Are we too pre-occupied with full tang blades?

Would you guys mind if I participated in this thread?
If you get mad at me you can just kick me out.
I've been kicked out of worse places.
I came across this about a week ago and have found myself very interested in the opinions that are expressed here.
I'm going to re-read the thread so as to remind myself of the direction it is going, but I have some opinions myself that are based on my own real-world experiences.
If you don't mind, I hope you'll let me express them here.
I think there is a lot I can learn about people's needs and wants - when it comes to hard-use knives -from you guys.
I am a true dyed-in-the-wool stickler when it comes to my knives being able to do EVERYTHING they are supposed to do, on top of just looking good.
So, I'm gonna go back to the beginning, do my homework, and then I'll come forward and tag along with this thread.
I like a lot of things I see here, and have also seen a few misconceptions that might get ironed out along the way.
Good thread.
 
Don't be silly Karl, of course you are welcome here. We're all part of the same forum. As a fellow maker, I love this section because you get to hear from the folks who USE the knives. Yes, there are misconceptions... most are not makers and don't care to be. They know what they've learned through experience. It either works or it doesn't, period. That's what I like.
 
For knives 4" and longer, full tang blades provide better balance, as it makes the handle heavier. I like the balance at the blade/handle intersection.
 
cotdt said:
For knives 4" and longer, full tang blades provide better balance, as it makes the handle heavier. I like the balance at the blade/handle intersection.
Click to expand...
Oh, the beauty of making a custom knife!
As a maker, I can put the weight just about anywhere I want to. I can do that by putting on a butt cap - or NOT.
I can alter the blade profile, thickness, distal taper, etc., - or NOT.
I can create a false edge - or NOT.
In reference to your 4 inches I offer these as examples. and I'm not promoting their shape or design for survival or wilderness function. I only offer them as examples, and the geometries could be altered accordingly.
The first one is a full 9 inches long, yet balances right at the Maker's Mark, only 1/4 inch from where you require, and it's a hidden tang, not a full tang.
Then the scond one is only 7 1/4", and full 1 3/4" shorter than the first one, yet balances in exactly the same place!

wt-1.jpg


wta-1.jpg


wtb-1.jpg


wtc-1.jpg


Oddly enough, right at this time, I have a fellow from Finland who just ordered a camp knife at about 7 inches, and he wants a butt cap. At only 7 inches, the butt cap will require me to leave the nose of the blade a little heavy so as to create center balance.
Since it is a camp knife, I will probably NOT do any type of false edge, and this will help me achieve my goal.
Just about anything can be done.
 
That largest knife in my avatar is almost 11 inches long on the blade, and balances only 1/4 inch in front of my Maker's Mark.
You can see that the blade was created with a lot of forward 'belly' for chopping purposes, and even without a butt cap for balast.
The handle is really dense Bakelite, chosen for weight.
 
I think for smaller knives a hidden tang is perfectly fine. I would have liked the Kabar to have survived a little longer, especially seeing so many people in the military buy them because they are affordable and honestly, very versatile. The blade to tang ratio, to me, look a little out of proportion. The junction between the blade and tang was also squared off which is bad for stress, granted this is a function of design due to the stacked leather handles. I think a better choice would be something along the lines of a CS SRK with a rounded off junction and little thicker stock.
 
God Bless the Marine knife, it went through hell with me and we are both still here.:)
 
I like full tang knives just because I find them to feel nice in the hand. Not a strength thing for me as I have used hidden tang knives hard as well. Also, i am not a huge fan of the looks of hidden tang knives for the most part. Not really sure why, but they just don't appeal to me these days. Aesthetics and function are key to me and hidden tang knives arent my thing at the moment. But I must admit some of these scandi knives i have been seeing are starting to call to me. Who knows what the future will bring:)
 
Interesting post, I'm bumping this!
 
It's hard to get a good blade tang ratio on a wide bladed knife. It's fine to do a double shoulder. Taking the initial 1.5 to 2 inches of breadth like on one of the leukuchetes down 1/4 inch each side, then back another inch or so, going down another half inch or whatever. With a solid handle that's epoxy filled, this seems to work fine.

It's another case, though, where it's a lot more detail work to do it that way.
 
I think a person just has to keep in mind what type of blade they are using and be realistic about what the tool can and can not do. We as knife nuts pretty much know, however some people and I will go as far as to say that most military personnel do not know much about cutlrey ( I know I didn't when I was in the military).

Interesting stuff guys. I like to see so more pics :D
 
12Bravo said:
I think for smaller knives a hidden tang is perfectly fine. I would have liked the Kabar to have survived a little longer, especially seeing so many people in the military buy them because they are affordable and honestly, very versatile. The blade to tang ratio, to me, look a little out of proportion. The junction between the blade and tang was also squared off which is bad for stress, granted this is a function of design due to the stacked leather handles. I think a better choice would be something along the lines of a CS SRK with a rounded off junction and little thicker stock.
Click to expand...


udtjim said:
God Bless the Marine knife, it went through hell with me and we are both still here.:)
Click to expand...


