Some knives I built:
This is a hunting knife I built. The handle is made of cocobolo and brass. As the marking indicates, the blade is made of S-7 tool steel. I tested the sharpness by shaving a patch of hair off my arm with it. I refined it a little since these pictures were taken. Sold it to a friend for $200 (around what it cost to make). I'm currently constructing a copy of it.
I made this knife out of the same piece of metal that the hunting knife was made of. I originally listed it for sale on craigslist but wound up giving it to my cousin's fiance for Christmas. It's literally beyond razor sharp.
This is my wootz pocket knife. Unfortunately, this knife recently went missing.
A restoration of a buck folder. It's original owner used it as a throwing knife among other things folders are not meant for and was majorly bashed up. The pic looks less impressive then what went in to it being that this knife was in such bad shape that it was handed to me as a last resort by someone who saw no hope in it. Much of the work was done not for $ but just for artistic sake. The amount of hours invested would have fetched a price nearly double what the blade goes for brand new. I heated up the back of the blade and forged it out so it would lock solid again. The back of the handle was completely destroyed and held together by a "jimmy rig" screw job that actually did more harm then good. I fixed the spring, cleaned up and replaced the components at the back of the handle, refinished the grips, polished and sharpened the blade and spring and gave the handle some grip marks. I also straightened out and tuned up the blade where necessary.
Now it's in better shape then it was brand new in almost every way. The owner called me the day after he got it back saying he barely glanced himself with the blade by accident and almost got a stitch wound.
Photo was taken at end of day under poor lighting. Sorry.
This monster is currently being prepped for heat treat. This is basically a giant survival machete. My friend hired me to build it for him. It's made from a 36x3x1/4 inch slab of S-7 tool steel. The slab of steel alone cost around $100 after shipping and even after being cut and shaped it still weighs a good 3 1/2lbs or more.
It's meant to be able to chop a 2 inch tree (standard living room Christmas tree) down in one hit, though my experience tells me a 3 inch tree is going to be no match for it. Even though the blade is weak and un-sharpened, it already has more chopping power then your average hatchet. Just about all of it's specs are staggering.
Owner wanted me to give it some working saw teeth but also wanted it to look cool, so there's a plan to give the saw teeth bevels a cool pattern as to make it look cool without sacrificing mechanical properties.
The lack of sharp edges anywhere on the blade are no accident. Sharp edges tend to split during heat treat so all sharpening is reserved for afterwards. Owner says he wants to send it off tomorrow. Whether or not that happens, I don't know.