The movement or transference of a knife's power is crucial for using a knife, as it affects how easy foods are to cut and how fatigued you might get after a serious cutting session.
A well-balanced knife has a major impact on how easily this force is transmitted from your hand to the knife and then to the food.
A knife that transmits force easily allows you to much more finely control the angle and force of the blade using your fingers and thumb, allowing you to fully take advantage of the potential your kitchen knife's blade has.
Sometimes you might see people balancing a blade on one hand, right near the base to show that the knife is well balanced. Of course, it's important that the knife's centre of balance is near the base of the blade.
However, what's more important is a structure that dispersers that centre of gravity equally around the centrepoint.
For example, you could add weight to the tip and base of the blade. If you do so in equal amounts the centre of gravity will remain the same. However, the knife will become much more difficult to use, and could balance a lot more like a seesaw going up and down. This shows that the knife isn't dispersing that centrepoint well.
High-quality knives have a variety of functional handles, such as a heavier ebony with nickel or silver coloured decorations, and on top of traditional Japanese knives you'll find Western-style knives, which have metal rivets and spacers in the handle.
Some of these handles may exist for the sake of balance, or equal dispersion of gravity - or they may just be used to look more appealing.
You need to be careful with heavy handles if balance is not taken into account. However, it's also possible to go too light with your knife. If the blade itself is too light, while it will be able to cut gravity won't do any of that work for you, and you'll need to cut solely with your own strength or force - increasing your fatigue.
In short, when choosing a knife make sure that the weight of the knife is balanced in a way that works for you and the work you need to do with it, and feels like it will disperse the centrepoint's gravity well.
If you have questions about any of our handles, or need to know the weights for them - feel free to contact us! Our products have general weights on each page but you're more than welcome to double check before we send a knife out. Just ask us with your order or contact us with the button below! We also field questions about handle replacement as well if you need to fit a new one onto your knife, plus show you how in our Japanese Handle Replacement article, which you can find here! We also have other articles about knife handles, both Western-style and Japanese-style guides are available.