D2 kitchen knife spaluted birch

[milesofalaska]

Kitchen knife. D2 steel with stabilized spaulted birch handle. Blade 4 inches x 1 ¼ wide. Custom wolf track rivets. Custom cast raven guard of propeller bronze. Acid etched highly detailed bird scenes on both sides. copper forged into steel for decoration

Some unique aspects to this knife, unsure where to begin or how much to ramble! I have been playing with D2 for a couple of years and find it an interesting steel with some good qualities. I did my usually forge copper into the surface for decoration. Acid etching a semi stainless steel like D2 takes some special knowledge. This particular blade did 500 strokes on the brass rod test. When a buck gets about 50 strokes and my average custom gets 250. This was cryo quenched between two tempers. Flexes about 20 degrees and comes back . Cuts a brass brazing rod on half without chipping. – so that’s the steel.
Handle is Tanana River Alaska spaulted birch sent off to be clear stabilized. Happy with the material. I’m a little new to using ‘wood’ More known for my animal products – ivory horn etc but out of that business now.
The rivets are my own design ‘wolf tracks’. Sometimes looking irregular – out of round but I like to peen my rivets so they behave like a Corby rivet and feel it holds better. Rivets easy to make, not spendy and a nice custom touch that can be adapted to many designs and uses.
One of my custom lost wax cast raven guards, from barge propeller bronze. In general I try to do every aspect of the knife myself . If it does not work out I get the blame and if it does work out I get the credit. Questions comments welcome. I enjoy coming here to see what others have been up to.