It’s my pleasure to share with website visitors some research I conducted on knives that will debut at the BLADE Show in Atlanta, May 31-June 1. These are models some of the largest knife manufacturers in the world plan to debut at the show, so consider this a “sneak peek,” if you will.
The BLADE Show has fast become one of two main venues companies use to introduce knives, entire knife lines, accessories, and for new outfits and divisions themselves to be launched.
Coast Products FX350
Unlike the SHOT Show, the BLADE Show is a consumer and trade event ideal for debuting new models to a targeted, educated knife-loving audience as diverse as the show offereings. It’s the place to be for all industry pros, dealers, collectors, purveyors, users and enthusiasts.
Smith’s Abrasives Pocket Pal X2 Sharpener and Survival Tool
As Russ Cowen, marketing manager for the sporting goods and hardware division of Smith’s Abrasives, says, “The BLADE Show will expose this product to knife enthusiasts and media outlets that will, in turn, communicate the message to the consumer base. There is no faster way to create buzz about a new product than exposing it to BLADE Show exhibitors and attendees, who happen to be the most passionate and verbal people in the industry.
Boker Plus 02BO610
“BLADE Show attendees like to talk about knives, other cutting tools and accessories,” he adds. “They’re also creators, inventors and marketers, so when they see something they classify as neat or innovative, they naturally want to talk about it.”
At an inch-long closed, the spectacular 40-blade miniature knife by Japan’s Isao Ohbuchi won the Yvon Vachon Best Miniature Knife Award in the custom knife judging competition of BLADE Show 2019.
Along with all the other knives in the competition except Gabe Mabry’s winner of the Best Kitchen Knife Award judged by Ethan Becker, a select panel of three custom knife authorities judged Ohbuchi’s award winner. Including Becker, all three judges were chosen by the BLADE® staff. Ohbuchi calls his tiny folder a “sportsman’s knife” and stated it is inspired by the legendary Joseph Rodgers & Sons of Sheffield, England, which made fantastic folders and fixed blades in the 19th century. The maker also listed the multi-blade mini as a “horseman’s knife.”
Blade lengths: all in the .8-inch range.
Blade steel: 440C stainless
Blade grinds: flat
Handle material: mother-of-pearl Weight: 1.4 ounces.
The maker’s list price for a similar knife: $15,000.
The image of the cover knife is by SharpByCoop. The inset image of the BLADE Show is by Justin King.
•Operating/locking mechanism: Flipper with locking liner
•What to look for: IKBS ball-bearing pivot system provides a smooth, fast opening
•Weight: 6.3 ozs.
•MSRP: $140
•Available: Now
The Blade Magazine Knife-Of-The-Year® Awards are voted on each year at the BLADE Show (www.bladeshow.com) by the show’s exhibiting booth holders, plus a panel of five special judges, the latter whose votes count double. The 2013 BLADE Show will be held May 31-June 2, once again at the Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta, Georgia.
For the latest knives, knife trends, knifemakers, what knives to buy and where, knife legislation, knifemaking instruction, and much more, subscribe to BLADE® Magazine, the World’s No. 1 Knife Publication. Click on http://www.shopblade.com/blade-magazine-one-year-subscription-us/?lid=blss092012
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.
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.
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.
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!
Any discussion of the greatest custom knifemakers of the modern era must include the late Buster Warenski, a member of the BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall-Of-Fame.
While best known for his reproduction of the King Tut Dagger in the late 1980s, Warenski’s influence on custom knives, knifemakers and the Knifemakers’ Guild was immense and, in many ways, continues to this day. One of the early Guild voting members, he was considered among the best custom makers from the get-go. He excelled not only by the example of his workmanship but also by his leadership, serving on the Guild’s board of directors for a number of terms, including as president (1977-79).
A member of the BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall Of Fame, Buster Warenski was one of the greatest knifemakers ever. (SharpByCoop.com photo)
The workmanship of his knives pretty much spoke for itself. He could make just about any fixed blade, folder or sword, and make it extremely well, though it is his art daggers for which he is most remembered. He taught himself how to engrave and although he may not have been the best engraver, the early examples of his engraving held up among other knives of the time.
But then it always seemed that Buster found a way to make his knives the best—and one way was marrying Julie, who learned how to engrave and became one of the best, lending her talents to Buster’s knives and making them even more fabulous. (Julie Warenski-Erickson continues to engrave today and is married to knifemaker Curt Erickson.)
