Steve Shackleford, Author at BLADE Magazine

Pro-Strider SnG Graces New BLADE Cover

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March 24, 2015

Pro-Strider SnG from Pro-Tech. — The Pro-Strider SnG, a collaboration between Pro-Tech and Strider Knives, is the cover knife for the latest issue of BLADE®.

The latest 2015 factory knives as seen at the SHOT Show—including the Pro-Strider SnG cover knife from Pro-Tech—how to make a knife with basic tools, hot bottle-opener knives, the edgiest custom knife-sheath combos going and much more highlight the new BLADE®, on newsstands NOW!

The Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show is the annual coming-out party for the year’s brand new guns and related products for those in the applicable trades—including factory knives. BLADE was there to visit with factory knife and knife accessory companies from all corners of the globe to see what their latest and greatest knives are for the new year. Check out the results in “A Beveled Bevy of Blade Beauties” on page 12.

Many people seem to think you must have a complete shop setup to make a good knife, but BLADE field editor and ABS master smith Joe Szilaski knows better—and shows you how to make a knife from a file with a few basic tools on page 20.

Bottle-opener knives are nothing new—Swiss Army and boy scout knives with folding bottle-opener tools have been around for ages—but the recent crop of bottle-opener knives with the opener incorporated into the butt of the handle is going gangbusters. Check out this hot new trend on page 50.

Time was a sheath with a fixed blade was a given, kind of like milk with your cereal, bacon and eggs, and toast and jelly. However, it is not uncommon for some of today’s fixed blades to be absent a sheath. On the other hand are those custom makers who take pride not only in making world-class knives but pairing them with world-class sheaths as well. Meet some of these makers and their handiwork in “Edgy Combos” on page 72.

There’s much more in this issue, including a salute to the late, great BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall-Of-Fame© member Chuck Buck, tests of two fixed blades and three bowies, some hot wharncliffes, a profile of “Mr. and Mrs. Sharp,” Lee and Donna Williams, the newest assisted openers and a whole lot more in the latest issue of BLADE.

Recommended:

Stay abreast of the latest developments on this and many more knife rights issues with a subscription to BLADE.

Design and Make a Combat Knife

Steve Shackleford

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March 13, 2015

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Spartan Blades Difensa — Learn how to design and make a combat from Curtis Iovito and Bill Harsey at BLADE U.

Learn how to design and make a combat knife from two who have been there/done that—Curtis Iovito of Spartan Blades and award-winning custom knifemaker William W. “Bill” Harsey—at the 2nd Annual BLADE University.

Award-winning knifemaker Bill Harsey. — Bill Harsey’s designs have won numerous BLADE Magazine Knife-Of-The-Year® Awards.

Held the day before (June 4) through show Saturday (June 6) of the 2015 BLADE Show June 5-7 at the Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta, BLADE University assembles the world’s leading knife professionals to instruct you on most anything that has to do with the subject of cut.

Along with Mark Carey co-owner and co-founder of Spartan Blades, Iovito is a retired U.S. Army Ranger who saw action during Operation Just Cause in Panama and numerous sensitive deployments and missions throughout Asia and the Middle East. It was while in 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) that Curtis got into making custom knives for his teammates. After finishing up his 20-year career he hooked up with Carey—himself a 21-year man with U.S. Army Special Forces with many deployments in Asia—to start Spartan Blades.

Harsey is well-known throughout the custom and factory knife industries for his custom knives and custom and factory knife designs. He collaborated with BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall-Of-Fame© member Col. Rex Applegate to design Gerber’s award-winning Applegate-Fairbairn line; with Chief James “Peaches” Watson to design Gerber’s Watson/Harsey Silver Trident, and with Chris Reeve and Matt Larsen to design Gerber’s LHR Combat Knife; and one of Harsey’s most significant efforts—the Yarborough Knife, aka the Green Beret Knife for Chris Reeve Knives—named after Lt. Gen. William P. Yarborough, who is credited as being the “father of modern Special Forces.”

A number of Harsey’s designs, including the Green Beret Knife, have won BLADE Magazine Knife-Of-The-Year® awards. Spartan Blades also has won BLADE Magazine Knife-Of-The-Year® Awards with its knives.

Today Harsey is one of several custom makers who design knives for Spartan Blades, a list that includes BLADE® Magazine field editor and retired 5th Special Forces Master Sergeant Kim Breed and also ABS master smith John Horrigan. Among Harsey’s design efforts for Spartan is the Difensa combat fixed blade.

In “Designing and Making a Combat Knife,” Iovito and Harsey will take you through the process, including:

•The terms “combat” and “tactical” as they relate to knife use;

•Understanding task-specific uses of a combat knife;

•Combat knife geometry;

•Carry options for a combat knife, vehicle and on foot;

•Design features that make up a combat knife;

•Blade geometry, and;

•Materials that lend themselves to improving a combat knife.

