The winners of the 2008 custom knife competition winners for this year are as follows:

Best In Show- Ken Steigerwalt, Best Fixed Blade - Ken Seigerwalt, Best Damascus - John White, Best Art Knife - Arpad Bojtos, Best Fighter - Shawn Ellis, Best Bowie Knife - Jason Knight, Yvon Vachon Best Miniature - Yosho Sakauchi, Best Handle Design - Bill Tuch, Best Tactical Folder - R.J. Martin, Best Utility Hunter - Lin Rhea, Best Folder - Larry Newton, Best Innovative Design - Joe Caswell, Best Knife Collaboration - Hank Knickmeyer and Chantal Gilbert, Best Sword - Paul Jarvis, Best New Maker - Steve Gatlin, Best of the Rest - Todd Begg

 

 

It's over 90-degrees in Atlanta today.  Nonetheless, Jay Hendrickson was talking to the crowd and Tim Carr was hammering away this afternoon at the How To Forge Knives seminar.

Carr was working a piece of 5160 into a nice little hunter as Hendrickson told stories about the forging process, the knifemaking schools he teaches and bits of wisdom imparted on him by the late, great Bill Moran.

Despite the heat - and working on blacktop - Carr was impressive in the process, alternating the steel between the orange-hot forge and the anvil.  He wasn't phased in the least as he hammered away in the heat atop the blacktop.

Meanwhile, I was uncomfortable walking around in my Docker slacks.

Per usual there are a variety of seminars going on today and tomorrow.  I popped in this morning on Evan Nappen's seminar, What to Do If You're Arressted For Carrying a Knife.

Nappen is an attorney from New Jersey specializing in Knife and Gun Weapon law and really knows his stuff.

He stressed how if an officer notices the pocket clip of your knife and asks to see it you have the right to deny consent.  You're not resisting, if the officer chooses to approach you and go in for the knife that's his decision, but you do not have to consent to the search of your person.

He compared the situation to a traffic stop.  If an officer pulls you over and asks to search your car but does not have any probable cause to do so, you don't have to consent to the search.

However, should it come to an arrest or the officer taking you in, Nappen was adamant about requesting your attorney and remaining silent until that happens.

"You dig yourself deeper and deeper by talking," Nappen says.

Ask for your attorney.  Remain silent.  Stand by your rights.  These were the main points Nappen stressed.

Nappen also noted the importance of finding a qualified criminal defense attorney in favor of a general family or civil lawyer.

He even told the crowd of 75 or so in attendance that he could be contacted personally should they ever have a problem.  He has a wide network of attorneys nationwide that are knowledgeable about knife carry laws and situations.

 

 

The guys at Cold Steel have some pretty cool stuff going on. 

Topping that list is the new Tri-Ad lock featured on several of their new designs including the Rajah and Espada series.

Designed by Andrew Demko, let me tell you the Tri-Ad lock is super strong.  As stated in the Cold Steel catalog, "The cornerstone of the Tri-Ad's strength is the inclusion of a new "stop pin" which re-distributes the load of vertical positive and negative pressure on the lock."

This is one heavy duty mechanism.  It took some force for me to open the Rajah up, but once she was open there was no question she was staying open until the same force was applied to close it. "If you get a regular folder and go to chopping I guarantee you it's going to wobble," said Cold Steel president Lynn Thompson.

Well, this thing ain't gonna wobble.

Thompson, an avid wild game hunter, told us an interesting story about a hunting trip he was on in Australia in 1994 when one of his guides used the back of a folding knife blade to break the legs of an animal they'd killed.  Thompson noticed how the guide used the knife, noting how possible it was for the blade to close right on the hand.

Lock strength is something Thompson and Cold Steel has focused on ever since.

"One thing I'm always worried about is the blade folding on your hand," Thompson said.

With the Tri-Ad lock that is one thing you don't have to worry about.


Designer Andrew Demko (left) with Cold Steel President
Lynn Thompson at their booth.

The Tri-Ad lock was designed by Demko, a custom knifemaker that met Thompson at the 2004 BLADE Show.  After spending the following two years doing freelance work for the company, the two agreed at the 2006 Show that it was time for Demko to jump on board full-time.

It appears to have been a great decision for both parties.

May 30

 

Things are starting to slow down on the first day of the show.  All in all, a fantastic first day.  I'll be back tomorrow with an interesting story about the guys at Cold Steel, as well as updates from the seminars, cutting competition, awards dinner, etc.

As you can probably imagine, with over 1,200 exhibitors everyone has a knife story. One of the more interesting ones I heard this morning was that of the German knife company Pius Lang.

Cary Desmon of World Class Exposition Knives (Florida) is a carrier of the Lang Knives and asked to enter one of the handmade Lang customs into the Investor/Collector Knife of the Year Category.

Nothing unordinary about that. Well, unless that knife happens to a 100-blade behemoth featuring exhibition grade mother of pearl over 200 years old.

The pattern for the 100-blade model originated in the 1960’s when Walter Lang (fourth generation) a master cutler in Germany began to produce each one individually.

Today, Gerald Walter Lang, Walter’s son, started making knives last year and has produced four of the 100-blade models.  

“We know that Arnold Schwarzenegger has one,” Desmon said of the classic 100-blade model.

The 100-blade beauty takes over 120 labor hours to produce and costs $12,000.

If you think those are some impressive numbers, consider the 200-blade knife the Lang company produces that sells for over $30,000. The 200-blader features more countless medical and tree-splicing blades that constitute the additional 100.

 

Now that’s some serious knife collecting.

 

 

Bruce Smith was just announced over the loud speaker as one of the Win-A-Blade winners.

No word on if it's the former Buffalo Bills defensive end.

 

 

 

We've begun to announce the 2008 Win-A-BLADE winners.  There were 10 different makers that generously donated knives to this year's contest: Tex Skow, Tony Daughtry, Brian Goode, Yellowhorse Collectables, Spencer Reiter, Wally Hayes, Dan Koster, Prete Truncali, Alan Folts and Ken Warner.

We've been photographing the participating makers with their knives and Skow, a tiny southerner with a textbook drawl, had the quote of the day when he came to the center of the show floor to have his taken.

We handed him the knife and, after staring at it for several seconds, he says, "Why'd I give away something that good?"