Half Stops - Love Em or Lose Em

Jack Black said:
I have no strong preference either way, to some extent it depends on the knife. Square tangs are the older design, and originally all spring knives (slipjoints) would have had square tangs. Cam tangs were introduced by French cutlers, as a way of reducing wear between the spring and tang, which was more of a consideration in the past, and which will eventually render a knife unusable (or at least seriously compromise its usefulness). According to cutlery historian Simon Moore, there was initially some resistance, among Sheffield cutlers, to adopting the cam tang, because they foresaw they would sell fewer knives. Square tangs are not a safety feature, they are simply an older design.
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Interesting! Wear? What is that?! Lol
 
I love half stops on the screwdriver blades of my SAKs. I dislike them anywhere else. But my favorite, and most carried slipjoint, has half stops on three of it's four cutting blades. I think it makes it harder to open the small pen blade safely. But I haven't cut myself opening it yet.

O.B.
 
I've nipped myself slipping off the knife blade while opening it and having it snap into half stop and onto my finger. I've also had half stops prevent the blade from closing all the way on my finger. The main take away is that I need to be more careful with knives lol
 
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