Questions about knives

k-spar said:
My fixed blade knife right now is a Mora. I love it, but I baton wood a lot when making fires, and after learning that it's not a full tang it sort of worries me that I will break it. So now I want a knife with a full tang.
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k-spar said:
I'm not looking to build a cabin, just process fire wood. A knife should be able to do this fine.

to clarify: I meant I wanted a knife that would hold up to the stress of it. I don't plan to spend hours every day splitting wood. I just don't want the knife to break on me when I need to split wood because it's wet on the outside.
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From your first post it sounded like you would be doing a lot of batoning.

nodh said:
There is one advantage towards splitting wood with a knife instead of a hatchet. With a knife you hold the dangerous part, the edge, on the thing you are to split and apply force to the whole thing. If you for any reason miss, the baton is not that dangerous and the knife itself does not have much momentum to do any serious damage. With an axe you both have to aim and hit at the same time.
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I do not swing a hatchet at the log when splitting small wood. I stick the hatchet in the wood and then swing the wood and hatchet as one. I strike the wood on a stump or some such and let the wood do the work.

I had never heard of batonning before joining this and another knife forum. If I am stuck with just a knife and I need to split some wood I will try it. If I am going out camping or otherwise know I will need to split wood I will bring along my hatchet.

I also understand the desire to carry minimal gear and get the job done. I sometimes carry to much stuff. To each his own.
 
whitedoor said:
Japanese swords don't have full tangs, and they hold up to hard use quite well.
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The metal of the blade on a traditional japanese sword goes all the way through the handle. The handle or makago portion may or may not be as wide as the cutting portion of the blade.
 
Here is a radiograph of the tang on my older A1

Baby that tang is not going anywhere!!!

fallknivena1xray.BMP


I doubt so called full tang knives are any stronger.
 
Ultimately given the same type of steel and treatment including the same type of skill in batoning (regardless of proper or idiotic methods/practices) it is true that full tangs are stronger than narrow tangs or even tangs which are just slightly narrower. Please understand that this is based on my basic grasp of physics and there will be many factors I have not considered.

The issue is not only are narrow (or narrower) tangs strong ENOUGH for the task at hand but is it the STRONGER option for batoning. You must consider the possibility that errors in batoning methods do occur and proper practices cannot be maintained 100% of the time. That said most of my knives are hidden, narrow tangs and since I never need to push it to the max I don't need full tangs.
 
Cotherion said:
Ultimately given the same type of steel and treatment including the same type of skill in batoning (regardless of proper or idiotic methods/practices) it is true that full tangs are stronger than narrow tangs or even tangs which are just slightly narrower. Please understand that this is based on my basic grasp of physics and there will be many factors I have not considered.

The issue is not only are narrow (or narrower) tangs strong ENOUGH for the task at hand but is it the STRONGER option for batoning. You must consider the possibility that errors in batoning methods do occur and proper practices cannot be maintained 100% of the time. That said most of my knives are hidden, narrow tangs and since I never need to push it to the max I don't need full tangs.
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On the other hand...

If you remove the elastomer handle from a Fällkniven, and then slap micarta scales on it, it suddenly transforms into a full tang knife, without being any stronger than it was before - which is plenty strong enough. Many full tang knives have tangs that are not one bit thicker and wider than those on Fällknivens. And indeed, there's a painfully obvious reason for it. Look at elastomer handles. It's not very practical to make two separate scales from Kraton or Thermorun when you could instead make a one piece molded handle like those on Fällknivens now.
 
So in short, buy a Fallkniven, no matter type, use it, dont loose it and get some more Fallknivens while you are at it. Not that your first one will break but because you will like them all. If you for some reason dont like the handle, cut it off and make a new one or buy a bare blade. Just remember that the steel is extremely hard so you will most certainly ruin a lot of drill bits. Get a second and third one, one a backup and one to lend to the people who has yet to see the light in the tunnel.
There is a vibration damping factor in the molded on handle and a climate issue as well. In winther things are cold and metal will give you freeze burns.
Remember that the Fallkniven knives are developed in Sweden, by hunters and knife experts to be used in the worst conditions possible, most part of Sweden is north of the 60 parallell and that is Canada and Alaska. It took them eight years to get the knife right so I doubt there are things they have not thought about. It took almost ten years until they released the bare blades and that was by request of the knife community.

It would be interesting to see pictures of Fallknivens used really, really much the proper way. like three month in Belize or such.
 
Elen said:
On the other hand...

If you remove the elastomer handle from a Fällkniven, and then slap micarta scales on it, it suddenly transforms into a full tang knife, without being any stronger than it was before - which is plenty strong enough. Many full tang knives have tangs that are not one bit thicker and wider than those on Fällknivens. And indeed, there's a painfully obvious reason for it. Look at elastomer handles. It's not very practical to make two separate scales from Kraton or Thermorun when you could instead make a one piece molded handle like those on Fällknivens now.
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True. I would be the same since it was the same knife but we're talking about different knives meaning there is a more significant difference between the compared knives.

As I said, it is strong ENOUGH for most uses (not heavy abuse which abuse is the operative word) but the question was is full tangs generally stronger to which the answer is yes. Given a piece of steel to manufacture into a knife with max power/strength in mind which would you choose to do. Full tang or narrow tang given that you were only given these two choices and identical treatment?

Molded handles are easy and practical in your opinion but to the everyday custom knife makers molded elastomer handles are a bloody headache and scales are the undisputed way to go.
 
