The only thing to make it look right is grind the tang on both sides and make it tapered tang if there is a gap there. 99% of my full tang knives tapered tang. Makes it look hand made to me. You will have to bring the tapper all the way up to the ricasso to get a good fit.

The only other thing is to grind the hole knife down to that thinnest part

AJ, what thicknesses are we talking about? How thick is the blade at the ricasso and how much taper does it have toward the heel? Is the taper only on one side, or both sides? If both sides, is it fairly even?

As Jason pointed out, doing a tapered tang is probably the preferred method. Will you be affixing bolsters, or just the scales?

Photos will help for those of us who work visually.

Please see the threads about Editing Photos for the Internet in the Forum and Gallery Announcements and User Issues forum.

|quoted:

AJ, what thicknesses are we talking about? How thick is the blade at the ricasso and how much taper does it have toward the heel? Is the taper only on one side, or both sides? If both sides, is it fairly even?

As Jason pointed out, doing a tapered tang is probably the preferred method. Will you be affixing bolsters, or just the scales?

Photos will help for those of us who work visually.

Please see the threads about Editing Photos for the Internet in the Forum and Gallery Announcements and User Issues forum.

Taper is on both sides and fairly even but only right near the heel. Maybe 20-30 thousandths difference between the heel and the thickest part of tang. I can close it up with some pressure but didn't dare, don't want to snap the scales. Scales are redheart, no bolsters.

I think Jason outlined the two available options: Taper the entire tang or reduce the knife thickness to match the thinner heel. Not knowing how thick the knife is right now, it's difficult to say whether option 2 would work and still be useful.

I do not see how manufacturing a "shim" out of another material would look like anything other than a masking of a mistake. Chances are pretty good that any attempt would become a series of grinding a little more to even it out, missing, and grinding some more until you ended up with a fully tapered tang.

You can color the epoxy to more or less match your scales to help hide it. But the best way is always going to be to fix it by making the tang flat on both sides with or without a taper. A gap between the scales and tang is a possible point of failure just waiting to happen. Corby bolts is another option to pull the scales flat but again that gap would still be a possible point of failure by over bending the scales.