BLADE Show

Hosted in Atlanta, Georgia in May or June every year, the BLADE Show truly is the World’s Largest Knife Show. It features the most diverse array of knives from manufacturers, knifemakers, collectors, dealers and purveyors, all under one roof. The BLADE Show plays host to the Blade Magazine Knife-Of-The-Year® Awards, the Blade Magazine Cutlery Hall of Fame© induction ceremony, seminars, demonstrations and much more.

Visit BladeShow.com for tickets, travel information, exhibitor registration and sponsorship opportunities.

BLADE Show Wants YOU!

BLADE Show June 5-7!
The BLADE Show wants you for the 34th annual rendition of the world’s largest and most important event June 5-7 at the Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta.

The 2015 BLADE Show at the Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta June 5-7 will have the hottest knives and makers in the largest, most important knife event ever.

Over 600 tables and more than 300 booths will display the world’s latest knives, knife accessories, knife collections, knifemaking equipment and materials and much more June 5-7 at the 34th annual BLADE Show in the Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta.

The BLADE Show is the world’s largest and most important knife event and draws knife enthusiasts from every continent and most every knifemaker and knife company you’ve ever heard of—and many you don’t know of who will be the knife legends of tomorrow.

The show will name the world’s most prestigious factory knife honors—the BLADE Magazine 2015 Knife-Of-The-Year® Awards sponsored by New Graham Knives, including the People’s Choice Award voted on by visitors to blademag.com—and will hold the most extensive series of knife instructionals of any knife show in the 2nd Annual BLADE University sponsored by Premium Knife Supply. The show also will recognize the latest inductee into the BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall Of Fame© and the new Aldo and Edda Lorenzi Award—a $1,000 cash prize to a knifemaker who exemplifies the best in terms of teaching others how to make knives. If he qualifies, Dan Keffeler will attempt to win an unprecedented third straight BLADE Show World Championship Cutting Competition conducted by BladeSports International.

Knifemakers from the Knifemakers’ Guild, the American Bladesmith Society—including some of the world’s finest handforged knives up for bid in the ABS Auction and testing for ABS master and journeyman smith status—and the world’s best unaffiliated makers will all be on hand to exhibit their latest custom knives, with some entering the show’s custom knife judging competition. Assorted demos on how to throw knives, the use of Japanese swords, how and what to buy and collect and many others, knife giveaways, lotteries, knife club meetings, after show hours revelry in the world-famous Pit, the sunken lounge of the show’s host hotel, the Renaissance-Waverly—these and much more all await you June 5-7 in Hot ‘lanta. Don’t miss it!

Click here to learn more about BLADE Show and get your tickets!

How to Have Your Knife Design Reproduced

Bose/Case knives.
Learn how custom knifemakers and manufacturers join to make knife collaborations from two of the best at it: knifemaker Tony Bose and John Sullivan of Case at BLADE University.
Tony Bose, award-winning knifemaker.
Award-winning custom knifemaker Tony Bose.

Learn how to have your design turned into a custom/factory knife collaboration from renowned custom knifemaker Tony Bose and John Sullivan, marketing director at W.R. Case & Sons Cutlery Co., at BLADE University.

Held in conjunction with the world’s largest knife show, the BLADE Show, BLADE U. will be held the day before through show Saturday at the Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta. The BLADE Show will be June 5-7.

In Bose and Sullivan’s “Your Knife Design Into Production,” you’ll learn the keys behind the decision to produce a particular knife pattern and what knife manufacturers are looking for in new production concepts. Additional topics will include how to plan for the production of the first knife samples and the steps involved in preparing for a larger-scale production run. Product packaging, promotion, marketing, sales and post-sales support also will be discussed.

Bose is an award-winning custom knifemaker of international renown whose custom slip-joint knives set the standard in the genre. Working out of Shelburn, Indiana, he has long been a proponent of traditional pocketknives, and few manufacturers have a better reputation for such knives than Case. Bose has designed knives for special collaborations with Case since 1998, including but not limited to a sowbelly pattern (2001), his Saddlehorn design (2004), a sway-back jack/gent’s knife (2008) and the BackPocket.

Based in Bradford, Pennsylvania, and owned by Zippo, the famous lighter manufacturer, Case is the leading name in collectible factory knives. Sullivan has worked hand-in-hand with Bose on the Case collaborations and will share his insight on the relationship from a manufacturer’s point of view.

For more on this class and the many others of BLADE U. visit BLADE University.

Learn Knife Grinding at BLADE U.

