To Half Stop or not?

To half stop or not?

  • Half Stop

    Votes: 28 42.4%

  • No Half Stop

    Votes: 23 34.8%

  • No preference

    Votes: 16 24.2%
  • Total voters
    66
So i asked CHATGPT about traditional slip joint pocketknives and half stops and got a somewhat different reply. It still thinks that the half stop adds additional moving parts. But it does make some good points otherwise.

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Thanks Nature Boy. I have a whittler or 2, and beau coupe stockmen. I never noticed that. Speaking of Nature Boy, around the early 1980's i took my 2 boys, my uncle, amd my 1st cousin once removed to see wrestling at the Greensboro (NC) coliseum. Flair wrestled either Dusty Rhodes or Chief Wahoo McDaniel for the world championship. Lots of blood from the Nature Boy. There were many matches, single and tag team. Saw all the wresters you would see on TV, plus a few never seen b4. It was a good show!
 
Thanks for that chatGPT trial. In my opinion, it scores two out of six, with items 2, 3, 5, 6 wrong: A half stop hasn't got extra moving parts, it doesn't help with blade alignment and it doesn't help with delicate tasks. This is similar to my experience at work: ChatGPT sounds nice, matches the tune, has the right type of phrases. But it supplies a half-baked mixture of right, wrong and off-topic.
 
I haven't used ChatGPT specifically, but I do get the AI answers for random questions I ask the cellphone. It's just an aggregate summary of what is already easily found on the internet. If the information there is wrong, then the AI answer will be wrong as well.

Also, while I would agree that while most European pocket knives don't have half stops, many still do. I have a few drawers full of traditional Italian knives that do have half stops.
 
I would not say AI is worthless dsutton24, but it is fallible for sure. I just regurgitates what it finds from scanning the net and other sources, and perhaps has some very slight ability to discern truth. But it can be informative.
 
Amen Luke and draggat. Pretty much hit the nail on the head. I have about a dozen German knives...Boker and Hen & Rooster. I will have to check them. I have 1 French knife, an Opinel. I see now the genesis of the saying "The French copy no one, and no one copies the French!
 
Deepseek:

Half Stops in Slip Joint Knives:​

A half stop is a feature found in some slip joint knives. It refers to a detent or position where the blade stops at a 90-degree angle (halfway open) before fully opening. This serves several purposes:

  1. Safety: The half stop prevents the blade from snapping shut accidentally while in use.
  2. Control: It gives the user more control when opening or closing the knife.
  3. Durability: The half stop reduces stress on the backspring, potentially extending the knife's lifespan
 
ahhh...fish and chips! My mother was from England, near Gloucester. Spent a summer there when i was 7 with my great grandmother on Cecil Rd. in Gloucester. Every evening walked up to the fish and chips shop. It was takeout only. You stood outside at a window and could see them putting them in waxed paper and wrapping in newspaper so you could carry them home. Will return, maybe for the last time, for a few weeks this Christmas. Will eat a lot of fish and chips. Plus bangers at breakfast. Sad to hear that they are being eclipsed by burgers, pizza, etc.
RF
 
I like half stops, they are part of the walk and talk of a knife and are satisfying.
Just like having your car shiny, it doesn't drive better but you enjoy it.

You want a knife with a half stop flush in all 3 positions, so it's a bit more work or another chance to show your skill.
 
I appreciate the solid action of a good half stop as much as anyone, but I think it is much rarer to find a nice long blade that feels like it is skating open on glass, and finishes with a solid thwack! So much more impressive, in my opinion.

As far as safety, I’ve only cut myself closing knives with half stops. Stupidity, maybe, but also a false sense of security, maybe.
 
I’m a huge fan of cam tangs. I like that it is a nice smooth opening. Half-stops come to a stop at half and then you overcome that to open the rest of the way.

That said…I would not turn down a beauty of a knife with a half-stop.

To sum up, I do like cam tangs but have nothing against half stops.
 
I've never understood how a half-stop makes a knife more safe. None of my knives snap shut from half-closed, and they all snap closed from about the same place (close to already closed). You lose some control going into/out of the half-stop. I've never had a half-stop save a knife from closing, but I will admit that on some knives with very stiff springs and a half-stop, I've lost my grip on the blade when snapping into the middle position. I've never gotten cut that way but I've also never lost control of the blade while opening a cam tang knife.

For me it depends on the knife. My GEC #82 possum skinner doesn't have one, but it seems to fit the knife (a nice thin knife with slender, super thin blades). But when done well it's just more walk and talk, can't complain
 
This thread has me going through my French, Spanish and Italian collections. I do have quite a few and have to say that it's a pretty mixed bag of half stops and cam tangs.

Obviously, knives like the Opinel won't have half stops because they don't even have a spring.

Nature Boy said:
I appreciate the solid action of a good half stop as much as anyone, but I think it is much rarer to find a nice long blade that feels like it is skating open on glass, and finishes with a solid thwack! So much more impressive, in my opinion.

As far as safety, I’ve only cut myself closing knives with half stops. Stupidity, maybe, but also a false sense of security, maybe.
Click to expand...

The French are famous for the type of blade action you speak of. I'm not sure what they call it exactly, but some of these knives have a variable tension on them. Stout at the closest angles of the closed and open positions, but extremely light and fluid through the rest of the pull and close.

These all have that type of action, especially the Teyman Fuji. The pop it elicits at the final moment of opening is truly inspiring.

SAK electrician for size reference.



 
ron_m80

Thread 'Half-stop?'

What is the reason for a half-stop on a traditional slip-joint folder?

Thank you.

“Many people will tell you that it's for safety and all that, but really, originally, it had to do more with ease of construction and reliability. For a very long time, blades - particularly the tangs - were filed to match hardened patterns. It's a heck of a lot easier to file a square tang profile (the half stop is the flat end of the tang) than a rounded one (actually the profile isn't quite square, but we'll ignore that for now). Also, for a long time the old mark of quality construction was the "clean and square" joint - basically the square tang was matched to a square bolster, essentially filling the joint, even when closed. This meant that if you dropped your knife in the dirt, the dirt didn't get into and around the joint to foul up the mechanism. (Remington "discovered" this early last century. :rolleyes: )

A square tang is largely self cleaning -- the corners sweep debris either toward the end of the knife or back into the body - either way, the debris gets moved out from under the tang/joint mechanism where it can then be removed. Properly cleaning up an old, gunked up knife and getting all the crud out of the mechanism is a lot easier with one that has square tangs.

Also, a square tang causes less wear and tear on the spring over time - assuming the corners of the square tang were rounded a tiny bit in construction. The corners sweep back and forth along a length of the spring in operation. spreading the wear evenly along that length. A round or cam end tang concentrates the wear in a much smaller area of the spring - becoming a problem when proper maintenance and oiling is neglected.”
 
draggat said:
This thread has me going through my French, Spanish and Italian collections. I do have quite a few and have to say that it's a pretty mixed bag of half stops and cam tangs.

Obviously, knives like the Opinel won't have half stops because they don't even have a spring.



The French are famous for the type of blade action you speak of. I'm not sure what they call it exactly, but some of these knives have a variable tension on them. Stout at the closest angles of the closed and open positions, but extremely light and fluid through the rest of the pull and close.

These all have that type of action, especially the Teyman Fuji. The pop it elicits at the final moment of opening is truly inspiring.

SAK electrician for size reference.



Click to expand...
Just what I need…a new knife rabbit hole! 😜
Thanks for the suggestions - that looks sublime, even without feeling the action!
 
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