" The Secret behind a Great set of Knives is in the Handle." 

  Gordon Ramsay

Basic - Ergonomics

 Opposing Grasp Forces = Grip Strength.

Human    Grasp . . .

-The knife handle serves as the connection between you, the blade & the food you are preparing.

- Optimized culinary knife handle designs complement the natural capabilities & strengths of the human hand. 

- We depend on our ability to create opposing forces within our grasp to maximize our effective grip strength.

- Contoured & faceted/flattened areas, correlating with the bone structure of our hand, further enhance effective grip strength.

- DBx-Knife Handles are individually sized & geometrically designed around these fundamental principles.

- The enhanced safety & ergonomics these handles provide is unparalleled in the world today.

Chefs/Cooks,   Culinary Knives

- Traditional culinary knife handles lack the geometrical design elements to optimize our grip strength.

- Enhanced safety & knife control are achieved through: handles designed to engage the palm, each finger segment, joint & the thumb.

- Ideally, our index finger wraps around the handle to provide balanced opposing forces to our thumb. 

- The middle, ring & little fingers wrap around the handle to meet the palm ...  creating horizontal & vertical opposing forces.

- The knife handle should engage: the palm, thumb tip & each finger segment, for a safer & more secure grasp.

- Select your culinary knives with these basic concepts in mind.

DBx-Handle Grasp . . .

- Asymmetrical handle geometry, correlating with your natural grasp, alleviates many issues.

- These handles minimize stress & peak pressure in the musculoskeletal structures,  of the hand & wrist.

- DBx-Handles provide geometrical facets (grip areas) for individual finger segments, joints & the thumb. 

- DBx-Handle geometry is optimized to leverage the stronger base & mid-finger segments for power transfer.

- Ideally, we engage a knife handle at the  intersection of our palm & base of our  fingers, enhancing our grip strength.

- Wrist angles are significantly reduced for more cutting power with less stress.

Optimized Ergonomics . . .

- Precisely . . . sized & placed handle facets, mitigate the dangers of a knife slipping/rotating in our grasp.

- Contours in DBx-Handles prevent . . .  our hand from sliding forward into the blade & the knife from slipping out of our hand.

- DBx-Handles are geometrically contoured & sized, to provide control unmatched in culinary knives.

- Individuals with: hand injuries, joint pain, or arthritis may benefit the most from custom DBx-Handles.

- Safety, comfort & control are prioritized in our data driven kitchen knife. blade & handle designs.

Handle to Blade Alignment

Dulling/Rolling...   Cutting   Edges

- Culinary knives are often dulled from non-linear input forces, rolling the cutting edge.

- Asymmetrical DBx-Handles are designed to reduce non-linear input forces (side pressure), which may bend the apex.

- Blade to lower arm alignment is key to reducing side pressure on the cutting edge.

- Side pressures applied to a knife, in contact with a cutting surface, rolls the cutting edge.

- Note: Thinner knife blades are more forgiving, often flexing enough to avoid rolling the cutting edge.

- We often sense the blade flexing & improve our technique, preserving the cutting edge.

Trading Safety for Comfort

Current Realities . . .

- Traditional knife handle designs motivate us to trade safety for comfort. 

- We resort to a knife handle grasp where cutting power is transferred through . . .

-The weakest segments/tips 

     of our smallest fingers.

-Extremely small areas of our

   forehand & index finger.

- Unreasonable expectations delegated to tips of our smallest fingers include. . . 

   -Countering downforce created in

the palm & forward portion

of our hand, along with...

   -Rotational & directional control of

the knife blade/cutting edge.

- The forehand & index finger apply forces into the same side of the blade spine & handle . . . 

   -These forces rotate the knife blade's

cutting edge toward our hand

controlling the foods we are

preparing.     

Compromised Safety . . .

- There are several logical reasons we compromise our grasp & safety when handling a kitchen knife.

- Home & professional cooks/chefs frequently alter their grasp to avoid: tissue damage & increase cutting forces.

- This practice limits our ability to establish an intuitive understanding of: blade trajectory & cutting-edge position.

- Rotational & directional control of the knife blade is compromised by a hand . . .

- Too large/small to engage the base 

        & mid-sections of our fingers.

