Forged knives are the focus of the latest BLADE®, on newsstands now!The Ikoma Korth Bearing System developed by Flavio Ikoma and Ricardo and Paulo Lala—here on a Korth Carved Reptile—helped revolutionize flipper folders.J.T. Oldham shares his views on whether you should reboot your knife collection in this issue.Find out where art knives such as this model by Dennis Friedly are headed in this issue of BLADE®.
Hot knives don’t get any hotter than those hammered to shape in the forge, and the latest BLADE® focuses on forged knives in all their radiant glory.
Chris Amos provides tips for novices on how to forge knives in this issue of BLADE®.Harvey Dean‘s damascus beauty won the Antique Bowie Knife Association Award for best period bowie by an ABS master smith. (Chuck Ward image)
How do you get started forging knives? High Endurance Performance Knife master bladesmith Chris Amos covers the basics every newbie bladesmith should know in “Top Tips for Novice Bladesmiths.” Attending hammer-ins is another must for those serious about forging knives, and BLADE Managing Editor Erin Healy tells you about one of the top centers of bladesmithing instruction, the New England School of Metalwork, in “Hammah-Time!”
Sometimes you need to start all over again, including with the knives you collect. Pat Covert interviews some top collectors for their views on the subject in our lead story, “Is It Time To Reboot Your Collection?” Throwing knives have been enjoying a resurgence lately, and James Morgan Ayres tries his hand at flinging some of the latest ones in “Bull’s-Eye!”
Art knives were among the hottest custom knives anywhere in the 1980s and ’90s but in recent years have been overshadowed by tactical and other knives. Dave Rhea examines the current state of the genre and where it’s headed in “Where To Now, Art Knives?” Gent’s knives have an across-the-board appeal for their looks, style and utility. Abe Elias tests four of the latest in “Steel-ish & Stylish.”
There’s much more in this issue, including how the flipper folder changed knife history, tests of two hunting knives, sharp holiday season gift ideas and much more in the latest edition of BLADE, on newsstands now or available in the digital edition. Or, you can subscribe to the domestic print, digital, Canadian print or international print editions.
“I was born a tinkerer,” Dwayne Horvath of Aku-Strike Knives of Pittstown, New Jersey, related. He was always taking things apart, from his father’s reel-to-reel video recorder to his car. By his own admission he was not great at school, but it was during those moments looking out the window, daydreaming, when ideas came to him—lots of ideas. It carried over into his car-racing days, his career as a successful fix-it man and now in retirement as a full-time inventor who daydreamed a trainer knife.
The Aku-Strike Mimic T-16 confirms contact with a red or green LED light and different tones for daytime use when lights are not as visible. Available in nickel or clear. MSRP: $41.95-$43.95. Contacts for Aku-Strike Knives appear at the bottom of this article.
The Aku-Strike Mimic T-16 came to Dwayne in a vision driving home one night from a training session at Alex Wilkie’s Martial Arts Academy in Bridgewater, New Jersey. “It was not a thought before it was a vision. The vision was possibly stirred by an emotion or feeling from training that night,” Dwayne explained.
Dwayne knew about the Shocknife, which is indeed useful for inducing fear in combatives training, but it’s is not something you want to learn on or use every day. Chalking the edges of training knives indeed leaves a mark to inform you and your training partner of a strike, but it’s messy and may not fully wash out of some shirts. There was a real need for another alternative.
Carlos Pipo Lopez and Samuel Yaron Brill, on the left, and Ray Dionaldo, on the right, all of FCS (Filippino Combat Systems) Kali, give Dwayne Horvath’s (second from right) Aku-Strike Mimic 16-T, an LED training knife with tones, resounding thumbs-up.
“I noticed some students going through the motions of training with the knife and wondered if they realize how deadly a knife can be. I then asked myself, ‘How could I be more aware of being cut and the danger of the blade and also convey to my partner that he is in danger or is being cut? We need something to alert us when contact is made, or what I coin, ‘confirmation of contact,’ while training,” Dwayne explained.
When you take away shock and chalk, you have light or sound left. “Now how do I make this work?” Dwayne asked himself. He had some knowledge of patents. He knew that if he designed something simple, he could get a broad patent. That would in turn mean he would need to minimize parts and keep the construction of the training knife simple. That is a challenge with all the patents out there. He knew he needed at least one switch to turn it on. Any more and he might be infringing on someone else’s design.
