I never liked frame locks since i can't imagine why you can't make it work without a cutout.
And i don't care much for standard liner locks either, only LL i approve of is cold steel's version with the fold. The lock on my spyderco military feels like thumb torture compared to my CS ti-lite.
Hmmm. I thought I covered that but perhaps not clear enough I guess. First off that Peerless lock by Cold Steel is among the stronger liner locks usually but it depends on how its set up. I own some Peerless lock models in the old original Ultra Lock before the Axis type lock model by the same name and those old Peerless models I have, nice as they are, are not that strong due to how the body was built. (Zytel) The Peerless locks do typically hold up to some stress well though in their other knives.
Okay, on the lock cuts. Guys, look at the knife and how it crumbled. Take a good look. Now imagine that its in your hand and you were using it. Your hand is still okay, your fingers survived intact, likely no sutures were needed with that one. See any blood all over the knife? If you are using a folding knife not thinking of consequences and just working and the lock defeats it is often not a very pretty sight. On lock backs be they front lock, mid lock, or back lock type often times the blade notch just shears right off or the rocker arm does. Its a catastrophic failure of the lock system when it happens.
Looking at the system of what makes up the modern folding knife meaning all the parts, IE, hardware in the screws, pivot, stop handle scales, spacer or stand offs and so on you then look at the lock. You can build a knife and try to balance the system which simply means you think as you do it that the stop pin, the pivot, the screw assembly hardware for size, and the lock are all pretty close to the same strength level so if the knife is pushed it means it will take a great deal of stress in every part. Looking at it like this you can see that when a system is so well balanced you don't see an obvious weak link it can be hard to predict just what will happen when the knife is stressed to that point where something has to give. On the Triad its hard to discern what the weak link is in the folder for example. I mean it has one, they all do. The real question is which would you want more. One so well balanced that you can't predict what part may fail when it is pushed, or one that has an obvious weak link? My guess would be that its the blade lock cut notch out on lockbacks. It may be the lock bar though and it just as easily could be that on some and the blade on others, or it could be the pivot screw head could pop off, or the body screw heads for the rear or the pivot maybe depending on the stress it would take to shear a head off the screw. How do you know though? You couldn't bet on it being one part or the other as confidently I don't think on a knife that is very well balanced throughout the build.
On the other side of the coin is the obvious weak link that is engineered and built in that you could bet on. It could be argued that its done such a way as that shown on the HD7 frame lock on purpose to create such a situation as to allow the knife to fail right there at the lock cut when it gets stressed. Then in a controlled way you could test it out to know about what it would take so it forces the defeat to happen in the lock if its going to happen anywhere. As I said if you are going to have a lock defeat thats the way to do it right there because its safer. As far as defeats go thats about the safest way to have a lock defeat so no one gets seriously injured. Can you get injured? Well sure but at least you are reducing the odds some if the lock defeats but the blade is still locked up and opened when it happens. Make sense?
If you did your work on the contact angle on the blade correctly you can create a situation so that the lock does exactly what it was designed to do when given the real situation in real world use in an end line users hands and if you test and retest destroying your own work now and then you can even kind of get an idea of just how much it will take before the knife system fails and advance knowledge of pretty much how it will fail when it does with a pretty good educated guess as to how much it took to make that happen. My point isn't and never has been that the lock was invincible even when you leave the lock cuts thicker. All thicker does is stave off the inevitable if you did stress the knife to that point where something has to give. In all likelihood the same kind of defeat would take place with thicker lock cuts, it would just take more stress to get there because thicker just brought up the strength of the lock some getting the lock strength closer to that of the other parts of the system. Make no mistake though, those other parts of the system are probably, no make that likely still stronger than the lock is at that cut even if it was a thicker lock cut left there to spring the lock giving it tension. Even a number two size screw requires a great deal of force to shear it so when you consider just how much stronger the stop pin and the pivot as well as the body mount screw assembly is compared to the lock on most knives you can figure out pretty quick that the lock will most always be the weak link.
One of the reasons I like the frame lock other than the added reliability factor I personally feel it offers, and the open design for most with a stand off construction of sorts for easier cleaning out of debris, or easier pass through of a lot of that muck that would get stuck inside other designs, is the thinner profile for easier carry with less footprint noticed in the pocket and less weight in the pocket. I also like the way the defeat of the lock can be engineered and planned into it's design for a 'controlled burn' so to speak. This for if in the event that it ever gets to that point where you have pushed it to where something has to give you can make it go a certain way vs another way. As I've said, the frame lock is a solid design and if anything the knife did what it was supposed to do in that pic of the HD7. In a way its kind of like building an air bag into the design to engineer a lock so if it defeats that is what occurs. The contact is correct on that Emerson, the lock moved in just as you want and not toward release, the lock held the blade opened and didn't let it slam closed on fingers, but it kinked out pretty much just as it would in testing so if anything the knife saved a hand and fingers by defeating the way it did.
Anyway, it sucks that they are that weaker than some thought I agree. I know they can be more balanced and made stronger but really when you look at how it defeated you can't say it was a bad lock. Really it did what it was supposed to do so the design deserves praise and the designer and maker of that knife deserves just as much for doing his part correctly.
STR