# Reduce Full Tang



## KillerB215 (Jan 13, 2017)

Hello,

I'm new to kitchen knife forums but excited I found this place.

I'd like to make my wife a nice chef's knife. She is an excellent cook and it's long over due that she has a proper knife to use. I've heard good things about Alabama Damascus Steel and have settled on get this: http://www.alabamadamascussteel.com/alabama-damascus-blade-ads0080-dkg/

I don't like the look of pins in the handle though. I'm a woodworker and feel like it interrupts the flow of the wood grain. I'm wondering if it is a bad idea to grind this tang smaller, narrower, hidden/stick tang" (I may not be using the proper knife making terminology). If it's not a good idea, what purpose to the tang pins serve? I would like with modern epoxy, they wouldn't be needed 100% necessary.

Thanks for your help


----------



## daveb (Jan 13, 2017)

Welcome to the forum.

Grinding steel that has been hardened will be a beetch. Both removing steel and keeping things cool enough to not lose temper. Not for me.


----------



## milkbaby (Jan 13, 2017)

It doesn't matter if you heat up the tang and lose the temper there. You just don't want to lose the temper at the cutting edge. If you're planning to belt sand or grind it down, make sure you don't heat up the blade when you do it.

If you're brave, you could wrap the blade in wet towels or keep it in a ice water bath and selectively draw down the temper of the tang with a torch then saw it down when soft enough. You still risk damaging the blade temper at each of these steps.

I think Dave Martell and others here have done this conversion more than once and can drop by to share their knowledge about best practices for it.


----------



## Dave Martell (Jan 13, 2017)

Welcome to KKF Killer. 

So a few of comments on the blade you're looking at buying....


1. I've heard some not so great things about Alabama Damascus. Mind you, all second hand rumors, but lots of them over the years.

2. If that blade hasn't been ground (and tapered) besides the edge bevels it will be pretty darn thick. 

3. To make a full tang into a hidden tang you need to grind away everything you don't want. This is easily accomplished with a belt grinder but you might also be able to do this with a cheap stone wheeled bench grinder too. You'd want to start by drawing on the the tang the shape you want to have before you start and maybe even trace the full tang onto the wood block for a pattern to follow. 


I think this is a great thing to do for your wife but maybe you should look into other alternatives for the blade. 

Good luck in whichever route you take.

Dave


----------



## NO ChoP! (Jan 14, 2017)

I would bet that knife needs to be reground, refinished and re-etched to be truly useable. 52100 at 60hrc sounds decent, though.


----------



## milkbaby (Jan 14, 2017)

NO ChoP! said:


> I would bet that knife needs to be reground, refinished and re-etched to be truly useable. 52100 at 60hrc sounds decent, though.



It's a mix of 5160, 203E, 52100, and 15N20. The 203E is a low carbon, high nickel steel about <0.2% carbon, >3% nickel, which I bet is to increase the shiny portion for color contrast. From a research paper, it appears that the carbon will equalize across the steels after that amount of forging required to make the damascus, but the nickel doesn't migrate leaving the contrasting dark and light patterns. 

Their heat treat instructions seem too simple to me (basically heat just past non magnetic then quench immediately), but the average carbon in the finished damascus might be close to eutectoid, so maybe the final product will be similar to 1080/1084 in hardness? I assume they test their blade blank hardness in house.

Their blade blank description says hollow ground and the pic shows it only going about a third of the way up the blade face. The one review says it's sturdier than the customer expected, so I bet it's a thick very wedgy blade. Sounds like dollar store kitchen knife geometry to me.


----------



## merlijny2k (Jan 14, 2017)

milkbaby said:


> It's a mix of 5160, 203E, 52100, and 15N20. The 203E is a low carbon, high nickel steel about <0.2% carbon, >3% nickel, which I bet is to increase the shiny portion for color contrast. From a research paper, it appears that the carbon will equalize across the steels after that amount of forging required to make the damascus, but the nickel doesn't migrate leaving the contrasting dark and light patterns.
> 
> Their heat treat instructions seem too simple to me (basically heat just past non magnetic then quench immediately), but the average carbon in the finished damascus might be close to eutectoid, so maybe the final product will be similar to 1080/1084 in hardness? I assume they test their blade blank hardness in house.
> 
> Their blade blank description says hollow ground and the pic shows it only going about a third of the way up the blade face. The one review says it's sturdier than the customer expected, so I bet it's a thick very wedgy blade. Sounds like dollar store kitchen knife geometry to me.



Maybe they mean hollow ground as in the hollow back of a single-bevel? If it's double bevel then yes, that would be typical dollar store geometry. Although Cutco has a 100 dollar plus Sab interpretation that features the same edge style. 

The damascus sure is pretty by the way.


----------



## daveb (Jan 14, 2017)

Something "out of the box" merits some consideration. Start with a real knife, then to personalize it, make your own handle for the wife. This is a good knife, also dammy (but not etched - yet), with good grinds, good steel, etc. Knock the handle off and have at it.

https://www.japaneseknifeimports.co...ducts/gonbei-210mm-hammered-damascus-wa-gyuto

Am thinking that if you start with a POS blade you're going to have a POS knife, no matter your best efforts.


----------



## KillerB215 (Jan 15, 2017)

Thanks for all the replies. I think I'll start my search over looking for a blade design that I want. I'll bet I can click around here for a bit and find something that catches my eye.

