Will this tang be good enough?

[pafka]

Inspired by great knives by Tony Mont I want to make some bowies - but after shaping the basic profile I fear I made the tangs a bit too short. I drilled and tapped a hole in the end of each tang, and I plan on inserting an M5 threaded rod there that would extend the tang and it would end up as a through tang construction. But now that I am looking at it I worry that the tang is too "stubby" and it will somehow not hold up. For reference the shorter tang should still have more than 50 mm (~2 inches) of steel protruding behind the guard. By searching I found a rule of thumb that says around 1.5" of solid steel should be enough, which I do have, but I wanted to check with the greybeards here. All opinions are welcome - thanks.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

I'd weld another inch of steel on. It can be any steel type.

 

[TheEdge01]

I like the tang to be at least 3/4” of the handle length.

 

[DevinT]

Some of it depends on what kind of handle you are making.

Hoss

 

[pafka]

Some of it depends on what kind of handle you are making.

Hoss

ok, true, it will be a solid handle out of some hardwood or stabilized wood.

thanks for the advice so far, I have not tried welding high alloy steel like this before (this is Sleipner), but I'll give it a go.

 

[Natlek]

ok, true, it will be a solid handle out of some hardwood or stabilized wood.

thanks for the advice so far, I have not tried welding high alloy steel like this before (this is Sleipner), but I'll give it a go.

If you don t done that so far , maybe it s time for frame handle on knife with short tang ?
BTW , on that short tang I would use Micarta or G10 not wood

 

[pafka]

I briefly considered going for a frame handle, but I fear it might be a bit outside of my skill range (that said I would like to do that one day). The welding option is probably more doable for me - I'll try that. Thanks.

 

[pafka]

ok I think this went better than I expected - I used the existing threaded hole to position the extra piece of new steel in place, lots of preheat, then stick weld it all around. I do have some voids on the edges, which are ok I hope, and one small dimple in the middle of the tang - I guess I will drill it out to get rid of it. But overal I hope this is now good enough? I think the solid portion of the tang is at least 75% of the handle length (depending of how you measure it), plus the threaded rod will be there too. Thanks.

 

[Natlek]

More then enough good if you ask me . Longer tang is necessary only for wood /handle material/ , to make it stronger when you shape it in handle .

 

[Hengelo_77]

I'd go for a one piece handle, not multiple pieces behind each other, that way you also have the strength of the material.