Why and how I make knives the way I do.

Recently, I've received some questions about the properties of the knives I make and how they're built, so instead of answering numerous emails I decided to do a more exhaustive post that should cover all the bases.

First, I would like to start with the inspiration, which is and always has been, the work of Warren Thomas. He is without a doubt the pioneer of this method of construction. I remember seeing his knives, years ago and while not necessarily caring for all of the designs, being wowed by the exotic nature of the materials that he used.
At the time, I was making knives for myself mostly by purchasing steel blades made by various bladesmiths, mostly from Scandinavia. I've never really had the tools or the space needed to work with steel. As time progressed, so did my own experimentation with knives and materials. One day, growing weary of not being able to afford one of the Warren Thomas originals, I decided that I would try to make a laminated knife myself. If Mohammad can't come to the mountain...
I spent several months doing research online before I finally went ahead and did it. The first ones were admittedly quite crude. But they worked and worked well. Thus, I kept at it. I'm still doing the vast majority of the work with very simple tools. I do not own any mills, expensive and desirable belt grinders, or even much in the way of a decent drill press. Instead, I use primarily carbide grit files in varying grits, a dremel, a 50 dollar Harbor Freight drill press, lots of sandpaper with variously shaped sanding blocks, and a Tung-Carb carbidizer.
A few things that I've learned over the years are that materials and surface prep mean almost everything. You simply cannot skimp on the quality of your materials. That goes for both the composite materials that I use and for the bonding agent, a high-grade 2-component resin from 3M that has almost obscene shear and peel strength combined with outstanding environmental resistance. I typically get my carbon fiber from only one supplier and that is largely because I've yet to see anything that comes even close in quality. Most carbon fiber that I see has a horrible amount of voids in it, which are not indicative of a high-strength product. The material I get from my supplier has... Well... No voids. I've heard people claim that no voids in carbon fiber is impossible, but I beg to differ. My supplier can do it. And do it every time.
I tend to do a fairly precise profile of the blade and handle before I laminate the materials.
Surface preparation is next. I am very aggressive with my surface prep. I texture both surfaces being bonded aggressively and clean them rigorously. It simply isn't something that you can take lightly. The effort seems to pay off. I am not aware of any of my knives having ever de-laminated. I also will, on larger knives, use several pins throughout both blade and handle. This increases the lateral strength by preventing the layers from shifting around.
Everything is coated with the resin, then clamped with as much pressure as I can produce. I use a vice and multiple screw clamps, often using thicker pieces of G10 as load spreaders.

Once the resin has set, after at least 24 hours, I start cutting in the bevels. This is typically done using various carbide grit files. It's rather labor-intensive, although not as much as cutting out the blade blank from the titanium sheeting. I use a hacksaw with a carbide grit blade for that. Yes, it's done by hand.

A blade blank being cut from .092 inch thick 6AL4V titanium. The clamps are there to cut down on the noise. 

The cut-out blade blank prior to having holes for the pins drilled. 

Another blade blank ready for drilling. This is prior to texturing. 

The constituent parts ready for bonding. Note the texturing and pins. 

Anyways, I cut in the bevels using these carbide grit files, switching to finer grits as the bevels get closer to completion. The final roughing in and finishing is done with sanding blocks and sandpaper. Once the bevels are done, I will usually attach the handle, which is again done with the 3M resin and pins. I let it set up and then shape it with the same tools I've been using so far.

Here you can see a set of handle scales prior to being attached. Again, note the texturing.

A blade getting the bevels cut in. 

Here's another one getting close to done. 

The benefits of this type of construction are manifold. Light weight, low maintenance, environmental indifference (Any environment you can survive, it can survive and then some.), no magnetic signature, and in the case of the Sub Rosa, no metallic signature at all. Ease of carry and remarkably high strength for the weight. The drawback is that it will not hold an edge as well as steel, nor is it as well-suited to prying tasks. Steel is an incredibly resilient metal and can survive stress that will shatter or deform most other metals. That's why steel has been around for so long and has for certain applications not been surpassed as of yet.
Titanium is very soft in comparison to steel. And only a few of the alloys can be hardened, which still leaves them far short of the hardness that steel can achieve.
One way to somewhat mitigate this is to carbidize the edge. Now, what does that mean, you might ask.
Carbidizing, which is also known as Electro-Spark Deposition (ESD), is the process of embedding particles of a certain electrically conductive substance - in this case Tungsten Carbide - into the surface of another metal, which in this case is titanium. The process has been used for decades in various industries to enhance the properties of tooling. It causes almost no dimensional changes as the process actually embeds the electrode particles in to the surface, down to a depth of a few microns. Only way to get rid of them after this process is to wear them off, whether by usage-related friction or by grinding off the top surface layers.
In the knife context, when applied to the edge of a titanium blade and properly sharpened, it causes an effect very similar to that which is seen in steel. A micro-structure of tungsten carbide particles is revealed as the softer titanium is worn away, which creates a micro-serrated edge. This kind of edge also seems - in my experience - to be more resistant to rolling which is a real problem with titanium blades. There is some minor self-sharpening ability as well and for certain applications, this type of edge cuts amazingly well. But it still doesn't do well in hard materials. The right steel and you could use the knife to carve chunks out of other, softer, steels. Titanium would just deform, even with the tungsten carbide particles embedded in the edge.
But for soft materials, like fabric, meat, cardboard, the carbidized edge will cut like an absolute bastard. I can tell you from experience that getting cut with this kind of edge absolutely sucks.
These properties are what makes these laminated blades so well-suited to personal defense applications. They will cut like demons in flesh and go through fabric and leather without problems. And 9 times out of 10 that's what you need to cut in a self-defense situation. If you want to ram a knife through car doors or chop down trees, get a steel knife.

A close-up of a carbidized edge. You can almost see individual particles here. This is done only on one side of the edge. The knife is sharpened only on the non-carbidized side. 

That being said, I do end up using my knives for every day utilities like opening mail and trimming errant fingernails. They work just fine for that kind of thing as well. I just caution people against thinking of these as being the same as any other knife. They're not. They are a specialty tool, for special occasions. Hopefully something you'll never have to use, but very nice to have when you need it!

Well... I think that's about it. I hope that helped answer most questions that were out there. If anybody is reading this and has more questions, I'll do my best to answer them in the comment section below.