I want to share with you something about a knife I recently purchase. First, let me explain the value of Custom Damascus Knives. Like any other collectible, custom knives vary in price, beauty and quality. One of the easiest ways to determine the quality of a custom knife is to look up the name of the knife maker. As with cars, the name of the knife maker is important. Tim Herman, for example, is highly respect in the world of knife making.
Handle of custom knives
- Next, look at the handle of the knife.
- Of course, a custom-made knife handle is not the same as a mass-produce knife handle, and there are many materials use in custom-made knife handles.
- These handles are not like the ones you are use to seeing on your typical household knives.
- Some of the engravings on these handles alone are worth buying a knife for.
- Some have images of cars or people engrave on them.
- Once you’ve examine the handle, it’s time to look at the blade. Like the handle, the blades that make up a custom knife vary.
- There are a number of different materials, qualities and lengths.
Quality
We won’t go into them here, but knowing how to determine the value and quality of a knife can make or break a deal. Collecting custom knives is more of an art than a science. However, there is a formula that can be use to gauge most decisions. Knife maker, handle and blade. These are the three main components of a custom knife.
Pros and Cons of custom knives
When making custom knives, the type of pliers and their advantages and disadvantages may come into play.
Pros
- Simply put, the tang is the steel that extends from the blade to form the handle of the knife.
- How much steel is use in the handle affects the weight, balance and most importantly the strength of the knife.
- This article will focus on the two most common tang designs use in handmade knives.
- The full tang and the hidden tang.
- A full tang is a knife where the steel of the blade extends all the way to the back of the handle.
- You can see that the handle is continuous.
- This makes it the strongest handle because there is one full piece of steel running through the handle.
- The add steel can be an advantage or a disadvantage depending on the overall design of the knife and its intend use.
Cons
- In larger camping knives, this extra weight helps cut through small branches and nicely offsets the weight of the longer blade.
- In other designs, this weight throws the knife off balance and makes the handle too heavy.
- A common way to solve this problem is to make the pliers thinner.
- Taper pliers are those where the steel of the handle is ground in a V-shape, with the thinnest part at the end of the handle.
- This reduces weight issues and balances the design while maintaining the strength of the design with full tangs.
- This Drop Point Hunter Kitchen knife is a good example of a taper tang.
Abstract
A hidden tang will not make the handle as strong as a knife with a full tang, due to the smaller amount of steel. Choosing the right design of pliers comes down to personal preference and the intend use of the knife. On the other hand, if you find that knives are only made for cutting, then hidden pliers with a lighter, “livelier” feel may be for you.