Threaded knife tangs?

[bobnewboy]

Hi All,  at the end f the month I am going to forge a knife blade with a blacksmith friend of mine.  I am going to make a tanged design, with a fairly thick, plain blade.  This is all part of my quest to use only self-made equipment for all of my archery needs.  I have a question regarding knife tangs though.  I am considering making a blade with a tang that goes all the way through the handle, and ends in a threaded portion to whcih I will screw some kind of pommel.  I will use this thread to compress the glued and built-up handle pieces, and to ensure that the whole knife is as strong and as rigid as I can make it.  I havent decided upon the actual handle construction yet, but I've got a selection of woods, horns and other natural items which I can use.

My question to all of you experienced knife makers is this: is there any drawback to the threaded pommel approach, apart from not being able to use an antler crown as a handle, for example?  I want to make this knife once, and well, so I'd be grateful for any pointers you guys can give me.

Thanks! 

//Bob

[Dave Dellinger]

The strongest handle design is with a full profile tang. But one advantage to a pommel is it can also be used as a tool.

[madcrow]

Here is a pic of one of the knives a made a few years ago.  I started out wanting to make a metal pommel, but changed my mind.  This has a stacked leather handles with antler pommel.  The tang was threaded and I left the threads on to help grip the epoxy.  Antler crown can be used also.  The drawback to this is that the threaded area is the weak point.  The tangs on these are usually 3/8" with the threads being no more than 3/8".  You can fashion the pommel out of almost any steel, copper, brass or even a chunk of aluminum.  I think one that is pinned and epoxied would be stronger than a threaded tang and would stand up to abuse better.

[boo]

Here is one i did, using accura glass , gun barrel bedding compound . the brass butt cap has a nut silver soldered to it so you cant see the tang on the outside. The mastersmiths at the ABS school of knife making told us that they have done a ton of testing between full tang and through tang and found that if a through tang is done properly then it is just as strong.

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[boo]

Oh i almost forgot. You can make a though tang knife using deer antler with the crown. Just remove the inside of the crown a bought an 1/8th inch. and make a 1/4 inch round nut to screw on to the tang like normal. i put a shallow slot for a flat tip screw driver so i can tighten the nut down good. then i remove the slot after the accura glass has set . its a little more difficult but very doable. 

[bobnewboy]

Hi Fellas, great work, and thanks for the advice!   

I really like the stacked handle design, and have some suitable material (black buff horn, white/cream cow horn, antler pieces, leather etc) already in suitable sized pieces, but of course its not final in my head yet.  I can see that a full through tang with a riveted handle will be stronger, but I've spent so much time in various parts of scandinavia that I've really come to like the Sami type knives.  I have, er, one or two  .

Recently I was in Norway (in the very north), and had a real lightbulb moment.  If you look at Sami knives, the sheaths almost always have a hooked bottom section, like a letter "J".  I couldnt see why that was, thinking it was maybe just a traditional pattern.  But then someone gave me one to handle in the cold - it is to hold the sheath easily when you have thick gloves on !! <light switch = ON> !!  Duuhh.. 

//Bob

[bobnewboy]

Hi All,

I have now finished the knife, my first.  All of it was made by hand with two big exceptions: a plasma cutter to cut the rough piece from the stock, and an electric buffing wheel to polish the blade.  Everything else was done with hand tools. The making of the blade was a lesson to me from my friend Richard Pelham, a modern professional blacksmith.  The blade was cut out with the plasma cutter (very scary really  ), forged, shaped and "packed", and then hardened and tempered under Richard's expert tuition.

The steel is high carbon stock, approx 1/4" thick.  The blade part is 4 1/2" long, with a 4 3/4" handle section.  The stock goes right through, full width in the handle.  The handle pieces are made from spalted birch burl, which is a fantastic but very hard wood to work, with a really beautiful deep layered swirl in it.

All I've got left to do now is to put as good sharp edge on it, which will probably take some time as the blade edge material is very hard.......Oh, and make a sheath. 

Pix below.

//Bob


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[DustinDees]

That is a beauty. i have always loved the look of different burls.

Dustin D

[bobnewboy]

Hi All,  I have now finally finished a cross between a sheath and a scabbard for the knife.  Oh, and made an entire knife and sheath for my other half  .  The sheath is made from built up pieces of ERC with birch burl outer scales, and an oiled leather neck / belt holder.  Its kind of a cross between a lappish sheath and a wooden scabbard, and I just made it up as I went long, so I dont expect to see anything like it for a while.  It did come out rather big, but that seems to have been a result of the chunky size of the knife (0.25" thick hi-carbon steel blade).  Pictures below.  Thanks for looking.

//Bob


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