Opening Knives

 Videos make instruction so much easier.  Instead of line drawings or pictures that take 10K words to explain, or pages of text carefully written and rewritten by a technical writer, a couple of short videos show you how to repair a leaky faucet, change an oil filter, and perform open-heart surgery.  Well, maybe not the last one.

Let me show you two short videos on opening knives.

The first is Rick Hinderer’s XM-18, his and Ohio’s first legally manufactured auto.  If I was to annotate the video, I’d say, “Press.”

The second is a unique design called the Warlock Sorcerer Supreme from Paragon Ashville Steel.  Here I would annotate this video with, “Squeeze!”     

Now you know!

                                                                                Press!

                                                                        Squeeze!

Artistic Interactions

One of the thing not described in most descriptions of the Blade Show are the interactions with artists.  Yes, artists.

I was so busy looking at knives I didn’t recognize Sandra Brady selecting beautiful warthog ivory-handled knives from Arno Bernard. https://arnobernard.com/

Arno Bernard lives in South Africa and makes amazing knives.  These will become Sandra’s canvas.  Sandra Brady is a fantastic scrimshaw artist.  I have, or rather my wife has, one of her pieces and it is stunning.  https://sandrabradyart.com.

I asked her if the Bernard knives were part of a project, and she said no, she wanted them for future commissions.  Her display held a wide subject range of scrimshaw art.

“What’s your favorite subject to work on?”

After a moment, she told me, “I like doing eagles and hawks, but I love a challenge.”

The Green Man

To demonstrate she showed me a Dozier knife with a Green Man on it.  Drawn only in black on white the intricate man was made of plant leaves.  The Green Man is a legendary being belonging to many cultures worldwide and across time.  He has his roots, in the symbolic rebirth of every spring.  I vaguely remember him associated with the Arthurian legend from college studies.

I asked the price and Sandra told me $1350.  You might think it’s a lot of money for a knife, but I think it’s reasonable for art.

Blade Show 2022 Day Three

Everyone is a zombie this morning, myself included.  The Blade Show closes at 2pm, and will be long empty by the time you read this.  Many of the vendors from overseas have left to make connecting flights.  Some of the American vendors have packed up and are about to hit the road.  Pro-Tech and several others have completely sold out.  Several, like Benchmade, have made the decision not to bring stock, but to sell on the internet.  Their tear-down is easy.

Smoky Mountain Knife Works has spread out their remaining knives to suggest they still have plenty, but you can find the empty spots on their, and just about everyone’s, display.  Some custom knife makers sell out in hours on the first day.  Others go home with most of what they made.  The Blade Show is a crap shoot.  Roll the dice and take your best shot, but I suspect the odds are in your favor.  There will always be someone who likes your work and style.

I’m pretty tired and I wish I could unscrew my feet and stick them in the freezer for a couple of hours.  But despite that, I’m sorry to be heading home.  Walk around the show and you will see some of the best new and collectible knives in the world.  Say what you want about only buying American products, but the world produces amazing knives.  I stopped by Condor Knife.  They are in El Salvador and their products have taken a major step up.  I’ll be buying some of their products.  I went by Artisan Cutlery, QSP, and so many others and marveled at their knives.  It was exciting.

But in a day or so I’ll return to that provincial mindset of people who look only at the country of origin and when told the price of knives made in Japan, China, and other places, grunt, “I think these foreign knives are cheap.”  The Blade Show is like overseas travel.  It opens your eyes and challenges your concepts.

We left around noon and saw two young men buying a day pass for the remaining two hours of the show.  I’m not sure what they paid, but considering the stripped tables and shelves, they paid too much!

Here are a couple of pictures, but frankly, nobody was doing anything interesting.

The engraving art

Medford Knife and Tool's  Marauder full size with S35VN steel  $1160

Blade Show Day Two 2022

 Saturday is the busy day at the Blade Show.  Everyone who couldn’t get Friday free comes today.  The lines to purchase passes and will call seem to stretch to the horizon.  

Knife enthusiasts lining up

I start my day with a class on decorative file work by Kyle Daily.  Kyle is teaching how to do his 5 five favorite patterns.  There is a lot of interest.  

Kyle's Bubbles

Nice file work can kick your crafted knife up a notch or two in price.  The class doesn’t go the way I expect:  I’m looking for more of an introduction to handling the file.   Still, there was a lot to learn.  Line layout of everything in detail is a must, as is using sharp files and dumping them when they go dull. He uses a black epoxy to make his file work pop and it does.  The other ‘students’ wrote down every name, file description, and website Kyle gives them.  Some are hoping the magic is in the tools and not the user.  Others want to avoid reinventing the wheel.  He gave out some scrap samples of steel for those who what to practice.  I have a couple.  You never know….

