Tang tapering questions

PIndelicato

PIndelicato

Joined
Sep 16, 2002
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I decided to give tang tapering a try and I'm following this tutorial (which is about the only one I seem to find when I search):

http://www.robbrownknives.com/tutorials/tangs/

It doesn't totally make sense to me, so I have a few questions.

-Once I've hollowed out the tang in line with the drop at the butt and then in line with the straight'ish part of the handle, am I to then run the hollow in a straight line all the way to the butt? (Images 4-6 in the tutorial)

-Is there a rule of thumb as to how deep the hollows should be before beginning the taper?

-When I grind the actual taper, do I hold the blade straight up and down (same axis as in the hollowing of the straight part of the handle) on the platen? This seems like the logical way to me, but it also seems the dropped/rounded butt will be of unequal thickness as a result...

Thanks for any assistance!
 

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The hollow is really to just save time and belts. The contact wheel will quickly hollow out a tang. This leaves only the edges of the tang to be ground down when grinding the taper. How much you hollow out is up to you. No rule of thumb. For a really handle heavy blade, the hollow in the tang combined with the taper will balance the blade nicely. Most knives will be good with just a taper, so again, the hollow just saves belts.

When actually creating the tapered tang, hold the blade parallel with the belt on the platen (the tip of the blade held in the fingers will extend just above your platen attachment). Make sure your platen sheaves are a little bit behind the platen face and not dead even with it, or you'll grind a horizontal hollow where the sheave is and you'll be very angry....ask me how I know. Use a push stick to put pressure on the butt of the tang. Do one side a bit and switch to the other making sure to keep them even. It helps to scribe a center line on the butt of the tang to keep the taper even.

--nathan
 
Thanks for the input, Nathan!

Since there is drop in the handle/butt and drop in the blade, do I want to eyeball/imagine a center line through the whole knife to hold parallel to the platen? If the handle were straight the line would be clear to me, but for some reason with all the curves it's throwing me off in my mind...
 
Maybe get some layout fluid like Dykem and scribe a center line on the blade and the tang. Just a thought.
 
Thanks Edro for the suggestion, but I guess what I'm struggling with in my mind is what is the center line of a blade with drop in both the handle and blade itself? Is it by 'eye', or is it from the point to the center of the butt, or???

Previously when I first posted this I was for some reason thinking that the butt needed to be the same thickness from top to bottom, but after further thought (I think) that isn't possible or desirable since the top and bottom of the butt are not in the same plane.

This sort of thing is hard for me to wrap my puny mind around for some reason, and it's even harder to come up with coherent sounding questions that make sense over the internets!
 
You might look in "How to make Knives" by Bob Loveless. That's how I learned, and I have since then tapered hundreds of tangs. Following Bob's directions I found it to be easy.
 
I know what your asking, but I don't know if I can explain it. If you look at your first picture with the file guard on and look at the top lanyard hold. If you draw an imaginary line from that point to the top of the blade is the line I would be shooting for while tapering. I generally take the furthest point from the point and draw an imaginary line from there to point. I hope this makes sense.
 
Paul,
Reguardless of the shape of the blade or handle, when done tapering you want a straight flat taper from the rear most part of the tang forward to your stopping point. In the example pic the tang would end up thinner on the very end than it will be at the stopping point of the "gripping area" on the bottom of the tang where your pinky finger would be. When viewing the tang from the side the centerline is un-important. The important centerline is the center of the tang thickness. I'd recommend outlining the tang with a sharpie marker and scribing a centerline all the way around the tang. This probably becomes less necessary with more experience but for us newbies remember that it's difficult to eyeball whether your left side taper is even with your right side taper without a center reference point once you start grinding. Also color tang with sharpie after tapering and hand sand on a FLAT suface to check for low spots.

My take on the hollow is try to leave at least 1/16 around the perimeter of the tang un touched by the hollow. As for depth I'd say keep it a bit shallow at first because you can always take more out to adjust the balance once you finish grinding the rest of the blade.

Got the KMG going i'm assuming. How's she running ?

I agree with Tom. Thats where I learned and have done 5 with no problem. Just dont bend tang drilling holes then taper, LOL

-Josh
 
Tom, Ryan, and Josh,

Thank you for your input. I think it makes sense now...taper from the rearmost part of the handle to the stopping point evenly from top of handle to bottom of handle. I think I can work with that concept and give it a try. I've had several recommendations now to get the Loveless book...I guess I had better dig out my change cup and order the dang thing already.

Josh, this is 1/4" 5160 so not too much danger of bending it. I did toast a couple of drill bits in the process though. This stuff seems to have a hard layer around the middle...at least the bits seem to cut OK until about halfway through then they stop and it takes some persuasion to get the rest of the way through. Now I realize why I had so much trouble on my first blade using a handheld cordless drill!
 
Paul,
You've got the idea down for the taper.

Just a thought on the drilling. Are you using any coolant ? I've been using wd-40 just because I already had a can. How about drill press speed ? I set mine as low as it goes (300RPM) after smoking a drill bit on 1/8" O1 . I've never drilled anything but the O1 so I could be completly off base here but thought I'd mention it

Josh
 
Josh Dabney said:
Paul,
You've got the idea down for the taper.

Just a thought on the drilling. Are you using any coolant ? I've been using wd-40 just because I already had a can. How about drill press speed ? I set mine as low as it goes (300RPM) after smoking a drill bit on 1/8" O1 . I've never drilled anything but the O1 so I could be completly off base here but thought I'd mention it

Josh
Click to expand...

Yes, I've been using cutting fluid. The 1/8" O1 I've used has been a piece of cake and I usually don't even bother with cutting fluid when drilling it. This 5160 I have just seems to have hard spots or layers in it. I think my drill press is on the 2nd slowest setting so I could slow it down a bit more and maybe that would help some.
 
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