Hello all, I've been trying my hand at a hidden tang but every time I set the tang in the handle and do a chop test with it the handle cracks, brakes or just falls apart. I was hoping I could get some suggestions on how some of you make hidden tangs. I have tried hard woods of all kinds, pinning and peening, epoxy, etc and have had no luck. Pb
right off hand I would say the fit of the tang should be very close to the handle material. The one I played with the handle half would stay attached once the tang was placed (snug fit). The epoxy should be to hold it in place and not carry much load, unless using an epoxy like T99 made for that kind of loading. Second the tang should be 75-90% of handle length or 100% if secured with a nut or pinned.
I've threaded the very end of the tang with a die, say 10-32. Then you can screw a cap or nut on to hold the butt. Like John says, make the tang fit tight into the wood at least 3/4" of the way in. You can drill it close and burn it the last bit by heating the tang (carefully) with a torch and plunging it into the wood. The reason you need to be careful when heating is that you don't want to kill the draw (temper) on the blade and soften it. If you do pin it, use a very thin shim between the front of the block and the guard, say 0.02" then drill your hole in the block. Slightly chamfer the pin. Taking out the shim when pinning will cause the pin to pull the tang into the block hard when it's tapped in. G/flex epoxy is also very shock resistant. Do you have some photos of what's happening? Maybe we can see something obvious and help. Dan
As already mentioned, if it is not a thru tang you want it to go as far into the handle as possible. A small bird and trout or pairing knife doesn't necessarily have to go as deep as a bowie or a camp chopper but the longer the tang is the better. I also feel it is very important to fill the handle with epoxy during assembly so that when you push the tang in epoxy oozes out. My theory is if I don't make a mess I did Dan. I'm not sure if I'm missing something. If you have the shim in when you drill, when you take the shim out you will have a gap the thickness of the shim when you put the pin thru the handle and tang. I may be misreading it but I think I actually do the opposite. I drill and then add the shim after it is usually too tight but then I elongate the hole in the tang until I can get the pin in nice and snug.
Yes, yes take the shim out for marking and drilling. Add the shim to tighten things up. My mistake in describing the operation. One layer of fibre spacer is plenty. Dan
Sorry for that. I had people coming in my office and bugging me while I was supposed to be thinking about my post. LOL Dan
