How you exert control determines knife handle design.

After 19 years as an autoworker, 30 years as a traditional woodworker and what seems an entire life of being a knife nut, I have come to appreciate a properly formed tool handle. During any workday at the auto plant, I picked up and used tools over 500 times—to be precise, once every 43 seconds. After a while, I started to take notice and favor tools shaped in an ergonomic fashion that allow efficient, accurate manipulation.

How useful is your knife if you can’t hold it and can’t control the edge? Just look to the “Riddle of Steel” from the original Conan the Barbarian movie. Steel is nothing compared to the hand that wields it. Perhaps that is where I find my largest bane. I constantly hear custom makers and users alike talking about a “super steel” and how they would use no other steel or find those to be the best, yet the fact that the knife is a system gets left by the wayside. A knife should be considered a tool and, as such, a tool that is easy to use. That’s if you plan to use it. “Gucci knives” are exempt. The blade and handle working together and a properly heat-treated steel is part of that, so let’s get started with how to hold a knife.

First off, I am not a human kinetics major so let me indulge myself and develop my own vocabulary for this section, along with some proper terms. The grip consists not only of just your hand but extends back farther through your wrist, forearm, elbow and all the way to the shoulder. Your arm works as a system and how your hand grasps an object will affect the positioning and strength exerted by your wrist and so on up the line.

3 Grip Functions

Starting with your hand, there are three functions of the grip I call selection, reaction and manipulation. Selection is when the hand selects or picks something up, often via the index finger and thumb. Usually, the intent of selection is to seek control over the object until it is firmly held within your grasp, resulting in a solid purchase. The group of muscles and body parts, that is, your index finger and thumb, are also the same group that normally exerts finite control for most people. Writing with pencil and paper is an example how over time humans have developed the index finger and thumb pinch for finer control. Watch any surgeon or chef use a cutting tool; specific direction is guided by the two main leaders of the band, the thumb and index finger.

Reaction is best reflected in the act of catching an item, be it a ball or what have you. Your hand is prepared to catch and instantaneously selects the process of gripping the item based on how it enters your hand and what parts of your hand it touches first. A good example is when something small touches the center of your hand; your fingers surround it because it is already in the middle of your grip. If the item is touched to the outside, say just on your fingertips, your hand tries to react by drawing the item to the center and then closing the fingers.

How reaction works in the use of tools can be expressed as “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Without getting into a huge physics argument over string theory and the purity of the law as it applies to using a knife, it is a simple expression of how your body works. As the cut is made, your body exerts force. In turn, the item being cut provides resistance. To maintain control, your body must adjust your grip; in that that way you can manipulate the tool to continue cutting. Simply speaking, your reflexes kick in, something your mind has been honing all your life and now operates on a subconscious level.

Manipulation is what I call a blend of selection and reaction. During your effort to control a tool while using it, you try to coordinate selection and reaction to manipulate it. Remember: how your hand works is mostly subconscious. The process seems inherently simple while using tools; you decide what you want to do. Therefore, the next step is to direct the tool. Your hand goes into a selection mode with the intent of gripping and directing the tool. As you use the tool, different forces often change and your grip must adjust. Taken altogether, I refer to this manipulation as the process of exerting force with a tool and reacting while trying to accomplish the task/directing the tool.

Knife Handle Shape

Ideally, a knife handle should be large enough to fill your hand yet small enough for your hand to grasp it. Given that you’re provided just enough volume to fill your grip, you might figure you could solve the shape issue by grabbing a ball of clay and mimicking the resulting shape. Alternatively, you could keep it simple and use the broom handle approach.

To optimize a handle, I use what I call the absence and presence method. Take, for example, a box-end wrench. The hole in the end of the box-end wrench fits around the nut. At the same time, the wrench has platforms designed to exert force on the flats of the nut to turn it. As the box-end wrench is to a nut, the hand is to a handle. A handle should be shaped to allow the hand to be able to grasp it, yet there should be enough handle to provide various platforms for the hand to exert pressure on to manipulate the knife itself. To achieve this, consider the knife’s purpose.

In shaping the handle, keep in mind first and foremost it must fit the hand. Secondly, it must have platforms/contours that provide places to push off from to control the edge, all the while being mindful not to create hot spots that might abrade the skin either via sharp surfaces or by simply rubbing against the handle.

Knife Handle Materials

There is a staggering array of available handle materials, including wood, G-10, carbon fiber, Kirinite and many more. Custom makers even employ rubber barn mats used for horses for cutting competition/chopper handles. Materials chosen correctly can enhance your grip or even overcome some shortfalls of certain handle designs. The use of materials is a large enough topic on its own; I cannot do it justice here. Let it be said, though, that a lot of it is influenced by design and structure.

A handle occupies a three-dimensional space, so forming it should take a three-dimensional approach that addresses the grip’s length, width and thickness. Fine points in design depend on the knife’s use. For instance, a chopper should have a natural stop at the handle butt to prevent your hand from sliding off while swinging, though the stop should not jam or create a rub point to irritate your hand.

There are many fine points to look over in a handle but the major thing for me is that those finer points should get more consideration. For example, consider again a chopper. Too often I’ve seen chopper handles be too narrow. When a chopper strikes something solid, the energy from the impact travels through the chopper to your hand. A wider handle would distribute the force more evenly, preventing shock to your hand. If the handle is too narrow, the force will be concentrated on a small area. A wider handle will disperse the energy over a broader area, lessening the effect of the impact. In the end there is a fine balance because you do not want the handle to be so large that it’s difficult to hold. That’s why handle design tends to be a sticking point for me when not enough attention is paid to doing it properly.

There is way more information to cover about handles than I can cover in such a short article. I have only grazed the surface here. Creating a well-formed handle and covering common mistakes would take a chapter of a book. I could burn up a whole article on handle nomenclature alone. Hopefully, this will get you thinking more about the handle on your knife than just the latest super steel for the blade.

More On Knife Handles:

• Synthetic Knife Handles
• Natural Knife Handles
• Knife Handle Ergonomics
• Knife Handle Material