Thanks for posting this question. I had been looking for a good, yet economical custom knife maker in my area. Turns out Mike Irie is just what I was looking for and he's located within 20 minutes of my office.
I went over to the Wood & Irie shop at lunch today. I am amazed by the quality of the work that they put out. The Sport 200 is a small hunting knife, but he has larger models in his standard repertoire and is perfectly happy making knives per your sketch.
He also makes inexpensive blades for great prices. For example, he had 4" blade-length hunting knife blades, fully finished (ground, drilled, polished, sharpened and heat treated) for $45.00 with ATS-34 or $50.00 for BG-42). These are full tang blades that just need some sort of slab grips epoxeed or screwed on.
A fully custom knife using blade stock of that size would be $200.00 with BG-42 blade and stag slabs for the grips. By fully custom, I mean MY design. He will also make custom blades for you to finish yourself. With ATS-34 his finish is like a mirror and his grinds look like they are done by a robot. He uses a 10" wheel and his hollow grind is so smooth it looks like it's flat ground. BG-42 doesn't take as smooth a finish, but it's tougher and sharper than the ATS-34. He just got in a stock of CPM420V that he hasn't tried before. He also has D2 in stock. He uses a local heat treat outfit that does work for many big knife companies, for example Spyderco.
If you like bigger knives he makes a "military" knife that is like a moderate-sized cross between a bowie knife and a bolo. But, again, he will make things to your sketch.
He doesn't charge nearly enough.
[This message has been edited by Jeff Clark (edited 18 November 1999).]