- Missing and/or incorrectly sized &

placed thumb control surface.

- Ideally, handle geometry is optimized to engage the stronger base & mid-finger segments to improve control & power transfer.

- Custom DBx-Handles are designed to overcome  these safety issues & more.

 Traditional Pinch-Grip Styles

Pros & Cons

Handle/Grasp Issues

Oval/Round vs. Rectangle

- Traditional Oval/Round handle designs often provide a more comfortable grasp than flat-sided handles.

- Flat-sided handles provide a better reference to understand blade angle/indexing than round or oval handles.  

- These handles yield an inconsistent

grasp, compromising our intuitive understanding of blade angle & position.

- “D” shaped handles are an intelligent mix of the two, while maintaining traditional inappropriate linear alignment with the knife blade.

- Classic culinary handle designs fail to provide adequate thumb control surfaces to offset unsafe rotational input forces. 

- Traditionally, handles seem to reflect knife crafters' desire to produce a simple & economical product.

- A questionable compromise, especially if you use a knife daily and/or have physical limitations. 

Design  Concerns ...

- Any uncomfortable or inadequate handle grasp will be changed often, limiting our  intuitive understanding of knife blade: position, rotation & trajectory.

- Symmetrical culinary knife handles, aligned with knife blades, limit our ability to control blade angle & transfer power.

- Knife handles, too large to wrap our middle, index & small finger around, limit our effective grip strength / blade control.

- Handles missing thumb control surfaces diminish our ability to safely control down-forces applied by the fingers. 

- Knife handles, which reduce our ability to engage the base of fingers, limit our ability to safely control cutting forces.

- Grasp to handle mismatch yields: small grip contact areas & painful high-pressure points in our hand.

- We address these issues with ergonomic, geometrically corrected & precisely sized, culinary knife handle designs.

 Power/Pinch Grip

Power/Handle    Grip   . . .

- Power Grip... Fingers wrapped around the handle with the thumb placed on top.

- Handle Grip... Place the palm on top of the handle with fingers & thumb to either side.

- These grip styles yield a comfortable wrist angle & a larger area to apply cutting force. 

- Unfortunately, biased rotationally down  forces applied biased, rotating the knife blade toward the user's hand, increasing risk of injury.

Pinch    Grip  . . .

- A traditional blade-centric pinch grip is the preferred option for cooks & chefs, but not ideal for many reasons.

- To overcome these issues, data driven asymmetrical geometrically corrected handle centric-pinch-grip handles were created.

- DBx-Pinch Grip Handles are sized & contoured for a comfortable, high-strength grip, which leads to a consistent grasp.

- A consistent grasp, over time, provides the user with an intuitive understanding of blade position & direction/trajectory.

Our First Grasp ...

- Picking up a knife, we seek a comfortable grasp, or at least one, which results in the least amount of pain.

-The difference between one’s natural grasp & handle geometry, creates unnecessary stress levels in wrist/hand.

- Soft tissue & muscle surrounding the bone structure in the hand, absorb some of the difference to enhance our grasp.

Preparation to Cut ...

- We compromise our grasp to align the knife with our lower arm & the foods we  intend to cut. 

- This often includes . . .  extreme wrist angles, using the weakest portion of our hands (our fingertips), to power & guide the knife. 

- Now, we have an uncomfortable and less secure grasp, limiting our ability to power & guide the knife through our foods safely.

Making the Cut or Not !

Our First Cut ...

      High-Density Foods

- While attempting the first cut, we realize our compromised grasp still needs to be improved.

- Frequently, with this grasp, we cannot transfer the force needed to cut our food.

- But we are still hungry, so we are willing to accept additional risk & pain. 

- We adapt, resorting to an even more uncomfortable handle grasp, necessary to make the cut. 

- Unfortunately, at this point, we have traded our personal safety for the power to cut our food.

"Can't   Cut   That"   . . .

- There is a point at which we all give up & declare we cannot cut our food. 

- It’s frequently not that we lack the strength to generate the blade force required to cut our food . . .

- More often, it's the pain we experience and/or the perception that we may lose control of the knife.

- Unfortunately, we have all been cut & possess an appropriate fear of cutting ourself again.

- It's time to update 3,500-year-old culinary knife handle designs creating safer & less painful knives.