Knife Anatomy 101: What is a Knife's Tang?

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You see it in the descriptions of many types of fixed blade knives: full tang, half tang, rat-tail tang, but what is a knife's tang? The tang of a knife is the projecting shank, prong, fang, or tongue that connects the blade with the handle. There are many different types of tang, depending on the style of the knife and the construction of the handle.

Full Tang
The term full tang means that the knife/sword is one solid piece and the 2 handle pieces are pinned on to the blade, one on each side. This is the strongest of the tang types. Half tang knives go the length of the knife handle, but only half the width of it.

Push Tang
This is a partial tang that is pushed into and secured to the handle with glue or epoxy. They usually come in full and half push- half only going into half of the handle, while full being pushed in the full length of the handle.

Rat Tail Tang
In a rat tail tang, the tang narrows as it goes through the handle and is either threaded at the end or is welded to a piece of threaded rod. A bolt or threaded pommel secures the blade to the handle.

Encapsulated Tang
This tang is smaller than the handle. The handle is fitted or molded around the tang.

Knife Anatomy 101: Blade Types

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Knives come in all shapes in sizes. Each description of the blade type actually refers to a specific shape design. Here's a quick visual guide to the various types and styles of a few of the most common folding knife blades.

Clip Blade

The clip blade is a classic shape and very practical. It's name describes a shape that seems to have a portion of the spine of the blade clipped off. This brings the blade point lower for extra control and enhances the sharpness of the tip. It provides ample "belly" in the blade for slicing or skinning and a good tip for inserting in and under things that need to be cut. You will often find a false edge with the clip point.

Drop Point Blade
The drop point is another classic shape with a spine that tapers downward toward the tip. This lowers the point for extra control and also leaves the strength. This profile is good for almost all cutting chores. This type of blade also has a good-sized belly for better slicing.

Tanto Blade
This knife blade was inspired by the shape of the Japanese sword blades. The point to this style blade is in line with the spine of the blade The tanto has a reinforced point which is thick and strong and is good for heavy duty stabbing cuts.

Spear Point Blade
The classic stabbing blade is the spear point which can have two edges sharpened or only one with a false edge on the spine. The spear point usually has both edges taper equally to a point that is exactly in the center of the blade but sometimes has different profiles for the spine and edge.

Sheepsfoot Blade
The spine of this blade curves downward to meet the edge. This leaves virtually no point. This type of blade typically has little or virtually no belly and is used mainly for slicing applications. It gives the most control, because the dull back edge is made to be held by fingers. Sheepsfoot knives are good for whittling.

Spey Blade
This blade is similar to a spear point but with one side curved and one side cut at a straight angle. With its blunt tip, the spey blade is excellent for skinning, since it offers the maximum safeguard against accidental puncture.

Honing and Polishing A Blade

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Honing is the finishing process where the burrs formed from the sharpening process are removed and a sharpened knife is finished to a fine edge. Honing is also used to maintain the edge in between sharpening. Honing does not actually sharpen a knife. Instead, honing straightens, cleans, and polishes the edge of an already sharp knife. Knife edges are very delicate. After just a few uses the blade edge can begin to actually fold back on itself at a microscopic level. Honing for blade maintenance straightens out the edge and prevents premature dulling of the knife. There are many techniques for honing a blade, including the use of strops, felt wheels, oil stones, and ceramic and steel rods.

Oilstones

The oldest method for honing a blade is the use of a high-grit (1000 grit or higher) oilstone. To hone a blade on an oilstone make sure the stone is properly oiled and establish the proper angle to match the bevel of the edge. Then draw the blade towards the edge as if slicing a decal off of the surface of the stone. Switch sides of the blade with each stroke to avoid building up any burrs.

Steels

Honing steels are a common accessory to kitchen knife sets. Steels are rods used to sharpen longer blades such as a French Chef's Knife. Kitchen knives are most often manufactured from stainless steel to prevent rust. The problem is that stainless steel is relatively soft, and the blade will dull easily. As you use a stainless steel blade the edge actually begins to fold over. A steel straightens the edge to give a sharper cutting surface. Using a steel is a skill that can take hours of practice to get right, primarily because the angle of the blade against the steel must be established manually.

