Why Tanto?

beaverballs said:
Oh, me too! I'm just waiting for the day when a fellow mall geek desides to draw his fighting knife on me. I've studied up on the ancient art of mall combat and I feel that i'm ready for such an occasion. Don't worry America, i'll be there when some nut job decides to start slashing and stabbing his way through your local mall. I'll be there with my tanto folder in hand, ready to unleash the tanto's ancient slashing power. Even though my tanto's secondary edge lacks cutting edge compared to a drop point, lets face it........... magic will cary my "secondary point" deep into evil flesh and my tactical folder will unleash all the power of the ancient tanto sword.
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You're in for quite a match if you ever run into Gecko45 at a mall!:eek:
 
I love threads based on a personal bias.

You find no use for a Americanized Tanto blade & thus dismiss it as having any usefulness for anyone. I've used the tip on my Strider GB to scrape off caked on grass & mud from underneath my mower. I used the tip of my old Emerson CQC-7B to push-cut a wart off my finger in the field. They have their uses.

Some poster made a great comment asking if you have ever ran across a scenario where you could not cut whatever because it's an Americanized Tanto blade?

Select the knife for the job (or expected jobs) at hand. I work in an office now & carrying my Strider GB or Emerson EDC Tanto would not work out well. Instead I carry either my Spyderco Caly 3 with a Vic Compact SAK.

I understand you don't like them, I just see no reason for you to pass judgment on those who do.
 
beaverballs said:
Oh, me too! I'm just waiting for the day when a fellow mall geek desides to draw his fighting knife on me. I've studied up on the ancient art of mall combat and I feel that i'm ready for such an occasion. Don't worry America, i'll be there when some nut job decides to start slashing and stabbing his way through your local mall. I'll be there with my tanto folder in hand, ready to unleash the tanto's ancient slashing power. Even though my tanto's secondary edge lacks cutting edge compared to a drop point, lets face it........... magic will cary my "secondary point" deep into evil flesh and my tactical folder will unleash all the power of the ancient tanto sword.
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Your lack of sharpening skills is the reason the edge near the tip won't cut. Either that or you only deal with crap knives. In either case, it has nothing to do with the tanto design.
 
Let's get something clear, piercing or stabbing is done most effectively with a thinner tip, assuming the tip is sturdy enough for the target. This is the reason for the design of many dagger and fighter style blades. Many Americanized tantos in general have more metal just behind the tip, making them more difficult to penetrate a given target. If there is more metal behind the tip, then the advantage if you consider it one for your purposes is that the end of the blade is less likely to break under different angles of stress. There's nothing mystical about this. It's just physics.
 
beaverballs said:
Oh, me too! I'm just waiting for the day when a fellow mall geek desides to draw his fighting knife on me. I've studied up on the ancient art of mall combat and I feel that i'm ready for such an occasion. Don't worry America, i'll be there when some nut job decides to start slashing and stabbing his way through your local mall. I'll be there with my tanto folder in hand, ready to unleash the tanto's ancient slashing power. Even though my tanto's secondary edge lacks cutting edge compared to a drop point, lets face it........... magic will cary my "secondary point" deep into evil flesh and my tactical folder will unleash all the power of the ancient tanto sword.
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i hope it all works out for ya.............

while i like tanto's ok, and have carried a few different one quite a bit, i am not under the impression that the tanto design (be it japanese or american style) offers any great advantage over anything else, not in something the size of a folder anyway, for self defense, not in stabbing or slashing.

will it work? sure. is it better than say a bowie design? no,
 
Tanto is a knife. I like knife. Me like Tanto!

Seriously though. Why hate the Tanto and make fun of them. They work fine for many people. They have visual interest to many people. Lets stick together folks! They do perform nicely in certain roles.

Most of the day at work a hawkbill or wharncliffe works best for me. The second point between the two cutting edges works as a wharncliffe. The tanto design still leaves me a forward point to cut open bags or what have you. I don't carry a tanto at work now, but I have, and I probably will again. For me they are practical and visually appealing.
 
About a month ago I picked up a tanto blade for 10.00 to try out. Wasn't sure I would like the blade shape. The blade says Taylor/seto surgical steel japan. The blade is hollow ground and the tip has some belly to it and is not a sharp angle. I don't know if it was reground or came like that. The blade is six inches. I have been using it it the kitchen and garden and seems to work well. I haven't tried it in the field. Maybe the rounded instead of sharp angle at the front will be a plus. I do carry a CRKT M16-12 partial serrated pocket knife for a user and it seems to work O.K. and is of tanto design. This is my only experience with them.
 
seanystrangle said:
Im an Anthropology major in college. the oldest ones to have been found are 2.7-9 million years old. and we know what they were used for by the marks on the blades, the residue left on them and for the scraping pattern on animal bones. and really? the cold virus has no comaprison to stone tools. a virus is a living thing that is always changing. stone tools are shapped rocks that dont change. and i dont know if you realize that you said they were made for cutting then in your next post you said we can only assume what they were made for.you contridicted your self nice one. sorry i dont mean to come across as a jerk i have just had a bad day im sorry :(
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What a crock! The guy above you had it right..You don't know what the F happened 2 million years ago..gimme a break!
 
As consumers, we can simply say we like them and not proffer any other reason.

How many people on this board carry tantos EDC? I don't know, but I know there are a lot. To tell these people they don't know what they're talking about is presumptuous. It's better to say, "They're not for me," and just leave it at that. I know many people who are quite knowledgeable about guns and who buy and carry .25ACPs. Imagine that! And .380s. I even know a fellow who won't buy, carry or use a .45 auto because he was involved in one shooting where the guy he shot took one in the chest and kept coming like he wasn't hit. So to him .45 autos are useless POS guns (his term).

Everyone has, and is entitled to, their own opinions. My two favorite carry knives are both tantos, and I haven't found them to be deficient in any way to what I was cutting.
 
Edged_Obsession said:
What a crock! The guy above you had it right..You don't know what the F happened 2 million years ago..gimme a break!
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why dont you look it up and see what it is said i will not be told i am making it up. look it up and find someone who is an expert and prove to me im wrong till then dont talk about things unless you know what you tallking about. and you are going along with someone who says they were used for cutting then says there is no posible way to know what they were used for you make your self sound more ignorant. and why are you starting a argumant on the internet? do you really lack that much of a life?
 
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I'm a fan of the Americanized tanto because it's way easy to sharpen on a flat stone. It's like sharpening a medium-length wharncliffe with a few strokes, then a short wharncliffe with a few strokes. That's all there is to it: two flat edges

To be totally honest, it's probably the second-best design to learn sharpening off of, with the first being the wharncliffe.
 
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