it hardly matters.
So in a nutshell, it can be really confusing to talk about the profile of a gyuto in terms of tip height, as its relative position can be a bit of an illusion and relies on a couple of other more-important factors.
There are a few other points, but before I go into them - What do you guys think? Does this make sense, or have I lost the plot...
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