Blade Show Day One 2019

Anyone who thinks they can cover the entire Blade Show in one day is delusional.  

Just a taste....

I can’t tell you how many furlongs of aisles there are.  There are more knives than you can imagine.  By Sunday, I’ll be jaded and telling you there are so many similar knives, but today, all I am seeing are different and innovated designs combined with exciting handles.

I walked for hours and I should stick my feet in a bucket of ice.  I can’t wait to go back tomorrow!

First, a little social commentary.  There are three classes of people at Blade.  You have the early birds who pay more to get earlier access on Friday (noon).  These are people who have a specific destination in mind and have a shopping list.  Many designers have a limited number of specific knives and they sell out fast.  They start lining up at 5 o’clock the previous night.   You need stamina to be an early bird.

Then there’s the CAPs.  That Customer Appreciation Patron.  That’s us.  We used to be called VIPs.  We line up three hours early and get in at 1 pm.  We often have specific destinations, but are a little laid back about getting there.

Finally we have the great unwashed (general public), who are let in at 2 pm.

You can draw your own conclusions.

Being in the CAP group, I have a chance to make conversation with people around.  One interesting fellow was part time knife maker Dale, from Bloom Custom Knife.  He’s from Michigan and is scientifically working towards being a full time knife maker.  We talked about quenching, cooling and grinding as well as testing.  He had one of his knives on hand.  The handle is a carbon fiber/copper that was amazing.  I will not lie to you, money is a part of any knife maker, but my conversations with makers strongly suggest that the creative urge drives them.  I think we’ll see more of Dale in the future.

Dale's personal carry knife

Dan at Battle Horse is a case in example.  The company is run by his daughter and son-in-law and they are doing an amazing job.  This frees Dan to pursue his creative desires without worrying about the bottom line.  He had a variety of primitive art pieces, including a jeweled coyote head, leather-wrapped tomahawks and leather-wrapped, recycled cans (!).  The impact of his creative drive can’t be seen or experienced from a web page.  You need to stand there and handle them.  I expect Dan will do some exciting things.

Dan's art tomahawk.  I like it very much! 

I bought a knife from Banzelcroft Customs.  They utilize an industrial razor as a blade.  That’s very clever in my mind.  Mykel Piper worked for years at a phone store and found he was always sharpening his knives as they would hit metal staples and get chewed up from cutting through heat sealed plastic blister packages.  Knowing there must be a better way led him to formulate a holder for heavy duty replaceable blades.

Thats a Kirinite handle, an acrylic polymer

One knife did get away from me.  Raegan Lee Knives had a fixed blade with a black handle contain silver wire hexagons (think exotic beehive).  Raegan started collecting knives and decided to start making them.  I’m always impressed with people who start small business and see them as engines of wealth.

Raegan and her cool knife

I wanted that blade for the WRCA knife raffle the club does yearly, but by the time I made it back to her table it was sold.  It’s a bitter lesson to learn: the time to buy is when you first see it.

a better look at the one that got away.

I did get a nice Russian knife with a birch bark handle.  The bark is stacked like poker chips on the tang of the knife.  The handle has a cool, comfortable grip and very much resembles a puuko style.  I have been admiring these knives for years and decided it was time.

Bask knives - Konstantin Vasenko 

Then there’s Microtech.  You know their knives: sharp, well-made, aggressive, but let’s change things up.   A year ago Microtech Defense Industries decided to make the quietest 9 mm suppressor on the planet callled the 2K9 K-Configuration.  They have succeeded.  The can be run dry or wet.  The 6.47 inch suppressor shows an average DB reduction of 31.57 dry and if you add a cap of water, you get a reduction of 40.72.  WOW!

An unnamed military unit is running them now.  But come December 2019, we civilians may be able to by a tax stamp and own one.  It will not be cheap, but what’s your hearing worth?

Here are a few more images.

A relative new company, but interesting knives

Engraving by Jonathon Quill

Part of the CAP waiting for entrance.

Spoon of Death

I’m not sure where this belongs - in my Tactical Blog or my Knife Blog.  I don’t write a social WTF blog, which is where the next two items really belong.

Let’s start here.

Great Britain once commanded an empire that spanned the globe.  Explorers, merchants, settlers and military opened up continents and brought the English version of culture and civilization to the world.  But now England has become afraid of knives.

The police ask you to turn in your deadly butter knives before anyone is hurt!

Having continually reduced the number of firearms owned in England without eliminating crime, the English government has refocused on outlawing knives.  England has put drop boxes where you can anonymously drop off your knife.  Since London has an extremely high level of CCTV coverage, I wouldn’t believe that for a moment. 

Recently criminals robbed a ‘knife surrender bin.’  Police claim they have CCTV footage of the criminals hauling away the weapons collected by police as part of a knife amnesty.  No comment has been made about the imminent arrest of these fiends.

If there is a lesson, it’s criminals always find a way to get the tools they need.

Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2019/03/29/hunt-gang-ransacked-knife-amnesty-bin-9058584/?ito=cbshare

On a similar note, London’sRegents Park Police said that a local charity shop had handed over a collection of potentially dangerous edged weapons to prevent criminals buying them.  I can only assume the owner has some hidden agenda or he’s mentally handicapped but perhaps not as badly as the police who posted a picture of several knives, including a letter opener, a practice fencing foil and a spoon as part of this cache of deadly knives. 

I can almost see the arch fiend jumping out of the shadows with a fencing foil in the number 2 guard position, a spoon in his other hand to break up your circular parry and the letter opener tucked in his sash for close quarter combat.  Surely he would be bare-chested and wearing black yoga pants, a red lined black cape and floppy hat with feather!  En-garde!

