The BLADE Blogs

The whole world will be cutting at the 35th Annual BLADE Show. Question is, will you be among them?

June 3-5 at the Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta, the BLADE Show is the event knife enthusiasts point to year round, with many saving their knife “fun” money just for this one show where custom knifemakers, factory knife companies, and knife accessory, material, machine and tool suppliers and more introduce their latest knives and knife-related products.

Whether you’re a veteran of or a newcomer to the “sharp wars,” have your ducks in a row so you will miss as little as possible at the show. (Let’s face it, with almost 1,000 exhibitors spread out over 144,000 square feet and non-stop knife action for most of the three-day event, it’s hard to see it all.) With that in mind, here’s a short list of things to do and see:

•Get a BLADE Show Program: Available for free in the show lobby, the program will have the show’s most-up-to-date exhibitor listings so you will know how to find your favorite knifemaker, knife company, dealer, supplier, purveyor, collection or what have you. Also, check the program for special customer deals, knife giveaways, contests, live demos, silent auctions and other cool offers;

•If you don’t know, ask: Everyone’s knife family at the BLADE Show, so if you don’t know something, ask. And if the person you ask doesn’t know, ask if he knows someone who does. This includes finding out where the hottest knives are. Strike up a conversation with those in the show and ask them what they’ve seen that’s cool. You’ll be surprised at how you can find some really great knives this way;

•Check out the Knife-Of-The-Year Awards display sponsored by Smoky Mountain Knife Works in the show lobby for the entrants in the factory knife awards competition;

•To find out who wins the BLADE Magazine Knife-Of-The-Year® Awards, which are sponsored by Smoky Mountain Knife Works, the BLADE Show Custom Knife Awards and who the inductee to the BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall Of Fame© is, see the signs outside the show entrance Sunday morning;

•For the complete BLADE University class schedule—including J. Neilson’s class on how the Forged In Fire TV show selects contestants—and the BLADE Show seminar slate, see the signs in the show lobby;

•Be sure to attend the first-ever BLADE Show Women’s World Championship Cutting Competition and the 14th Annual BLADE Show Men’s World Championship Cutting Competition at 4:15 p.m. Saturday in The Courtyard under a new, sprawling tent sponsored by Burr King;

•Check out The Pit, the sunken lounge in the lobby of the host hotel Renaissance-Waverly each evening after the show, including the spillover from The Pit outside the hotel entrance, the perfect place to have fun and compare show notes with your fellow show patrons;

•Meet BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall-Of-Fame© member Ken Onion at the CRKT booth Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to noon.

There’s much more, of course, much of which will be up to you and your inquisitiveness in finding it at the world’s most important knife event. See you there!

The knives, knifemakers, events within the event, the people, awards—these and much more are the focus of the BLADE Show preview in the latest BLADE® Magazine, on newsstands today.

Boasting a cover knife made circa 1965 by BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall-Of-Fame© member Bill Moran that will go to the highest bidder in the ABS Auction during the 35th Annual BLADE Show, the new BLADE features it and a whole lot more, including:

•A selection of the hot new factory knives that will debut during the show’s three-day run June 3-5 at the Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta;

•The highlights, instructors and complete class schedule of the 3rd Annual BLADE University;

•The BLADE Magazine Knife-Of-The-Year® Awards, the factory industry’s most coveted individual knife honors;

•The 14th Annual BLADE Show World Championship Cutting Competition sponsored by BladeSports International, which also will include the first-ever Women’s World Cutting Championship;

•The annual custom knife judging competition, which annually entertains 200 or so of the world’s finest custom knives, with this year’s Best Of Show winner slated to receive special recognition during the BLADE Magazine Awards reception the Saturday night of the show;

•The annual induction of the latest member of the BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall Of Fame©;

•The show’s extensive slate of seminars and demos, and;

•BLADE field editor and High Performance Endurance Knife Mastersmith Ed Fowler’s eight keys to having your best BLADE Show yet.