Then Dwayne asked himself, “What would be the best way to make the blade send a signal to the electronics? I started drawing and one hour later I figured out the basics. Of course, there were many thoughts and designs in between,” he added.
With the Aku-Strike in the sheath, the battery tray angle also serves to register your fingers to hook the handle for a quick draw. This is one feature that attracted Ray Dionaldo, of FCS Kali, as the feel was similar to his quick-draw knife. The knife also has a secure feel when your hands sweat. Contacts for Aku-Strike Knives are listed at the bottom of this article.
Dwayne was on his last chance with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. After reading many patents and going through a few attorneys, he got the patent worded appropriately. He then contacted an attorney who secured a patent. Two months later, Dwayne received the kind of broad patent he had hoped for. Then he got an additional patent.
The Aku-Strike Mimic T-16 has received endorsements from law enforcement agencies whose members must be thoroughly trained for whatever they might find on their beats, including an aggressor with a knife. Martial artists like Ray Dionaldo of FCS (Filipino Combat Systems) Kali, Doug Marcaida of “Forged in Fire” fame and Funker Tactical, the home of all kinds of fighting videos, have all given the Aku-Strike their nod of approval. Even, Setcan, the company that invented the Shocknife, has endorsed the Aku-Strike. The two training knives are not really competitors since one can be used on a more regular basis, while the other can be used periodically to maximize the intensity of a particular training session.
Dwayne had originally envisioned an aluminum blade. “I took it to an Airsoft range. Kids were swinging for the fences. OK, not safe with aluminum for teens, plus you know it hurts—that’s a given,” Dwayne commented. He moved on to polycarbonite. “The polycarbonite had limitations with flex and strength, but overall it was a win, and much more forgiving,” he emphasized. “As a matter of fact, it hurt much less than many rubber trainers and, of course, aluminum.”
Dwayne’s goal was to appeal to a wider, younger demographic that was just starting out with their combatives training to hardcore adult players of Airsoft and paintball. He also wanted to reach law enforcement and martial arts professionals. He finds the inventing to be easier than the marketing. But without that creativity, there would be nothing to market. Dwayne received the kind of encouragement and validation he needed throughout his life, later when his business was a success, but also earlier around the race tracks of New Jersey.
Dwayne Horvath of Aku-Strike Knives spent his formative years on the dirt-track speedways of New Jersey. He was given the encouragement and leeway to tinker, to daydream and now in his retirement he has invented a training knife that gives instantaneous pressure-based feedback through LED light and tone during combatives training. (Photo by Bob Snyder)
“At an early age, I loved racing and would go to Flemington Speedway, a local dirt track…It was a family event every weekend, consisting of fast cars sliding around the dirt track and a bucket of fried chicken,” Dwayne recalled.
“One night my favorite driver crashed real bad, destroying the starter’s stand,” Dwayne felt terrible and wanted to help. He got his father’s permission, and Howie Cronce took Dwayne to his house and let him help. “After school I would ride my bike about 10 miles to his shop, work to the wee hours.” Dwayne would eventually fall asleep and Howie would wake him, put his bike in the back of his pickup and take him home.
“In high school I wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. I usually wanted to look out the window and daydream, but I did rebuild a teacher’s engine on his Studebaker and built go-carts from scratch.
“In my racing days, I had what some would call some crazy ideas (probably from daydreaming) about the workings of a car suspension,” he explained. He needed to learn more, but from where? In those days, access to the Internet wasn’t readily available. He decided to sneak into the library at a technical college and hit the books and microfiche to research the effects of tire-slip angles and G-force on race cars.
“I then saved money to buy a G-meter to put in our dirt car, which had never been done before. When uploaded to a laptop, this would show all the forces of breaking, acceleration and cornering in real time so we could see what and when things were happening.” Then adjustments could be made to the shocks, springs and geometry on the car. “I was invited to the Penski shop to study the new shocks we used and got to know Ray Evernham before he teamed up with Jeff Gordon and Hendrick Motorsports.”
And it’s been like that ever since. If grades were given out in daydreaming, Wayne would score an A-plus.
You can read your digital issues of BLADE Magazine anywhere you have your phone, tablet or computer, and there’s no need to find storage for all your old issues.
If piling-up issues of magazines seems like a waste to you… If you feel like you don’t have time to read a magazine… If you like the stories we offer in BLADE, but want a more economical option, then a digital subscription is the answer. An annual subscription to BLADE is $17.98, $4 off the print price.
