Why aren't there any half-round-tang knives?

Macchina

Macchina

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Until a year ago I hated square-tang knives because I only had experience with 9 or 10 pull strength varieties and they were quite dangerous because my hand would slip at the half stop. Over the past year or so (as I acquired more GEC knives) I went from being neutral to liking square-tangs quite a bit. I have come to love soft-pulling square-tangs such as my GEC 92's and find the half-stop to be a good safety feature.

I got to thinking: the functional portion of a square-tang is to create the half-stop so the blade doesn't slam closed if spine pressure is applied during use. My only problem with square-tangs is that upon opening them your hand can slip off the blade (and possibly be cut) when you reach the half-stop. My question is: why don't we see any knives that have a half stop but then a standard round (or cam) tang to full open? This would allow the safety of a half-stop knife with some of the smoothness of a round-tang knife. Has this been done before? Is there a reason it cannot be done?

 
I seem to recall handling one of my own knives recently (probably while rummaging through some of my stored-away knives), which had sort of a shallow 'notch' in the end of the round tang, allowing it to stabilize in the half-open position, while still not being too much of an obstacle for opening/closing like a square tang can be. At the moment, I can't remember which knife it was; I'll have to look for it...


David
 
Round tang, and no half stop for me please ;)
Yet I'm curious to learn more about the topic :)

Fausto
:cool:
 
Interesting idea, you make a good point. I bet they have been made so where along the lines of time...
 
I remember seeing several customs with that feature (only with a smaller radius on the half-round part), and a very good one it is.
 
It was apparently the French who first developed the round tang, with the intention of reducing wear on the spring, which over time caused the point of the blade to sit proud of the frame. At the time, this was seen as a major innovation in cutlery design, but the Sheffield cutlers were slow to change from a square tang. Cutlery historian Simon Moore speculates this may have been because they preferred to build in some obsolescence! ;)
 
black mamba said:
I remember seeing several customs with that feature (only with a smaller radius on the half-round part), and a very good one it is.
Click to expand...

I've seen customs with like a cross between half stops & cam tang (round tang). I bet the style I saw was just like what Jeff is describing there
 
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