I blame England’s anti-knife movement on the government’s inability to deal with crime and it is their attempt to move the public eye off themselves an on to weapons as the cause.  America’s doing much of the same thing.

On a more serious note, the Tuesday, May28 2019 Akron Beacon Journal reports a local Tokyo man charged a group of school children at a bus stop waving a knife in each hand screaming “I will kill you!”  Nineteen people were injured including thirteen children.  At least two people are reported dead.  I don’t know if that number includes the attacker who slashed his own neck.

Again more proof that criminals and crazies will find the tools of mayhem they need.

What does this have to do with knife collectors?

Your knives are actually weapons and as responsible collectors we must secure them from theft and misuse.  You can also expect that at some future point you will be vilified as a collector of these dangerous weapons.  We only have to look as the history of legislation of automatic knives.

In an effort to increase magazine circulation, articles were published about these ‘toys that kill.’  To appear pro-law and order without any actual work, politicians banned automatic knives.  As collectors we are still struggling with these silly laws and their ramifications.

Unlike England we have a Second Amendment.  We have organizations like the American Knife and Tool Institute and Knife Rights to stand up for us.  Join them, buy a membership and help them out.  Remember the alternative.

https://kniferights.org/

https://www.akti.org/

Tie One On

There are only a few things one can say are really NEW.  As a chemist I’d say John Napier’s Logarithms in the 1614 were really new.  My Analytical Chem professor had us use logarithms for calculations as hand calculators were not fully invented at that time.  

Much newer are bolo ties which were invented by Victor Emanuel Cedarstaff in the late 1940s. 

A distinct touch of style

I’ve always thought bolo ties had a sense of flash and uniqueness men need to tap into.  I had to wear a tie in grade school and my fondness for bolo ties forced the school to rewrite their requirement about wearing ties to include a prohibition against bolo, string and bow ties. 

This is a defining quirk of my personality.  So when I had a chance to get one of Mickey Yurco’s knife bolo ties, how could I say no?

Mickey has been a knife maker for over 30 years and designs unique blades.  Unique?  Yes, because Mickey brings both a sense of history and tradition while concentrating on cutting.  Boker Knives has picked up two of his designs and the latest can be found here.

While not as well hidden as the OSS lapel knife, the bolo knife reminds me of a last resort, hide-out knife.

It needs a set of a dozen friction lines about three-quarters of an inch up from the point so the thumb or index finger has a better friction point to retain the use the knife as a last resort tool.  Simply you’re your thumb or forefinger across anything you want to cut, just remember all the places the pulse can be felt just below the skin. 

Or you wear it as tasteful man jewelry.  The bolo has the classic black leather braided cord ending in silver aiguillettes and the black leather sheath is embossed with bear foot prints.

Bears are the largest land omnivores in both Europe and the Americas.   Since they can walk upright, they were thought to be special and a reservoir of knowledge.  They are also associated with warrior spirit and prosperity.  More manly traits.

I doubt I’ll ever cut my way out of trouble with this knife, but I like the elegant look.  You can contact Mickey if you need manly fashion accessories or interesting cutting edges at shorinki@aol.com.

Wood Knives

My father used to carve wooden knives, mostly daggers.  He’d start with a square rod of scrap pine and carve a handle with grooves, holes, partial spheres and a V-shaped edge he called a blade.  It was just a way for him and me to whittle away an hour.  I’m sure I was better at making shavings than anything resembling a knife. 

But I never forgot carved wooden knives.

At the Lehigh Valley Knife Show I ran into Dean the owner of “The Last Table”  who is making wooden knives.  Specifically folding lock back knives.

Here's the details, you just need to add skill and years of practice.

Following his retirement three years ago, Dean has been a serious work worker producing furniture you want to own.  He showed me a logo he first carved into a dry bar for a customer and then took it up a notch by flaming it with gunpowder.  Talk about “Edgy”!

Last year Dean gave some thought to wooden knives and started experimenting.  When you open his folders the lock, driven by a wooden spring, clicks into place locking the knife open.  

Is this cool or not?  It is!!

The spine lock is depressed against the same wood spring to unlock the knife and the blade snaps tightly into the bolsters.  It sounds like a Buck 110 opening and closing.

There is no metal used in the knife, just wood and wooden pins.  I got a really nice one made of burly maple that I think is super.

The selection of interesting woods is amazing The top marble wood is very interesting as is the second osage orange.

We were talking and Dean showed me an experimental wood Ka-Bar style knife he had made.  The handle is composed of two different woods and the blade is stained dark.  Look at the handle butt and you can see the partial tang a classic Ka-Bar has.

One of the few  Ka-Bars that can float in water, but it's too nice to do that.!

Dean’s working on a website, but it’s not quite there.  It will be OH Wooden Lock-back Knives.  The OH stands for Open Heart and not Ohio.  Trust me.  You can see the heart he puts into these knives.  The name works.

I told Dean I thought mixing different woods for blades and bolsters would be attractive.   I can see even different woods stacked to form the bolsters.  Of course, it’s easy for me to make suggestions when I don’t have to execute the design.

I understand a Floridian has made a large purchase and I suspect we’ll see these at the upcoming Blade Show.  I’ll be looking for them.

You can contact Dean at deangiesige@icloud.com if you’re interested in having custom work done.  I recognize quality wood work when I see it.  This is the real thing!

https://www.facebook.com/thelasttable1/who