Hello. I'm looking at getting a plain jain Nessmuk-ish knife custom made. Don't want anything outstanding, just a carbon steel blade, flat ground, hardwood handles, with a leather sheath. I'm mainly considering O1, A2, and D2.
Does anyone know of any makers they'd personally recommend, or might be a maker themselves, that can build what I'm looking for to this budget?
As a secondary question, would anyone like to comment on what steel they'd prefer to use from the ones mentioned above, or what you'd use even if I didn't list it?
This will not be a heavy use knife. It might do some whittling, but is mainly aimed at being efficient for skinning, game processing, and camp food prep. Battoning and chopping are not what it is meant for. The hardest thing this knife will probably ever cut through is when I decide an animal's sternum, usually on younger animals, is small and weak enough that I can just push my knife through it with one firm hand.
How sharp the edge will get and edge retention is more important to me than blade toughness. Ease of sharpening is nice, but I am not extremely worried about it if I could get the first two qualities.
Finally, and I know this is a very general question and hard to answer, but could anyone give me a rough idea how more costly I could expect powdered steels like CPM 3V or CPM D2 to be. The only steel I have experience with when it comes to custom knives is O1, so I have no idea.
Does anyone know of any makers they'd personally recommend, or might be a maker themselves, that can build what I'm looking for to this budget?
As a secondary question, would anyone like to comment on what steel they'd prefer to use from the ones mentioned above, or what you'd use even if I didn't list it?
This will not be a heavy use knife. It might do some whittling, but is mainly aimed at being efficient for skinning, game processing, and camp food prep. Battoning and chopping are not what it is meant for. The hardest thing this knife will probably ever cut through is when I decide an animal's sternum, usually on younger animals, is small and weak enough that I can just push my knife through it with one firm hand.
How sharp the edge will get and edge retention is more important to me than blade toughness. Ease of sharpening is nice, but I am not extremely worried about it if I could get the first two qualities.
Finally, and I know this is a very general question and hard to answer, but could anyone give me a rough idea how more costly I could expect powdered steels like CPM 3V or CPM D2 to be. The only steel I have experience with when it comes to custom knives is O1, so I have no idea.
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