Hidden tang vs. Full tang
I won't go into why a hidden tang is just as good as full tang (for most things) here, instead I'll link a video at the bottom you might want to watch if you're under the impression that hidden tangs aren't tough enough for hard use in the woods.
For those that don't know, a hidden tang (also called blind tang, rat tail tang, cut down tang etc) is a knife that has no part of the tang (the steel under the handle) visible. It's all encased in the handle material.
A full tang is a knife that has a visible tang (the steel under the handle) when viewed from the top or bottom and the handles are made up of two pieces of material, one on each side.
This will be mainly about the options that go along with a hidden tang, since there are many.
A hidden tang is made by drilling a hole through the handle material and then stacking that material onto the tang, capping it all off with a pommel of some sort. Most of my hidden tangs will be constructed something like this:
Nickel silver half guard, natural canvas and dark canvas spacers, natural linen center section, black linen micarta pommel
Nickel silver half guard, stainless and orange spacers, black g10 middle section, aluminum pommel
Notice that both knives have spacers near the guard, then a center section of longer handle material, then spacers and then the pommel. This is how I construct my hidden tangs. The spacers can be about anything, micarta, g10, stainless steel, brass etc. The same goes for the pommel. I can do about any material you'd like for it. It is imperative for the customer to realize that I can not plan out the exact number of spacers in a hidden tang handle. Honestly, it's a lot of guess work, at least the way I do it. I add or take away spacers during the construction, to get a good fit of the overall handle. The final version may differ slightly from what the customer had in mind.
The guards are left long (like the top knife), mainly for looks but shorter guards are available like the bottom picture. Guards don't hinder use unless you have a double guard and you use a knife by placing your thumb on the spine (which I’ve never seen the point in doing personally).
Here's a picture of what a double guard looks like. They're typically used on fighting/self defense knives.
Double guard, stainless and orange spacers, dark brown canvas micarta center section, steel bolt pommel
Almost all models are available in a hidden tang. See the specific model description for price and availability of the option. Here's the video I promised.
