On the road to Atlanta: Day Five

This was the final day at the Blade Show. The show officially ended at 3:00 but the vendors start packing up earlier. In some cases earlier meant yesterday by being willing to negotiate better prices. Everything you don’t have to pack-up and ship home is a savings in both money and effort. Others started packing up this morning, organizing boxes; making sure things were ready to repack. I can’t help wonder if there might not be a flea market mentality at 2:30. Especially with custom makers who needed a few more sales.

I finished at noon. For me, today was a seminar day. I wanted to see Historical Sword-fighting Techniques by the Reinhardt Legacy Team. Hank Reinhardt started Museum Replicas years ago because he believed people had an interest in sword and sword fighting. As he tried to duplicate medieval combat he discovered or re-discovered the techniques contemporary fighters wrote about. Hank has passed on but his students carry on. Watching them fight explains a lot about both knives and swords.

A Hit!  Good thing the tip is padded!

Ready! SET! FIGHT!

CUT!

Titanium Knives are both the bane and Holy Grail of knife making. Strong, light, non-magnetic, resistant to normal oxidation -- this wonder metal has a serious draw-back.

Is it toxic? Nope, we implant titanium in the body all the time. Too expensive? Price never stopped a custom knife maker. Do people laugh and call us girly-men for carrying titanium blades? Well, yes they do, but it’s not because of the blade. The metal can only be hardened to Rockwell 40ish unless you’re NASA. Soft metals don’t stay sharp. Why? Well, it has to do with the metal's shifting grain boundaries and how micro-crystalline strain fields resist movement.   Enought to know that hardness is related to strength and strength means edge retention.

What George Lambert has done is find a way to use a Rocklin spark deposition machine to place a thin layer of tungsten carbide (with a Rockwell value of 74) which provides a self-sharpening edge caused by the erosion of the softer material.
Sounds like a pipe dream, but nature does it with beaver’s teeth and welders do it to digging tools by layering hard face on one side of softer material.
George claims you can take cheap steel which gives you 20 hemp rope cuts and by using only this treatment, can increase it to 400. So you can make flexible knives that perform like the hardest. WOW!

My high spot was the Victorinox build-a-knife machine. I pictured a large computer controlled machine with pre-loaded polymer pellets ready for injection and clam shell-like dies that spit out a knife every time they open.

The machine

Dan Carpenter pulled a fellow from the audience and with a little hand-operated press, a repair block, a pair of nippers and a machinist hammer, he built a Victorinox Spartan pocket knife. Having seen this done, I understand knife repair so much better.

tap! Tap! TAP!  Finished!

There will be more comments and images later. The Blade Show needs to be reflected in the mirror of time. Too many things happen at once and a little distance is needed. Tomorrow is the trip home and a return to the world. It will be a long day.

On the Road to Atlanta: Day Four

Do you know these people? I found them wandering by the Spyderco booth in good spirits and having the time of their lives. More of the WRCA gang from northeastern Ohio. Next year we’ll have to plan a WRCA dinner. It’s way too hard to keep meeting in hallways.

 

 

I bought a Swamp Rat fixed blade today. I like the thickness and the micarta handle. What I find hard to believe is - a sheath doesn’t come with it. I’m planning on ordering one from Bud Brown Ind. What’s very cool is he accepts PayPal, and claims it has bumped his business up. Stands to reason, click a button and the funds are on the way.

 

There are so many things to experience at the Blade Show. I attended Ernest Emerson’s presentation on surviving mortal combat. It was eye opening and motivating and a bit alarming all at the same time. I’ve heard him before and I’d go out of my way to hear him again.

Ernie tells about surviving urban mortal combat

If you asked him who he is, he would tell you he’s a fighter. He’s trained his entire life and continues to train. He just happens to own a knife company. He’s got a lot of good stuff on his website. Check out his must read book list. I’m proud to tell you I own several of his recommended books and I agree with his ideas on preparation and readiness.

