I wore out that damn Smith's sharpener in less than 6 months. Really disappointing.

Here's for you. I needed a large heavy knife for one of my kits, but didn't want to havean expensive knife languishing in a bag largely unused. I bought a Cold Steel throwing knife on sale for $20.00. It is 1/4" "carbon V" steel, which I think is their proprietary version of 1095, 12" overall, 6" edge. I took it home and put a good convex edge on it (if you don't know how to convex knifes, learn) A total of about 3 hours work, but well worth it. It's just a big bar of really sharp indestructable steel, no elegance to it.