What started the workhorse craze?

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NickMinton said:
  • 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
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Higher weight doesn't just impact fatigue, it also impacts accuracy and the perception of nimbleness.

Of course that matters less when you're doing something like rockchopping where you're always keeping the tip on the board. In that sense the big enigma is why heavier workhorses became popular on KKF - a place where rockchopping is often cast aside and many people seem to prefer pushcutting.
 
I've never really understood the workhorse thing with the heavy weights and thick spines. Why would you want to cut carrots with something with a deba?

I've only worked with a few thick spined knives and they all had poor performance near the heel. You can feel them wedge as the knife gets into the product because a thick spine means overly thick at some mid point up the blade.

Of course a way to counteract that is to get a taller blade height, so you get through the product before it starts to wedge too badly.

🤔

I wonder if that is why the trend to taller knives?

My preferences tends to lean towards mid-weights. Lasers tend to be just a touch thin and not have enough steel to get a good grind. So add enough steel to get a good performance grind, a spine that is comfortable (3-4mm), and a BTE thinness that is just pulled back from nail-flexing so I can work the heck out of it without worrying about it chipping.
 
esoo said:
I've never really understood the workhorse thing with the heavy weights and thick spines. Why would you want to cut carrots with something with a deba?

I've only worked with a few thick spined knives and they all had poor performance near the heel. You can feel them wedge as the knife gets into the product because a thick spine means overly thick at some mid point up the blade.

Of course a way to counteract that is to get a taller blade height, so you get through the product before it starts to wedge too badly.

🤔

I wonder if that is why the trend to taller knives?

My preferences tends to lean towards mid-weights. Lasers tend to be just a touch thin and not have enough steel to get a good grind. So add enough steel to get a good performance grind, a spine that is comfortable (3-4mm), and a BTE thinness that is just pulled back from nail-flexing so I can work the heck out of it without worrying about it chipping.
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I don't understand how carrot cracking became a standard for judging knife performance. A thick heel is not relevant to my most often used carrot cuts (julienne, medium dice, or oblique cuts). The only part where I ever experience any cracking is when I cut a carrot into 2-3 inch chunks. And generally all knives will crack carrots if the carrot is large enough in diameter. But it doesn't affect my speed in cutting the carrots or the quality of the final cuts so I don't understand why it is an issue that gets talked about so much. If the tip of a knife cracks carrots I could see why it might be problematic. But even my actual Western deba does not crack carrots with the tip.
 
stringer said:
I don't understand how carrot cracking became a standard for judging knife performance. A thick heel is not relevant to my most often used carrot cuts (julienne, medium dice, or oblique cuts). The only part where I ever experience any cracking is when I cut a carrot into 2-3 inch chunks. And generally all knives will crack carrots if the carrot is large enough in diameter. But it doesn't affect my speed in cutting the carrots or the quality of the final cuts so I don't understand why it is an issue that gets talked about so much. If the tip of a knife cracks carrots I could see why it might be problematic. But even my actual Western deba does not crack carrots with the tip.
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I was using the carrot as an example as cracking is an obvious thing. For example with onions, as the knife thickens I get to a point where I just get annoyed with having to put that much force into the knife. On the few knives I've had that have had thick spines, I find I have to apply more force, when cutting at the heel, than a thinner spined knife. It's a balance - I want a thick enough spine that I get comfort, but not so thick that I have to apply more way more force to offset the spine increase.

This is just the set of criteria that I've settled into for most of my knives as home cook, based on the knives I had pass through my hands. I think if I were a pro, and had to process lots of stuff, a heavier blade would be helpful (let the blade do the work). But then I would probably switch to a cleaver, where the weight of having more steel goes more into the height than the spine. That way I'd get thin and heavy.
 
