Article 4 - The Tang debate

**Samurai Stu** · 04-11-2010, 15:34

With the exclusion of folding knives tangs are the difference between a tough and balanced handle and a handle that lack strength. Simply put, the tang is part of the blade that goes into the handle. There are two basic forms of tang, the Full tang and the narrow tang.

Two Full tang blades forged to shape.
On a full tang knife handle slabs are pinned, screwed or glued onto the sides. Holes are some times drilled into the handle to make it lighter and provide more grip fort he glue to adhere to. Some maker do not drill holes and use screws to secure the slabs. These are possibly the strongest form of knife handle. The sacrifice with this method is that the handle is much heavier than the blade. This can be compensated by grinding a taper into the tang making it thinner toward the back. Full tangs with hole drilled for balance tend to be weaker at the point where the foremost holes are drilled. These holes are potential stress risers and if proper tempering has not been done the knife will break along the holes if stress is applied. Also if stress is applied to the handle the handle slabs may become unstuck.

Holes drilled to make the handle lighter. Also some handle slabs.
Narrow tangs provide more freedom for as knifemaker. there is no fixed profile with which to adhere but instead a single block of wood in which the tang has been mounted. Now sometimes narrow tangs are referred to as 'rat tail' tangs. this is an inaccurate description of a properly made narrow tang knife.

Nice strong narrow tang design
A narrow tang is nearly as wide as the blade when it starts its taper towards the rear. This provides great strength ad does not require the drilling of holes to make it lighter. Because of this there are no potential stress risers. Even the shoulders that support the guard are filed round. All corners will cause potential breaks.

Japanese style narrow tang. VERY strong.