I've had a fair amout of practice grinding HSS, in grinding tool
blanks into metal cutting tools for the mill or the lathe,, even for a
shaper or two,,but have yet to make any knives from it with the
exception of two 1 1/4 inch blade chip carving blades for a woodworking
friend back when I was in tech school, made those from a parting tool
for a metal lathe,, I just ground the blades, he made his own handles,,
and said it worked out great for him.

Let me know how this project turns out,, I've often thought HSS would
work out well for a lot of different kinds of blades, (mostly while
carving mild steel with my Schrade Uncle Henry Bear Paw ) although I
was leaning more to hunting knives,, caping and skinning blades , just
never took the time to give it a good try. Nor the cost to get a new
parting tool of sufficient size to make a nice knife from.
Too many old files laying around for easy access for blade blanks I
guess.

Bear
BTW I noticed that fact about tapered tangs not helping the cutting
ability of a knife much too. only put it on one knife on purpose,, and
one to correct a wrap in heat treat that was all in the tang,, but I
did those the easy way,, with a surface grinder.