Tanto blades seem so impractical

To OP:

Well, it looks like the others have answered your questions. You are correct; it's not a very useful blade shape. To sum up, here's why you might need a tanto:

1. stabbing through the body armor of the samurai you are fighting
2. killing the bear you are fighting

For everything else, yeah, stick to the drop point. :D A few people mentioned prying and scraping paint. I never do those things with a knife... there are tools designed for that. Sure the extra tip might be good for opening boxes, but I'd vastly prefer a drop point tip for most tasks overall.
 
I have found a few things that I like about the American Tanto style blades...

1) There are two seperate cutting edges. I found that when I EDC'd one of my mine to test it, I found myself using the transition point and the front edge most. The primary edge stayed
sharp, clean, and usable.
2) The tip maintains more material than a traditional drop point, and lends itself better to prying than a traditional drop point. I am full-time LEO, and I used that knife to help pry
windows during warrant service, I put it through car glass, and used it to pry open some hidden compartments in a car... Wouldn't have tried that with a traditional drop point.
3) After use, I could get away with sharpening the front edge only, cutting down maintenance time.

The down side to the American Tanto design is that it does not pierce as well as a thinner tip would... The extra material adds strength to the tip, but it also creates greater drag, and requires greater displacement of whatever is being pierced. On the upside, if it is a self-defense situation, the wound channel should be theoretically larger.

I'm not skinning anything on a daily basis, so I fail to see where a drop point as an EDC would benefit me more than an American Tanto style blade.
 
me2 said:
Apart from the sword shape shown above, that is a specific use Japanese eel knife design.
Click to expand...

Thank you for that info-- as it happens I love Japanese-prepared eel but wasn't aware they used a knife like this.
 
I saw a chef on youtube using a knife shaped just like that, but with a 7" blade, cutting up eel into some type of mush is the best word I can think of. He was going through bones and all, in slices that were maybe 1/16" thick or so. The knives are apparently fairly thick and I want one now. It literally appears to be a rectangular bar cut at 45 degrees on the end, then chisel ground. There must be a reason for the tip too, but the video didn't show the guy using it.
 
Yeah-- I'm really interested in learning how they apply this blade design in eel prep because it "seems" like the opposite of what they would need (especially with de-boning). There has to be a special technique. Or perhaps they use a different knife for de-boning and this is just for raw, whole eel? I have no idea; I'm about as far away from a chef as it gets.
 
RevDevil said:
What empiricle evidence are you basing this off? Have you used a tanto blade for any extended period of time? The knife that Hark has posted is no where near a drop point, makes me wonder if you know what defines a drop point.
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I was wondering if somebody was going to say something about that drop point comment..;)

To be honest, I had always disliked tantos, but now I am beginning to really appreciate a well made tanto. It's unfair to lump all tantos in the same category since they can vary so much, and are defined by more than the fact that they have a yokote. I personally enjoy the "prototype" americanized tanto by Cold Steel (it doesn't really matter if Bob Lum "invented" it first, LT was definitively the one who made it mainstream.. for better or for worse, thats up to you).

The CS version I am referring to is the one without the point dropped or clipped at all, and remains in-line with the spine. This is a big part of what gives it strength. The other part is that it can employ 2 different grinds: a thin hollow ground main edge, and a thicker and shorter flat grind for the tip. This way, you don't have to choose between a strong tip (short grind) or a thin edge (hollow grind or high flat grind). You can actually achieve these tanto-like features in any blade shape, but you have to do 2 things: keep tip in-line with spine, and apply a gradually differential grind (which would be a PITA to make and a PITA to use/sharpen)

As for fighting samurai/grizzlys, I don't care about that. But the only disadvantage I can see to a tanto blade shape is difficulty skinning. Skinning is not an EDC task.. for me anyways :rolleyes:

I'd say for the average person, needing to skin an animal with my EDC folder is about as unrealistic as needing to stab a samurai/grizzly
 
For this particular eel, they didn't even bother to take the bones out. I don't think I'd like that kind of eel.
 
One thing that many folks don't think about is that if you cut with a tanto against a hard surface, only the secondary point is going to dull while the rest of the edge cuts through the material. Imagine it this way--if you cut a steak with an American tanto on a ceramic plate, you'll be able to slice through the steak with ease, cut after cut. This is similar to how a wharncliffe blade performs under the same circumstances, except a wharncliffe would only be able to pull-cut while the tanto would be able to both push and pull.

