Here is a quick update on my Cold Steel collection. If there is any interest in seeing better pics of any given knife or knives, I am sure I can be convinced, and I just found out I am not mandated for overtime this weekend! Woo hoo! From left to right: Large Espada, Eland, XL Voyager Tanto (believe it or not), Another XL Voyager Tanto, Large Voyager Clip point AUS10A, Large Recon 1 Satin s35vn flat ground spear point, Blue XHP Talwar, another Eland, Prolite (my least modded cold steel knife), and Tuff Lite.
And because it's the one I worked on the most recently, here is the Recon 1, Blades Canada satin flat ground edition:
Not only did I remove a lot off the spine to give it a more Spyderco Military looking blade profile, I also removed a bit from just past the ricasso to give the blade a more streamlined look, instead of a continuous wide to slim profile. It's not exactly a recurve, but it cuts somewhat more like one due to this little tweak. Also, I massively thinned out the blade geometry. I kept the full thickness of the spine at the base of the blade and did a distal taper as well as the profile taper. The blade geometry is thinner than and easily outcuts the stock Military. In fact, even my 204-P Military, which I gave a 9 dps edge angle and 20 dps micro, can't touch this Recon 1 for slicing ability, due to how much thinner this is behind the edge (I did not thin out the 204-P Military behind the edge to any substantial degree). This knife was way overbuilt before, but now it is a primo cutting tool. Oh and unlike the stock recon 1, the balance much more neutral, instead of front heavy.
Here is the knife before mods.
And here it is compared to my Millie (handle modded, blade essentially unmodded aside from sharpening)