Thanks HD. On the FBM how did the grove lines on the blade turn out? Did you smooth them in? Athestically I preferred the true flat shape of the FFBM and hence my choice. Allowing for maybe buying early.....and hind sight....I think I would perhaps have been better served with a DFLE on weight. Toning the satin finish down can be done with a sand blast finish and taking the crinkle off later with grit paper. I did that on the Vought knife and it worked well. I think it would work well with the DGLE. Quite fancy one of these...but short on time now to wait for one.

I will check out the Skinny Ash 1 as I believe they are available from the Company Store. The others would have to be forum purchases and my time is nearly up at home (recovering from an operation)....so once back in the saddle I won't have the available time to stay on long enough until a DFLE comes up and the ASH should be a good alternative. In all your other posts I find I am agreeing with what you say so will follow your recommendation.

The stripping process done by many for the FFBM if I wanted a dark satin finish is something I would also like to look at but I have to say that would probably have me buying a belt sander and involve a lot of practise....your edge profiling though is giving me inspiration to do this.Using stones is very time consuming and for a convex edge I can only do this with a grit paper/mouse board combo and that is even longer and not as precise (allowing for practise with the sander).

If the Satin LE versions were not so much more I would have gone for a Busse FFBMLE and simply toned the glare down with grit paper....but that seems silly to pay more for a finish and then take it off. Although after some heavy use I don't like the look of the marked coated blades.....you can restore a dark satin finish. I like my kit looking cared for as it should be.