Grand prizes include a free knife and pass to the 2018 BLADE Show in our Best Carved Jack-o’-Lantern Contest.There will be two Best Carved Jack-o’-Lantern Contest categories: Reader Favorite and Editor’s Choice.
Win your share of “ghoul’s gold” in Blademag.com’s first-ever Best Carved Jack-o’-Lantern Contest.
Halloween will be here soon, so now’s the time to break out that pumpkin and get to carvin’! While you’re at it and to add to the fun, you might as well enter our contest for the chance to win a ghoul’s gold in free prizes.
There will be two categories: Reader Favorite and Editor’s Choice. The grand prize winner in each category will receive a free knife and a free pass to the 2018 BLADE Show, the world’s largest knife show, June 1-3 at the Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta, Georgia. Three honorable mentions will win free tuition to the 5th Annual BLADE University, which is held the day before the 2018 BLADE Show begins and on show Friday and Saturday, also in the Cobb Galleria Centre. BLADE University is the most comprehensive array of educational classes on all things knife offered by any knife show.
The rules are simple: Carve a pumpkin in a manner that you think will get the most votes from our voters. And feel free to get creative! Though many choose to make scary looking jack-o’-lanterns, you can carve a pumpkin in just about any design you like. Take pictures of your carved jack-o’-lantern and a picture of the knife you use to carve it, include the knife’s model name and brand, and email it all to us. Visit the site daily to view the entries and vote for your favorite. Meanwhile, tell your family and friends to go to our page and vote, too. Remember: One vote per person only please! We will announce the winner on Halloween, Tuesday, Oct. 31.
BLADE Show 2018 will host the 5th BLADE University with instruction from such teaching pros as ABS master smith Timothy Potier (right), here giving a few tips to budding knifemaker Zander Nichols.David Broadwell won Best Art Knife at BLADE Show 2017 for The Wanderer. (Ward image)The BLADE Magazine Knife-Of-The-Year® Awards will be named at BLADE Show 2018. The BLADE Magazine 2017 American-Made Knife Of The Year is the Kranos by Spartan Blades. (Ward image)BLADE Show 2017 hosted the Men’s and Women’s World Champtionship Cutting Competition. Nicole Worden shows her championship form in winning the Women’s Title for the second consecutive year.
BLADE Show 2018 will return to the Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta, Georgia, June 1-3 for the 37th annual rendition of what has become the seminal event in the world of knives. More exhibitors and patrons attend the BLADE Show than any other knife event. Every continent in the world with the possible exception of Antarctica will be represented. Custom and factory knives in all categories—tactical, kitchen, EDC, art, utility, combat, commemorative, antique, bowies, hunters, skinners, daggers, camp knives, assisted openers, flippers, balisongs, neck knives, folders, multi-tools, swords, tomahawks, sharpeners, knifemaking equipment, displays—if it cuts, BLADE Show 2018 will have it.
BLADE Show 2018 will be many events within the event. The most comprehensive array of classes on how to make, use, appraise, collect, sharpen and otherwise do most everything concerning knives will be presented in the 5th Annual BLADE University held the day prior to the show and show Friday and Saturday. Free demos including a balisong-flipping competition, the BLADE Show World Championship Cutting Competition coordinated by BladeSports International, on the use of swords, knife and tomahawk throwing, what to look for in custom knives and many more will be offered show Saturday and Sunday. The annual meeting of the American Bladesmith Society, a special knife collection
BLADE Show 2018 will welcome back the balisong-flipping competition.
Make plans to attend the 37th Annual BLADE Show now. For hotel and other information click here. For the BLADE Show newsletter with regular show updates, click here.
Survival instructor and host of The Weather Channel’s new series “SOS, How To Survive,” Creek Stewart is releasing a new addition to his line of Whiskey Knives. The 7.75-inch-bladed tanto in A36 carbon steel is designed by Hank Gevedon of Reptile Toolworks with continual input from Creek.
Creek Stewart of “Fat Guys In The Woods” fame is hosting a new Weather Channel series: SOS, How To Survive. He is also adding The Rising Sun to his line of Whiskey Knives.