Also this issue: ABS master smith Wally Hayes shows you how to bring out the hamon on folder blades; how to introduce your kids to knives, including the latest knives designed especially for them, collecting clubs for children and more; tests of the latest in bowies and affordable tactical folders; how to use clay as a teaching aid in making outstanding damascus; and a whole lot more in the latest BLADE.

One of the many reasons the BLADE Show is the world’s most important knife event is the BLADE Magazine Knife-Of-The-Year® Awards recognizing the factory industry’s top knives. This year the awards will have a new wrinkle when the Best Of Show custom knife winner is recognized as well during the BLADE Magazine Awards Reception sponsored by Smoky Mountain Knife Works.

The 2016 BLADE Show will be the 35th annual rendition and held June 3-5 at the Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta.

Conducted the Saturday night, June 4, of the show, the reception is where the Knife-Of-The-Year Awards, the industry’s most coveted factory honors, are announced. It will begin at 7 p.m. in Ballrooms 1 and 2 of the Cobb Galleria Centre (tickets required). Smoky Mountain Knife Works sponsors the Knife-Of-The-Year Awards, too.

The awards recognize factory knives in a number of categories, including best domestic and imported, most innovative, collector/investor, collaboration, manufacturing quality and others. All save one of the awards is open only to entries and voting by the many national and international show booth exhibitors. The lone category open to voting by visitors to blademag.com is the People’s Choice Award.

In addition to the Knives Of The Year, the show also hosts its annual custom knife judging competition, which is open only to the show’s hundreds of national and international custom knife exhibitors. The top honor in the competition is the Best Of Show Award, which goes to the category winner judged best of all the category winners by a panel of industry authorities. For the first time ever, this year the Best Of Show winner will be recognized during the BLADE Magazine Awards Reception.

With the exception of the People’s Choice Award, all entrants in the Knife-Of-The-Year Awards competition will be on exhibit in a display, also sponsored by Smoky Mountain Knife Works, in the show lobby for show patrons to see. Open to BLADE Show custom knife exhibitors only, the custom knife competition will be conducted in Room 104 of the Cobb Galleria beginning at 3:30 p.m. on show Friday, June 3. The judging is closed to the public.

The inaugural BLADE Show World Championship Cutting Competition for women will be held during the 35th Annual BLADE Show June 3-5 at the Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta.

Held in conjunction with the men’s 14th Annual BLADE Show World Championship Competition, the women’s title event, as well as the men’s, will be conducted by BladeSports International in “The Courtyard”—the parking lot of the show’s host hotel, the Renaissance Waverly. Festivities will commence at 4:15 p.m. the Saturday of the show, June 4, under a huge outdoor tent new for this year sponsored by Burr King.

The tentative list of women who will compete includes Jessica Elias, who became the first woman to vie in the men’s World Championship last year, Shanna Kemp, Jessica Hinton, Terri Lynn and Nicole Warden. The winner will receive a fully engraved championship belt buckle similar to the one awarded to the winner in the men’s World Championship.

The BLADE Show World Championships consist of a series of cutting tests performed by each contestant, including chopping 2x4s in half, cutting free-hanging rope, cutting rolling golf balls in half and other tests, including seeing how many water-filled plastic bottles standing all in a row the contestant can successfully cut. To add to the drama, exactly which cutting tests will be included in the event are usually kept unknown to the contestants until right up to when the Championships begin. Points are awarded via a system that considers the most successful cuts in the least  amount of time. The contestants must use fixed blades that cannot exceed specified blade and overall lengths, pass stringent BSI safety courses and observe other requirements.

In the men’s World Championship, Dan Keffeler is expected to return to defend his title. He has won the BLADE Show World Championship three years running, a record for consecutive titles, and will be attempting to win an unprecedented  fourth straight. The only other person to win three World Championships is Reggie Barker, though he did not win them consecutively. The tentative list of men expected to compete includes two-time world champ Gary Bond, three-time national champ Donavon Phillips, Daniel Coldiron, Jerry Kemp, Jo Smith, Christoper Warden, Brad Stallsmith, Luke Stallsmith, William LaRue, Dwight Schoneweis, Mark Elick, Andrew Blanchard, L.T. Wright, Dennis Mashburn, Russel Cain and Mike Eubanks.