Parts of the Knife

Video Transcript

"LAURA BANFORD: Now I'm going to talk a little bit about the construction of a knife. The more you know about it, the knife you're using, the better you'll be able to use it. I want to talk about the different parts of the knife, but first I want to tell you that the best knives are forged. That means that they're made under intense heat and they are pressed to give them the thinness or thickness and the shape that they have. If they are forged, they're going to be a sturdier knife. And a forged knife, a well-forged knife should last a very long time. Not all knives have every single part, but they certainly have these basic parts. Okay. This is the butt of the knife. This is the spine of the knife. This is the point of the knife. They're all going to have that, right? This is the handle. This part here is called the tang. Now, in a really good knife, the tang goes all the way down through the handle, okay? And then the handle is created around the tang. This makes for a sturdier knife. If you have a knife that where the steel ends here and is just somehow hooked to the handle, it's not going to last very long, and eventually it's going to come apart. Sometimes, the tang goes part way through, and most good knives' tang goes all the way through. So the length of the knife has the forged steel as in in this case. There is a guard, usually, and that separates the edge, which is this part, from the handle so your hand doesn't move up, whoop, and slip on to the edge. There's the guard. And you see, this has a guard also, right there. It's a little bit, a little bit different shape for this thinner knife, but there is certainly a nice big guard on this knife as well. The other parts of the knife are better illustrated on this little knife. This part up here is called the fuller. This is a little thicker. And this down there is called the grind. A little thinner and makes--and the grind angles toward the edge, right here. And that makes the knife a little bit lighter and a little bit easier to wield. When we come back, we're going to talk about sharpening knives and the importance of knife sharpening."