Knife Blade On/Off Switch for an A/C circuit
Hmmm. Sounds like this is safe.



But that doesn't mean you can't have fun with it...





Reference, lots more here.

Hmmm.  I'm not ready to give up on the knife switch yet, Maybe I'll put it inside the box behind glass with a wooden actuator, or figure out a way to use a cool mechanism with an old skool traditional light switch.  I'm not exactly a rookie when it comes to mechanism design.

update: I also ran into this implementation of a knife switch.