Then it’s out to the show floor.  There are some amazing knives and others that are works of art.  Gravity knives are hot.  Reate Knives has perhaps the coolest gravity knife on the market. 

Open...

Opening or closing

Balisong flipping knives remain hot for the younger set.  Companies have come into existence dedicated solely to flipping, offering tune-up services and customization.  It is not uncommon to see someone just standing in a corner spinning and flipping a high-tech balisong knife.

Adjusting the butterfly knife so it is goldilocks right for the owner

The show is also the place to people watch.  I’ll have more on that later.  In the meantime, here are a few (snicker) images for you to enjoy.

No Dalmatians were killed in the making of those pants.

Attendance in every aisle

People come to sell the $10.00 knives too!

Pressing hot steel

In case you need to behead a water buffalo

I got a lesson in sharpening at Worksharp

Beats me?

My two classic Italian switchblades from KC Italy

I ended my day with a bushcraft class called “Unique and Advanced Knife Techniques” by Joe Flowers.  Here too I was a little disappointed.  

No Joe is not pictured in these three images

The PowerPoint presentation he planned to give got lost. The older one we saw was buggy and the video images distant and poor quality.  Joe is machete-centric, so smaller knives were a lesser part of his presentation.  My limited experience is not too many people carry machetes in the woods.  Perhaps we should. 

 

The real Joe Flowers

Joe is an entertaining speaker and arrives carrying at least 30 large knives and machetes.  Perhaps the most important part of the presentation might be to work with safety stops and position the cutting as well as your body so you will not cut yourself if the blade travels farther than you expect.  It is a lesson I learned cutting up tires at GY tire.  Perhaps that’s the most important part of his talk.

One more day to go and then I’ll be forced back to the normal world.

My

Apologies.  It seems 

the software is channeling e.e. cummings

Blade Show 2022 Day One

 The Blade Show 2022 opened with its usual whimper.  Neither Cobb Galleria nor the people from Blade are unable to figure out how to handle the crowds.  The Customer Appreciation Passes were not available until 10 am this morning, and the Show opened to us at 11:00 ~ a LONG line to get in the building and then another line (they called out last name letters alphabetically!) to get the actual badge!  It would have been much simpler if the CAP passes were available Thursday afternoon/evening, then anyone could have picked them up at their convenience.  

This was the line in front of us, and we were 1.5 hours early!

The line standing in the Georgia sun would have been much more manageable.  Still, I was able to pick up my pass and make it to my 10:30 class on Cryo-Quenching.

The class was run by Larrin Thomas, a Ph.D. in metallurgy who works in the automotive industry.  Perhaps more importantly, he is the inventor of MagnaCut, the new hot steel everyone is going crazy over.  

Larrin and carbide grain sizes with SEM

I have a lot of notes, but perhaps the most interesting is the rate of converting austenite into martensite occurs at the speed of sound.  It isn’t a chemical diffusion process, so it also happens at liquid nitrogen temperatures.  After an hour of graphs, images, and explanations, I’m still a little confused.  It reinforced how complex carbide size and location, metal crystal phase, and time is to temper a steel blade.  I’ve said it before, the heart of a knife may be the blade, but the soul is the heat treatment.

Many foreign companies were in attendance this year, Covid restrictions have lessened and countries are allowing overseas travel.  One of my favorite overseas visitors is Grace Horne.  She’s been making scissors for the last couple of years, and she sells out almost instantly.  Fortunately, some of the buyers let her display some of her scissors so you could see them.

Perhaps the most exciting news for me was the release of Rick Hinderer’s new automatic knife, the XM-18.  I’ve waited since April of 2021 for this hot puppy and it is finally here.  Rick is celebrating his 35 years as well. 

Here are a bunch of photos for your consideration.

Hinderer's new auto Just released at Blade Show

Santa Fe Stone Works

CRKT's new SPEC   I really liked the handle!

CRKT's Curfew   The white portion of the handle has an Ivory feel, but it is not

Engraving

Not every knife is what you call practical

This Chili Pepper is coming home with us - by Kizer

Winkler Knives

Italian knives from MKM designed by Jesper Voxnaes

The last two from Grace Horne  Who says scissors are boring?