Cliff,
The major reason I would subject these knives to lots of prying is that on the two models of knives I own, I don't believe either of them has more than a rat-tail tang.
With that said, both knives are mounted in a hard, rigid plastic for a handle, so perhaps the strength of the handle material makes up for the lack of steel in the tang.
The two models I own are:
A Frosts of Sweden analogue of the Clipper model on James Mattis' site. It has a plastic handle, overtop of which is a Kraton-type rubbery overgrip. The plastic handle peeks out at both the tang and butt end, and is red on a carbon steel knife, and blue on the stainless version. I have not seen pictures of these on the 'net, but they are also sold under the Normark brand name.
To put it simply, I ripped the Kraton-material off, and ground down the plastic to yield a handle approximately 1/4" thick. It was my intention to roll a Kydex slip sheath for this knife, and keep it in my pocket for food prep uses. A side benefit of this is that it's extremely easy with a small magnet to "probe" through the thin plastic handle to find the tang. About 1 inch from the butt end, the tang ends, and I estimate its width at a little over 1/4". This width appears to be constant all the way through the handle to the blade tang.
The second model is a high-carbon green handled Mora, which is marketed as the 4" hunting knife at www.rapala.com. Here, the entire handle is the hard plastic; no Kraton in evidence. I havne't bothered to thin down the handles, but again, I don't think knife has a full tang.
Whether the full tang is required or not is an individual preference. I don't have a Kellam knife to compare against, so I defer to your experience here. What I do know, is that these knives are wonderfully cheap ($14 and $10 Cdn respectively), and cut all out of proportion to their cost.
Joe, for the full flat ground knives, I think I've seen pictures of REALLY expensive puukkos like the Tommi line, where I guess the extra price motivates the supplier to grind those knives higher. I was hoping someone might have an inexpensive source for the cheapskates like myself!
As an aside, I once tried thinning out one of my cheap Frosts knives with a grinder, burned out the temper in seconds flat, and vowed never again to ruin a perfectly functional knife! Sometimes it hurts trying to squeeze out that last 10% of performance.
Ian
[This message has been edited by Protein (edited 28 April 1999).]