For more information on Iovito and Harsey’s class, BLADE University and the BLADE Show, visit BLADE Show or e-mail [email protected].

Recommended for You:

Making Tactical Fixed Blades DVD

Learn both basic and advanced knife making techniques with expert instruction from Allen Alishewitz in Tactical Fixed Blades. Allen demonstrates how to craft a double-edged tactical fixed blade knife from start to finish, and creates two knives in order to fully illustrate the knife building process. You’ll learn:

– Profiling and Drilling the Knife
– Tang Tapering on a Grinder
– Tang Tapering on a Mill
– And more!

Order here

Knife Law Update: Ivory Victory!

Steve Shackleford

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March 2, 2015

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Ron Welling mammoth ivory bowie. — A measure that would have banned the sale of such beautiful mammoth ivory knives as this one by Ron Welling failed to pass muster in Washington state. (Chuck Ward photo)

Knife and ivory legislation that affects your right to own, carry and sell knives at both the federal and state levels has been heating up lately, including a victory for proponents of the sale of legal elephant and mammoth ivory in the state of Washington.

Washington’s proposed bans were overcome by a combined effort that included Knife Rights, the NRA and the Legal Ivory Rights Coalition, Mike Vellekamp of Fox Knives USA and Tim Wegner of Blade-Tech.

According to Knife Rights’ Doug Ritter, the proposed bans would not have saved a single living elephant while “taking hundreds of millions of dollars from millions of honest, law-abiding Americans. It makes no sense to unfairly penalize Americans for the illegal and immoral activities that continue to threaten elephants, and which these proposed ivory bans do nothing to ameliorate.”

Meanwhile, among the new or pending measures at the state and federal level are:

•Knife law preemption bills in Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Vermont, measures that ensure consistent enforcement of state laws everywhere in each applicable state, and a special federal knife preemption law that would protect transporting knives from state to state in certain instances;

•Laws affecting switchblades and other specific knife styles/patterns in Illinois, Maine, Nevada, New York and Oklahoma;

•New ivory bans in Florida, Illinois, Vermont, New York and Hawaii, with ivory bans pending in Connecticut, Maryland, Iowa, Oklahoma and California, and the African Elephant Conservation and Legal Ivory Possession Act on the federal level, and;

•In one of the world’s leading anti-knife nut capitals, New York Sen. Tony Avella of Queens proposed a ludicrous ban on machetes after several recent local attacks involving the utilitarian tools.

U.S. Senators Mike Enzi (R-WY) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced the federal Knife Owners’ Protection Act (KOPA) this past Wednesday. KOPA would allow legal interstate travel of those transporting knives, provided the knives are transported to and from states where the law allows possession of said knives, and the knives are transported in closed containers. For more information, visit AKTI.org.

Oklahoma bills for knife preemption and to repeal the switchblade ban cleared major hurdles recently when both were passed by the Oklahoma House Public Safety Committee. Both measures head to the state House before going to the Senate. For more information on them and other state knife laws—including the ridiculous anti-machete bill in New York—visit kniferights.org.

At least two of the new state ivory laws—in Florida and Illinois—ban not only the sale of ivory but also the sale of mammoth ivory and/or make no exemptions for the sale of mammoth ivory. Meanwhile, the new punitive measure in New York would increase the criminal and civil penalties in its already existing laws banning the sale of ivory from living animals and mammoth ivory. On the up side, Hawaii has tabled its proposed ivory bans, though that scheduling “could change at any time.” For more information, visit elephantprotection.org.

For more information on how to protect your right to own and sale knives and or ivory/mammoth ivory knives, visit AKTI.org, Kniferights.org and elephantprotection.org.

Recommended:

Stay abreast of the latest developments on this and many more knife rights issues with a subscription to BLADE.

Top Lady Smiths Highlight New BLADE®

Steve Shackleford

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February 24, 2015

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Five top lady bladesmiths and their International Ladysmith Collaboration Knife, the “Mount Rushmore of Knifemakers,” rock-solid integral knives and much more highlight the new BLADE®, debuting on many newsstands TODAY!

A quintet of the world’s top lady smiths—Dellana, Haley DesRosiers, Audra Draper, Grace Horne and Julie Warenski-Erickson—collaborated on this issue’s cover knife. Forged by Draper, the 7.25-inch blade is a damascus ground, heat treated and etched by DesRosiers, who also did the final assembly. Dellana embellished the handle with five gold dots—one for each “blade sister”—and a bezel-set ruby, and Warenski-Erickson engraved the bolster in gold. Horne built the display box lined with red glove leather and used black glove suede for the cushion. Find out how the knife came about and what the “Sisters of the Blade” have planned for it in our special cover story feature.

