If you’re looking to do a bushcraft project while in camp or just to pass the time in the dog days of August, check out the Spyderco Bushcraft G-10.
Spyderco’s version of a Bushcraft knife results from a three-fold collaboration between Tactical Bushcrafter Chris Claycombe, a Bushcraft website called BushcraftUK.com, and Spyderco designers. Knives used in bushcraft have specific parameters, such as blades between 4 and 6 inches in length. Spyderco’s is typical of the genre with a 4-inch blade. The blade features a Scandinavian or Scandi grind. A Scandi grind has a single bevel for a wide, flat, strong blade able to withstand twisting and hacking. The blade is O-1 tool steel.
Our knife—make that knives—of the day for Dec. 16 are Jeff Hall’s stylish framelock folders in a choice of blade finishes and plain and partially serrated edges, the serrations being especially dramatic as far as serrations go. The frames feature carbon fiber inlay and skeletonized pocket clips.
Instrumental in popularizing the flipper style of folding knife, Kit made a wide range of tactical and utility folders, the best known of which are the M16, M4 and M21. Reproduced by Columbia River Knife & Tool in a wide range of iterations, the M16 has been one of the company’s best-selling and most successful knives for many years.
As revered as he was for his knives, Kit was more respected for his willingness to teach any and all how to make them. When knives and knifemaking exploded on the Internet circa the late 1990s and early 2000s, his mentoring benefited perhaps as many new and upcoming potential makers as anyone before or since.
A voting member of the Knifemakers’ Guild, Kit spent 20 years in the Army, retiring as a master sergeant in 1993. He grew up in North Georgia, interested in all things mechanical from the start. He began making knives in 1972, the same year he was drafted into the Army. It was during his last 10 years in the service that knifemaking became an extremely interesting and challenging hobby for him. While he and his wife Betty supported their children, Kit would scrounge any place he could in government housing to grind a blade shape or handle, or try to figure out how a lock mechanism worked.
“We did not have the Internet, all the books or the specialty tools,” he said of those times in his prepared induction speech into the Cutlery Hall Of Fame at the 2012 BLADE Show. “Many of us still today do every piece by hand, filing, sanding, honing blades, slowly creating knives, spending hundreds of hours at knife and BLADE Shows establishing our names in the industry and, most importantly, making lifelong friends.”
A celebration of his life with military honors will be at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 10, at the chapel of Coffey & Chism Funeral Home in Vine Grove. Visitation begins after noon Wednesday. At the request of family, everyone is asked to wear casual clothing and bright colors in honor of Kit’s life. Donations can be made to the National Parkinson’s Foundation at www.parkinson.org.
The BLADE Show witnessed a record number of patrons and knives—including knife debuts that were off the charts. Here are eight among the many factory knife introductions.
A 6061 aluminum handle in Class III anodization and self-lubricating roller bearings in the opening mechanism are among the cool features of the MRX-LW from Rat Worx. MSRP: $299.
The ASH 2—”ASH” stands for “Anniversary Steel Heart”—from Busse Combat Knife Co. boasts a bountiful 9-inch blade of the company’s quarter-inch-thick INFI carbon steel.
The Spectrum from Emerson Knives, Inc., has a 3.8-inch blade of 154CM stainless and a NASA-certified black G-10 composite handle. MSRP: $263.95.
Pohl Force adds to its “Mike” line with the Mike Four Tanto in a hard-coat anodized aluminum handle with a glass-breaker screwed into the butt, and a stylish lanyard sporting a skull bead.
A new Integral Lock folder from Chris Reeve Knives, the Inkosi is a cool gent’s folder with a 2.75-inch blade of CPM S35VN stainless steel. Closed length: 3.875 inches. MSRP: $375.
Brous Blades gives the bird’s-beak handle butt a fresh look with the Enforcer flipper folder in the karambit style. MSRP: $319-$359.
Buck’s Inertia assisted opener sports a 3 1/8-inch blade of stonewashed 420HC stainless and an anodized aluminum handle. MSRP: $90.
The first-ever collaboration between Spyderco and Canadian custom knifemaker Brian Tighe, the Tighe Stick is highlighted by a titanium handle 3D machined with Tighe’s trademark swirling-groove look and texturing.
Recommended:
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Great knives, knifemakers, tips on knife collecting and much more are in the offing at venues across the country and abroad today and tomorrow, April 28-29.
