Economical, compact fixed 1095 blade

Unfortunately, I do not have access to any grinders up here, and only pnumatic (yeah its spelled wrong) die grinders at home, so the old hickory type of idea is out for now (otherwise I'd probably just modify an old carbon steel butchers knife I have!).

Although I'm probably going to hold out for a little while, I'm going to have to watch out for that Becker Necker at shops so I can handle it a little.
 
Buck,

If you're patient and game to put in a lot of elbow grease, the ontario knives (pilot's survival or navy Mark 1) can be reprofiled without the grinder (been there, did that). Really tough work and very very time-consuming but it was well worth it. I now have a knife that takes cuts very well, don't bind in potatoes and stuff and that I'd still trust to handle robust tasks

Alternatively, you can get the spec plus line and get something which already has a flat ground blade (I think the sp1 and sp21 are flat ground, and one called the parachutist or something like that)
 
that knife in your top link, is an outstanding knife. sure, its no chris reeve aviator, but it is no nonsense, water/chemical resistant, easy to sharpen, you can hammer with it, and its cheap.
 
The Spec Plus knives aren't bad, but require some modding IMO. Cutting off the top guard, reducing the wedge it ships with to a cutting edge (I simply removed the second bevel on mine, making it similar to a scandi ground knife) etc. The sheath isn't terrible but isn't great either. I'd rather just spend 10$ less and get a Mora + hardware store hatchet.

I guess this is kind of cheating since you asked us to avoid Mora's, but you could take a look at various puukkos at www.ragweedforge.com Many are under 50$ there. The top one in this photo was 42$.

http://i13.tinypic.com/43qje9t.jpg
 
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