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| Grace Horn's Scissors |
Another table had nothing but knife sheaths. If you heeded a Randall or a Loveless or just
about any other sheath, you’d find it there.
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| You need it? You could find it. |
I stopped at Darrel Ralph and looked at his ZEK hatchets. Darrel tells me he had been thinking about
hatchets since 1998. I think he finally
came up with a winner. The kydex sheath locks
the hatchet head in place and has a belt clip so you can wear it. A secondary strap locks the sheath closed so
you will not accidentally lose your tool moving in or out of a vehicle or in the
brush. He had several styles including a
nice carbon fiber handle, but I went with the micarta grip that had a rounded
profile. I found it fit my hand better.
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| Never know when you might need to chop something or somebody |
Speaking of Shadow Tech, they have introduced several lines
of folders. I especially liked their
Sidekick, a gentleman’s knife. Well, it
could be a gentlewoman’s knife as well.
It sports a stud and a hole, but it actually opens with a flipper. The blade opens and is locked in place with a
liner lock. It doesn’t have a clip,
because it is not a tactical knife. It’s
well made and I think I’m going to enjoy it.
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| They call it rose, but it looks purple to me |
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| Sharpening blades can be terrifying to some, but there are easy options |
At one table a vendor had a pile of paper shavings, several
knives and more simple sharpeners than you could imagine. In this day and age when sharpening systems
require a mechanical engineering degree to set up and use, his simple
pull-throughs turn a dull knife into a sharp edge. It may not be the zenith of sharpness, but if
your edge can cut curly paper shavings, it’s sharp enough for most of my needs.
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| Doug and friend drawing door prize tickets |
Doug Marcaida, best known for Forged in Fire and his
expression, ‘It will keel!’ was at Russian Blades and has designed a fighting
knife based on his Filipino system. You
could mug with him and get your picture taken, but I took a pass on that. He’s a tremendous martial artist, but also a shrewd
business man. He showed us several
karambit-style knives he designed as rescue tools for Europe, where such knives
are illegal. In the absence of an edge,
a ‘blade’ consisting of a seatbelt cutter, screw driver, oxygen bottle wrench is
allowed. Of course, you could still use
it to control and apply to pressure points, but Doug never said that.
I got my hands on a DART (Direct Action Response Knife). Doug developed this knife with the Italian
knife company, Fox. It’s a karambit
style, with an Emerson wave opener, but a non-curved blade. I looked for these for several years but
couldn’t find them. All Fox would say
was a “…family disagreement prevented continued manufacturing.” Well, it seems they are back and I have one!
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| It looks like a Karambit, but..... |
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| Instead of a curved blade, it's more of a drop point tanto |
Could I summarize the Blade Show in blog or two?
Look, you could spend the day just visiting the big
commercial knife companies, like Spyderco, Cold Steel and Buck, and you wouldn’t
be disappointed. You could also spend
the day talking to custom designers, the makers and technical support
people. There are demos on the floor as
well as classes, lectures and helpful people everywhere.
The Blade Show has become too large to be summarized by any
one blogger. Each of us is a blind man
inspecting an elephant. If you are a
knife fancier, come and attend. It’s the
greatest knife show on earth, possibly the solar system.
Here are few more photos.
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| Think of them as pocket jewelry |
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| It takes two to truly understand the image |
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