Hidden Tang Hunter WIP and Critique

tkroenlein

tkroenlein

Well-Known Member
In the interest of being open to criticism and advice mentioned in a couple other current threads, I thought I'd offer up a build of my own.

I've built exactly one hidden tang previously. 5th or 6th knife I made.
For this current build, I had forged the blade for this several months ago, did a rough grind and heat treated it a couple months ago. 80CrV2.

I finally got around to start in on finishing it.

The pics will show everything I've done from slotting the brass bar that will become the guard, rough fitting it, hand sanded blade to 220 and guard fit up to "almost" and ready to shape and finish.

Let me know what you think, and anything that might help the end result be better. 7AF3D95C-10C6-4F43-87C7-376D3FA08467.jpegCB9382AA-3034-4CCD-ACF9-6DA0D86A7B9C.jpeg865BA7D9-8A79-44DC-9813-9B781FB25FA7.jpeg7917820C-46A4-44B8-A1D2-FBB0BB589C75.jpeg33C7B282-E19E-422C-892C-C24297303479.jpeg
 
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Sean Jones said:
Overall a very nice knife. I haven't built a hidden tang knife myself as yet, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

I can only see a couple of things that I would do differently. First thing I noticed right off is that the point of the knife appears blunt. Is this by design? If so then all is good. If not, I think it would look better if it had a sharper point.

Secondly your bevel in the last photo is very sharp and well done. However in your finished photo it looks like it got washed out some? Hard to tell but that's how it looks to me. I've washed out bevels many times while hand sanding. It's easy to do.

Lastly is the area around your brass pin in the handle. The pin itself looks great, but the area immediately around it looks a bit rough, particularly at the 4 o'clock position. Again it could be the photo. Also curious as to what the handle material is. Stag?

Hope that helps.
Click to expand...

I fear that I've caused some confusion.

The finished knife was/is a previously made knife. And yes, it has many problems by any measure. The WIP photos are of current work, that I will be doing as this thread progresses.

How could I better clarify?

I think I'll just delete the earlier knife.
 
tkroenlein said:
I fear that I've caused some confusion.

The finished knife was/is a previously made knife. And yes, it has many problems by any measure. The WIP photos are of current work, that I will be doing as this thread progresses.

How could I better clarify?

I think I'll just delete the earlier knife.
Click to expand...
No you're good...I'm the one that messed up... sorry it's been a long day. I'll delete my earlier comments...your current build looks good
 
On a hidden tang guard, I don't see any further advantage to pinning the guard to the tang. Strength was mentioned but.....strength where? Or how? You could counter argue that now you've weakened the tang by drilling an extra pin hole in it.

If the guard fits tight, is epoxied in place and then has a handle glued and/or pinned on, how much more strength does that guard need? Where is it going to go?

Just curious.
 
No irrevocable damage done yet. I'm struggling with the physical handling of shaping the guard off of the knife. Not being a style I've done more than once, I really don't have a good plan for holding my work.

The guard is tightly fit. I was able to get the last 1/4" of the tang under the ricasso slightly tapered and tap the guard on that last bit. I will epoxy in place as suggested by Mr. Doyle.

Here is a mock glue set up. Seems to be drawn down tight so I'll proceed to drawing down the temper in the tang, finishing the blade, and gluing on the guard next.

That's a piece of so-so curly maple and a single .060" ivory g10 spacer.

503F0AB1-7CDA-4DFA-BD14-F4BDE478994E.jpeg
 
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