What better birthday present than a knife that will last you forever?

I have not worked with "real" knife steel in a long time. As it turns out, it works really well! The 80CrV2 that composes this knife was friendly to working on the anvil, taking a hard quench, and being shaped to just the right profile. The handle was made of mango wood, affixed with 1/4" brass pins and two-part epoxy. The engraving was done freehand with a rotary tool.

The blade was hand sharpened to shave-sharp, and tested in cutting free-hanging paper, slashing through cardboard, and hitting 2x4 pine lumber.