Do you close your blade gently or let it drop hard (Slipjoints or similar)

Do you close your blade gently or let it drop hard

  • Let it drop hard in all slipjoint knives

    Votes: 27 22.9%

  • Close it gently in all slipjoint knives

    Votes: 33 28.0%

  • It depends on the knife

    Votes: 58 49.2%
  • Total voters
    118
Depends on the knife for me. I try and make a conscious effort to close em easy but if one hands busy it’ll get closed off of my thigh and simply dropped in my pocket. If a blade hits the spring and dulls it I’ll sharpen that blade until that problem goes away or it’ll go up for sale or be given away. I haven’t run into that but maybe a couple times in my life. I want the ability to let them slam shut even if it’s not exactly my preferred way of closing them.

I have no fact basis to back this up and if it’s already been said I have overlooked it. I guess the harder sprung a knife is, the worse it might be on it. Soft, easy springs, I wouldn’t think it’d hurt it much if any. Y’all please correct me on this if I’m assuming wrong.

Also, modern production knives I can replace easily I'm more apt to let them slam shut every time. Old knives I’ve inherited that mean a lot to me, I baby them unapologetically even closing them gently.

I also don’t carry hard sprung knives because I can’t usually open the things. I have nails like my mother that bend and break too easily so I don’t usually worry about it an awful lot.
 
I let mine close freely and without regard to any thought of blade rap or any other damage. If there is blade rap I'll sharpen it out. If the snapping shut action will damage it then I dont need it.
A lot of my knife usage is not relaxed enough to take time to baby it.
I will confess that I have a GEC 23 that closes so hard that sometimes I wonder if I should ease it down though.
 
I do both, bone scaled knives I soft close to limit the chance of causing a crack by the center pin.
 
I fold mine softly if have two hands. Probably nothing to worry about but I carry alot of older knives and I dont want to risk cracking the bone covers or causing damage. On working knives i slap them shut against my leg.
 
…….having had a couple of not cheap Custom knives years ago where the cutting edge was just touching the spine- if the blade was ‘let go’ - I now tend to lower the blade on all. Also, I just get the feeling it’s kinder to the knife - call me daft, but it makes me feel happier.
Some modern slippies have a definite ‘stop’ but even so, feel happier lowering the blade.
 
Part of my reluctance to let blades snap shut hard comes from having been nicked on the fingers or knuckles when handling a knife that casually. Some knives snap hard enough to flirt with a momentary loss of control in my fingertip grip on the handle, if I'm too casual about it. More so with very small knives that don't accommodate a full-fisted grip easily. That becomes more of an issue as I get older and my touch & coordination in my fingertips loses a step or two. So for me, a big part of gently closing is just about making sure the blade is fully controlled until it's safely tucked away.

If or when the event happens that I don't have a free hand in an urgent task with the knife, then I'll just do what I need to do, if that means closing it against my leg or hip or whatever. But the vast majority of the time, that really isn't an issue at all, in taking an extra second or two to free a busy hand to close the knife in a controlled manner.
 
Obsessed with Edges said:
More so with very small knives that don't accommodate a full-fisted grip easily. That becomes more of an issue as I get older and my touch & coordination in my fingertips loses a step or two. So for me, a big part of gently closing is just about making sure the blade is fully controlled until it's safely tucked away.
Click to expand...

This is touching on a very important aspect of knife handling; the senior citizen fumble finger syndrome. One that I personally wrestled with in my late 60's and early 70's. There came a time that I noticed a decline in my manual dexterity, and sometimes dropping things. This was about the time I made a complete switch over to friction folders, revolvers, a few other things.

As we age, there is a loss of certain things that has a direct impact on how well we function with certain things. The loading of magazines even with a loader, becomes a painful chore, vs just dropping rounds into the chambers of a revolver. Closing or opening a slip joint knife with a stiff spring gets to be a hazardous operation. Half stops make ti harder. In his last decade of life, my dad had retired his trusty peanut for a Christy knife simply because it was easier to open and close with bad arthritis. In my own life, after a career of cranking king on milling machines and lathes, my ostio arthritis in my hands make an Opinel not just easier to deal with, but far safer with no runaway blades propelled by a spring onto the afore mentioned senior citizen fumble fingers. Plus they cut like the dickens.

Obsessed with Edges makes a priceless point! :thumbsup:
 
Nearly all the time I partially close the blade in a controlled manner, not necessarily slowly or with great care, just slowing its descent.
After use I use two close to close the blade probably 75% of the way then let the spring take over when there isn’t any more real estate for my fingers while pinching it.

I used to let them snap shut more readily when I was younger and less experienced, for last 20 years or so, I care more about my knives and while they get used and worked, they also get taken care of.

Every once in a while if busy and using a knife one handed for work while the other is busy, I will close it on my leg, but more often in those cases I simply set it to the side until both hands are free to put it away.
 
I gotta revisit this thread with another observation I noticed his morning. As I was closing my Boker Gent, which has a half stop, I noticed I let it snap to the half stop, and close it by hand after. Allowing it to drop maybe the last 1/4 of travel or so. I know, I know, getting awfully detailed here, but sometimes you just gotta speak out. :D
 
True, the ones will half stops encourage this technique.
It is weird having to remember which knives have them and which do not have them, and adjust the general open/close movement :)
 
Definitely let them snap shut. I like the sound and I'm not so conscious of my knives that I think about it when I use them. Never had a problem with blade rap.
 
I let them snap most of the time but there are some I baby (knives I know are prone to blade rap.) I do love that “snick!” of a nicely made slipjoint closing though, so if it’s a knife prone to rap, that’s also a knife I’m likely to leave in the drawer most days.
 
Tick-tick and it is closed, the talk with the walk is all the fun!
I can fumble a slipjoint all evening, opening and closing it all over and over.

I mostly carry self made slip joints and being able to close it with a hard "Tick" gives me the satisfaction of having constructed it well.

To me if the edge can touch the spring the design is faulty.
 
I have to admit to being a "gentle" soul, more often than not. But I have met a knife or two that preferred letting the blade drop.
 
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