To use a steel, hold it by the handle with a grip that places your thumb on the top with the rod hanging down. Place the tip of the rod on a cutting board or other suitable surface. Position the blade you are sharpening at a 22.5 angle using the halving method described in the article titled "Sharpening with a Whetstone or Diamond Plate".

Starting with the back of the blade (the part closest to the handle) at the top of the steel, draw the blade towards you while moving it down the steel. Use ten strokes on the steel on one side of the blade, then 10 more on the other side. When you are done honing the blade on the steel, rinse and wipe down the blade and the steel to remove any metal filings or dust.

Polishing a Blade

Felt Wheels

Felt wheels attached to a bench grinder are a fantastic way to quickly put a fine-edge polish on a blade. When using a felt wheel on a grinder, make sure to reverse the spin on the grinder, or turn the grinder around so that the top of the felt is spinning away from you. If you have the felt wheel spinning towards you, the wheel could easily grab the knife and throw it at you, potentially causing a serious injury. Remember to wear personal protective equipment like gloves, safety glasses, and a respirator.

Apply a honing compound to the wheel. Hold the knife flat and level with the blade edge facing away from you. Where you apply the knife to the felt wheel will affect the bevel angle you get. The angle of the bevel you are polishing is going to be identical to the radial angle from the center point of the wheel. The illustration to the left shows approximately where the 22.5- and 15-degree angles are on the wheel. Apply the blade to the wheel at the appropriate point for the angle of your bevel.

It doesn't take long to hone a knife is this fashion, only 20 seconds or so per side. If you continue to hone the blade any longer than that it will begin to heat up. Heating up a blade will anneal it and soften the metal. If you are unable to finish a blade in thirty seconds or less the blade needs to be sharpened on a stone and then returned to the felt. As you hone blades the compound on the wheel will turn black from the steel dust. You will need to periodically recharge the wheel with more honing compound. To remove the compound, apply a wooden block to the wheel to scrape it off of the felt.

Strops

Leather and canvas strops are a well known method for sharpening razors and other hand tools. They also do a fantastic job of giving knives a slippery sharp edge, and should be a part of the regular maintenance of polished blades. Strops can come as just leather or just canvas, but they are also available as leather on one side and canvas on the other. Strops work the best on blades that are flat on one side (like a scandi grind or chisel grind) like straight razors and Asian-style, single-bevel knives. Having a flat or scandi grind allows you to place the blade flat on the strop. Because the strop is made from leather, it will flex with the pressure of the blade. This makes it incredibly difficult to strop a multi-bevel edge.

Hanging strops have one end attached to a wall or other sturdy object. Most professionals recommend "warming up the blade" on canvas first before proceeding to leather. In my experience this is not necessary; you can go straight to leather and forego the canvas. Care for canvas strops is different than leather strops.

There are four main pastes used on strops. Green paste is the coarsest paste with the largest abrasive particle size. Red is the next step down and has abrasive particles averaging about 3 microns in size. Yellow paste is a conditioner and does not have any appreciable polishing qualities. This paste is for use in cleaning and conditioning your strop. White paste is a very fine-edge polish that is for use on linen canvas strops. Once you use a particular grit abrasive on a strop, you should dedicate that strop to use with only that paste. The microscopic abrasives in the paste will embed themselves into the leather and are virtually impossible to remove.

Pull the strop out with one hand while pressing the blade flat against the strop. Maintain even pressure across the face of the blade while drawing the blade away from the edge. Begin your stroke with the edge facing you on the close end of the strop and draw the blade away from you. When you reach the end of the strop flip the blade over so that the edge is facing away from you and draw it back down the strop towards you. Continue alternating sides in this fashion until the blade is finely polished. For blades that are longer than the strop is wide, position the blade at an angle so that the entire length of the edge is on the strop.

To strop blades that do not have flat grinds you can use a strop that has been glued to a board. Establish the bevel angle and draw the blade away from the edge. Switch sides after each stroke.

