The materials I use in knifemaking.
There are a lot of materials that can be used to make a knife. Here's some of the stuff I use.
Steel
OW3 steel (material name 1.2519) is a carbon steel close to O7 steel. Excellent edge holding and sharpening charateristics. Also gives nice hardening lines. Hardened by me. (Currently unavailable to me)
Niolox
Nobium alloyed stainless steel. Very corrosion resistant VERY good edgeholding. Hardened by Stefan Steigerwald to about 59,5 rC or 61rC with Cryo treatment.
Carbon Damascus
1095 and 15N20 mixture in most cases. Looks gorgeous, excellent charateristcs as to edge holding. Due to etching proces quite corrosion resistant. Hardened by me.
Suminagashi
Made by the Takefu factory, a white paper steel core with 22 unhardened layers on the outsides. Beautifull and functional. Hardened by me.
File steel
Old files, either donated or bought by me. Excellent carbon steels, often 1095 or W1 steel. Hardening by me.
Stainless Damascus
Made by a scandinavian company. Normally hardened to about Rockwell 59. All the beauty of damascus, none of the drawbacks of carbon steel.
20C
A european version of 1095. But with less impurities than generally available 1095 so it should take a better hardening line. Hardened by me.
52100
A rollerbearing steel. Known for great toughness and edgeholding. A bit more difficult to heat treat. Hardened by me.
Handle Materials
Natural materials
I use all kinds of woods, black palm, cocobolo, orotoguaje, ebony, maple and stabilised woods (in between natural and manmade). I also sometimes use mother of pearl, ivory, Tagua Nuts (vegetable ivory) and all sorts of other materials like horn and bone. If I don't have what you like, let me know and I'd be happy to order some for you.
I also use Micarta on occasion which I quite like. I tend to order special micarta's from Shadetree Phenolics and Butch Harner rather than the normal straigh lined stuff.
Check out the slideshow below for some examples:
Sheaths
I make my own sheaths. They might not look like the prettiest girl at the ball but they're as close to bombproof as I can make and will retain your knife very well. I quadruple stitch the seams as well as glue them. When asked (or if I feel like it) I'll also use exotic leather.
I have some Kydex in stock but since I've little practise with that so far I'd recommend that a buyer go with a leather sheath instead of a kydex one in most cases.