fishface5
Gold Member
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2001
- Messages
- 9,760
Well I just got back from Blade West in Portland, a very good time! Although next to impossible to access due to the construction, I literally spent 20 minutes looking at the hotel from different streets but unable to figure out how to get there. And I apologize in advance for the lack of pics - I was going to use my camera-phone but I forgot to charge it. D'oh! Anyway, it's always great to get to chance to hold the knives we see constantly on the net, and to feel whether they are actually alive or not.
2 purchases: I picked up the new Swamp Rat neck knife - just awesome, so light but a hand-filling skeletonized handle. Okuden will be making sheaths for these, I'm psyched. The other score, & I didn't know this even existed, was a Browning make of Bailey Bradshaw's pocket bowie, a knife I have long lusted for - and in jigged bone to boot! Absolutely delicious workmanship. (Insert Homeresque gurgling sound of pleasure here).
Highlights of the show:
Shane Seibert has a deal w/TOPS for two of his designs, which is great because his handle ergos & sense of balance are simply outstanding. The short tanto especially says "let's cut through a car door!"
Raymond Richards, who has posted so many beautiful small axes on the gallery, made a fighter that apparently won best fighter & really deserved it. The blade was at least 12" long and pointy as an arrow-head, but it simply floated, perfectly balanced. And his woodwork is gorgeous.
Okuden had an A2 chopper on display, made on spec for a customer but he will be making more. I think it was a 10" blade, slightly bolo-style, with a bird's beak handle, and it felt great!
In the next stall was Bill Seigle - His Hudson Camp Knife (8" blade) and big nessmuk (10" blade) were incredibly drool-worthy. Bill makes some of the best values out there, I've had several of his knives & they are all great performers, and getting more refined each year. You could see the hamons on these. Bill (a very nice guy to talk to) explained that he has really focused on handle comfort and cutting geometry to build a knife that excels at woodcraft-type tasks, while giving up some ground to Busse type knives in the breaching-tool department. The knives beg to be used. Some makers put a lot of effort into knives that look nice but are frankly clunky -- but not Bill.
The Goddards were there with a couple knives, & the Mrs says she is talking w/Sal Glesser about Spyderco bringing back the Goddard Jr. in white micarta. This caused Wayne to wince, since he likes the original black handles, but after some assurances that it would be an ivory micarta rather than linoleum-white, he seemed to come to terms with the idea that it would make a nice gent's knife. I'm going to the spyderco forum next to advocate for this, maybe in some tasty new steel, b/c that Goddard Jr. is one of my all-time favorite office knives. Fads come & go, but good design is good design!
Saw Todd Begg's table. That guy makes some of the smoothest flippers ever! We discussed how he laps the washers down to tolerances of .00005" & the effort pays off. The only smoother flipper I've ever encountered was a Matt Cucchiara, but both models just glide out effortlessly. And one JW Smith persian folder a dealer had for sale was also, although not a flipper, truly glass-smooth.
Another dealer had a couple Alsdorf slippies for sale. I've seen these on the forums a few times, and really the workmanship is indeed incredible as described by others. The interframes are gorgeous and the precision fit of all the pieces needs to be seen to be appreciated. Only problem - the knives are tiny, maybe 3" closed? If they were bigger I would have bought them all, car payments be damned.
Wasn't able to find one of the new Browning competition cutters, but apparently Gene Osborn has a design that Benchmade may produce, with a rubberish handle - I hope so b/c it performed really well in the competition & looks & feels great.
Other news I can think of is that I was psyched to check out a CRKT M4, but trying to figure out the auto-lawks on that one I found to be really cumbersome. Thje CRKT folding Hissatu is in fact very wicked, not a great handle-to-blade ration but very comfortable and seriously sick-y, i.e. made to stick stuff (although the action on the sample I tried was over-tight). On the Kershaw NRG2 I managed to tear up my index fingernail opening it, b/c below the flipper on the back of the handle there is a traction area that catches an errant fingernail perfectly. So I decided it wasn't for me. But I also got to handle the Buck Mayo Waimea, which would be a great small office knife once the handles were rounded & de-horned, it's very pleasing in-hand.
Finally, got to handle a Hinderer XM-18. Will some production company PLEASE grab this design!!! It is so so so great, fits my hand better that the Sebenza, rock solid and feels like an extension of the hand, but I'm just not going to spend $500 on a using knife for fear of losing it. But a $200 production model -- I would be on that in a heartbeat!!!!!
