Thumb Angles

[vivi]

Browsing the forum tonight, this picture made me cringe.



That grip looks painful to my thumb.

This is the angle my second thumb joint rests at on a Spyderco folder with no thumb ramp:



That's, very roughly, 20 degrees vs 40 degrees.

Where does your thumb naturally fall on a conventionally shaped knife with no thumb ramp?

[The Deacon]

Depends on the knife and what I'm going to do with it. On a longer one, my thumb will be like yours, or even flatter if I'm gripping the knife tightly. On a shorter one, like the Lil Native, like that guy's, unless I want the tip of my thumb further out on the blade for finer control.

[Mushroom]

It looks like they're holding the knife vertically for the photo, which is forcing an unnatural grip position. Did they specify that as their natural grip? I would imagine even they might post a different photo in this thread... Either way, peoples hands are very different.

[Abyss_Fish]

I've got decently large hands, so the back of pretty much all of my knives sit in the palm of my hand. Meaning my thumb naturally hits just ahead of the pivot. If I push my fingers up the handle a bit to get some more control, my thumb hits around the midpoint of the blade. Although on smaller blades it ends up closer to the tip. Here's some examples:






This is really only a rule with spydercos, they all fit my hand exactly like this. At least the ones smaller than the police. I find most other companies aren't as well designed for the hand.