   The Solvang Custom Knife Show is in Solvang, California, today ONLY. Some of the world’s finest custom knives and knifemakers are there. For more info click on www.nordicknives.com.
   The 30th Annual NCCA Extravaganza Knife Show is at the Hilton Hotel in Mystic, Connecticut, today and tomorrow.
   The Wolverine Knife Collectors Show is in Novi, Michigan, today and tomorrow at the Suburban Collection Showcase.
   The ABS Spring Piney Woods Hammer-In is today and tomorrow at the Texarkana College/Bill Moran School of Bladesmithing in Washington, Arkansas. For more info click on www.americanbladesmith.com.
   The 13th Annual Knifemakers Show is at the German Blade Museum (Deutsches Klingenmuseum) in Solingen, Germany, today and tomorrow. For more info click on www.messer-macher-messe.de.
   And finally, today is the final day of the Mason Dixon Knife Club Annual Show at the Best Western/Grand Venice Hotel in Hagerstown, Maryland.
For more on the latest knives, knife legislation, knifemaking instruction, knife trends, knifemakers, what knives to buy and where and much more, subscribe to BLADE Magazine, the World’s No. 1 Knife Publication. For subscription information click on http://www.shopblade.com/product/blade-magazine-one-year-subscripti…?r+ssfb042812#BL1SU.
New BLADE® salutes our military personnel and their favorite knives on the 12th anniversary of 9/11.
Military heroes past and present and their favorite knives are the focus of the new BLADE® (www.blademag.com) on the 12th anniversary of 9/11—on many newsstands NOW!
Featuring a Bob Dozier Freedom Fighter on the cover that stopped a bullet and likely saved U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Josh Clysdale’s life, the latest issue of BLADE (www.blademag.com) is our 4th annual military issue, and it covers the subject of military knives like no other.
The issue kicks off with a heart-rending story about Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, all save one of whom—Lance Corporal Travis Williams—were killed by an enemy IED in Iraq. Williams eventually returned home and began making knives part time under the tutelage of knifemaker James Behring Jr. Williams made a knife in honor of Lima Company that was auctioned to raise money to support the work of an artist who was painting life-size portraits of the Lima Company Marines killed by the IED. It’s must reading for military and knife aficionados alike.
There’s much more, including stories on the aforementioned Lance Corporal Clysdale and his “bullet-proof” knife; one on if a soldier had just one knife in a military emergency, what that knife would be; a knife collaboration between Andy Sharpe and Chuck Richards to honor the American GIs who fought off a furious Japanese Banzai attack in a little-known battle on Attu Island in Alaska during World War II; a ground-breaking new program to not only teach returning vets how to make knives but also to help equip them with the tools and equipment they need to do the job; a new “Arkansas Veterans” knife from A.G. Russell Knives, with $10 of the sales of each knife going toward an emergency fund for vets who are students at the University of Arkansas; a one-of-a-kind Bob Loveless Lawndale boot knife made specially for Pat R. Dailey, thought to have been a CIA operative; and much more.
   For your copy, check your newsstands. To subscribe to the digital version of BLADE, click on
Long-time knifemaker Ron Frazier passed away on his birthday, Nov. 15. He was 71.
“Ron was one of only a few knifemakers that was a true artist,” noted his friend, scrimshander Rick Bowles.
The long, tall Frazier was a huge fan of 19th-century knifemaker Michael Price and made a number of dress bowies in the Price style. Well-liked and easy going, Frazier crafted artistic knives in a variety of styles, most if not all one of a kind.
“Each of Ron Frazier’s blades are individual expressions of art,” wrote Cutlery Hall-Of-Famer Butch Winter in his profile of Frazier in the September 1999 BLADE®. “He does not make knives, he creates them. His pieces are bursts of inspiration carried out in metal, ivory, horn, wood or bone. They are all one-of-a-kinds since, as Ron says, ‘I don’t like to make the same knife twice.'”
Among the many awards Frazier won for his knives were the 1997 BLADEhandmade Best In Show and Best Art Knife awards. At the Southeastern Custom Knife Show in Winston, North Carolina, he won Best In Show for three years running and Best Art-Best Bowie Overall four years straight.
If you’re looking to do a bushcraft project while in camp or just to pass the time in the dog days of August, check out the Spyderco Bushcraft G-10.
