Spyderco Forums

In the spirit of the question asked recently about "detail work," I'd like to ask if I may, what is meant by the descriptive phrase "distal taper" (when referring to blade geometry)? I understand the concept of "distal" in general re "distal vs proximal" but I see the phrase "distal taper" used to describe many knife blades, and to be honest I've seen it misspelled quite a few times, which makes me wonder if not everyone entirely understands the idea that is trying to be conveyed. I certainly do not understand, but I'm a shoeless peasant so... Can anyone help me out?

When the blade is ground thinner from the pivot going towards the tip of the blade. This is a common feature on most Spyderco knives if you look at the blade thickness from the spine. On some blade shapes like a leaf shape or wharnie the blade is going to get thinner towards the tip regardless because the point of the blade is lower and down where the blade is ground down to an edge but that is not distal taper. An example of this is the Sliverax or most any saber or hollow ground blade.

Distal taper on left

araneae wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 05, 2019 11:55 am

Distal taper on left

Maybe just me but the image isn't showing

Here's a Waterway next to a custom version, both with distal taper. The spine is thickest at the handle and tapers toward the tip.

Distal taper is when the blade stock gets thinner as it gets farther (more distant) from the grip. Proximal taper would be when the stock thins as it gets closer to the grip. Because a lot of people don't know what "distal" actually means, you'll sometimes hear ANY taper in stock thickness along the length of the blade referred to as a distal taper.

Ok thanks y'all, that's quite clear now.