Last note - got to meet Gollnick, I always enjoy his reasoned political posts here , but in his avatar he looks like a clean-cut insurance salesman. Dirty secret -- in person, he actually kinda looks like a hippie! As an ex-hippie myself I was very amused.
So anyone else have impressions to report?
2 purchases: I picked up the new Swamp Rat neck knife - just awesome, so light but a hand-filling skeletonized handle. Okuden will be making sheaths for these, I'm psyched. The other score, & I didn't know this even existed, was a Browning make of Bailey Bradshaw's pocket bowie, a knife I have long lusted for - and in jigged bone to boot! Absolutely delicious workmanship. (Insert Homeresque gurgling sound of pleasure here).
Highlights of the show:
Shane Seibert has a deal w/TOPS for two of his designs, which is great because his handle ergos & sense of balance are simply outstanding. The short tanto especially says "let's cut through a car door!"
Raymond Richards, who has posted so many beautiful small axes on the gallery, made a fighter that apparently won best fighter & really deserved it. The blade was at least 12" long and pointy as an arrow-head, but it simply floated, perfectly balanced. And his woodwork is gorgeous.
Okuden had an A2 chopper on display, made on spec for a customer but he will be making more. I think it was a 10" blade, slightly bolo-style, with a bird's beak handle, and it felt great!
In the next stall was Bill Seigle - His Hudson Camp Knife (8" blade) and big nessmuk (10" blade) were incredibly drool-worthy. Bill makes some of the best values out there, I've had several of his knives & they are all great performers, and getting more refined each year. You could see the hamons on these. Bill (a very nice guy to talk to) explained that he has really focused on handle comfort and cutting geometry to build a knife that excels at woodcraft-type tasks, while giving up some ground to Busse type knives in the breaching-tool department. The knives beg to be used. Some makers put a lot of effort into knives that look nice but are frankly clunky -- but not Bill.
The Goddards were there with a couple knives, & the Mrs says she is talking w/Sal Glesser about Spyderco bringing back the Goddard Jr. in white micarta. This caused Wayne to wince, since he likes the original black handles, but after some assurances that it would be an ivory micarta rather than linoleum-white, he seemed to come to terms with the idea that it would make a nice gent's knife. I'm going to the spyderco forum next to advocate for this, maybe in some tasty new steel, b/c that Goddard Jr. is one of my all-time favorite office knives. Fads come & go, but good design is good design!
Saw Todd Begg's table. That guy makes some of the smoothest flippers ever! We discussed how he laps the washers down to tolerances of .00005" & the effort pays off. The only smoother flipper I've ever encountered was a Matt Cucchiara, but both models just glide out effortlessly. And one JW Smith persian folder a dealer had for sale was also, although not a flipper, truly glass-smooth.
Another dealer had a couple Alsdorf slippies for sale. I've seen these on the forums a few times, and really the workmanship is indeed incredible as described by others. The interframes are gorgeous and the precision fit of all the pieces needs to be seen to be appreciated. Only problem - the knives are tiny, maybe 3" closed? If they were bigger I would have bought them all, car payments be damned.
Wasn't able to find one of the new Browning competition cutters, but apparently Gene Osborn has a design that Benchmade may produce, with a rubberish handle - I hope so b/c it performed really well in the competition & looks & feels great.
Other news I can think of is that I was psyched to check out a CRKT M4, but trying to figure out the auto-lawks on that one I found to be really cumbersome. Thje CRKT folding Hissatu is in fact very wicked, not a great handle-to-blade ration but very comfortable and seriously sick-y, i.e. made to stick stuff (although the action on the sample I tried was over-tight). On the Kershaw NRG2 I managed to tear up my index fingernail opening it, b/c below the flipper on the back of the handle there is a traction area that catches an errant fingernail perfectly. So I decided it wasn't for me. But I also got to handle the Buck Mayo Waimea, which would be a great small office knife once the handles were rounded & de-horned, it's very pleasing in-hand.
Finally, got to handle a Hinderer XM-18. Will some production company PLEASE grab this design!!! It is so so so great, fits my hand better that the Sebenza, rock solid and feels like an extension of the hand, but I'm just not going to spend $500 on a using knife for fear of losing it. But a $200 production model -- I would be on that in a heartbeat!!!!!
Last note - got to meet Gollnick, I always enjoy his reasoned political posts here , but in his avatar he looks like a clean-cut insurance salesman. Dirty secret -- in person, he actually kinda looks like a hippie! As an ex-hippie myself I was very amused.
So anyone else have impressions to report?
I was just so in love with it that I guess it didn't matter.) It will be replacing my Kabar as my standard camp knife. Just as soon as I can make a sheath for it.