Chris Williams at BLADE U.
Chris Williams of Wilmont Grinders will be among the makers who will teach knife grinding during BLADE University, brought to you by Premium Knife Supply. (Wilmont Grinders photo)

Learn knife grinding at the 2nd Annual BLADE University brought to you by Premium Knife Supply in a three-part class taught by knifemakers Lucas Burnley, Tom Krein and Chris Williams.

BLADE U. will be held in conjunction with the 2015 BLADE Show June 5-7 at the Cobb Galleria in Atlanta. Also held in the Cobb Galleria, BLADE U. will begin the Thursday (June 4) before the show and end show Saturday. The grinding seminar is but one of a full range of classes on a variety of knife subjects taught by some of the world’s leading cutlery professionals.

In their blade-grinding instructional, the three makers will outline the proper tools and equipment, the importance of safety and show you how it’s all done.

In the classroom setting of part one, they will discuss two-wheel vs. three-wheel grinders; variable speed vs. fixed speed; the differences between 1- and 2-inch contact wheels; belts and belt backings; flat platens; small wheel attachments; rotary attachment; grinding jigs; and more.

From the classroom to the outside setting of The Courtyard of the show’s adjoining host hotel, the Renaissance Waverly, in part two the three makers will teach grinding for beginners on machines provided by Wilmont Grinders. The session will include how to scribe the centerline and grind lines on the blade, how to hollow grind to the grind lines and grind a swedge/clip, and more. Finally, in part three, Burnley will cover advanced blade grinding—including grinding in a fuller—and recurve, compound and convex grinds.

For more information including how to enroll in BLADE University and/or buy tickets for the BLADE Show, visit BLADE Show or e-mail [email protected].


Recommended for You:

Tactical Knifemaking.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

Design and Make a Combat Knife

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.”

Curtis Iovito, co-founder and co-owner of Spartan Blades.
Retired U.S. Army Special Forces and co-owner and co-founder of Spartan Blades, Curtis Iovito will help you learn how to design and make a combat knife.

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:

Tactical Knifemaking.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

 

List of BLADE Show Exhibitors Grows!

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Blade Show 2015The BLADE Show has always been an electric atmosphere for knife enthusiasts, collectors, dealers, users, manufacturers, purveyors and everyone in between, and it truly is the world’s largest knife show. With nearly 700 tables showcasing custom knives, knife collections, antique knives and knife-related products, and more than 300 factory and multi-custom-maker booths, a BLADE Show attendee really does need all three days to explore the show and take it all in.

The list of exhibitors for the 2015 BLADE Show, to be held June 5-7 at the Cobb Galleria Centre in Marietta, Georgia, keeps growing and growing and growing …

Click here to see the full list of exhibitors. Buy your ticket here! Attend a BLADE University seminar. And enjoy the 2015 BLADE Show!


Recommended:

Knives 2015Knives 2015

Get the latest knife information with features on the latest developments, history, and transformation of 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. Learn more

Top Knifemakers Highlight BLADE University

Rick Hinderer will be among the instructors at BLADE U.
Rick Hinderer will be among the leading names in knives serving as instructors at the 2nd Annual BLADE University.

Leading knifemakers Rick Hinderer, Ryan Johnson of RMJ Tactical, ABS master smiths Jerry Fisk, Joe Keeslar, Tim Potier and Lin Rhea, Lucas Burnley, Tom Krein, Jason Brous, Murray Carter, HEPK master smith Ed Fowler and many others will be among the instructors for the 2nd Annual BLADE University.

Held the Thursday prior to and through the Saturday of the BLADE Show—the latter which will be June 5-7 at the Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta—BLADE University is a whole new concept in knife show instruction that covers knifemaking, knife collecting, engraving, Japanese swords, knife design, bushcraft, sharpening and much more.

The class schedule:

THURSDAY, JUNE 4

  • Knives The ABS Way, Room 104

10 a.m.-11:30 a.m.: Introduction to Bladesmithing—ABS master smith Tim Potier

12:30 p.m.-2 p.m.: How To Make a Knife From Meteorite, with ABS master smith Lin Rhea

2:15 p.m.-3:15 p.m.: Part I of Handles and Guards, with ABS master smith Joe Keeslar

3:30 p.m.-4:30 p.m.: Part II of Handles and Guards, with ABS master smith Joe Keeslar

FRIDAY, JUNE 5

  • How To Grind a Knife Blade Part I, Room 109

8:30 a.m.-9:30 a.m.: Proper Tools and Safety Gear/Tips, with knifemakers Tom Krein and Lucas Burnley, and Chris Williams of Wilmont Grinders

-How To Grind a Knife Blade, The Courtyard

9:45 a.m.-10:45 a.m.: How To Grind, Part I, with knifemakers Tom Krein and Lucas Burnley, and Chris Williams of Wilmont Grinders

