The Knife Edge: One Man, So Many Knives©: Blade Show 2022

Sunday, June 5, 2022

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

Friday, June 3, 2022

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.