Wristrait Knives

03/10/2024

Finally got the website set up:

Ergonomic, adaptive vertical handle knives for assistance with hand and wrist ailments and prevention of repetitive strain injuries

02/08/2024

I haven't been keeping up with this page, but I want any followers or visitors to know that the factory made Wristrait Knives are currently available for purchase, either on Amazon, or by contacting me directly at wristraitknives@gmail.com

06/25/2023

After a long offline hiatus, I'm back with big news. The first samples of the factory made Wristrait knives have arrived! The first actual batch is expected to take a couple months.

04/24/2023

Just finished a batch of middleweight slicers. At one half of a pound, they're lighter than the basic chef knife and therefore better suited to slicing, although they are capable of chopping as well. Available in two grip sizes. Wood used for large size is padouk, small available in mesquite and cebil.

03/30/2023

This is an upright handle 12" combination chef knife/cleaver. The blade was made by Dalstrong. This is not a weapon or a novelty. It is a professional grade chef knife. It's not the knife you'd want to reach for to prepare your dinner, but if you're doing high volume, this gets the job done quick. It can cut 2 lbs of carrots as a whole pile. It can chop chicken through the bone, and makes light work of pumpkins. It can also slice whole pizzas with ease. It looks unwieldy, but the effect of the stronger grip being mounted closer to the center of gravity makes the enormous weight of this blade manageable. It's also a good demonstration to those with no hand or wrist conditions of why this handle style is so beneficial to those with them.

03/17/2023

This is a 45° canted handle vegetable cleaver. It exells in a rocking chopping motion which is ideal for cutting elongated vegetables like carrots or celery. Don't let anyone tell you that a curved blade helps with that. It's much better to have a straight blade pivoting on the front corner coming down on top of the food, than to have the knife rolling on it's edge forward towards it. There is a bit of power lost with this design, particularly at the nose of the blade. For this reason, I'd recommend this one to be a set with the overhand cleaver. They are each optimized for the other's deficiency.

03/15/2023

This is the upright handle butcher's steak knife I've been using at work for the last two and a half years. It was the first knife handle I ever made. The Stirex brand 9" version with the catch point on the back that snagged on the meat producing jagged ripped edges on the steaks was simply unacceptable. I loved the concept of putting upright handles on knives, but the implementation needed work, and input from professional knife users. Because of these knives, I'm a better meat cutter today than I was before I got the wrist condition that forces me to use them. They're that good.

03/15/2023

I call this an overhand cleaver. It was inspired by seeing the Inuit ulu knives being marketed for use by people who had lost the use of one hand, but after making it, I realized that it had other potential benefits. As far as I can tell, the only adaptive feature of the ulu is the placement of the handle being centered over the blade. The s semicircular blade itself, however, was originally designed for cutting up whole animals and is not ideal for chopping vegetables on a cutting board. The overhand cleaver, on the other hand, in addition to keeping full rounds from rolling without the need to hold them with an opposing hand, also provides maximum downward power for chopping through tough foods like winter squash. What this design gained in power, it lost in precision, and therefore is not ideal for cutting things up into small pieces. It's recommended that this knife be used as part of a two piece set. Use this one to half full rounds, or maybe make a few cuts lengthwise, then switch to a different knife to make smaller cuts crosswise.

03/14/2023

Here are the D-handle vegetable/poultry cleavers I currently have in stock. They are available in two sizes. The smaller ones are made from bloodwood and weigh 0.85lbs/385 grams and measure 8"/20cm long. The larger ones are made from pau rosa and sirari, weigh 0.95lbs/430 grams and measure 8.5"/21.5cm long. These are not "butcher " knives, they are household kitchen knives that are ideally suited for chopping harder foods. Some people with certain hand or wrist conditions have find that this blade type was the only one that helps them with the cutting tasks that give them the most difficulty.

03/14/2023

Here are the basic upright handle chef knives I currently have in stock. They measure 8"/20cm from the handle and weight around 2/3 of a pound/300 grams. Available in two grip sizes and two types of wood, pau rosa and cebil.

03/12/2023

Through my career as a butcher, I developed a repetitive strain injury called Ulnar Nerve Compression or Guyon Canal Syndrome. It can have several different causes or multiple contributing factors, but in this case, it was caused by working excessively with a bent wrist, which is something one does when pointing the working end of a straight handled tool (like a knife) forward. For the rest of my life I will have to use specially designed knives with handles that grip at close to a perpendicular angle to the blade. I was extremely unsatisfied with the selection of such knives that was commercially available. All were undersized and underpowered, and only one company in the world makes one "butcher" knife, which, in addition to being undersized, has very specific design flaws that made it impossible for me do do my job well. So I started making my own handles and attaching them to knives I had cut the handles off of. As my collection of personal perpendicular handle knives grew, I found that the handle design was beneficial for people with hand and wrist conditions other than the one I have. My mother has arthritis in her fingers and chopping hard vegetables was something that started causing her pain, but my knives enabled her to do it comfortably. My daughter who lost the use of her left hand, found that the way my knife handles brought your hand more above round objects being cut eliminated the need to hold them with an opposing hand (I also made her an adaptive cutting board that holds a variety of shapes in place while they’re being cut.) A friend of mine with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome who frequently has to wear a wrist brace found that an perpendicular handle knife I designed specifically for her enabled her to cook again. I also found that many, if not most people with no hand or wrist ailment whatsoever, preferred my knives to traditional ones when they tried mine out. Gripping a tool at an almost perpendicular angle to the working end isn’t just an adaptive design for people with certain disabilities, it’s a flat out stronger and more comfortable way to hold something. Imagine how awkward a handsaw or a drill would be if the handle stuck straight back from the working end instead of connecting at an angle.