If the strop is not polishing the blade well, make sure that there is enough polishing compound on the strop. The strop will periodically need to be cleaned and treated to remove excess paste, metal particles, and other gunk that accumulates on the strop. Cleaning and conditioning also keeps the strop supple and flexible.

Not all blades need to be polished on a strop or felt wheel. Most actually perform better without a polish. Polishing a blade removes the micro serrations left by the grit of final grind on a stone. This makes the knife easier to push through a medium, but reduces its ability to bite into the surface when being drawn. Regardless, all blades should be honed to a nice finish, and honing is the best way to maintain a blade for a long life.

Sharpening With a Whetstone or Diamond Plate

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If you own a knife, presumably you use it. If you use it, eventually it will become dull. This article is a guide to sharpening your blade on a whetstone or diamond stone.

Before you sharpen your knife, it is important to know the rough grind angle. This is the base angle used by the knife manufacturer to create the edge of your knife. Most knives have an angle between 10 and 30 degrees on either side, depending on the knife's intended use. The smaller the angle, the sharper the knife, and the more quickly the edge will wear. Razors have some of the smallest angle grinds, but they also dull the fastest. If you don't know the angle grind of your knife, you can usually find out this information by contacting the knife manufacturer or checking their website.

Most western knives have a double bevel, a grind on both sides of the blade. This means that the total angle of the blade is double the bevel grind on one side. Asian knives have a grind only on one side. This is why most Asian knives are so much sharper, and more delicate, than western knives.

Commercially available kitchen and general purpose knives generally have a grind angle of 22.5 degrees on each side. The 22.5 degree angle is important, because it's an angle that is somewhat easy to achieve by hand. To achieve this angle, simply go half of 90 to find 45, and then half again to find 22.5. The chart to the right illustrates approximately where these angles are.

Sharpening Guides

Sharpening guides are probably the best way to ensure your blade has a consistent edge. Having an uncontrolled bevel angle is one of the biggest mistakes that are made when attempting to sharpen a knife. Most sharpening guides clamp on to the knife blade and hold it at a set angle against the abrasive surface. Rod guide systems hold the blade and then move the stone against the blade using the rod to keep the stone at a set angle. One of the drawbacks of most sharpening guides is that they cannot handle a curved blade. Rod guides overcome this problem by using a slender rod attached to a stone so that the stone can be moved in an arc to match the curve of the blade.

There are drawbacks to using a sharpening guide. Using a guide means that you lose some of the usable stone length. It also takes time to set a blade precisely in the guide, and it is difficult to set the blade exactly the same way and at the same depth in the guide every time. Many expert sharpeners avoid guides in favor of manually establishing the sharpening angle. Obviously this takes a steady hand and a lot of practice, but an experienced sharpener can create an extremely fine edge in this fashion. Experts who use this method often cite their ability to match the existing grind of a blade along a curved blade as the primary reason to manually establish the sharpening angle. Additionally, sharpening guides have a set angle, and if it is not the same as the blade grind, the result will be a blade with multiple bevel angles on its edge.

If you are a novice at sharpening blades, using a guide will help ensure that you obtain a consistent bevel angle. As you build your sharpening skills you can practice manually maintaining a bevel on old or bad knives.

Sharpening with a Whetstone

To sharpen a blade using a diamond plate or whetstone, first attach it to a sharpening guide with the proper angle. If you are sharpening the blade manually, without a sharpening guide, make sure that you have established the proper angle using a protractor or using the halving method mentioned above. As we mentioned above, many expert knife sharpeners go without any sort of blade guide and are able to precisely and consistently position the blade for a perfect grind.

There are three strokes you can use when sharpening a blade on a stone: circular strokes, drawing the blade away from the edge, and drawing the blade towards the edge. Drawing the blade away from the edge is a good initial stroke that is used on coarse- or medium-grit surfaces. Moving the blade in this way allows burs to form on the edge of the blade (which we will remove later) and ensures that neither the stone nor the blade is damaged by the blade edge trying to cut into the surface.

