My perfect General Carving Knife

Well, here we go again, another attempt at creating my ideal general carving knife. Just to recap, I love to design things and knives are one of my passions, so what better item to design eh? I like to carve while I'm out walking with the dog or with friends or both. I want a knife that is small enough to carry in my pocket but large enough to use. I've always had a bit of a thing for simplicity and functional perfection and so I like bare blades with not scales but I do understand that scales give a more comfortable grip.

This particular knife started out as a file and then I ground out this knife which I posted on Google+. Here is the post for those that didn't see it.

https://plus.google.com/+TrevorLeedham/posts/jiyrbUfyUTB 

I wasn't too happy with the knife in use, it's length was just a bit much and the amount of belly in the blade was wrong for me. So, what to do with it eh? Well, if you are me you just go back to the grindstone and reshape it to something better, (most of the time)

What I am looking for in a general use carving knife:

• Blade of no more than 2 -3 inches (50 -75mm).
• A straight back to the blade.
• Slight curve and upswept (puuko style or kwaiken)
• Thick blade, I like the feeling of rigidity.
• I love a really shallow grind on my knives, I don't use a blade as a screwdriver or crowbar and so I don't need a steep grind and can indulge myself in my love of exceptionally sharp and highly polished edges.
• I don't like heavily profiled grips as my grip on the knife changes constantly and so I prefer a neutral grip that can be used in a variety of ways. For this reason I don't like choils at all, to quote from "Knifenews" "Choils are ergonomic instructions: they obligate the user to hold the knife in a specific way. If your hands don’t fit the choil – tough luck! A knife without a choil can offer more ‘neutral’ ergonomics that allow for many different grips" (see reference 1 below) I actually find that a choil gets in the way when I'm carving and causes me problems, so I don't use them.
• Extremely polished edge, When I cut through wood I want to leave a clean surface, I don't like to use abrasives to finish my carvings and I like to leave the cut finish you get from a really exceptionally sharp blade.

This is the result.

The detail. 50mm (2 inch) blade, 22mm wide and 6mm thick. Overall the knife is 140mm (5 inches) long and fits just nicely in my small hand.

This knife feels lovely in the hand and is sharp enough to split hairs. The polished edge just slips through wood and it carves just fine. To protect both the edge and myself I've knocked up a wooden sheath for it which is rigged for either neck or pocket carry.

1. From <http://knifenews.com/choil-or-no-choil/>