Does this part of a woodlore knife serve a purpose?

Stump Buster

Stump Buster

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Nov 15, 2007
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I've always wondered why there was this extra space in front of the handles. Is it just a style thing or does it have a special use...


(image borrowed from myakka)

Thanks!
 
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It does. Some makers refer to it as a "safe choil". It allows a user to choke up on the blade for fine work without putting that foreward finger on the sharpened blade. The depression on the handle behind the safe choil prevents the foreward finger from sliding out onto the blade in practice. I have several knives purposely designed with this feature.
 
One; it's a tactile signal to fingers that you are properly gripping the knife and 2; it keeps fingers from slipping forward. When you're up to your elbows under the rib cage of a deer or moose while removing the heart and lungs etc and everything is slippery from blood and gore you sure don't want your fingers slipping along the knife blade!
 
Thanks for the replies. I understand the front guard idea to prevent the hand from moving up towards the blade, but on the woodlore's I've seen that short area where the handle material continues past the guard before abruptly ending has always been a mystery to me. The flat seems too short to use as a choil (unless your fingers are pencil thin) and half of that real estate is taken up by the scales. I guess it depends on how close to the scales the grind is brought back. I just looked at the Mear's knife compared to the Adventure Sworn & Spyderco. The grind on the Mears ends further away from the scales to allow choking up on the blade for users with narrow fingers. I just thought it might have been a design feature to accomplish some specific "bushcrafty" technique/job that I couldn't think of.

Thanks Again,

Stump
 
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I was just browsing through some older threads, and felt compelled to chime in on this one. If you're using wood slabs on a full tang knife, you have to extend the wood a bit forward beyond that point, or it will split/chip off very easily. If the wood was sawn off directly at the tip of that point you have circled on the choil, look at how sharp of an angle it would form- the slightest bump can flake the wood away, exposing the tang there. This is exactly what happened to me on some beater knives I tried making, and then I learned my lesson and extended the scales forward a bit just like the original picture.

This is not an issue if you have a metal guard, or are using some synthetics like micarta.
 
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