In “The Mount Rushmore of Knifemakers,” some of the custom knife industry’s leading professionals weigh in on the four makers they consider the greatest in the history of modern custom knifemaking. We would tell you who the four are, but then that would spoil the surprise. You’ll just have to buy the new issue and find out for yourself.

Popularized by the late, great knifemaker, Ted Dowell, integral knives are one solid piece of steel—including both the handle and blade—that are reduced via grinding to an equally solid one-piece knife. Pat Covert visits with two talented practitioners of integral knifemaking, Edmund Davidson and Marcus Lin, for their take on how they make knives made in a style that arguably is the world’s strongest.

There’s much more—including part one of RJ Martin’s story on how he makes his award-winning precision flipper folders, some of today’s hottest factory tactical fixed blades, the conclusion of Jim Hammond’s story on the past, present and future of ivory’s use on knives, two tests of top factory folders, the mystery of the ancient Viking Ulfberht sword, custom knives in “crossover” styles and other of today’s sharpest knives and knife news—all in the latest issue of BLADE.

Recommended:

Stay abreast of the latest developments on this and many more knife rights issues with a subscription to BLADE.

Save Legal Ivory & Mammoth Ivory Now!

Steve Shackleford

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February 18, 2015

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Ancient walrus tusk handle. — Kevin Casey uses ancient walrus tusk for the handle of his knife. (SharpByCoop image)

Your help is needed to derail bills designed to ban not only ivory but also mammoth ivory—the latter ivory from animals extinct for thousands of years—that are pending in several states. Meanwhile, your support is needed for a federal bill (HR 697) that would effectively end U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s draconian moratorium on the sale and trade of legal ivory and also assist anti-poaching efforts in countries with elephant populations. (For more on the latter, visit http://elephantprotection.org/app/write-a-letter)

Hawaii, Maryland (HB713), Iowa (SF 30), Oklahoma (HB1787) and California (AB96) are all considering legislation that would or could be used to ban both ivory and mammoth ivory, and four bills are pending in Connecticut that could do the same. The penalties for violating any of the state bans if they were to pass run anywhere from $10,000 to $50,000 in fines up to classifying as felonies.

Meanwhile, a house bill in Washington (HB1131) eliminated mammoth from the definition of ivory, though the bill (SB5241) has yet to pass the state’s senate.

For more on these laws and what you can do to protect your right to sell legal ivory and mammoth ivory, including your knives with handles of the materials, visit elephantprotection.org.

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KNIVES 2015

See the latest knives, swords, and edges of all types, and explore the latest trends in blades, steels, styles, and materials. Gaze upon a “State of the Art” section parading engraved, scrimshawed, jewel-inlaid, carved, etched, sculpted and forge-welded, and Damascus and mosaic-damascus knives. Click here.

Photo Gallery: Warm Up With 8 Hot New 2015 CRKT Knives!

Steve Shackleford

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February 17, 2015

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Photo Gallery: Warm Up With 8 Hot New 2015 CRKT Knives!

The recent Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show in Las Vegas introduced many new factory knives from many production companies, including several fresh models from CRKT. Here are eight of CRKT’s latest cutters.

CRKT Saker

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The CRKT Saker is a bushcraft knife designed by BLADE® Magazine contributor Abe Elias. It features a Scandi-ground blade of 1075 carbon steel, a walnut handle and leather sheath. It includes a special bushcraft tool for scraping, pitch harvesting, wedge splitting or prying.

Recommended for You:

2015 BLADE Show CRKT Tighe Rade™

This is a numbered Official BLADE Show Exclusive knife with limited quantity – only 300 available! Each custom Tighe Rade™ knife touts the Blade Show logo.

Designed by Brian Tighe, this knife is anything but understated. The textured and grooved aluminum handle complements the multi-purpose compound ground blade. The tip of the blade is reinforced, making it ideal for stronger cutting applications, while the area of the blade closer to the handle is optimal for finer cutting tasks and wire stripping. Keeping the blade secure is a button lock, allowing you to efficiently deploy the blade with a flipper or ambidextrous dual thumb studs. If you’re looking for a versatile blade with extreme style and sophistication, this is it. Learn more

Steve Shackleford

Pro-Strider SnG Graces New BLADE Cover

Design and Make a Combat Knife

Recommended for You:

Knife Law Update: Ivory Victory!

Top Lady Smiths Highlight New BLADE®

Save Legal Ivory & Mammoth Ivory Now!

Photo Gallery: Warm Up With 8 Hot New 2015 CRKT Knives!

CRKT Saker

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Knife Icon Chuck Buck Passes Away

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