I chose the Bark River Aurora over the Northstar because of the Aurora's ergonomically contoured handle slabs.
 
Cotherion said:
True. I would be the same since it was the same knife but we're talking about different knives meaning there is a more significant difference between the compared knives.

As I said, it is strong ENOUGH for most uses (not heavy abuse which abuse is the operative word) but the question was is full tangs generally stronger to which the answer is yes. Given a piece of steel to manufacture into a knife with max power/strength in mind which would you choose to do. Full tang or narrow tang given that you were only given these two choices and identical treatment?

Molded handles are easy and practical in your opinion but to the everyday custom knife makers molded elastomer handles are a bloody headache and scales are the undisputed way to go.
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I was only talking of Fällkniven knives, trying to make the point that their tangs, although technically not full, are certainly more than strong enough, and indeed as strong as they would be if they were technically full tang. The only difference here is the choice of handle materials, and the molded handles require that the entire tang be enclosed inside the handle, which makes it, technically, not full tang.

As for knives in general, yes, full tangs are stronger than everything else. But the strictest definition of full tang can be a bit deceptive - the exact same knife can either be full tang or not full tang depending on whether you slap on a molded elastomer handle or separate scales, without the tang getting any stronger or weaker in the process.

We may have a slight misunderstanding here. I wasn't lauding molded handles in general, I was trying to state, that since Fällkniven want elastomer handles, it would be impractical and difficult, not to mention pointless, to try to make scales out of the material. As Nodh already stated, the handles on Fällknivens are the way they are largely because of freeze burn. In -30 Celcius temperatures you do not want bare metal to touch your skin for prolonged periods, which is why the molded handles.

Custom makers can certainly do what they want, and use what they feel is right for their products and right for them, and elastomer handles are certainly pretty darn ugly. Still, sometimes it's better to have an ugly handle than to have a handle that's frozen tight to your hand. ;)
 
The Fallkniven A1, S1,and F1 knives are excellent, and willserve you well in the field.
 
Good point. Wouldn't want the skin of my bloodied fingers to coat my knife :)

The definition of the limits to which a tang can be described as full or otherwise is not too well defined here I agree with you Elen. Therefore let me propose that the term full tang be said to mean a tang that is full to the bredth of the handle. The bredth of the handle is assumed to be a maximum bredth that is still comfortable to grip and any bigger be uncomfortable to grip. This is different for person to person so I advise each and everyone to only consider their own hands only. Narrow tangs are tangs which are lesser in bredth to full tangs (however for ease of comparison the steel, thickness and treatment to be the same).

That said for a given predetermined handle shape and/or size then full tangs are stronger than any tangs which are narrower than the full tangs (given other considerations are as mentioned above). The exception to this is in my opinion would a gradually narrowing tang (kinda triangular in profile) to which the critical areas are in effect the same strength as full tangs.
 
The A1 has a full tang in my book and is one strong mother and yes the tang protrudes through the end of the handle so when you hammer on it you do not damage the grip.

In the below photo you can see the percentage of the tang compared to the blade I would say about 60 to 40 percent split.

obj886geo702pg38p9.jpg
 
I want to add to the confusion by saying that

1: All Fallknivens with plastic handles (except the WM1 and the ATS34 model F1) have protruding tang. Period.

2: There is a confusion about naming standard. A Ka-Bar has a stick tang, a stick kind of with a screw on top. A full tang to some is that the blade is has the same profile as the handle (you can see the steel all around). So what would you call a Fallkniven tang that is a full tang except 2mm plastic around? You can not really call it stick tang so "almost full tang" would be better?
I give up. Look at the X-ray, that explains exactly everything, then you can call it whatever but the answer is there, black and white.
I have only heard of ONE Fallkniven break (a H1) and that was a metal process failure.
Buy whatever knife you want. I myself might buy one of those popular huge knives just to test it. But I still carry three Fallkniven when I am outdoors.
 
Looking more at the pics of the A1 in this thread (I admit this is my 1st time looking at it) I must say they have very tough looking design. I begin to see what you are on about their tang whilst not full are pretty meaty. For me I would call these fully enclosed handles on full tang knives. Actually I consider anything lesser than 30% of the full bredth of the knife as narrow tang.

Any more info on the Fallkniven knives?
 
It would be nice if a manufacturer would give full disclosure on the width of hidden tang knives.
 
You have lots of info on http://www.fallkniven.com.

Pictures of the different models of the F1 on my page http://hem.passagen.se/nodh

There is also a Fallkniven forum (link at the Fallkniven page). If you look around there you will find lots of knives used high and low and many Fallkniven users ready to answer your questions. A great sharpening guide is also to be found.

One thing from the picture of the totally destroyed A1, it was still usable as a knife, unlike many others, until the knife guy put it in a vice and smashed the handle off with a sledge hammer.

If you buy a Fallkniven knife and for some reason dont feel that you like it, just put it in your pack as backup and use whatever knife you fancy. If that fancier knife is broken or lost you will still have a knife that will serve you for many years in the Fallkniven.

To find out about the hidden tang, look at some custom knife sites, they might have stripped a knife of brand X and have pictures of it.

I stripped my S1 once and it looks the same as the X-ray, just a tad smaller, likewise with the F1. I have not seen any x-rayed WM1 yet. An original Mora knife has a stick tang. Cheap survival knives has barely no tang at all.
 
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