More knife myths: The strongest type of knife.

Recently I read a Blog about how to select the proper knife for survival. In this blog the writer (a self appointed expert) claims that the only type of knife that's suitable for survival situations is a FULL TANG knife. This is another one of those myths that probably started out as a strength test and then became gospel somehow.

First of all let's get into several construction types for knife handles. Basically there are two general types of handle construction method which have different variations and extra's that are possible.

First of all there's the Full Tang of which the construction looks like this:

As you can see, the full tang construction is fairly simple. (Actually all knife constructions are simple...they're knives, not diesel engines)

It's basically a slab of metal, the one end of the metal is ground (or forged) into the blade. The other end of the metal is drilled with a couple of holes (usually), and then slabs of handle material are placed on there with glue and pins. Sometimes bolsters are added, sometimes the tang is tapered, sometimes more holes are drilled for weight reduction. But the basis is simple. A piece of steel with two pieces of handle material.

Then there's the "Hidden Tang" which does exactly as it implies. It hides the piece of steel that is not the

blade. These also come in all sorts of variations. Some are mortised (which is like a cross between hidden tang and fulltand), some have a very narrow tang (rat tail tangs) others have a very wide tang. Some tangs run all the way through the handle to be fastened on the other end of the handle, others only run through partially to be pinned through the handle

Now the idea that most survivalists seem to hold (and a LOT of people really) is that a full tang is the only real way to go for a survival knife.
Granted...the full tang probably IS stronger. That means if you took two similarly shaped handles of similar sizes and put them through a torture test that was the same. The hidden tang knife would probably fail before the fulltang.

The question that needs to be asked though is....do you really need a strong handle? Is the handle the part of the blade that normally breaks? Let's have a look shall we? I googled "Broken knife" in google images and got a lot of results. You know what? I'd guess over 90% of those broken knives didn't break at the handle but at the blade. You see...at the blade the steel is ground thinner and so that's naturally going to be the weaker part. The handle, whether it be hidden or fulltang, usually leaves the tang at full thickness.

Even in those cases where a broken knife handle is visible around 30% of them are still full tang knives (I saw some VERY expensive heavy dute marketed knives among them) and MOST of the knives with broken handles were cheap ones that cost less than $40.

What were you planning to do in a survival situation that is going to break your knife?
Hidden tangs are plenty strong for pretty much any use that a knife should do. Want to see? Have a look. A couple of years back I made my biggest knife so far. A very large Bowie style knife. Once it was finished I decided that I wanted to play with it a little. We had an old coffee table that was going to be thrown away. So I chopped it up. Here's the result

You might notice, I'm not holding back there. Full force chops. The knife was still extremely solid, it was still sharp. And it was probably more comfortable than any fulltang knife I've ever held. (The advantage of hidden tang knives is that they don't transfer any vibrations or force directly to the hand.

So, what's stronger? Probably a fulltang. What do I like more? Hidden tangs both because of looks, functionality and the fact that they're plenty strong to do pretty much anything with that I'd ever need to do.

Which reminds me....I should get to making another bowie knife....just because it's fun :-)