I've definitely fallen prey to the workhorse trend. Part of it for me is exactly what Naftoor said, the aesthetic and feel of a workhorse appeal to a more primitive side. But in my experience a good workhorse cuts as well as a good laser except for thick cuts of dense vegetables, like cutting thick carrots in half. The weight does make it feel a bit less precise, and it wouldn't be my first choice if I'm trying to make a very fine dice.

I think things have gotten a little out of hand in some cases, and they've become caricatures of the concept. I love my Wakui WH, but it is on the heavy side to be my go to knife. Shaving half a mm off the spine from heel to tip and losing 30g of weight in the process would make it perfect imo. The grind is awesome, it is as thin BTE as some of my lasers, the tip is thin enough for fine work, it has better separation/release, and the weight does most of the work.
 
I’ve had people turning down great workhorse, all on the count of how a knife did sound through a carrot 🤷‍♂️ So maybe was just an example, but a pretty accurate one.
 
ehhh said:
I've definitely fallen prey to the workhorse trend. Part of it for me is exactly what Naftoor said, the aesthetic and feel of a workhorse appeal to a more primitive side. But in my experience a good workhorse cuts as well as a good laser except for thick cuts of dense vegetables, like cutting thick carrots in half. The weight does make it feel a bit less precise, and it wouldn't be my first choice if I'm trying to make a very fine dice.

I think things have gotten a little out of hand in some cases, and they've become caricatures of the concept. I love my Wakui WH, but it is on the heavy side to be my go to knife. Shaving half a mm off the spine from heel to tip and losing 30g of weight in the process would make it perfect imo. The grind is awesome, it is as thin BTE as some of my lasers, the tip is thin enough for fine work, it has better separation/release, and the weight does most of the work.
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The initial feel of a proper workhorse to me is like buying a nice piece of electronic that has a heft to it that just *feels* expensive. Similar to holding a cheap speaker in one hand, and a Bose speaker in the other. Just perception alone tells you the Bose is a nice kit.

I felt like this is detected by others too.
 
Uncle Danny said:
I’ve had people turning down great workhorse, all on the count of how a knife did sound through a carrot 🤷‍♂️ So maybe was just an example, but a pretty accurate one.
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This is bonkers to me. I would more likely do the test in the opposite way. If the knife heel glides through a jumbo horse carrot without cracking then it is probably ground too thin for my tastes.
 
Workhorses are just fun but sometimes it feels like theyre a novelty. Last Mazaki I had was very cool but the spine out of the handle was 10mm with insane tapering and very thin edge. It had all the weight in the world but cut pretty lasery. Last Katos I had were more like “work ponys” in that they were 210-220 grams with much thinner grinds and I preferred them quite abit more to the heavier ones.
IMO real deal workhorses aren’t the most versatile knives, this most recent Kippington workhorse I have just has never ending convexing that is quite pleasing in use.
 
Lets be honest, in the world of lasers craze some people wanted to diferenciarte themselves. You know the trope “I liked it before it was cool”
I see the same happening with sharpening grits recommendations. I bet that in 10 years 8K+ finishing will be cool again.
 
Before forums working in kitchens didn't call knives workhorses or lasers. I liked thin behind the edge Japanese knives. It was obvious that some jobs required a more robust knife or cleaver. It was more knives for different jobs.

It's all language to me a workhorse is a knife that is used alot because it cuts massive amounts of food well. Thin behind the edge more beef above it can make a good cutting blade. Tend to like thin tips.
 
Keithpaints said:
It's all language to me a workhorse is a knife that is used alot because it cuts massive amounts of food well. Thin behind the edge more beef above it can make a good cutting blade. Tend to like thin tips.
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Thank you! I kinda feel out of the loop with the lingo.

A workhorse, to me, is a knife that can smash through 10-12 hours of prep without losing too much on the edge, fatiguing your wrist or giving you a stupid knife callus, won't chip if you toss it onto your board or an inattentive dishwasher pushing a cart of pans at a clip bumps it onto the floor. It can do nimble tipwork and mince without bruising, coin a 25# bag of carrots, trim silverskin, cut those stupid green onion curls, then rough chop 10 gallons of mirepoix for stew, and never once slow down the entire day.