Burrs are developed when enough metal is removed to meet the bevel on the other side of the blade. By feeling the edge of the blade opposite of the side you have been grinding you can tell if you have burrs beginning to develop or not. If the edge is smooth, continue grinding; no burrs have begun to form yet indicating that the opposite bevel has not been reached. If you can feel the burrs (they feel rough to the skin, but you can't see them) then you are ready to proceed to grinding the other side of the blade. When both sides of the blades have been ground proceed to a finer grit. To draw the blade away from the edge, position the blade on the stone so that the blade is facing away from you and draw it towards you across the stone.

To begin sharpening your blade, first lubricate the stone with a thin film of water or oil depending on the stone type. Then set the blade or the sharpening guide on the stone. For an initial coarse grind, a water stone with a coarse grit between 180 and 300 is a good place to start. On this grind, use a stoke that draws the blade away from the edge. A coarse grind should only be necessary for the first grind on a new blade or to repair a nicked or damaged blade.

After establishing a rough edge, move to a medium-grit stone (360 to 500 grit) and continue sharpening by drawing the blade away from the edge or by using circular strokes. A medium-grit stone is where you will begin sharpening a blade that already has an edge on it that has become dulled from use.

Finish sharpening on a fine-grit stone with a stroke that draws the blade towards the edge (the opposite from the stroke on the medium or coarse stones). To draw the blade away from the edge hold the blade on the stone at the correct angle with the blade edge facing towards you, and pull the blade along the stone to you. Alternate sides with each stroke. This prevents additional burrs from forming on the edge of the blade.

After using a fine-grit stone the blade can be further polished on a strop or felt wheel. (See our article Honing and Polishing A Blade for details on finishing a blade in this fashion.) Polishing the blade in this fashion removes the microscopic serrations left by the grit of the whetstone or diamond stone. This enhances the push cutting ability of the knife (pushing straight down onto an object rather than slicing across it) but does so at the expense of the blade's slicing ability. Without the microscopic serrations the blade will not bite into the surface that is being cut.

When testing a blade to see if it is sharp, don't drag your finger across the blade. A better test is to hold a loose piece of paper in your hand and try to cut it with the blade.

Sharpening with a whetstone is the oldest method of maintaining a blade edge. Some expert sharpeners say that this "stone age" technique should be relegated to museums, but it's one of the cheapest and easiest methods to refinish a blade. The satisfaction of being able to pull out a pocket stone and manually hold an angle while touching up a blade is hard to beat. You don't need fancy sharpening systems or kits, and you don't need expensive grinding machines or polishing wheels. With just a couple of stones and a bit of mineral oil or water you can maintain all of your blades for a lifetime of use.

Senate Passes Amendment Protecting Knife Owners

Senate Passes Amendment Protecting Knife Owners

Late Thursday, the Senate unanimously passed an amendment to the Federal Switchblade Act as part of the Homeland Security appropriations bill. The amendment, authored by Sens. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), changes the federal law under which one agency had tried to redefine many common knives as switchblades.

The measure would exempt assisted-opening knives that can only be opened with "exertion applied to the blade by hand, wrist or arm" from a federal law that criminalizes commerce in switchblades. Assisted opening knives are highly desired by hunters, anglers, farmers, ranchers, firefighters, law enforcement and emergency personnel and others who may need to open a knife with only one hand.

"The Senate sent a strong message and made clear that the 35 million Americans who own pocketknives are free to continue using them without the threat of federal agency intrusion," Sen. Cornyn said in a statement today. "While U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) proposed changing that, my colleagues joined in a unanimous, bipartisan effort to ensure assisted-opening pocketknives are protected by the law. What's more, the CBP reversal would have inflicted serious economic harm to sporting goods manufacturers and retailers."

In the same statement, Sen. Hatch said, "Without this amendment, there is a real danger that 80 percent of the pocketknives sold in the U.S. could be classified as illegal switchblades, which would hurt knife and tool manufacturers across the nation. The unintended consequences of the CBP's definition could be that state and federal criminal courts could construe Leatherman-type multi-tools equipped with one-hand opening features, as well as folding utility knives with studs on the blunt portions of the blade to assist with opening, to be illegal. That is absurd."

Thursday's Senate action puts us one step closer to passing this common-sense measure into law. The measure now heads to a House-Senate Conference Committee.