Tapered tangs on big knives

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Grizzly3

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I see many if not most large knives (7.5" to 10" or so) today that do not have any tapering to the full tang portion of the handle. Yet, when you look at many of the better handmade Khukuri knives being made today, they do have tapered full tang handles, on their knives without hidden tangs. They seem to be big on balance, wanting more of a blade forward balance. This to increase tip speed which increases the depth and ease of a cut, or chopping ability. There, you don't see untapered tangs until the blades get much longer. How many makers here have tested this and what is their thinking for not tapering? Just really curious. Why would you want so much of the weight to be at the rear. That seems to me to make for a sluggish feeling knife.
 
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I think a good bit of it has to do with material and manufacturing with a dash of customer perception.

If you look at a manufactured knife, it tends to be easier to skip as many unneeded steps as you can OR to focus manufacturing on the parts easier to modify. That is to say, if a knife is made from bar stock, it's easier to just maintain the thickness at the tail of the tang than to send it through one more process, OR it may just be more efficient to thin the scale material instead as wood/polymer takes less effort/machining than steel.

Also, it may be a perception thing. Even if thinning the tang makes the knife handle better, some purchasers of said knife are going to go, "That thar tang am not fat like rest of knife! weak!!!"

As for khuks that thin the tangs, there are a few reasons to do it. Balance can be one. It can also be a matter of the piece of steel they had simply needed to be drawn out a bit more, and thinning it toward the butt still leaves plenty of meat at the junction of the tang at the handle and the blade itself.

I also think that it makes since from a fastening sense. If you have a scale handle like a modern khukuri, it's generally affixed in a couple of ways. They are generally glued on and pinned with the handle maybe 75-85% finished. They will also have the bolster hammered/glued/braised at this point before the final shaping and decoration. If you pin the tail of the scales toward the butt, it puts outward pressure at the top, like a V as the wood is generally the same thickness (more of less) and the scales are pinched in slightly more at the bottom due to the narrower tang. The slight outward pressure of the scales splaying and the inward pressure of the bolster keeps the handle tight at that junction. Compound that with a second pin in the middle, and you have a very secure handle that is locked in via glue, pins, and physics :)
 
I certainly understand mass produced knives taking the cheaper route. But I'm seeing many custom knives even here that have full width tangs the same width as the blade. I made one that way eons ago when I dabbled with a new piece of leaf spring stock, and now when I handle it, I want to take it apart and really thin down that tang, but seriously doubt I ever will. There is just too much rearward balance on that 7.5" 1/4" thick blade. Now, I could see it if the blade were very wide up front as some choppers are, just to give a bit of rearward ballast to it. But for one without that much forward weight, I would think tapering the tang would be the way to go, making it a much livelier knife in the hand.
 
Many custom knife makers will skip the tapered tang in favor of some type of skeletonizing, like many small holes or a few large holes or grinding a large deep hollow in the center of the tang. This is often easier to do, especially of you don't use jigs to grind you would have to grind the taper by eye. Most good makers have done something to help with balance and some prefer the more lively feel of a neutral balance over the blade heavy feeling. Tip speed and weight forward is great for chopping but sometimes you just want to cut some stuff and all that forward weight can be fatiguing.
 
Here is the cold steel survivalist I did a taper tang on. I tapered it from the guard to the pommel and from the back strap to the finger well. think it was .23 down to .18 Also used canvas for the scales taking it to the next level, this is what CS should be doing.




 
For increased robustness, many makers put holes and/or fullers in the tang for weight reduction, instead of tapering. Function vs. cosmetics ….

See for instance the Busse TGULB.
 
Like this batch getting ready to go to heat treat

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I work with smaller knives out of relatively thin stock (.10-.08) most of the time. Tapering the tangs on these guys is not necessary. All in on thicker stocked knives and have done it quite a few times but its been a while and can't say I've done it every time.
 
A tapered tang (or SFT) is a function of the overall balance a knifemaker wants to achieve in the design, and what the knife is intended for. The more you lighten up the rear end of the knife, the more "weight forward" it is going to feel. This can be desirable to a point, but too much weight-forwardness can feel clunky (imo) on a larger, heavier knife, if it is designed for other things besides chopping, versus a more neutral balance. If you are talking about a knife blade that is 10" long, it is already going to be fairly weight-forward by nature - additional weight forwardness may or may not be desirable depending on stock thickness, etc.

I do love a well executed tapered tang though.

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I’m looking pretty much to balance on the index finger. But again small knives not the larger ones OP asked about
 
As has been pointed out above, tapering the tang is but one way to reduce weight from the handle - and perhaps the most laborsome.

I'd liken it to a "complication" on a watch movement: functional and aesthetic at the same time. Of course it adds $$$ to the price of the product.

A bird & trout and a drop point hunter by Japanese knife-maker Koji Hara, and a Loveless by Dozier / Böker.