-How To Grind a Knife Blade, The Courtyard

11 a.m.-12 p.m.: How To Grind, Part II, with knifemakers Tom Krein and Lucas Burnley, and Chris Williams of Wilmont Grinders

  • GRS Engraving Instruction, Room 107

8:30 a.m.-10 a.m.: Introduction and techniques, including drawing, transfer and graver sharpening

10:30 a.m.-12 p.m.: Hands-on engraving, including hand engraving, finishing and Q&A

  • How To Sharpen Any Blade, Room 104

12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m.: Big Knives, Axes/Tomahawks, Razors and More, with knifemaker Murray Carter

  • How To Choose Your Knife, Room 104

2 p.m.-3:15 p.m.: Choosing a Knife You Can Depend On For Survival, including Design Aspects, Construction and Questions to Ask The Maker, with Ed Fowler, HEPK Mastersmith

  • Collecting Wartime Randall Knives, Room 109

3:30 p.m.-4:45 p.m.: What’s Hot In Wartime Randall Knives, with Randall knife purveyor Gary Clinton

  • Collecting & Maintaining Japanese Swords, Room 107

5 p.m.-6:15 p.m.: What To Look For When Buying a Japanese Sword and Proper Japanese Sword Care/Maintenance, with Wally Hostetter

SATURDAY, JUNE 6

  • From One-Man Shop To Semi-Production/Production: How The Pros Do It, Room 107

8:30 a.m.-9:30 a.m. Jason Brous/Brous Blades

9:45 a.m.-10:45 a.m.: Rick Hinderer/Rick Hinderer Knives

  • Bushcraft Knife Survival School, Room 109

9:45 a.m.-10:45 a.m.: Knife Design & Function, with Abe Elias

11 a.m.-12 p.m.: Knife Skills: How To Get The Most Out Of Your Knife, Including Proper Grips and Cutting/Chopping Techniques, with Abe Elias

  • Using 3D CAD/CAM Software In Knife Design & Knifemaking, Room 107

11 a.m.-12 p.m.: Ryan M. Johnson, RMJ Tactical, LLC

  • Designing and Making a Combat Knife, Room TBD

11 a.m.-12:15 p.m.: Design, Manufacture, Uses, Soldiers’ Needs, Peacetime Effects and More, with knifemaker Bill Harsey and Curtis Iovito and Mark Carey of Spartan Blades

  • How To Get Your Knife Design Put Into Production/Do A Factory/Custom Collaboration, Room 104

12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m.: Knifemaker Brian Tighe and Rod Bremer of CRKT

2 p.m.-3:15 p.m.: Knifemaker Tony Bose & John Sullivan of W.R. Case & Sons Cutlery Co.

3:30 p.m.-4:45 p.m. ABS master smith Jerry Fisk & John Cammenga of White River Knife & Tool

For details on how you can enroll for BLADE University and/or to buy tickets for the BLADE Show, visit bladeshow.com or CLICK HERE. For more information, e-mail [email protected].


Recommended for You:

Knife Grinding Secrets DownloadKnife Grinding Secrets (Download)
Author R.J. Martin, whose knives are some of the most popular and sought-after in the industry, instructs on flat- and double-hollow-grinding knife blades. Martin a frequent contributor to BLADE® Magazine, frequency, offers up his methods for blade grinding. You won’t be disappointed. Follow along as R.J. covers:

– Profiling a Chisel-Ground Blade
– Grinding the Bevel of the Kwaiken Model
– The Finesse of Grinding
– The Feared Flat Grind
– More!

Instant Download Here

Your EDC (Everyday Carry) Knife?

GB000752I got some good-natured ribbing at the 2014 BLADE Show because of my EDC folder. Being part of the show staff, I’m constantly taking my knife out to open boxes of magazines or books, or to cut tape for the book booth, etc.

When one guy saw me unclip the Gerber Bear Grylls lockback folder and extract it from my front pocket, he said, “Geez, Joe. Here you are, managing editor of BLADE Magazine, at the largest knife show in the world, surrounded by high-end, superbly crafted knives, and you’ve got an inexpensive Gerber in your pocket?!”

Well, yeah, I like the way the rubber handle feels in my hand, it’s slim, I like the black and orange color combination, it’s got a modified drop-point blade, it’s utilitarian, easy to sharpen, I like the wide paddle-style pocket clip, it doesn’t weigh much, and I don’t mind using it to open boxes and cut tape. So what if it’s only $33?

So, what’s your everyday carry knife and why? Click here for more Gerbers, or here for more everyday carry knives.


Recommended:

Knives 2015Knives 2015

Get the latest knife information with features on the latest developments, history, and transformation of 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. Learn more

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