I have sort of gravitated toward full tang knives recently....mainly thanks to a lot of input from Rick. However I love the feel of leather handled knives. And I hacked, chopped, dug, bored, and pried with my old Ka-Bar long before anyone told me it wouldn't take it and it took it just fine. I just had enough sense not to let the fulcrum pressure or downward force during baton blows be directly applied to where the tang meets the blade. Maybe that's physics...maybe it's just common sense... either way the knife survived several years of me before I passed it on to one of my friends when I started...slowly "down-sizing" and switched to my SOG Bowie. He still brings it when we go hiking together once a year or so.
 
I think that part of the problem is that it is hard to make a hidden tang handle out of one peice of wood, and if you are gonna cut it you might as well have a full tang.
 
It is fortuitous that this thread has been resurrected as I have been debating this in my mind recently.

IMHO...

The further we get away from employing a knife in accordance with what a knife is supposed to do -- cut things that are not as hard as steel -- the more we get into the perceived need for a full tang and slab handles.

If the user employs the knife in the way in which it was intended -- to cut things that are not as hard as steel -- then a properly done hidden tang knife is good to go.

Historically I think there is a relationship between how "civilized" we get i.e. living in cities and not having to fend for ourselves, with the idea that a full tang with slab handles is a "must have".

When people used knives on a daily basis for their subsistence they had a high level of knowledge and employed cutting tools in accordance with what they were designed to do. Nowadays when fewer people use their knives daily, they have less knife skill and are more apt to use their knife for something it was not meant to do and break it.

Compare what average people think they need in a knife with what a skilled members of W&SS think they need in a knife with what people who survive daily with their knives (I am thinking Jeff Randall's observations in South America) think they need in a knife and I bet you get a huge disparity.

On a personal note I just purchased my first two knives from Scrapyard Knives and I am excited to check them out as my first hidden tang purchases since I bought my first Ka-Bar 16 years ago.
 
Nebulae said:
I think that part of the problem is that it is hard to make a hidden tang handle out of one peice of wood, and if you are gonna cut it you might as well have a full tang.
Click to expand...

You could drill holes thru it :D
 
Nebulae said:
I think that part of the problem is that it is hard to make a hidden tang handle out of one peice of wood, and if you are gonna cut it you might as well have a full tang.
Click to expand...

It's actually fairly easy- it takes as long to get the fit and finish down on a full tang knife as it does to learn to file a guard slot and peen a buttcap on. Drilling a hole in a piece of wood is cake. :)

There are other types- mortise tang, for example. But really, the point behind a stick tang in user terms comes down to not having the extra exposed steel- for corrosion or temperature reasons.


stanley_white said:
It is fortuitous that this thread has been resurrected as I have been debating this in my mind recently.

IMHO...

The further we get away from employing a knife in accordance with what a knife is supposed to do -- cut things that are not as hard as steel -- the more we get into the perceived need for a full tang and slab handles.

If the user employs the knife in the way in which it was intended -- to cut things that are not as hard as steel -- then a properly done hidden tang knife is good to go.

Historically I think there is a relationship between how "civilized" we get i.e. living in cities and not having to fend for ourselves, with the idea that a full tang with slab handles is a "must have".

When people used knives on a daily basis for their subsistence they had a high level of knowledge and employed cutting tools in accordance with what they were designed to do. Nowadays when fewer people use their knives daily, they have less knife skill and are more apt to use their knife for something it was not meant to do and break it.

Compare what average people think they need in a knife with what a skilled members of W&SS think they need in a knife with what people who survive daily with their knives (I am thinking Jeff Randall's observations in South America) think they need in a knife and I bet you get a huge disparity.

On a personal note I just purchased my first two knives from Scrapyard Knives and I am excited to check them out as my first hidden tang purchases since I bought my first Ka-Bar 16 years ago.
Click to expand...


There's an extent to which I agree- and an extent to which I disagree. Historically, you found a lot of through tang blades, I believe, for two primary reasons:

1: cost of material.

2: blade making technology.

Not everything that's older is necessarily better, nor worse.
 
This discussion brings to mind the thoughts in the beginning of the Lee Modern Reloading manual, as to why some reloading presses are marketed as being able to supply tonnes of force when in reality, if you are using more than a few pounds of force, things are going wrong.
ultimately its the skill of the maker that makes more of a difference than the general layout of the blade to handle. just like a poor builder won't build a good house, regardless of the architect or supplies.
 
I try to stay away from exposed tang. I buy hidden tang, but buy knives I know are as tough as I'll need. I'd like to see someone break a Scrapper 5 or Aqua Salt. Both are extremely rugged but have no exposed tangs.

In my Scrapyard Dogfather I noticed that the hidden tang handle style seriously reduced vibrations and shock from chopping. Taking it head to head to a Spyderco Forester for example, I found it much more comfortable to do extended chopping with.
 
For hard use - chopping, batoning, etc. I think that you need a knife that you know is strong. A full tang knife is going to be obviously strong. For a hidden tang knife you would need to buy one that you know the manufacturer makes very strong and that you can have confidence in.

The cheap knives of unknown quality with a hidden tang are just not something you can have a lot of confidence in.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top