Are we too pre-occupied with full tang blades?

[KiljoyKutlery]

I've had times when I had a hidden tang knife for sale and a potential buyer asks, "Is that a full tang?". I tell them, "no" and I never hear back from them again. This makes me think that I just lost a sale because it wasn't a full tang. I just spent all that extra time and effort to make a nice hidden tang knife when I could have sold it faster, made it faster, easier, and the same price if it had a full exposed tang.

Here's a picture of one of my hidden tangs before I put the handle on.. If I purposely broke this blade on a vice, I can't see it breaking at the tang or because it had a hidden tang. It would break close to the tip where it's fully hard and there's less steel, and that's not a weak tip!

Thats a nice looking knife Ray...you should make a few...every now and then, just to show off!

 

[TheGame]

I have no problem with hidden tang blades. However, a lot of people do because they think they are like the rambo knives. (Of course, I haven't exposed them to BF, either) The people that use knives where I live, if they can't visually see the tang, assume it stops at the handle for some reason.

 

[Mistwalker]

I just remembered something I had forgotten.... that I have had a couple of issues (a loooong time ago) with a couple of hidden tang stag handled Edgemark knives. In some point work boring holes the bone actually turned on the tang. Maybe this was "pre-good-epoxy" or something but it did have a long lasting impact. A couple of years ago I found a custom, I don't remember the maker, made the same way at a gun and knife show. It had a blade shape identical to my SOG Bowie but stag handle and brass guard and pommel. I really liked the look and of the knife but...I thought to myself if it were slab handled stag I'd have bought it in a heartbeat. As it turned out I bought the used SOG Bowie in like new condition laying beside it for the same $150.00 price tag because I already had one at home that had proven itself.

 

[udtjim]

The tang does not mean much to me. I seldom use a knife for wood working and it is mostly for food prep. My knifes are used mostly for hunting, Field dressing, cleaning fish and cutting rope and cordage. I have a few quite a few knives capable of chopping and splitting wood so the rest of my knives are judged by the way they fit my hand and their slicing ability.

That said, most of my knives can do double duty, wood/meat. I do have to wonder how many people have really ever broke a knife because of the strength or design of the tang.

Yeah, It only takes once. But YES, I think we are a bit obsessed with full tangs.

 

[kgd]

I just remembered something I had forgotten.... that I have had a couple of issues (a loooong time ago) with a couple of hidden tang stag handled Edgemark knives. In some point work boring holes the bone actually turned on the tang. Maybe this was "pre-good-epoxy" or something but it did have a long lasting impact. A couple of years ago I found a custom, I don't remember the maker, made the same way at a gun and knife show. It had a blade shape identical to my SOG Bowie but stag handle and brass guard and pommel. I really liked the look and of the knife but...I thought to myself if it were slab handled stag I'd have bought it in a heartbeat. As it turned out I bought the used SOG Bowie in like new condition laying beside it for the same $150.00 price tag because I already had one at home that had proven itself.

I had a similar thing happen to me with my little buck diamondback guide. The rubber handle just rotated on me due to glue letting go. I pulled of the handle and then wrapped it with paracord.

I believe there were a couple cases of the glue letting go on the older Bark River kepharts that were reported here in this forum.

One thing I thought about, and this effects both full tang and covered tang knives are wood/material swelling/condensing with moisture and temperature. On a full tang knife this has the effect of shifting the tang and slabs, where at the time of making they are nice and flush and other times can be lifted higher than the tang or shrink to lower than the tang.

On a covered tang knife, the swelling/condensing properties of wood will place stress on the glue holding the tang in place.

Makers use stabilized wood, naturally oil woods, synthetic handle materials or flexible glues to overcome these effects.

 

[Foilist]

My Helle Futura (rat tail tang) bent under light use. Further examination showed that I could bend it back and forth with my bare hands. I wonder if that is typical of Helle (a respected brand) or if have a flawed one?

 

[Les]

Since the trend of late has been to leave the hatchet/axe/shovel at home, strong full tangs have been more in vogue.
That's not to say the stick tang or rat tail can not do just what they have always done and were designed to do. Cut.

 

[Ankar Sheng]

My Helle Futura (rat tail tang) bent under light use. Further examination showed that I could bend it back and forth with my bare hands. I wonder if that is typical of Helle (a respected brand) or if have a flawed one?

I believe the Helle's are laminated with soft 18/8 stainless, there's not much hardened steel there to give it strength and ability to resist flexing.

 

[GRIM 62]

I'm diggin that Rio Grande,Big Mike!

 

[aarya]

My Helle Futura (rat tail tang) bent under light use. Further examination showed that I could bend it back and forth with my bare hands. I wonder if that is typical of Helle (a respected brand) or if have a flawed one?

I think you may have a flawed one. All my helle knives, and i have a few, are hard. That is, impossible to bend by hand. It even takes considerable force to bend, even if you put it in a vice. What you may have, is a break in the tang.


