Hi there, Golok. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by a full tang khukuri. All of the Gurkha House khukuris you see pictured in Craig's catalog have a full tang. Let's see if this addresses your question.
There are 2 different kinds of ways they do it here. First, there is the spike tang, which is when the blade narrows to pass through the handle, and is peened over at the buttcap. It is very strong and comfortable to use because lots of the vibration is not transmitted to your hand. This is the most common method of construction and will stand up to heavy use, even though it may not look as sturdy as the second method.
The Panawal style tang is the complete width of the handle, but becomes thinner in the handle area. The handle is 2 scales that are pinned onto the tang, and the steel is visible on the edge and spine sides. This style of tang has the reputation of being able to take all abuse a body can dish out. But with this extra strength comes more vibration felt when chopping. The bigger the khukuri and the harder you chop hard wood, the more vibration will be passed onto your hand.
My little bunch of khukuris are all of the spike tang style, except one. This is a 25" AK. The blade is thick, so I wanted it to be in the Panawal style, in case I decided to abuse it...after all it is a 2 hander. What a joke! This thing can take all the energy I can possibly put into it, and much, much more. While splitting and cutting with the wood grain was fine, the shock felt when cutting across oak grain was punishing, causing me to change my grip and method of chopping.
I haven't heard any serious complaints of shock with the regular sized Panawals, but owners have said they do feel a difference in the handle styles. I hope some forumites that have both will speak up.
So, from an engineering point of view it makes sense to have a tang that is the full width AND blade thickness, but I doubt that it would serve any useful purpose. A thicker tang would leave less room for the scales, and the steel in the handle might not feel good in cold weather. Something I'm discovering the more I work with handles, is that every aspect of khukuri design is very well thought out, and the things I used to think would be improvements actually wouldn't help at all. Somewhat like violin design, it's about as good as it can be made.
I hope this helps, Golok. But enough from me. I'm more interested in what other forumites have to say on this subject, and I hope there are other more interesting ideas out there....Dan
