# European knife design



## KenHash (Jan 21, 2021)

Could someone explain to me why on German and French Chef's knives the bolster is the way it is, running all the way down to the heel? I can't seem to find info on the history of European cooking knives that may lead the reason. Everything I find is about the difficulty in sharpening which I obviously understand as well as some German makers.


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## HumbleHomeCook (Jan 21, 2021)

I've always heard it was for strength and weight Ken. I suspect this is an artifact of larger knives that were blade heavy but don't know for sure. Just a different philosophy or approach. With the advent of more complex, and stainless steels, I think the sharpening shortcomings grew more and more obvious but that thick bolster was associated with quality so it has stuck around.

Even before I started my Japanese knife journey, I abhorred full bolsters. All my European style knives are bolster-free.


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## Ruso (Jan 21, 2021)

Perhaps it was added to make the pinch grip more comfortable for the middle finger.


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## banzai_burrito (Jan 21, 2021)

This thread might help





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Sabatier Bolster/Guard History


Reading the link on this thread; http://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/showthread.php/26010-Carbon-sabatier?p=396816#post396816 with its references to "hand forged" integral "quillon" knives as early as the C. 17th made me very interested in the history of the Sabatier bolster/guard...




www.kitchenknifeforums.com


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## SeattleB (Feb 26, 2021)

I thought it was so a chef could put the heel of the knife on a large can (e.g., cooking oil) and use the other hand to slam down on the spine to open the can, then twist to form the triangular opening.


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## GorillaGrunt (Feb 27, 2021)

I’ve heard around (uh oh) two bits on this:

that especially after the advent of machined blades, the full fingerguard was associated with a forged and thus higher tier knife.

And that the French way of maintaining them includes grinding the point of the finger guard at a 45 degree angle every sharpening, so it moves up with the edge.


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## tostadas (Feb 27, 2021)

According to laura banford, it's so that "your hand doesn't move up.... WOOOP! ... and slip up the edge" (her description of the bolster starts at 1:28)


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## KenHash (Feb 27, 2021)

I don't know....I've never had my grip hand slide off the handle onto the blade, and I've never run into anyone who has. I think that may be because the way a cooking knife is used on a board, the motions involved don't lend themselves to your grip hand sliding onto a blade.


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## DavidPF (Feb 27, 2021)

SeattleB said:


> I thought it was so a chef could put the heel of the knife on a large can (e.g., cooking oil) and use the other hand to slam down on the spine to open the can, then twist to form the triangular opening.


This would mean that the feature was introduced after 1812, since that was when cans were introduced (and obviously weren't common or popular till later than that).


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## big_adventure (Feb 27, 2021)

tostadas said:


> According to laura banford, it's so that "your hand doesn't move up.... WOOOP! ... and slip up the edge" (her description of the bolster starts at 1:28)



I'm a huge fan of people just making things up because they feel the need to talk. 

Seriously, that's ridiculous.


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## tostadas (Feb 27, 2021)

KenHash said:


> I don't know....I've never had my grip hand slide off the handle onto the blade, and I've never run into anyone who has. I think that may be because the way a cooking knife is used on a board, the motions involved don't lend themselves to your grip hand sliding onto a blade.


Yea I agree. You have to really try hard to do something dumb like that.


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## DavidPF (Feb 27, 2021)

The fact that skilled modern knife makers don't all confidently and uniformly know the answer to this question makes me think that the bolster was never very important or interesting. Maybe an artifact of a very particular local manufacturing trick that was a visible reminder of where the knife came from.


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## McMan (Feb 27, 2021)

The clunky full bolster is relatively new. Maybe 1880-1940 for the golden age of the non-clunky bolster? 

French at the turn of the century had beautiful, very thin and precise bolsters--so nicely made and something you don't see on contemporary knives (or even post-war knives!).
Solingen knives from this period also had thin and crisp bolsters (though usually thicker/wider than the French knives). Also really nice.
Sheffield knives often had half-bolsters like a ferrule. I'd suspect that this was a borrowing from tool-making (think the bolster on a good chisel) because Sheffield was a center for tool and cutlery production. Some old early-1800s Sheffield knives have bolsters. AFAIK bolster appeared on French/German knives later.
Some 18th-19th US and UK knives had bolsters/ferrules of poured lead/pewter. These had some cool taper/keyed shapes sometimes, but were added after and weren't part of forging.
As @GorillaGrunt said, keeping the bolster at a 45-degree angle at the bottom got it out of the way of sharpening and, practically, god rid of any chance to dig it into the board. Nearly all of the nice examples of old nogent Sabs (and other French brands) I've seen had this. I think the old German sharpening style differed (though can't say definitively, as I haven't seen enough old Solingen knives to say for sure). The bolster would be brought up to the same height as the edge and then the bolster would be thinned/convexed, like a clamshell. This way, as height is lost through sharpenings, the bolster doesn't widen (just like the reason for thinning an edge after repeated sharpenings).

My thinking would be changes in industrial production in the 1800s made a forged bolster easier to produce on a large-scale--and also as a way to improve on the poured bolsters of the time. Maybe 1880-1940 for the golden age of the bolster?  Then, post-WWII manufacturing and tooling gave birth to the clunky bolster--maybe different drop-forging techniques or maybe just less time spent on refining the bolster through grinding? Also, this would coincide with the increase of an export market to the US post-war.

Regardless, if you can get a nice old example--French or German--with a thin bolster and crazy distal taper, you're in for a treat. There are usually good restoration candidates on the bay, and IMO grabbing one and fixing it is $50 well spent.

I think everybody should have at least one good old nogent sabatier (turn of the century), a good old Henckels, a good old Sheffield carver, and a good old US (Conn or Mass) carver (turn of the century).
So nice to see the different ways of making knives, the handwork, etc.


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