A cheap ass Misono dragon can do all that (and did, yesterday). Is a Misono dragon a "workhorse" by the current standards?
 
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Vertigo said:
Thank you! I kinda feel out of the loop with the lingo.

A workhorse, to me, is a knife that can smash through 10-12 hours of prep without losing too much on the edge, fatiguing your wrist or giving you a stupid knife callus, won't chip if you toss it onto your board or an inattentive dishwasher pushing a cart of pans at a clip bumps it onto the floor. It can do nimble tipwork and mince without bruising, coin a 25# bag of carrots, trim silverskin, cut those stupid green onion curls, then rough chop 10 gallons of mirepoix for stew, and never once slow down the entire day.

A cheap ass Misono dragon can do all that. Is a Misono dragon a "workhorse" by the current standards?
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There are two distinct definitions of workhorse people use. One is what you say. The other is what the OP is talking about: a powerful, heavier knife usually with a strong convex geometry in the grind.

I think the latter definition is more commonly used on KKF, for whatever reason.
 
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ian said:
There are two distinct definitions of workhorse people use. One is what you say. The other is what the OP is asking about: a powerful, heavier knife usually with a strong convex geometry in the grind.
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Huh. That second definition is an unusual way to say "big chonker," but I'll shuffle my old ass out of the way for the new generation.

Thank you for the clarification 🙏
 
Vertigo said:
Huh. That second definition is an unusual way to say "big chonker," but I'll shuffle my old ass out of the way for the new generation.

Thank you for the clarification 🙏
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I just noticed you’re an OG KKFer; didn’t know that before. Respect.

It’s weird how terminology changes over the years! The relative small size of the community here probably makes it change even faster. Your def of workhorse makes more sense to me, anyway, outside the bubble of 2020s KKF.
 
DanielC said:
The initial feel of a proper workhorse to me is like buying a nice piece of electronic that has a heft to it that just *feels* expensive. Similar to holding a cheap speaker in one hand, and a Bose speaker in the other. Just perception alone tells you the Bose is a nice kit.

I felt like this is detected by others too.
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Bose is ****. They cheat, and use a bass-heavy crossover to make the bass seem punchy, but it’s sloppier than eating spaghetti Bolognese with your hands. For the same money you can get a nice two- or three-driver speaker that does not sound like a kilowatt car stereo.

Just like great cutlery, you have to reach past what they show you at the mall. Classifieds are the starving audiophile’s friend: you can get Audio Physic (good German brand) pre owned for inside $1k.

I own a pair of Virgos I bought used 25 years ago. They still resolve the violinists’ mistakes.
 
aporigine said:
Bose is ****. They cheat, and use a bass-heavy crossover to make the bass seem punchy, but it’s sloppier than eating spaghetti Bolognese with your hands. For the same money you can get a nice two- or three-driver speaker that does not sound like a kilowatt car stereo.

Just like great cutlery, you have to reach past what they show you at the mall. Classifieds are the starving audiophile’s friend: you can get Audio Physic (good German brand) pre owned for inside $1k.

I own a pair of Virgos I bought used 25 years ago. They still resolve the violinists’ mistakes.
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I got 25 year old Martin Logans. On their third amp. Make my 55" TV look like a tablet. Lol.
 
A different perspective I’ve had with this topic is that I enjoy them because if I chip it, I have a lot more metal to play with and fix it. If I’m spending higher amounts of money I’d like to have “more knife”.
 
enrico said:
A different perspective I’ve had with this topic is that I enjoy them because if I chip it, I have a lot more metal to play with and fix it. If I’m spending higher amounts of money I’d like to have “more knife”.
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Next time I order a custom, I'm getting a billet on a stick so I have plenty of metal to keep damaging my knife!
 
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