Just for fun, here is a pictorial of part of my process. First pic is after design has been hammered out on paper, along with steel type, blade length, etc.
Shape is cut out, then glued to steel, and blank cut out on bandsaw.
See the resemblence? The owner LOVED the Spyderco Manix, so we used the same handle shape, but adapted the blade and steel to his uses.
Finishing the shaping of the blank. This is the small wheel attachment, made to order for finger grooves...
Once the blank is shaped, the handles are cut out to match. This step could have been done later too, but there was a reason I did it this way on this knife- if only I could remember what it was!
And into the heat treat oven. This is my oven, just warming up in the pic. It will be running at 1650*f or so to treat the A2.
After the heat treat, it goes into a dry ice bath. This helps it hold a sharper edge, and prevent any cold weather brittleness.
And then into a toaster oven for tempering. Monitoring the temp with a thermocouple. Trying to keep the blade pretty hard, it isn't going to be a rough use knife. Remember- a Spyderco owner.
Checking the hardness. I think this was a check in between a couple of tempers, it ended up around 61.5rc as I recall.
Blade is done! Grinds complete, logo etched.