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Aleks Nemtcev is a knifemaker, blog writer, and collector, best known as the founder (2015) and creative director of Noblie Custom Knives, a boutique workshop that employs fewer than ten in-house staff and collaborates with more than 20 independent artisans worldwide.
His work integrates modern pattern-welded materials—most notably mosaic and “Dragonskin” Damascus steels—and experimental alloys such as crystallised titanium, produced in partnership with smiths including South Africa’s Bertie Rietveld.
Beyond making knives, Nemtcev writes technical articles on blade history and legislation for the Noblie blog and exhibits regularly at international blade shows.
Born in 1981, Aleks Nemtcev says his fascination with edged tools began in his teens, when he started dismantling factory-made hunting knives to understand their heat treatment and geometry.
By the mid-2000s, he was producing his first full-tang hunting knives in stainless steel, a line he later called “purely experimental” because it let him refine stock-removal, grinding, and basic tempering techniques.
Seeking ways to individualise those designs, he taught himself hand engraving, adding scrollwork to bolsters and blades with simple push gravers. This move toward decoration opened the door to advanced materials: an introduction to Damascus steel spurred collaborations with pattern-welding blacksmiths and, eventually, Nemtcev explored mosaic laminates as a signature element in his later work.
Through these self-directed studies—part metallurgy, part ornamental art—Nemtcev laid the technical foundation that would support his professional career a decade later.
In 2015, he incorporated Noblie Custom Knives as a boutique workshop focused on collectible blades and gift-grade edged art.
Each project typically involves four to five contributors and requires one to six months from design brief to final polish.
Similar co-branded pieces—often reaching 62 HRC after differential tempering—have appeared on blade forums and at blade-show showcases.
Since 2022, the workshop’s focus has shifted toward limited-edition pocket knives and small art daggers that blend powder-metallurgy cores with ornamental overlays.
Nemtcev also co-authors technical articles on heat treatment and knife law for external blogs and trade presses, including a 2024 essay on gravity knives for Black Radish Books.
He has attended more than twenty international blade shows, where he gives short talks on mosaic pattern control and customer specification workflows.
Aleks Nemtcev’s workshop emphasises small-batch, multi-artisan production: each knife passes through several hands—forge, engraver, inlay artist—before final inspection. That workflow lets the workshop combine sophisticated steels with ornamental surface work while keeping output to a few dozen pieces per year.
Production folders often use Swedish Damasteel® PM stainless Damascus, chosen for its corrosion resistance and uniform carbide distribution.
Finished blades are differentially tempered to roughly 60–62 HRC, with a finer sub-zero cycle on powder steels to stabilise retained austenite.
Since 2023, the workshop has experimented with crystallised titanium—heat-shocked Grade 5 Ti that develops a micro-crystal surface and iridescent oxide film—for handle scales and back-spacers.
Colour-shift Timascus (Ti-6Al-4V stacked with Grade 2, then anodised) appears on limited-edition framelocks.
Presentation fixed blades may feature fossil mammoth tooth, Arizona ironwood or black palm, stabilised under vacuum before shaping.
Almost all bolsters and guards are hand-engraved; higher-tier pieces add 24 k gold or fine-silver inlays in European scroll or Japanese nanako backgrounds. Several art daggers include bulino scrimshaw panels on fossil ivory, executed by contract engravers and signed separately.
Integral-bolster frame-locks are machined from single billets, leaving a hidden take-down screw under the presentation scale so owners can dismantle the knife without disturbing the engraving.
Satin or mirror finishes are achieved by sequential hand-papering up to 2,500 grit, followed by a 0.5 µm diamond paste buff on soft wheels; etched Damascus receives an additional ferric-chloride dip to deepen contrast.
Final quality control includes optical inspection at 10× for grind symmetry and plunge-line alignment; certificates list chemistry data supplied by steel vendors.
Through this materials-driven, highly manual process Nemtcev positions each knife as an art object first and a cutting tool second, a stance that distinguishes the workshop in a crowded custom-knife market.
Nemtcev’s knives are positioned primarily as collector pieces rather than field tools. Finished works have been purchased by private buyers in the United States, Japan, most EU states, the Gulf region, and China, with some runs commissioned specifically as diplomatic or corporate gifts.
You can reach Aleks Nemtcev directly on LinkedIn.
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