This will be a super-short section.

The Flipper-Tab is something that isn't actually yet designed (but I'll get to that in a minute). First, I need to cover why we are using a Flipper-Tab as the method to open this knife.

Since we are making a framelock knife - we really only have three options as the mechanism for opening the knife: Thumb-Stud, Finger-Hole and Flipper-Tab

I've not gone into any sort of "deep analysis" or such on this. It's really just my experience with different knives and opening them (and, in some cases, trying-hard-and-failing to open them).

I have generally found Thumb-Studs and Finger-Holes to be awkward to use. I get the hang of some of them after a while (and a Finger-Hole is pretty awesome when you "get it"). But, honestly, this is really not the best option for the world's best knife.

You need to be able to open the world's best knife without using any of your brain cells.

In fact, just to be absolutely clear...

EVERYONE needs to be able to open this knife without using any of their brain cells. The knife should allow for different hand sizes and different experience levels at opening knives (hey, some people are ridiculously dexterous from years of playing with knives ...others have a bit less experience in this area).

The "no brainer" answer is to use a Flipper-Tab.

Every Flipper-Tab knife I have picked-up -- as far as I can recall at least -- has been brain-dead-simple to open. Yes, I might have one or two "mis-fires" the first time, where I'm adjusting to how strong or weak the detent is, but after that it's typically plain-sailing.

There isn't really much more to say on this. The answer to the opening method is simple: Flipper-Tab

This is one of the few parts of the knife where I've had to put in a "placeholder" design.

What I mean by this is:

The size, shape and details of the Flipper-Tab will need testing and tweaking. It can't be too small or too big. It can't hurt your fingers. It can't be too smooth and result in too little grip. Lastly, if possibly, it should also look good (but, of course, functionality is absolutely #1 here).

But it gets even more complex...

All of the above factors can only really be decided once we have:

#1 -- The strength of the detent dialled-in so we know how much pressure is required to release the blade

#2 -- The mass of the blade (how light or heavy the blade is also determines how much pre-load we need to put on the Flipper-Tab to then release it)

The above things are still to be determined ...and so I've just roughly designed the Flipper-Tab as a best I can without knowing these. It's pretty much guaranteed that it will need tweaking - so, to my mind, it's a placeholder design we will then refine later.