I'm not a fan of them for my purposes, but they have advantages and disadvantages just like any other blade style. :)
 
I tried EDC'ing a tanto blade for a while (CRKT M16-10Z). It did come in handy for scraping, as it did provide a nice chisel-like edge. For shallow cuts (eg. cutting tape or plastic wrap off a box), it was a bit awkward and seemed like the secondary tip was doing all the cutting (since there was no belly). It may have just been because I hadn't used a tanto blade before, but it didn't feel as comfortable. As for longer cuts (eg. breaking down boxes), that also felt more difficult. That may also have been because of the combo edge, where the transition when slicing from the serrated to the plain edge wasn't all that great. The tip on a tanto is supposed to be stronger as well, but I never did anything to really put that to any test. The only tips I've damaged were from dropping knives onto hard surfaces.
 
RevDevil said:
What empiricle evidence are you basing this off? Have you used a tanto blade for any extended period of time? The knife that Hark has posted is no where near a drop point, makes me wonder if you know what defines a drop point.
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I have not used a tanto that is why I asked if they were practical. If I had used a tanto extensively why would I ask about their practicality? I asked for information and I didn't criticize any design. I merely stated how the design didn't seem practical. Sorry to ruffle your feathers. Just asking what evryone thought. I apologize for asking a question about knives in a knife forum.
 
A true tanto point is practical. They are actually more rounded than what we in the US tend to call tanto. What we mostly have here, I believe was started by Cold Steel. These are more like sword points than actual tanto blades.
These are more like what real tanto blades are.
cold-steel-warrior-series-tanto-88bt.jpg

Paul_Chen_Orchid_Tanto.jpg
 
R. Scheppmann Knives said:
The tip maintains more material than a traditional drop point, and lends itself better to prying than a traditional drop point. I am full-time LEO, and I used that knife to help pry
windows during warrant service, I put it through car glass, and used it to pry open some hidden compartments in a car... Wouldn't have tried that with a traditional drop point.
Click to expand...

Two interesting models for this kind of work would be the Cop Tool and the Razel. The Razel is essentially an Americanized tanto with the front edge vertical. The Cop Tool is further specialized for prying and scraping. The Buck Bravo is a massive folder with a Besh Wedge blade that would also work like the tanto.
 
Oh please. I don't buy that foolish tip strength hogwash about an Americanized tanto at all. I gifted a Griptilian tanto to my brother. He wanted to open one of those plastic blister packs with it, something that definitely does not constitute knife abuse. Guess what? The tip broke by 4 millimeters. I had to get it reground.

Just saying.
 
harkamus said:
Oh please. I don't buy that foolish tip strength hogwash about an Americanized tanto at all. I gifted a Griptilian tanto to my brother. He wanted to open one of those plastic blister packs with it, something that definitely does not constitute knife abuse. Guess what? The tip broke by 4 millimeters. I had to get it reground.

Just saying.
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That really sucks, and given BM's reputation, it was probably HT/lemon. But that goes to show that just because it has a boxy secondary point doesn't mean it shares "classic tanto characteristics".

BM particularly likes to grind their tantos thin and clip/drop the point.
 
The silhouette may be similar, but different models from different companies can be extremely different.

Cold Steel has hollow v-ground and Emerson has chisel. CRK has a convex front edge. You can't say tantos are fragile because BM tantos are fragile.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
You can't say tantos are fragile because BM tantos are fragile.
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I'm not saying tantos are fragile because the BM grip had the tip break. I was just saying just because a tanto style may be the triangle wedge American tanto doesn't necessarily mean the tip is any more robust than another blade shape.
 
Yeah thickness really plays a big factor in tip strength. And it's totally possible to have a conventional point as strong or stronger than an American tanto. It all depends on the individual design.
 
Unicorn161 said:
A true tanto point is practical. They are actually more rounded than what we in the US tend to call tanto. What we mostly have here, I believe was started by Cold Steel. These are more like sword points than actual tanto blades.
These are more like what real tanto blades are.
cold-steel-warrior-series-tanto-88bt.jpg

Paul_Chen_Orchid_Tanto.jpg
Click to expand...

I hear that get thrown around a lot, and I really gotta say.. how is a "true tanto" more practical??

A "true tanto" is a fixed blade designed for combat, with a long 9"+ upswept blade. I sure as hell am not going to be using something like those pictures you posted to open boxes, prepare dinner, or anything like that.
 
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