Creek runs Willow Haven Outdoor in Anderson, Indiana, where he teaches survival skills, provides some survival supplies and especially enjoys partnering with American artisans to offer items of high quality craftsmanship at affordable prices. His Apocabox is a subscription-based collection of survival items that arrives at your door every two months. He also offers a monthly survival skill program. Creek was the star of “Fat Men In the Woods,” and is again working with The Weather Channel on the new series. He is the author of an young adult survivalist romance titled “Rugosa.” A follow-up to that is also in the works.
In “SOS, How To Survive,” Creek and other survival experts analyze a series of real-life survival situations. They discuss what happened, what was done correctly by the survivors or what went wrong. The show started Sunday, August 20 and is ongoing. Throughout Creek offers tips that can be used in survival situations.
Creek Stewart Hosts The Weather Channel’s New SOS Series
Meanwhile back in Mount Vernon, Kentucky, Hank and his crew are gearing up to roll small batches of The Rising Sun into production by early 2018. Like all Whiskey Knives, The Rising Sun marries the early American frontier spirit and looks with the precision of Asia’s strong cutlery tradition. All of the knives are asymmetrically ground (so remember to only sharpen one side and just strop the other). The A36 carbon steel allows for a hard outer edge that is sharp and holds an edge with a tough inner core that is flexible and stands up to the rigors of hard outdoor use.
The Rising Sun from Whiskey Knives has a “ghost” guard that rides up the sheath, creating a striking visual when carried.
The handles are made from upcycled white oak whiskey barrel staves, which have already gone through a processing and aging. Fitting rivets are aluminum, and Whiskey Knives come with a 9-ounce belly leather sheath, stapled and dipped in paraffin wax. The Rising Sun’s sheath slides up through the knife’s ghost guard for an attractive-looking carry. MSRP: $189.
Contact Creek Stewart, Willow Haven Outdoor, 2867 N. 200 E., Anderson, IN 46012, www.creekstewart.com/whiskey-knives, on Facebook at Creek Stewart and on Instagram at @creekstewart.
A Digital Subscription To BLADE Is The Answer
You can read your digital issues of BLADE Magazine anywhere you have your phone, tablet or computer, and there’s no need to find storage for all your old issues.
If piling-up issues of magazines seems like a waste to you… If you feel like you don’t have time to read a magazine… If you like the stories we offer in BLADE, but want a more economical option, then a digital subscription is the answer. An annual subscription to BLADE is $17.98, $4 off the print price.
Troney Troler of Knives Plus likes the Victorinox Trekker as a fish knife—and it also has a bottle opener for your favorite ale.
Opening your favorite beer will be on tap Thursday, Sept. 28, for National Drink Beer Day, and you can cap off the festivities with one of the latest in beer knives.
Boker’s Tech Tool takes the traditional bottle-can opener approach to beer knives.
There are a number of new beer knives, from the traditional combo bottle/can-opening tools on Swiss Army and other multi-implement knives, to the more recent trend toward knives with the bottle opener in the butt of the handle or otherwise incorporated into the body of the knife. Examples of the latter style include the TOPS Pit Stop 3 and F.O.R.K. IT, Timberline Javelin BOK, the Kershaw Shuffle, Hops and Malt, Boker Plus Toucan, Coast FX200, DPx Gear HEST 2.0, White River Knife & Tool GTI 2.5 and Knucklehead, and Buck Selkirk Firestarter, Examples of the former include the Boker Tech Tool, Victorinox Walker and Trekker, and Great Eastern Cutlery Beer Scout Knife (a tip of the hat goes to the latter for the title of the knife category).
Since it provided the fizz for the headline, let’s start with the Great Eastern Beer Scout Knife. It employs a bottle opener of 1095 carbon steel to accompany a highly utilitarian sheepfoot blade. Since it’s carbon steel, be sure to wipe your bottle-opening implement and knife down after use and corrosion should be held to a minimum.
The White River Knife & Tool Knucklehead makes a great beer knife with a bottle opener in the butt and has a blade of CPM S30V stainless.
While we don’t think White River Knife & Tool was trying to insinuate anything about beer drinkers in general with the name of its Knucklehead beer knife, we DO like the name—Moe Howard of Three Stooges’ fame problem would, too—and we also like both the Knucklehead’s 2.875-inch blade of CPM S30V stainless steel and the bottle-opener in the butt. As Curly Howard might intone, get yourself a Knucklehead and “whoop-whoop-whoop” on down to National Drink Beer Day.
The preceding two are but a sampling of the latest beer knives. Check out those herein and be sure to drink responsibly and let someone else drive on National Drink Beer Day!
