Lateral folder.

[baxtrom]

Hej!
I have this “lateral folder” idea I’ve entertained for a week or so, and I’m not sure if such designs exist, and if so they have been generally discarded for some reason?

The purpose of lateral folding would be that the blade would not be guillotining your fingers if it accidentally folds, and that if properly designed it could probably reach very nice bending strength of the folding mechanism, perhaps reaching the fixed blade range. The bending moment acting on the joint in a conventional folder is carried by a force couple acting on the bolt and through the contact between the upper part of the blade back and the handle. Compared to a full tang blade, the “effective” section modulus, to use technical lingo, is small. However, I imagine said section modulus of a lateral folder can be made arbitrarily large, subject to size constraints of course.
Any comment? Does this design already exist?

 

[killgar]

I don't know about your specific design, but there are several "lateral" opening folding knives out there. A few are-

CRKT "Hole in One"
CRKT "Snap Lock"
Schrade "Viper Side Assist"
Fox Knives "AX Dobolock"
Spyderco "Bi-fold"

And I'm sure I've seen others. Just about any design a person can come up with regarding knives has probably already been done before. But it doesn't hurt to try .

 

[baxtrom]

I don't know about your specific design, but there are several "lateral" opening folding knives out there. A few are-

CRKT "Hole in One"
CRKT "Snap Lock"
Schrade "Viper Side Assist"
Fox Knives "AX Dobolock"
Spyderco "Bi-fold"

And I'm sure I've seen others. Just about any design a person can come up with regarding knives has probably already been done before. But it doesn't hurt to try .

Thanks, I didn’t find those when I spent 2 mins googling before posting. And yes, I assume there is nothing that is more “has been done already” as knife designs

Still, they all look very thin, especially the CRKTs. I was playing with the idea to make a folder exceptionally strong with simple means, Lynn-Thompson-batoning-engine-block strong

 

[baxtrom]

Some nerdy equilibrium equations meanwhile . Conventional folder:
Shear force in bolt/pin gets amplified by the ratio l/a. Torsional instability may limit load capacity.

 

[baxtrom]

Nerdy knife mechanics part 2. Assumed stress contour plot
(Blue = compression, red = tension)
Edit: part denoted “not loadcarrying” is wrong, should be in tension