Question: How to correctly skeletonize a large tang ?

[teclis22]

Hi guys .

I have been playing around with Draftsight (2D CAD) to work on a my own little tactical tomahawk.

Now I came to the question of how to design the "inside" of the tang. I know i want to lighten it but tapering is way out of my skill level. So it will have to be some form of skeletonizing.

Now the big question for me is how to do that correctly ?

So far i have seen two basic ways :

a) drilling lots of holes - turning it into swiss cheese
b) milling out some odd shapes creating little pockets

From my -very- basic understanding of physics i would think that holes have the best pysically stability as they transfer force quite well. But i might be wrong here.
And if that is true how to place them correctly ? Lots of small ones or a few big ones ?
Right now i would tend to a lot of small ones that are still cutable by laser (about 1/3 of an inch in diameter) And line them up a little crossed up so 1 hole is in the midle of 2 others.

Man i am confused here.


Thanks a lot in advance for your input on this matter.

Yours sincerely,

my clever-me

 

[james terrio]

I try not to think of tapering or skeletonizing tangs so much in terms of weight, but more in terms of balance. For most knives the actual weight difference isn't as great as it might appear, but it can have a significant impact on how the knife handles. Two knives of the same weight can feel very very different in use, depending on how they're balanced. Two knives that are well-balanced can both feel light and lively, even though one is much heavier than the other.

If we're talking about a tomahawk, I'm not sure you want to lighten the tang very much. It's likely to be pretty blade heavy no matter what... which is good for chopping of course, but there can be such a thing as a balance point that's too far forward. Is saving a few grams or an ounce overall worth making it harder to control?

Anyway I suspect a few medium holes are better than a whole bunch of little ones, because they leave a substantial framework of steel, instead of a spiderweb with very narrow bits of steel between them.

No matter what size or how many, holes need to be round or oval or at least not have sharp 90 degree inside corners, to avoid stress risers.

 

[Robert Dark]

Holes don't weigh much. The larger the hole, the less it seems to weigh. Exception......... Krispy-Kreme Doughnut Holes.

On a more somber note... Beware of drilling many holes in a full-tang. Lots of folks seem to want to drill a "bazillion" holes in a tang, then wonder why the tang wants to warp during heat treat. Most of the warping problems were probably induced during the (fast) drilling process.

Just an observation from me, myself, and I.

Robert