Why a custom Knife?... & why 'deval' bushcrafter?

Many people wonder why some of us spend £300 plus on a custom knife when a £10 Mora will do. Well that's just it - a Mora will do. But I wanted a special knife.

  Bushcraft is a very personal thing to me, and the kit I choose and the way I use it is as individually expressive as choosing a house and the furnishings within. And with something as well used and as important as the knife, I have to get pleasure from using it. Remember a custom maker may spend at least two or three solid days working on your knife. Not to mention the hours in conversation over the design and specs. A well run factory can churn them out in the thousands. When you take that into account, with the cost of materials and tools on top, the price is actually very reasonable. And I don't know any knife makers on the Rich List..... yet.

At first I wasn't too bothered about my knife as I had what was considered way back in the 90's, the best of the bushcraft knives you could get - a Mora and the Ray Mears/Alan Wood Woodlore. Both are now classic bush knives, and I found them easy to use and sharpen. In 2004 I was introduced to another Alan Wood knife. It was made for Tamarack Outdoors and was considerably beefier than the Woodlore. It was a brilliant knife and was the first step to the Deval Bushcrafter. Soon after getting the Tamarack, I bought one of Alan's own bushcraft designs. It lacked the chunkiness and depth of the Tamarack design but the ergonomics were considerably better, although I still I prefered the Tamarack blade. It was this realisation that sparked the idea in my mind that if I could take the best parts of all of these knives, plus a few ideas of my own and put them together. I would have MY perfect knife. A knife that would be personal to me, and be something that I would never get bored of using. Made to my specification, in the materials I wanted and crafted to fit my hand and user technique. It was named the Deval Bushcrafter because that's me-
J. Deval.