Thread: Custom knives

A recurve is the blade shape that Hamish posted at the top of his post, it's a shape characteristic of the khukuri blade, it has two curves, this gives it more length in a shorter blade if you lay a string along the blade length, they cut very well and once you learn how to sharpen them, not too difficult just a tad different.

L6 and O1 are both tool steels, in that they are steel made to cut steel as opposed to tool steel which is steel made to cut wood, this means that with the right heat treatment they make brilliant blades, L6 tend to be very hard, which means the edge will hold but is tough to resharpen, O1 is probably a better steel (the best of both is Swedish-less impurities), it is both strong, holds and edge but not too hard to resharpen, however both are high carbon and will rust or stain almost as soon as you start cutting, this can be countered by oiling or you can just let it stain which will prevent it from rusting, but still a good idea to oil it regularly.

Next depends on how much you want to spend, Johns stuff is mint but you pay for quality, if you just want to try a curved skinner you can pick up a svord curved skinner with a plastic handle pretty cheap and it's a good blade, Hamish made a nice sheath for mine.