Our Story
Through my career as a butcher, I developed a repetitive strain injury in my wrist. For the rest of my life, I will have to use knives with specialized vertical handles, at home and at work.
All such knives that were commercially available were intolerably bad. The biggest problem with all of them was that the blades were too small. The companies that created them seem fixated on the idea of the user having difficulty handling a full sized blade, and unaware of the fact that larger knives are for cutting larger things, and that when force is being exerted downward, the weight of a tool works in the user’s favor. In order to keep my job, I was forced to start making my own vertical knife handles and attaching them to blades I had cut the handles off of. Throughout the process of making them for myself, I made several interesting discoveries.
The first thing I discovered was that this handle style benefits people with a wide range of hand and wrist ailments different than the one I have. The most common are Arthritis, Tendonitis, and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, but users with Guyon Canal Syndrome, Hand Arm Vibration Syndrome, Multiple Sclerosis, and the loss of one hand have reported that these designs assisted them.
The other discovery I made was that OSHA has been recommending the use of vertical handle knives in professional settings for over three decades. The same condition that forces me to use these knives would have been prevented if I had been using them in the first place.
Links:
Paragraph 4 of https://www.safetymanualosha.com/butcher-safety/
Page 10 of https://www.osha.gov/sites/default/files/publications/OSHA3213.pdf
Bottom page of https://www.osha.gov/etools/young-workers-restaurant-safety/food-prep