being originally from poland - though haven't been there yet since i escaped the commies back in 1980 -this thread naturally piqued my interest right away hehe... co-incidentally, poland has a very long history of quality bladesmithing and love for solid, rugged, sharp weapons [we're talking from knights of the middle ages to the 'ulan' cavalry, to present poland's spec-ops operators].... i'm glad ya guys didn't jump all over the dude for posting this in a busse knives forum... i think this guy's blades deserve more interest...
i checked out giedymin's site and dig what i see there so i shot him an e-mail to find out more about the steel, heat treating, edge grinds, blade thicknesses and prices... giedymin's a humble, relatively young dude and replied in kind... he uses steel which is the s2 here in the usa and he heat treats it himself having learned from others more experienced people in the industry, and by trial-and-error...... his blades are predominantly made to be heavy duty choppers [a plus for me]... he prefers a full convex grind [another plus in my book], the thickness is between 5mm and 6.5mm... he hardens the larger blades to between 55-57 on the rockwell scale, and the small blades just a bit higher... he makes them to balance at 2-4 centimeters [i.e. 0.8" to about 1.5" if my memory re-metric serves me correctly] ahead of ricasso/beginning of edge.... he hand hones each blade on stone although he admits that it's still his less than strongest factor so he's still gaining experience in that department [aren't most out there though?]... he's primarily concerned about knives being rugged for hard work rather than to emphasize a flawless finish... i dig that... blades are priced between 550 pln to 1500 pln [polish zloty]... currently american dollar costs around 3.3 polish zlotys, so his price range is between $170 and $460... the most expensive range falls to the real big hidden tang choppers... he charges more for hidden tang blades and less for a full tang [full tang being my preferred knife type].... his group of clients are very happy with his stuff and he keeps striving to improve his product constantly as he gains more experience and quality... which will undoubtedly raise his prices eventually.... these are custom, hand made blades... he sent me 2-3 links to youtube clips where he uses a couple of his knives to split some big chunks of wood [not batoning] and there's some chopping too... i don't have those links handy at the moment but will likely come back here later and post them....
overall i'm impressed with the man's product and humility and would like to get one of his full tang big choppers with some custom mods making the knife suitable to my disability and requirements.... i have another 2-3 infi blades on my shopping listt first but hopefully - budget allowing - i'll be ordering one of giedymin's large blades before the year is out....
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[edit] here are a couple of yt links to him splitting/chopping wood with his blades... dude's got some major cojones holding the wood with his hands/fingers as he chops hehe...
http://youtu.be/5y-2kgTk8E8
http://youtu.be/e9hhgsCJSsM
there's a few more clips, just follow the links from his yt...