Perhaps the greatest tribute to any knifemaker is one from one of his peers who also happens to be one of the world’s best makers—in this instance, Steve Johnson. As Steve noted, “Putting myself in even the same sentence as a ‘fellow knifemaker’ with Buster makes me uncomfortable. No one will ever attain the skill and ability as a knifemaker as this great man did.”
For the latest knives, knife news and much more, stay tuned to www.blademag.com.
BLADEShow.com is ready to rock ‘n’ roll with online ticket purchases, exhibitor information, travel arrangements, schedules, and more. BLADE Show 2018 takes place June 1 to 3 in Atlanta, Georgia, but you don’t want to wait. The earlier you lock in, the better.
The BLADE Show is the Gigantopithecus of knife events. How did it get there? In chronological order, let’s review.
1) No Top 10 list can start without the start, and the BLADE Show started when BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall-Of-Fame® members Jim Parker and Bruce Voyles organized the first one at the Drawbridge Motor Inn across the Ohio River from Cincinnati in Erlanger, Kentucky, in 1981.
2) Jim and Bruce’s creation, in 1983, of the BLADE Knife-Of-The-Year® Awards and the BLADE Magazine Hall Of Fame® set in motion two cutlery industry achievements that today are among the most coveted knife recognitions. Announcing them all at the BLADE Show gave—and to give—both the honors themselves and the show more cachet.
3) Moving the BLADE Show to the sprawling Holiday Convention Center in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1984, to the site of the 1982 World’s Fair announced to the community that Parker and Voyles were determined to host a serious knife show contender.
4) The decision by the American Bladesmith Society to hold its annual meeting in conjunction with the BLADE Show—which the ABS has done every year since—established bona fides with many in the custom knife industry.
5) The decision in 1992 by Bruce Voyles, who by that time owned both BLADE® Magazine and the BLADE Show, to move the BLADE Show to the Renaissance Waverly in Atlanta thrusted the event onto the international cutlery stage. The show has never looked back.
6) The phenomenon that remains The Pit—the sunken lounge in the Renaissance Atlanta Waverly Hotel—became a magnet not only for revelers after the BLADE Show’s daily closings, but also a place where industry movers and shakers brainstorm new knives and knife innovations that shape the cutlery industry.
7) Then-BLADE publisher David Kowalski’s decision in 1997 to move the BLADE Show from the Renaissance to the adjacent Cobb Galleria Centre exhibition halls expanded the show’s look and size dramatically, and completed its ascension to the status of the world’s largest knife show.
9) The wholesale embracing of the BLADE Show over the past five to 10 years by the international cutlery community as the ultimate knife event has elevated the show to unheard of heights. A wealth of exhibitors—including herds of Knife-Of-The-Year and custom knife judging competition winning makers—dealers, buyers/collectors and industry professionals from every continent but Antarctica have taken the BLADE Show from being not only the world’s largest knife event, but also the most transformative global knife forum of all time.
10) Last, but most important of all, are the many thousands of patrons over the years who have made the pilgrimage to the BLADE Show to enjoy knives, knifemakers and each other in all their splendor. In the final analysis, it is the supporters of any endeavor that make the endeavor go. And nowhere does the preceding statement apply more aptly than in the case of the patrons of the BLADE Show.
The BLADE Show has fast become one of two main venues companies use to introduce knives, entire knife lines, accessories, and for new outfits and divisions themselves to be launched.
Unlike the SHOT Show, the BLADE Show is a consumer and trade event ideal for debuting new models to a targeted, educated knife-loving audience as diverse as the show offereings. It’s the place to be for all industry pros, dealers, collectors, purveyors, users and enthusiasts.
As Russ Cowen, marketing manager for the sporting goods and hardware division of Smith’s Abrasives, says, “The BLADE Show will expose this product to knife enthusiasts and media outlets that will, in turn, communicate the message to the consumer base. There is no faster way to create buzz about a new product than exposing it to BLADE Show exhibitors and attendees, who happen to be the most passionate and verbal people in the industry.
“BLADE Show attendees like to talk about knives, other cutting tools and accessories,” he adds. “They’re also creators, inventors and marketers, so when they see something they classify as neat or innovative, they naturally want to talk about it.”
