212 tang

eveled

eveled

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I didn’t want to hi jack the other thread. Plus this deserves its own discussion.

This knife came with an obvious flaw, it was sent back to Buck and came back perfect. So that issue is not important in this thread.

This thread is about the 212’s tang. The defect revealed that the tang is not centered with the blade. I thought about it for a while and came to the conclusion it makes the knife stronger by having more contact against the guard/handle on the top. The top is where the pressure is when pushing down cutting.

Mikes picture in the other thread shows the tang is tapered too? This makes no sense to me at all. The hole in the guard would have to be oversized to fit over the tang.

I don’t believe full width tangs are necessary but this one seems like it could be a little bigger.
 
I see the tang is a bit low. But if you are not planning to mallet it thru limbs it will be fine. DM
 
Bad news. I just checked the knife again. And it has a bad gap again. How did this happen? The red lucite must be shrinking. Anyone else have a lucite knife they can check?
 
eveled said:
Bad news. I just checked the knife again. And it has a bad gap again. How did this happen? The red lucite must be shrinking. Anyone else have a lucite knife they can check?
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here's one I have. I doesn't appear any more gap than it was when new, that i remember anyways. it's had no use. stored in collection, not sure that will make any difference or not?

I have 2 more somewhere but got to dig them out. give me some more time to dig them out and see how they are doing. thank you Sir.
 
Hickory n steel said:
When I rehandled my 212 the tang was not tapered at all, it was perfectly symmetrical.
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interesting. wonder if a tolerance thing or Mike's was an qc failure maybe....making that up have no idear.....

eveled eveled havent found those other 2 yet. didnt put a whole lot of effort into it. ill try harder this weekend.
 
Thin tang but the 212 I suppose was never meant to be a hard use knife. Forward pressure probably good to go. A prying motion maybe not.
 
I'm using my 212 d2 and it's as tight as it gets,can't see any tang at all.Its a well built knife,butchered 2 pigs with it and only a minimal edge touch up was necessary to keep it razor sharp.that sucks yours is showing so much tang,is the handle shrinking?
 
Idk. It went back to Buck was repaired perfectly, now it’s the same as before the repair.
 
Hey eveled eveled , if the gap really bothers you, perhaps you could find a competent/reliable custom knifemaker, like Sam Wilson, on BladeForums and have the guard finely soldered to the blade, thus hiding the gap and making the knife even stronger. Just a thought. :)

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Thanks. I don’t think soldering a gap makes it stronger. It should be a tight fit before you solder it.

I’m more concerned it will continue to shrink or even worse it’s off gassing like celluloid does.

For now I’ll keep an eye on it. I never liked the look of the lucite handles anyway. But appreciated the historical look. I think I will steer clear of them from now on. If I find a piece of stag this one will get a new handle I think.
 
Acrylic, Lucite, Polycarbonate... are hygroscopic, they attract and hold moisture.

Do you live in a really dry climate? What you're experiencing is like what happens to wood going from a humid to a dry climate.

Could it be the different between Idaho and where you're at, where the handle is fine in Idaho, but shrinks where your at?

I have a WWII Ka-Bar USMC fighting knife that my step Dad made into a "theater knife" by replacing the stacked leather disc handle with acrylic discs. It was fine up in Oregon, but when I brought it home, it shrunk and developed a gap.

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I’m in the North East so humidity is high. So that is not the issue. My stag and leather handles stay tight.
 
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