The knives went to the sheath maker on Thursday. His work is awesome. The blades will look
better for being carried in such nice leather.
The handles are smoothly radiused along all edges, the choil is deeply radiused for a comfortable and secure grip with either hand, and then the flats are kept parallel.
Remember, these are fairly small knives. "Pocket" sized, more or less. They aren't large, hand-filling handles, so there isn't a lot of room for sweeps and swells like I cut into the full-sized handles I make.
Here the blades are after heat-treat, but before I finished shaping the tangs. So, they actually became slightly smaller from here.
I do put a lot of care into making sure the handles are comfortable and secure -- for me, at least, and often for my wife, too, who has much smaller hands. Some things I've liked better than others, but with these small knives I think there's a strong possibility of not just diminishing returns, but actually making things less optimal by trying to get too busy with the handle.
As I said, these are all based on my little "Pocket Defender" model. While these are a little bit bigger than the originals of that style, they still are more of a 3-4 finger handle. I'll always have room to improve, and I'm sure that I'll continue to experiment and evolve the form, but I'm quite satisfied with the feel of this set.
The final judge hasn't held them yet, so I'll have to get his feedback before I know if I was truly successful!
! How long is the blade and whats up with the sheath and logo?
