Your CPK grail

woodysone said:
Gus I’ve always admired your choices, but this has to be my favorite🥰. Is this a Long sheath?
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Sure is Martin, and thanks! I got that one during Marc’s last group order from Pau.:)
Richard338 said:
That's Paul's work alright. Gus always stays a step or two ahead of the rest of us. I thought I had the ultimate shiv package specs until I saw Gus's order... dagger ground with ECAM. Foiled again!
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Thanks Richard! Maybe I should offer my services as an Options Selection Advisor? 😆
 
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Gusbuster said:
............Maybe I should offer my services as an Options Selection Advisor? 😆
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You are a horrible enabler. Bad Gus...bad!

Grail:

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I'm not 100% certain. And I have a pretty bad memory. But gather around y'all and I'll tell you a story.

Once upon a time a long time ago, a young machinist was developing heat treats for D2 tool steel that were significantly different than the heat treat prescribed in the data sheet. Because that heat treat was intended for tools and dies, not knife edges. The issues with cracking and dimensional stability were not a problem, but the issues with edge stability and retained austenite were.

This young machinist was making knives in D2 that did not have the takes the "lousy edge and holds it forever" edge that D2 was known for. Instead they got very sharp and stayed very sharp and worked well in narrow geometries and did not chip and mush when clacked against something like a bone. He even used this heat treat to make blades for an industrial Kevlar cutting machine used in the commercial fiber optics conversion industry processing the Kevlar jackets off the cables, replacing expensive carbide blades that were good for 20,000 cuts and replacing them with much more affordable steel blades that would last 250,000 cuts. Because science.

And the skeptics abounded

He was called out here on this very forum by knowledgeable folks and even a moderator

And so he started sending out samples of his work to knowledgeable people who could fairly evaluate it to prove that he was actually on to something.

And then, pretty soon after, people started referencing tool steels 5th edition instead of tool steels fourth edition where much of the confusion regarding the actual amount of retained austinite and the utilization of low tempers on this steel were demystified because people in industry were actually doing something similar. And the young machinist making knives that stayed sharp a long time by heat treating them in a very unconventional manner was no longer labeled a heretic.

However these heat treat samples were out there. They were never intended to be knives. They had not been sold they were simply given away.

And this old pattern, once $150, became very valuable and they started trading hands and some of these blades that were simply blanks (with cosmetic defects that were never intended to be sold) starting to showing up and needed love.

If memory serves me right, in this particular case, I think the only answer for that defect was to actually replace it with a non-defective blade. But with no scales. And so someone put scales on it.


Herein ends this story of woe and triumph and hair pulling angst.

The moral to the story, is our intrepid machinist no longer sends out blems without grinding the name off first.


...Usually....
 
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mb> said:
Wow! What’s the story on those scales?? Missing some screw heads. 🙂
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Hey Mark, Tony did those. I sourced some desert ironwood and he fit them with black liners and copper pins. He did a beautiful job on it as I knew he would. Haven't seen the rascal around in awhile come to think of it TRfromMT TRfromMT Also Marc Grenock Grenock graciously let me tag onto his Paul Long order when his skinner was there. I had already risked shipping the skinner as many times as I was going to lol, so that was highly appreciated.
 
The integral daggers have always been a grail knife, but only in the sense of a quixotic quest, not something actually achievable to aim for.

The only thing that I'm holding out for at present is the CPKukri. But then I have most practical (and impractical) CPK needs already covered, being the owner of a K20, K18, BC, LC, OG UF, UF2, Kephart, DEK, and with a SS Basic 5 on the way. [Oh, and a Potato Knife - the CPK-PK - how could I forget?]

That doesn't mean that there might not be future offerings that stir my loins. As mentioned elsewhere, if there were ever a K30 katana with a simple tsuba, it would probably induce me to spend more than I ever have on a blade. Or quite possibly they'll dream up something completely unanticipated, but indispensable.
 
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