Understanding Distal Taper

[ian]

Pretty sure he’s talking about Kippington.

But whatever, @Sharpchef, you’re being kind of troll-y here. If you actually read the thread, you’ll see that

1) Uwe made a very valid point about the progression of the grind being important independent of the distal taper along the spine,

2) after a little bit of confusion due to a conflict of terminology in the way Uwe was expressing his point, Kippington agreed that certainly that was the case, and said he’d focused on distal taper along the spine for simplicity of exposition.

Then there was a lot of bringing up that same point over and over again, even though it had already been resolved, and a lot of associated nonsense posts, interspersed with a couple more good comments by Kip and others on how distal taper affects other things in the knife making process, etc...

Please don’t contribute inflammatory remarks that don’t reflect the actual content of the thread.

 

[labor of love]

I think if the thread was titled “understanding spinal distal taper” that would’ve cut out about 90% of the poppycock.

 

[ModRQC]

Wow... I never thought my post would even be noticed...

Well then...

@HRC_64 contrarily to what you think, I initially took your post about boats as a conceptual argument, and I really liked it. In fact, from the beginning I was wondering why the discussion was only about the taper at the spine, and that surely the whole of the knife was also concerned. And your post brought answers to that wondering, and Kippington admitted that he should have explained more clearly that it was a mean of simplification. And it all made sense to me. Then, it seems that all you wanted was to bash on him and anyone else defending the validity of his post... which most of them did still taking in your point, but understanding too that Kippington was simplifying for the sake of a discussion... "understanding distal taper" might very well be done, indeed, by focusing first and foremost on the spine. No one said that your own post was wrong or unrelated; they just still thought his thread was valid too! No one bashed at you at that point; the worst that was said was to let go of the boat argument a bit... That's when most of the points you made were not conceptual anymore, but arguing terminology and trying to prove the whole idea wrong because Kippington didn't use "spinal" in his thread title. And you were right, in the absolute, he should have, and your whole point was valid, and was thoroughly discussed I think when others contributed "models" of blade where the spinal taper wouldn't come close to tell the whole story or even be representative of the blade. But man... chill out. What has he done to you?

I'm glad to see though that since then the discussion got quite interesting again, and focused too. It's a great thread to read, and it's gotten so far that I'll have to start from the beginning, tuning out the "distractions" and absorbing the data. And I really think all of you made at least one point to help me understand many many things, and that's why a forum can bring so much more insight to a concept than any professional review, guide and whatnot can manage.

Which brings me to what I really wanted to say the first time around: thanks to Kippington, and thanks to all contributors, to the time invested in really precise cuts of the subject... bad pun shamelessly intended.

 

[ma_sha1]

Old thread, but extremely relevant still. I just learned an important lesson on distal taper first hand.

I’ve been aware for a while that Choil shot is very misleading, but I’ve always trusted spine shot. I was not aware that distal taper, commonly represented by spine shot, can be equally misleading until I cut open a Nakiri.

The spine view showed a beautiful killer distal taper from heel to tip, but the taper is not there once I cut open the front spine, in fact, the front of the knife had “reverse distal taper” below the spine, I.e., the knife below spine is actually thicker towards the front.

The spine distal taper from the top down view was nothing but an optical illusion, achieved by increased rounding of the spine towards the front. Theres’s zero function as it did not get carried down into the grind.

I think the extra weight out front might make Nakiri chops better than a Gyuto, but that’s beyond the point.

I never thought that “beauty is only skin deep” applies so well to kitchen knives. The sad thing is, we’ll continue to rely on choil shots & “distal taper” spine shots for remote purchases decisions. Unless someone has a better idea?