Three reasons: (all my opinion of course)
1.) It keeps your hand further from the sparks and from the tinder bundle - holding the blade away from you and locked open gives you a firmer grip than holding the handle with the knife closed. You're just less likely to burn yourself - a far more likely event than cutting yourself, provided you follow basic knife safety, when firestarting.
2.) The back of the blade is a very square edge and I've cut myself with it before now. Granted the cutting edge of the blade is sharper and more capable of cutting you than the back edge, but I prefer a firmer grip on a blunt handle to an infirm grip on a sharp edge.
3.) As Ged says... the sparks are seriously hot! If they're hot enough to micro pit a carbon steel blade, they're definitely hot enough to macro pit a beech handle.
The long and the short is that I'm happy to strike sparks with my Opinel because it cost about £8 and I generally use it for food prep and occasional firestarting instead of tasks which would require 100% integrity of the steel in the blade. I also genuinely find it safer for me to use striking sparks with the blade open and used carefully, than with the blade closed and with a more precarious grip.
Cheers!
1.) It keeps your hand further from the sparks and from the tinder bundle - holding the blade away from you and locked open gives you a firmer grip than holding the handle with the knife closed. You're just less likely to burn yourself - a far more likely event than cutting yourself, provided you follow basic knife safety, when firestarting.
2.) The back of the blade is a very square edge and I've cut myself with it before now. Granted the cutting edge of the blade is sharper and more capable of cutting you than the back edge, but I prefer a firmer grip on a blunt handle to an infirm grip on a sharp edge.
3.) As Ged says... the sparks are seriously hot! If they're hot enough to micro pit a carbon steel blade, they're definitely hot enough to macro pit a beech handle.
The long and the short is that I'm happy to strike sparks with my Opinel because it cost about £8 and I generally use it for food prep and occasional firestarting instead of tasks which would require 100% integrity of the steel in the blade. I also genuinely find it safer for me to use striking sparks with the blade open and used carefully, than with the blade closed and with a more precarious grip.
Cheers!