I'm assuming since no one mentioned anything about not using pins, that it isn't a big deal.


----------



## merlijny2k (Jan 15, 2017)

Zwilling 1731 is 200$+ and glue only. YouTube has nice vod of how its made. And of course Japanese handles that are very popular here are burnt in, they can even be removed without too much hassle and without destroying them. Also the guy from Gough customs has a YouTube vid where he does destructive testing on methods for attaching his handle scales. Eventually he settles down on corby's, but he tries to make some indestructable survival knife. As you can see in his vid glue only goes a long way. Nothing to worry about.


----------



## Dave Martell (Jan 15, 2017)

KillerB215 said:


> I'm assuming since no one mentioned anything about not using pins, that it isn't a big deal.




In a hidden tang knife you don't need to use pins unless you plan on hard use (like whacking it on something). Kitchen knives are pretty light duty use and the wood will stay put with just epoxy.

However, you do need pins on full tang knives (that use scales) since there's nothing to provide support against shearing.


----------



## malexthekid (Jan 15, 2017)

Dave Martell said:


> In a hidden tang knife you don't need to use pins unless you plan on hard use (like whacking it on something). Kitchen knives are pretty light duty use and the wood will stay put with just epoxy.
> 
> However, you do need pins on full tang knives (that use scales) since there's nothing to provide support against shearing.



I'm seriously intrigued by this... given if you use a good epoxy, I really struggle to imagine the glue failing...

Though it would depend on epoxy used, timber used, is it stabilised etc. And pins do provide a relatively easy back up.


----------



## Dave Martell (Jan 15, 2017)

malexthekid said:


> I'm seriously intrigued by this... given if you use a good epoxy, I really struggle to imagine the glue failing...
> 
> Though it would depend on epoxy used, timber used, is it stabilised etc. And pins do provide a relatively easy back up.




I had heard of the need to use corby bolts (or some type of physical fastener) said a lot by knifemakers back before I started doing handles so I heeded the warnings and used corbys. I hated them though - such a pain in the ass, so I instead tried straight pins to see if this would work and it did. 

I like to test the strength of the different epoxies I've tried over the years and do whack tests. I've never been able to break a set of scales free from a tang when there are pins used but I can break them loose when there's no pins. G-flex is the toughest so far but still lets go if hammered on enough whereas System Three let's go as easily as Devcon and Loctite does which is pretty damn easy. 

Also worth noting is that I've had two handle repairs sent to me to fix previously fallen off scales from other handlemakers. Both had epoxy but no pins. Take that for what it's worth.



PS - speaking of corby bolts...whenever I see buckled custom handle scales I see corby bolts used. This from my own work as well. Maybe the ability to crank the screws down causes uneven pressure? Who knows....


----------



## malexthekid (Jan 15, 2017)

Thanks for the feedback Dave. I take it that it must be that it is difficult to get an epoxy that works perfectly for both wood and steel..

And you are right shear strength can be an issue with epoxies.... means I best look at some pins for the rehandle I am slowly working through.. keyword is slowly haha.


----------



## Dave Martell (Jan 15, 2017)

malexthekid said:


> Thanks for the feedback Dave. I take it that it must be that it is difficult to get an epoxy that works perfectly for both wood and steel..



Now that you say it I can recall the worst was with using liners so yeah I'm sure the materials play a role in this.





malexthekid said:


> And you are right shear strength can be an issue with epoxies.... means I best look at some pins for the rehandle I am slowly working through.. keyword is slowly haha.



You'll be OK, just don't drop it ever.


----------



## merlijny2k (Jan 16, 2017)

Wood expands with moisture content, steel doesn't. If left wet a couple of times the wood will work itself loose. You can see it on cutting boards falling apart as well. Usually after left standing up on a wet kitchen sink. Outer parts soak up water, inner parts dont. There you have differential expansion and either the wood cracks or the glue fails. My bet is the scales Dave had to reattach were almost all unstabilized wood, and on stainless knives that you dont have to dry after use.


----------



## jessf (Jan 16, 2017)

Hidden wood dowels seem to hold up on my full tangs. Also, if you wanted to grind a full tang into a hidden tang my biggest concern would be how much material would remain around the existing pin holes, more importantly the hole nearest the blade.


----------



## merlijny2k (Jan 17, 2017)

What does 'seeing a handle buckling' mean by the way. I am familiar with Euler buckling of compression elements and local buckling in beam webs but neither one seems to make sense in a knife handle context.


----------



## soigne_west (Jan 28, 2017)

Check this out

https://www.etsy.com/listing/503727825/

The geometry looks a lot better.
I don't have any experience so can't comment but full money back guarantee 

He has other similar stuff


----------



## thorax (Feb 4, 2017)

Back to the grinding question - I grind all of my knives post HT. If you have a 2 X 72 grinder with a water mist system it is a breeze, or you can dip in water as you go along. Works for me.


----------



## 29palms (Mar 16, 2017)

I've made two knives with Alabama Damascus blades. A boning knife and a bird and trout knife. Heat treat is good for knives with these uses. I reground the tang on the boning knife to a "western" style. After putting my own edge on them they are very good performers. I used pins in mine for all the above reasons. If you go this route good luck with your project.


----------