The Kershaw Shuffle has the bottle opener in the butt of the handle for easy opening.The bottle opener on the TOPS Pit Stop 3 is on the handle spine and should be used when the knife is sheathed.The Timberline Javelin BOK has a long handle for great leverage in popping your top.Four beer knives, from left: the TOPS Pit Stop 3, Boker Plus Toucan, Kershaw Shuffle and Timberline Javelin BOK (Bottle Opener Knife).The Beer Scout from Great Eastern Cutlery has a traditional bottle opener and a sheepfoot blade of 1095 carbon steel.Cap off your day with the bottle openers of, from left, the Victoinox Walker, TOPS F.O.R.K. IT, Buck Selkirk Firestarter and White River GTI 2.5.KnifeCenter’s Jason Kunkler used the bottle opener on the blade spine of the DPx Gear HEST 2.0 while on vacation in Peru. He did not mention whether he opened a cold one at Machu Picchu, however.The Coast FX200 is one of the new breed of beer knives with the bottle opener in the butt.
Contingency by Winkler II Knives is well designed for concealed carry. The sheath system offers a variety of carry options and the curved handle easily accommodates positive or 90-degree reverse grip. Contacts for Winkler II Knives are listed at the bottom of this article.
Contingency by Winkler Knives II is a concealable personal protection knife with a sheath system that allows for inside- or outside-the-waistband carry. (You’ll want to order a left-hand-draw sheath for right-hand IWB draw.) The 3 1/2-inch blade on Contingency is made of 80CrV2 steel and has thumb-grip gimping. The knife has a tapered, skeletonized tang and measures 7.625 inches overall.
The curved-handle design is well-suited for easy draw and positive grip or 90-degree reverse-grip positioning. It comes in your choice of walnut, maple or Black, Tan or Green Micarta. Rubber is available but is not recommended for concealed carry. The MSRP is $300. You can also order yours with sculpting, $15; sculpted WASP (air injection), $30; or sculpted multi-camo, $30.
Daniel Winkler’s Early Frontiersman Style
Daniel Winkler, along with wife and leather craftswoman, Karen Shook, started Winkler II Knives in 2016. Daniel’s ever-present love of early American history intensified when he started using black-powder weaponry to extend his hunting season. He added to his 18-century woodsman outfit by making powder horns and other accessories, and in 1975 he made his first knife. He was a member of The American Mountain Men and other historically strict reenactment groups, and began selling knives at gatherings, called rendezvous. The money he made allowed him to upgrade his car-wheel forge to a hand-cranked model. By 1988 he was making knives full time.
Daniel Winkler, co-owner of Winkler Knives II with his wife, Karen Shook, is based in Blowing Rock, North Carolina.
When he’d been at it for nearly two decades, he spent a few years entering cutting competitions. He says those experiences taught him more than he had learned in all the other years combined. Not only did he improve his knife-handling skills, he came to understand what made a knife perform in a wide variety of tests. Cutting competitions are timed events that involve a number of stations at which the maker and his knife must cut, say, a hanging rope, an upright straw, a row of water bottles, a cardboard tube, a pool noodle and then chop through a piece of lumber. The blade either cuts or it doesn’t.
Now he establishes the use of the knife before anything else, because no single knife can do all things well. He is honest about how knifemaking is always changing, sometimes advancing, sometimes failing.
In 1992 Daniel had the opportunity to make the knives and tomahawks used in the movie “The Last of the Mohicans.” His pieces also made appearances in 2012’s “Zero Dark Thirty.” It was his work on “Mohicans,” however, that would send him on the path to making knives and combat axes for today’s Special Operations personnel, while continuing to serve the hunter-outdoorsman community.
Contact Daniel Winkler, Winkler Knives II, P.O. Box 2166, Blowing Rock, NC 28605; 828-295-9156; [email protected]; www.winklerknives.com and on Facebook at Winkler Knives.
A Digital Subscription To BLADE Is The Answer
You can read your digital issues of BLADE Magazine anywhere you have your phone, tablet or computer, and there’s no need to find storage for all your old issues.
Save $4 off the print price of a annual subscription to BLADE Magazine with a digital subscription. If piling up issues of magazine seems like a waste for you… If you feel like you don’t have time to read a magazine… If you like the stories we offer in BLADE, but want a more economical option, then a digital subscription is the answer. An annual digital subscription to BLADE is $17.98.
