Is there somthing wrong with Tanto

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vinny77

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I am new to knives, but i wnat to know what the big problem is with Tanto sytle blades
 
The primary purpose of a Tanto tip is to stab people. If that is not your primary purpose you need to see if it meets your needs. Some people like to use these tips a little like a chisel for scraping/shaving material with a push stroke. I seldom carry a blade that is long enough (over 6-inches) that I would consider stabbing as a primary self defense tactic. For a folding knife with less than a 6-inch blade length I consider slashing as my primary self defense mode. For slashing a back-curved tip region (belly of the blade) is the most effective edge/point profile. In slashing experiments that I have done I got my best results with a trailing-point skinning knife. For other utility operations I also like a more normal curved belly profile. Often I am trying to do things like skin an animal that involves seperating layers of material without penetrating other layers. A curved blade belly follows the inter-layer contours better.

Even in sword fighting I am an old saber man and favor a lighter, faster slashing blade with a back swept profile. I might want a tanto point on my blade, but it would be sitting at the back end of a curved edge.
 
Jeff is correct.


It's not necessarily a problem, though, vinny. "Tanto" grinds vary tremendously across companies and even amongst custom knifemakers.

Just depends on what you want the knife to do.......what task you have in mind.
 
The main "problem" with (American-style) Tanto blades is that they can be difficult to sharpen correctly, without rounding-off the 2 "points".
 
Yeah there is nothing wrong with that style if you like it, or works well for what you need it to do. I think that probably many people just find out that it isn't very useful for most of the stuff they carry a knife for. Thus it isn't a recommended blade style, which is different in my mind from being a bad style.

When I was getting started I went and bought a Buck/Strider tanto folder. It was a great knife, very well built and took a nice sharp edge. That tanto tip looked cool and all, and it was one bad looking knife. The only problem is that for my uses of cutting stuff, opening packages, etc. a tanto didn't really work well.
 
The tanto blade is useful, but you can't use it like you do a 'belly' blade. It's decent for EDC depending on your uses of course.

Owning a few knives, I would not want to be caught with a tanto as my only knife.

Other than that, they're really cool looking and tend to be beefy folders.
 
I don't totally hate tanto blades, but often they aren't as nice-looking or useful as drop-point or utility blades. I'd love to have one of the new Bark River Tanto knives. Very sleek and classy!

-Bob
 
for work, i prefer a tanto blade on my work belt. i have to "shave" wood sometimes, and the angle point between the two edges works just like a sharpened "shovel"... it scoops wood out like an ice cream scooper, but with tons of control, so i can make the scrape/cut as shallow or as deep as i like. i don't have many uses for a tanto outside of this though, so every knife i own besides the tanto is of a more utilitarian design.

abe m.
 
vinny77 said:
I am new to knives, but i wnat to know what the big problem is with Tanto sytle blades
Click to expand...

There are so many variations on tanto style blades now, that any weakness you point out might apply to some tanto variations but not others. Keeping that in mind:

Jeff Clark said, "The primary purpose of a Tanto tip is to stab people." I'd clarify this to say, "to stab people who are wearing light body armor". That's an important point. Most tantos have thick reinforced points. That makes the point strong for penetrating hard objects, but the point thickness sacrifices penetration ability. For defensive use, most people don't wear hard armor or chainmail these days, so sacrificing penetration for super tip strength is a bad tradeoff. For utility work, a better penetrating point is usually a good thing as well. For some niche uses -- people using the knife as a chisel or pry bar -- a thick tanto-style point grind makes sense.

Tantos usually have high points. High points are less controllable -- in many cases much less controllable -- than lower points. For any kind of work where point accuracy of important, high points like tantos don't work well. Of course, these days, some tantos are clipped to bring the point down.

Some tantos have bellies, others have a secondary point. The secondary point can have disadvantages versus bellies for all kinds of uses.

Overall, I think there are few cases where a tanto is a better solution than some other configuration, and those few cases tend to cluster around uses where the knife is being used for non-knife-ish uses like prying or chiseling. allyourblood's example is a good illustration of this. You can usually find a design solution that is as good or better than a tanto, with some other blade shape and grind.


Joe
 
though other designs do work better i carried my EKI SOCFK as a edc knife for quite a while, cutting just gen'l stuff (ie boxes/paper/plastic/etc) and it worked fine, also carried a spyderco lum ti tanto and it worked well also, w/the 'V' grind, also BM strykers are ok.
 
Jeff Clark said:
The primary purpose of a Tanto tip is to stab people.
Click to expand...

...wearing chainmail. Tanto blades are only useful when excessive tip strength is required. A finer point (clip point, spear point, dagger) will pierce stuff much better than a tanto tip.
 
Wrong? No. Different? Yes.

I'll assume you mean the "Americanized" tanto, which is common on tactical folders. A traditional tanto tip, as you'd see on an original Japanese knife is actually usually much more gradual and curved, not pointed and angular.

The Americanized tanto essentially gives you two tips. The secondary tip, where the main edge meets the front edge, acts like a sheepsfoot or wharncliffe when cutting stuff. Especially useful when making shallow, controlled cuts like packaging tape on boxes. The main tip (being the tip of the knife like any other knife tip) on a tanto is very strong, as mentioned above.

I personally don't really care for tantos. I like some curve in my belly, and for long, broad cuts (like if you were stripping bark of a branch), the secondary tip screws it up. I do like straight blades, but give me a wharncliffe tip any day over the tanto. The one tanto blade I do like (even though I don't own one yet) is the style Microtech uses (like on the Exodus or SOCOM) . Theirs have a curved belly and the grinds look very cool.

So there's really nothing "wrong" with the tanto, but it might not be "right" either. It depends on your personal preferences and the tasks you intend it for.
 
I've got a SOG x42 autoclip in BG42 and a BM910HS that I like a lot. I use them like Wharncliff blades. I rounded the corner into a tight curve so it is good for shallow slicing, the short flat section is good for scraping and the tip is good for opening packages or cutting sections out of cardboard etc. The American tanto point is also useful for push cutting small tree roots etc in the garden.
 
Re my comment about stabbing. Modern tanto tips have been promoted as more effective at cutting veins and arteries as they go in. The concept is that tough artery walls will sometimes roll off the side of a narrow or tapered blade. They would be caught and chopped through by something that is more chisel-like. This requires more force to get penetration than a dagger tip, but it leaves a wider and more effective wound channel.
 
I've had various Americanized tantos over the years and I just found their "utility" uses aren't as good as a typical drop or spear point. Good steels and design these days make an excessively thick tanto point almost redundant.

Unless of course you want to be prying and banging through steel plates every day...
 
There's nothing wrong with a traditional Japanese tanto, however, the Americanized tanto is limited in its uses.

My main problem with the Americanized tanto is that it is more difficult to sharpen. I also feel that a traditional grind does everything better. Despite all this, some of the tanto designs do look cool.
 
IMHO, a americanized tanto is easier to do on a belt grinder. Traditional is easier to sharpen freehand. Thats really the practical difference between the two. I mean the americanized (as you call it) tanto is a by product of mechanization (grinders).
 
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