Calling all those familiar with folding knife designs

[bdmicarta]

thinning the lockbar where the lock hinges makes it more durable. Not in the sense that you can abuse the knife it without it breaking, but in the sense that the thin material in the cut out area will bend without breaking, if the lock bar didn't have this "compliant mechanism" (if you want to do some more research) the lock bar would crack where the material is repeatedly bent.

The lock bar has to be able to move under a reasonable amount of force, thinning it reduces its stiffness (moment of inertia) to the point where your thumb can push the lock bar with the proper feel.

Stresses, deflections and stiffness are interrelated- reducing the thickness also reduces the strength (section modulus), but since it takes less force to move the lock bar the bending stresses in the bar are lower. Lower bending stresses allow the lock bar to function with less chance of developing fatigue cracks. For a piece that has to deflect through a defined amount of movement, making it thinner makes it move easier and with less stress. The design of the lockbar has to balance these things with the amount of force the lockbar needs to exert on the blade tang.

 

[stillshot2]

Guess my first post seems to come off that way. Sorry you guys think I was trying to criticize this awesome knife. I was just trying to figure out if by skipping these few manufacturing processes if the knife would be even stronger, but now I see they are probably necessary steps to build the knife and make it durable (hence the thinning to reduce metal fatigue).