Blade Show Day Two 2019

Outside the weather raged torrents of rain, but inside the Blade Show it was sunny and knifey.  It’s still hard to imagine all the vendors and shoppers packed under one roof, but it isn’t all knives.

Grace Horn's Scissors

Grace Horn showed off her custom scissors.  And they flew off the table like umbrellas during a deluge.  I especially liked the tall elegant pair that had a benign demonic look to them.  Grace is an unusual knife maker.  You can follow her on Facebook.  She did measure my right thumb to get an idea of an average size opening for men’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.

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.

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.

They call it rose, but it looks purple to me 

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.

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!

It looks like a Karambit, but.....

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.

Think of them as pocket jewelry 

It takes two to truly understand the image

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.