 
You would think with a cnc machine that it would be just as easy to program in a tapered tang as to dish out the handle or drill holes. I can see if you are doing this by hand how holes would be much easier. Maybe folks like the looks of a thick handle. I'd much prefer the taper. But aesthetis aside, the proper balance for the intended use is what is important. I suppose if you ever have to replace the scales, not tapering would make the job easier.
 
Love the look of a tapered tang as well … like this one, received from Lorien earlier this week:

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But if I think about it, my largest tapered tang has a 6” blade. Everything larger has solid or sceletonized tangs.
 
From a durability standpoint a tapered tang is superior to an untapered drilled out tang both when loaded vertically (chopping) and when loaded horizontally (prying). The sudden edges of the circular holes create pretty major stress risers in both of these applications.
A big improvement you could make would be to countersink these holes- it would help reduce these stress raisers while also reducing weight. This is readily possible with the same tools used to drill the holes in the first place and the fact that it isn't done more often perhaps suggests that there is a time saving element here rather than a high commitment to optimisation.
The next level would be to CNC a shape other than a circle- looking for something more space filling, (to minimise weight) while also more webbed. Here's an example of a similar kind of output achieved through generative design. This kind of tool isn't necessary though.

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This kind of weird webby drilled tang isn't seen often because (as stated earlier by ferider ferider ) once you have a CNC you can do smarter and more effective things to reduce weight while maximising strength as with the busse shown above. The design of that light brigade (?) will far outperform a traditonally skeletonised blade in terms of durability/lightweight balance but without incorporating taper it is actually not as optimised as it could be.

Modern western consumers love super thick full tangs and it's actually a very emotionally charged design feature. It almost signals to the world "this is a real knife. I do real work". This is I think a bit of a shame as often it leaves knife users with a tang that is so much thicker than is needed. To further this point- An undrilled and tapered full tang is actually stronger than an undrilled UNtapered full tang. When you are prying or chopping with a blade so much of this stress is focused on the transition between handle and blade. A tapered tang allows for flex and stress to be shared more evenly along the tang rather than just being concentrated in this area (or at a nearby stress raiser like a finger choil or pin hole). Think of how a filleting blade bends so elegantly along its full length due to its taper. A filleting blade at full stock thickness would likely bend or snap at the handle under the same loads as the stress would be focused in one point.

In thinner stock sensibly strong skeletonisation can match sensibly strong tapering in terms of overall weight reduction. However as stock becomes thicker the benefits of tapering pull ahead dramatically and leave skeletonisation having do to some pretty silly things and leave some biiiig sketchy holes in order to match.
Another benefit of tapering is that it can be easily paired with fullering on the tang to trim further weight in a very strong and safe manner. Think of it as a less optimised and home smith accessible version of the previously posted busse. Hatcher knives has some great examples of tapered and fullered tangs on his instagram. We have always aggressively tapered tangs but we've recently been making some khukuri that are tapered (heavily) fullered (moderately) and drilled (lightly). As you might expect these are quite light and we expect them to continue our streak of zero full tang failures.

As Hammer67 Hammer67 stated though you do not always necessarily want a lighter tang. For blades that do not need to chop (particularly those that are used for carving) a heavier handle can help bring the POB back and increase control. The added handle weight can also help these blades to chop from the shoulder even if it negatively impacts wrist driven chopping. For some swords a heavy tang is a good way of bringing the POB back, giving a touch more point control without hurting chopping power too much or adding rotational intertia eg yataghan, khyber knife, messer and other mostly choppy but a little stabby swords.

This next point is a bit of a funky one. All knife blades are to some degree stronger when they are given some degree of distal taper for the same reasons as described with the filleting knife above. It does not necessarily matter a great deal but if we have an unlimited budget and we're optimising knives for performance and durability then they should have some taper. In a world where this is happening it becomes less necessary to have thicker tangs on carving and utility blades to tame the POB. In this world there is also another benefit that is not often talked about in the world of knives, but is very common in swords. Imagine that your knife is a broom handle. The POB is perfectly in the middle. If you taper towards both ends then the POB remains the same but the broom is easier to spin or stop moving because it has lower rotational inertia. If you reverse taper the broom and add material to the ends it retains the same POB but is now much harder to spin or stop moving. With swords this is very notable in hand but it is also present in every knife. You'll sometimes run into this in high end chefs knives that have strong dual distal taper paired with a beefy bolster. This concentrates weight at the finger and manipulates the POB but it also keeps the blade feeling super light and easy to deftly control in hand. If regular carving focused utility knives (which do not even need to chop) were to be built more like this there would be some nice benefits.

Anyway this has been a lot of text, however I spend a large portion of my day thinking about blade dynamics and particularly tang constructions and handle weight as to me they're very critical to khukuri performance.

Take care,
Andrew and the team at Kailash
 
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