 

 I met with Joyce from Spyderco and got to talk knives with her. Big changes in Spyderco knives are on their way. Most of them will pass unnoticed because Spyderco constantly improves. They call it C.Q.I. or Constant Quality Improvement. Frankly, having worked at three major international companies, you can take it from me, you either continue to improve or you will wither on the vine.

 

Here’s a partial list:

• Flat grind blades for Delica and Endura, with colored handles,
• Manix2 as a test platform for new steels and more precision manufacturing,
• Improved Para-Military 2 with better opening smoothness and top lock,
• So many new designs, the Spyderco collectors better warm up their credit cards.

 

Two of my favorite Blade Show ladies:

Karen from Knives and More and Joyce from Spyderco.

PS: Keep your eyes open for the Spyderco Balance. I know people who have fallen in love with it at first glance.

 

 

 

Ed Fowler has been both an anchor and windsock in the knife industry for 30 years. When knife makers need help and find themselves adrift, they turned to Ed. If you want to see the direction custom makers are headed, well you should also look to Ed.

 

 

 

 

Ed Fowler, one of a kind. A modern cowboy.  And no, he's not holding a spare hat!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ed spoke about the need to see and understand the needs of the customer and reflect them in the knives you make for them. Every new steel or change in manufacturing should have destructive testing associated with those changes. How far can I bend a knife and will it break? How much force does it take to bend? Will it chip if I drop the knife tip first on a concrete floor? He sees every knife as a survival tool. It may be chopping a hole in an ice covered lake to refill your canteen or chopping through a plaster wall to escape a fire. I like that philosophy. Knives are tools and while many, many knives are great works of art, at the core, a knife should be a tool.

The show ends tomorrow.  I have two more days of  "On the road..."

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Road to Atlanta: Day Three

The VIP check in window opens at 10 AM and we’re in line at 8:30.


“Excuse me,” I say to the three people standing at the edge of the booths. “Are you in line?They were and now the line has five. We were soon joined by two more in back of us and the line was seven. The five people around us formed a Busse fan club. I have to admit, they had some unusual knives. Busse designs and produces specific lots of knives, swords and hatchets. And then they are done! Finished. Never to come again!

They will, however, revisit, tweak, alter and modify the design, steel or handle. The five around us were real fans of Busse; it was their favorite topic of conversation. It’s the tweaking that makes the knives so collectable.

By 9:30 we spy the WRCA contingency. Mikes actually finds us and walks up to say hello.

By 10:00 we got our passes and the advance opening is at 12:00. I’m trying not to get caught up in Busse fever, but it’s not easy.

The doors opened up at noon to VIP pass holders. If you didn’t get a VIP pass you paid too much and they were almost as common as mosquitoes in summer.   By 2:00 we had covered almost a third and by 4:30 two-thirds of the show was done.
Initial impressions? There are a lot of custom knife makers and frankly, after awhile the knives all start to look alike. Yes, I know it blaspheme, but they do. The really distinctive knives, the art knives were out of reach for many of us. They are the pearl of great price for which you will sell everything to buy. I’m just not will to give up everything for one knife.

Private collection, but for the right price, well everything is negotiable

$1000 for a knife? Yes it beautiful. I suspect it will hold its value, and yes you better get insurance on it. Still, it’s stupid money range. If you have it to spare, hey, go ahead and spend it and pump up the economy. I did my part. I bought a giraffe bone handled dagger from Bossie knives for under $200.

Daggers, not just stabbin' olives any more

Do you know these people? I found them hanging around the entrance to the show.

They look happy now, but wait until the end of the day when their shoes are off and their feet are up in the air. I know, ‘cause I stopped early and put my feet up.








I ran into Grant and Gavin Hawk. I’ve watched them for years and I got to see their new prototype knife with the Hawk lock. It’s incredible. The knife opens so smoothly and the lock, accessed through an opening in the side of the handle is so smooth. It’s incredible. Am I repeating myself? I should, it is the most ingenious design I’ve seen at the show. I would have bought the prototype in a heart beat, but it was already in near stupid money range.

Proto-types - before any of the knife mag get 'em

Rumor has it that Kershaw will be factory producing them. When? My sources tell me that a prototype has not been delivered yet, so it may be a while.