How we taper tangs.

[@roland636]

Criminally underrated youtube channel

[@DonNguyenKnives]

Thank you!

[@grahamlangley2388]

Your past few videos have been great, I'm finding them really helpful. Something about your kitchen knife grinding video clicked with me and I finally feel like I have a good understanding of how to grind my knives and really get the most out of my 2x72 (recently upgraded). Can't wait to see what the next video will cover, I'd love to see one talking about fitting up a tapered tang handle

[@DonNguyenKnives]

Awesome to hear man! We do have a video on gluing full tangs but I haven't done one on actually drilling and fitting them up yet - I'll need to add that to the list.

[@RedBeardOps]

Solid work guys

[@beausmith6291]

Thanks so much for these videos Don and Sam they’re some of the best out there. Ive learnt a shit ton! Much appreciated 🙏

[@joaopescas5368]

tanks alot for your tips Don ,,, love min 5:38 . where can i see the discord channel?

[@DonNguyenKnives]

The discord is linked through my Patreon!

[@walkersworkshop]

Just making it look easy mate

[@Aaronyavcm]

Thank you for sharing!

[@hsc3knives610]

Curious how long it takes you. I do mine on a surface grinder. It takes 2 hours but it’s dead straight and flat.

[@DonNguyenKnives]

I timed myself this week and it was about 25 minutes.

[@orionoutdoorsandworkshop5617]

serious question, whats the sense of removing so much material from the tang, honestly it appears that when youve finished there isnt much more material left than some hidden tang knifes. as well as making a lot more work. i though the point was to make it as strong as possible, im sure it still is, im not being critical just a hobby thing and i pick up a lot from videos on youtube.

[@DonNguyenKnives]

It's because for a kitchen knife, at least for mine, I'm trying to take away as much weight as possible. On a hidden tang it's super easy, especially with Japanese style knives with the lightweight wood. On a full-tang, with modern stable materials, much more difficult. Chef's knives generally don't really need a ton of strength in the tang for the most part, just enough to resist deflection and most catastrophic failures. The rest can be taken away.

[@orionoutdoorsandworkshop5617]

@@DonNguyenKnives thanks bud, ive been thinking about skeletonizing my tangs, but concerned about compromising strength. it seems the taper and hollow grind is a lot of work and time. i have a small space and limited tools to work with. ill continue with what ive been doing and testing. thanks for responding , not a lot of people do. ill sub for that. take care.

[@garethbaus5471]

The main reason to do a full tang knife in the first place is aesthetic, done correctly a hidden tang can be stronger than any knife realistically needs, and as long as you leave more material near the recasso and avoid any stress risors a lot of the material on a full tang is just unecesary dead weight.

[@MintYourCar]

Thanks for sharing. Question. When the tang/whole piece of steel is straight- Do you just eyeball the amount that you grind off each side of the tang?or do you have a way of marking the exact taper on each side (down the spine of the tang)?

[@DonNguyenKnives]

We just mark one simple centerline on the blades and eyeball actual straightness relative to that, if that makes sense. So if we had an already straight blade, we eyeball the same amount of material on either side of that centerline. If we have something warped, then I eyeball a little more on one side than the other. It's not extreme precision but it gets really damn close, close enough for my standards.

[@wullgrew1]

I've been wanting to do a tapered tang for years. The one question that I've always had is, how do you know where to stop the taper?

[@DonNguyenKnives]

It kind of depends on the knife and how it'll be used. Outdoor heavy beater? Probably don't want to go below like 0.060" at the thinnest (I'm making an educated guess). For kitchen knives I'll take them down to around 0.030" - the trick with getting them thin is you can start to overheat then quickly when they're thin and they can warp. And also they can get too weak.

[@LDellosa]

What about the scales, Don? How do you fit the pins straight and keep the tang flush with the scales? Great vids as always.

[@DonNguyenKnives]

We'll definitely have to get more in-depth with that. I'm actually don't have a super dialed in process for that, but we get by with a little bit of finagling...

[@LDellosa]

@@DonNguyenKnives Patreon for a bit of extra content, 0nlyFans for a bit of extra finagling. Got it! Cheers.

[@Tokv41]

@@LDellosa Also curious about how to fit the scales on the tapered tangs. Don’t see any obvious solution to it. If it’s tapered before heat treat it would be quite easy but then you risk warping after heat treat. Perhaps the easiest way is to soften the tang and then drill the holes with the scales on?

[@DonNguyenKnives]

@@Tokv41 the ideal way in my head is drill it before HT, taper after, shim the tang so it sits level in the drill press, drill through each handle scale, then assemble. However, the difficult part is shimming it in the drill press accurately.

[@DonNguyenKnives]

@@Tokv41 BUT! I know quite a few people (myself and Sam included), that don't even bother with shimming; one of the people in my mind is a very well known ABS Mastersmith. Depending on your tolerances and pin stock, they bend, and things come together naturally. I imagine that if the tang taper is so severe and your tolerances are insanely tight with large pins, you might run into trouble. So far that has not been the case for me.

[@ClenioBuilder]

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