Do you like tanto blades?

Do you like tanto blades?

  • I like them.

    Votes: 128 67.7%
  • I don’t like them.

    Votes: 61 32.3%

  • Total voters
    189
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Prying, scraping, on rare occassions punching holes through plastic sheets/buckets to cut out openings...
Or to pick on something, I used the tip to chip off wood around a nail, so I can grab it with other tools and pull it out.
Those are some advantages I noticed...

Prying and scraping don't sound like tasks for a knife to me.. any knife can make a hole in plastic sheeting or a bucket and any knife with a tip can chip off wood around a nail.

Still not getting what a Tanto can do, that others can't.

If you argued that it could be made of thick stock and the used very hard... Sure.. I guess... But same with other grinds / shapes.
 
I carried a Kershaw Blur tanto the last few years of my career as a roofer it was a great knife for that trade before that it was the Endura clipit fully seratted
 
Prying and scraping don't sound like tasks for a knife to me.. any knife can make a hole in plastic sheeting or a bucket and any knife with a tip can chip off wood around a nail.

Still not getting what a Tanto can do, that others can't.

If you argued that it could be made of thick stock and the used very hard... Sure.. I guess... But same with other grinds / shapes.
Well, one could also argue that batoning isn't a task for a knife, because there is other tool for that, if you want to split piece of wood or log - you could use a hatchet or an axe for example. For lots of tasks we do with out knives, except maybe cutting alone - there are other tools that can do it. But knife is kinda universal tool.
Scraping with knife is faster than with spatula or something else because of the sharp edge. And if you have nothing else to pry with - there you go, you can pry with your tanto, not some crazy hard prying tasks, but you can do lots of things, it's those moments when tip of your screwdriver is too thick to do it, so you use your knife because it's sharp. And I'm convinced that most of other knives would lost their tips during that.
About chipping wood - lots of other knives would end up with broken or bent tips after that, same goes about punching holes through sheets of plastic.

Main point of Tanto knives is strong tip which is way more resistant to breaking or bending, secondary edge up there can also be useful for some other tasks.

But what can other knives do that tanto can't do? I mean, in my opinion a knife is a knife.
 
Prying and scraping don't sound like tasks for a knife to me.. any knife can make a hole in plastic sheeting or a bucket and any knife with a tip can chip off wood around a nail.

Still not getting what a Tanto can do, that others can't.

If you argued that it could be made of thick stock and the used very hard... Sure.. I guess... But same with other grinds / shapes.
I don’t like having to repeat myself, but like I said before, consistent sharpening and reprofiling becomes much less complicated with that blade shape, which some people tend to prefer for hard use. Even easier if it’s a chisel grind. All these things also make a blade like that easier to make from scratch on
the grinder IMO.

Then we can discuss what’s proper and non proper use (abuse) of a knife all we want, but either way there seems to be a demand for these knives, even if you clearly don’t like them.
 
I love my old, very well used Sebenza 21 tanto. It's seen some things! (Trying not to cuss) I've always really liked the way that CRK grinds their tantos, it makes for a strong tip, while also being a pretty good cutter in the tip area. I like the blade shape on this Kansept Hazakura too. I actually really like this knife. This is one of the few knives that I'd like to have an extra of, in the exact same configuration, unfortunately they were discontinued last year and everyone's sold out. This blade shape is nice because you have the nearly straight base edge for utility and ease of sharpening, and you get the strong , but rounded tip area so that you can skin a rabbit or something if you need. My friends and I used to rabbit hunt growing up, so I always kind of ask myself how X knife would be at skinning a rabbit haha.
Sebenza Large 21a.jpg
Timascus Kansept Hazakura.jpg
 
I voted "don't like", but I do have one or two tanto's. I like this old LUM benchmade, but don't carry it often. It is a little big. I had a mini-griptilian years ago that I got for cheap and I actually miss that little thing. Shouldn't have let it go.

The point where the two edges meet is a very good point for draw cuts on boxes, but a standard tip does pretty well too. And it just means that point gets dull the fastest. I just don't have a big need for the two small edges, when I could have a longer continuous edge. Makes it feel like I have a much smaller blade on the knife than I could if it wasn't a tanto.

kDs6mzm.jpg
 
This was reopened yesterday by a spammer and being put back to sleep.
 
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