When buying a knife, lots of people get hung up on the tang
of the knife. The tang is the part of the blade that extends into the handle. There
are a few common types of tangs: full tang, and stick tang. Full tang extends
completely into the handle. Stick tang extends partway into the handle. My
personal advice is to buy a full tang knife because it will absorb impact more
evenly, and it will have a smaller tendency to break under pressure or extreme
force. By “break” I mean snapping off at the handle. Many cheaper knifes will
have brittle tangs and blades that will snap easily and hurt your hand. However as long
as the knife is good quality, don’t really worry about the tang.
In case
I haven’t mentioned it before, I collect swords as well as knives. In a sword,
you really need full tang because the impact a sword absorbs on impact with an
object is too much for the blade to take alone (this doesn’t apply to high
quality hand forged swords). The tang of the blade helps the force
travel down into the handle so that it doesn’t concentrate in one area and snap
the blade in half (this can happen). In short, full tang is important in a
knife or sword that is going to take a beating.
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