On topic: I have both full-tang, and rat-tail/hidden tang knives, and i can't say i prefer one over the other. Here in Norway however, the trend is that full-tang knives, are considered weapons, while rat-tail/hidden/traditional scandi knives, are tools.
I guess the powers that be don't understand that it's not the knife that is a weapon, it's the tool that wields it.

 

[caine]

Ray these are hidden tangs right ? They look cool

 

[Foilist]

I think you may have a flawed one. All my helle knives, and i have a few, are hard. That is, impossible to bend by hand. It even takes considerable force to bend, even if you put it in a vice. What you may have, is a break in the tang.

Hmm, that's interesting to know. I know blade blanks are available for Helle; I wonder how hard it would be to remove the flawed blade and replace it with a new blank? I like the knife's look and feel, but it is too flimsy to really use.

 

[MRpink]

My hidden tang scrap yards and swamp rat.

 

[aarya]

Hmm, that's interesting to know. I know blade blanks are available for Helle; I wonder how hard it would be to remove the flawed blade and replace it with a new blank? I like the knife's look and feel, but it is too flimsy to really use.

That really depends on the reason behind why you can move the blade. If it's a break, then you need to remove the bit of the tang, that sits solidly in the handle. If it's not broken, and you can extract the entire tang, you can see more easily, if you need to replace the blade with a new blank or not. If the tang isn't broken, and there's nothing obviously wrong with the blade, i'd suggest you just use some epoxy, and shove the blade back in. Or, get a new blank, and put that one in there.
If the tang is broken however, you could try to use the old handle as a template, to make a new one, and then insert a new blank into it.
That's how many people in Norway get into knifemaking actually, buy finished blades and make their own handles. Both Helle and Brusletto have blanks available, and both should be of good quality.

To make a comparison, i'd say that Helle and Brusletto knives are to Norwegians, like Buck and Ka-Bar is to Americans. They can be found almost everywhere, and almost everyone has heard of the two manufacturers.

 

[11x11x]

I use all manner of tang style in a fixed blade. But I've learned not use and abuse stick tangs, full tangs, etc. I broke a few batoning firewood at my house. Mainly for learning purposes.

 

[Cpl Punishment]

I prefdr full, exposed tang knives. Not just for the increased strength, but for the stability (i.e. no glue worries), but another big reason is, if I break the handle, even someone with little skill such as myself can rig up some scales for a pinned in place FE tang, whereas it takes more skill to make hidden tang handles.

Other than handles that require a wrap around (like stacked leather and some of the rubbery handles), a FE tang doesn't affect shape -- so long as there's enough metal there, the tang can be ground to fit any shape you want to make the scales.

 

[stingray4540]

I think a lot of it has to do with the hype of "full tang" (more properly, exposed tang) knives being stronger. It may be do to poorly made hidden tangs that have really short or poorly designed tangs, like someone mentioned in the 80's, or if it's just that people just perceive exposed tangs as being stronger. When in actuality well made hidden tangs are so marginally weaker than an exposed tang, it is a non-issue.

I personally much prefer hidden tangs, and just because it's hidden doesn't mean it isn't a full tang...
IMHO, they look better, they are usually more rounded therefore more comfortable, and they don't have that cold exposed metal as has already been mentioned.

 

[SilverFoxKnows]

All the fixed blades I use with any regularity are stick tangs. An old Camillus MkII and a Kumar Karda from HI for small blades. An HI khuk and a RoA bolo for big blades. The closest thing I have to a full tang is a Tram bolo machete. It's a mostly exposed full tang. I don't spend much time worrying about how tough they are.

Maybe my environment has something to do with that. I'm in Southern California. It's very dry here. We have fire season. We have drought. The likelyhood that I'll have to baton wood to make fire is very low. If (when?) the zombie apocolypse comes I'm grabbing a crowbar anyway and won't be using my knife to pry open doors. For camping in this climate a 5" fixed blade has been more than enough.

Frank

 

[Rick Marchand]

Some of the strongest cutting blades in the World are stick/hidden tang. I have no doubt that a properly made knife works well with any of the popular mounting practices.

I favour full tangs simply for the fact that should the handle fail for some reason, its easyily remedied in the field. I agree that it is a 1/10000 chance... but I'm "lucky" that way.


Rick

 

[siguy]

I really enjoy using hidden tang knives, I guess about as much as I enjoy using exposed tang knives. It doesn't really matter to me as much as the steel, blade and handle shape, and repute of the maker (ie: are they known for quality or for bad knives?).

Aesthetically, I really like the look of a hidden tang.

I think that (as others have said), hidden tang knives are harder to make, and there is a perception of loss of strength. In some cases there is a practical loss of strength. There are many knives with very thin hidden tangs, which I would not trust as much (to resist failure in batonning or other heavy use applications) as something like a kukri with a hidden tang that's bigger than some of my small fixed blades altogether!

And of course there is the age-old argument that swords, kukris and knives have largely been made with hidden tangs all through history, and that the exposed tang knife is a relatively recent invention. Metal was simply too expensive to use it up under the handle scales.