Tapering the tang on a camp knife?

flatgrinder

flatgrinder

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Dec 20, 2005
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I just ground out a large (10" x 2.5" wide x 5/16" thick blade) camp knife. I was wondering if it is beneficial to taper the tang?

Since the blade is so long, the balance is blade heavy, tapering the tang would make it more forward weight-biased -but may make it lighter for ease of carry.

Would there be any performance benefit of tapering the tang or would it be a waste of time? This knife's gonna be a chopper. :)
 
I'm going to be doing this very thing on Mon/Tues. I'm interested to see what everybody thinks. :thumbup:
 
Assuming you've also got some nice distal taper in the blade, then yeah. Taper the tang too. On a chopper, I'm guessing you'd be shooting for a dynamic balance point around 1/3 of the way back from the tip or so. If you want it to keep chopping power all the way through the tip, you can push that dynamic balance point further out with a proper pommel weight as well.
 
I've been doing this for a while now. Here is the latest camp blade. 1/4" 5160 differentially hardened, blk linen micarta on a tapered tang that slims down to about .070. The knife has a 9-1/2" blade. It is a chopping monster :thumbup: I've been tapering the tang on every knife I've made for the last 8-10 months. Not only does it give the knife a different feel it gives it a different look. By placing the scales on a tapered tang the scale material takes on an entirely different look, especially micartas. I'm working on a tapered tang folder at the moment.
 
Thanks for everyone's recommendations. I'm going to give it a try. 5/16" is really thick, I'm going to try to taper it down to 5/32" at the end of the handle.

Thanks for the pictures David, your work is superb and it gives other makers an idea of what a tapered tang on a camp knife looks like. :thumbup:
 
I tapered it down to 1/8", but now it feels heavier :confused: Maybe because the center of balance has moved further away from the handle?

I'm going to finish it up and see how well it works. I have another one that isn't tapered. :(
 
Yeah, it would feel a bit heavier just holding it out statically. However, it should respond to rotations and dynamic use faster now, and also strike with more authority in the chop. Compare it to the other untapered one while moving & changing direction at speed- that's when you should see the difference. But you will not necessarily be able to use the same techniques with both- you'll probably end up using more circular motions with the tapered tang piece to redirect its existing momentum.
 
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