I have in my possession two Dan Keffeler competition cutters that are his own personal racing knives with multiple championships on them. They're worth a small fortune and they're what he uses to compete, so I'm a little bit nervous about even having them. They're his current knife and the one that preceded it. We sat down and discussed the end goal and it will incorporate the best from both knives. The goal being the availably of outstanding competition worthy knives for competitors. I fully intended for this to be the finest competition cutter available and for it to be priced so that more cutting enthusiasts can get involved in competitive bladesports. It's a humbling task that I've been building up to. I feel honored that Dan wants to do this collaboration and I hope that I prove worthy when it's all done.
The knife will be a 10" blade, 15" overall, 2" width to fit within the competition parameters. It will be made of CPM 4V or Vanadis 4 E and I think our heat treat protocol for these materials is going to put M4 out of the game. The blade geometry and handle geometry were developed by Dan and we're going to stay true to it, no compromises. <--- IMO we will be the only ones who get this right. We've been working on the heat treat for this material over the last 6-7 months. I don't have a specific hardness yet, but probably 62-63, but you all know it's not the hardness, but the microstructure that really counts when you're pushing the envelope. The edge geometry isn't finalized yet, but they will come race ready, sharpened by me and honed to specific geometry ready to win out-of-the-box. I'm serious. We know what we're doing, it is going to be the best in the business, you can bet on it.
I'm a little stoked about it...
