Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2022 i Blade

Gerald Willey W. Gerald Willey, founder of the long-time Willey Knives mom-and-pop retail knife store in Greenwood, Delaware, passed away July 24. He was 79. In business since 1970, Willey Knives sells and/or has sold the knives, sharpeners, knife accessories, scissors, kitchen gadgets, cutting boards and other edged and related items by just about every big name in the factory knife industry—Case, Benchmade, Buck, Spyderco, CRKT, Gerber, Chris Reeve Knives, Victorinox, William Henry, Wusthof, Henckels and many more—not to mention some custom knives as well. The store also has a full-time sharpening service for walk-in customers, those who mail in their knives and that caters to about 90 area restaurants. Though the store has a website, its specialty is and always has been handson service. Willey Knives celebrated its 50th…

When many of us blade enthusiasts think kitchen knives, we don’t necessarily associate them with outdoor or sport use. Likewise, many of us would not consider bringing our hard-use blades into the kitchen for prep work. Nonetheless, there are a few knives that have a broad range of uses in both kitchen and camp. They are the kitchen sporties. I tend to see a knife not just by the edge but by its blade thickness. While there is a utility to extremely thin-edged knives with thin spines, such blades are almost always designed for secondary or finishing uses. In my opinion, the thicker the spine the more utility a knife has for crossover work between kitchen and field. On the other hand, the thicker the spine gets, the harder it…

A quality social media post drives business, and Isaiah Schroeder sees some basic essentials. “I think learning how to take good pictures is so important, and nowadays videography also,” he said. “Most people will never see your work in person, so learning to represent it well through screens is a very valuable skill. A lot of my customers are not what you would call ‘knife people,’ and maybe have never owned a handmade knife. I think they’re attracted to the aesthetics and the idea of a high-performance knife but don’t know much about what goes into making one or why a certain steel is better than another, so providing some of that information without going too deep in the weeds is something I try to do with social media, too.”…

Andrew Meers loves pizza, so when his factory pizza cutter broke, he fixed it—and then made his first-ever custom version of one. The result has features only an award-winning ABS master smith such as Andrew would include. Fresh out of the oven is the mesmerizing disc cutter in a W’s explosion pattern mosaic damascus. A pet peeve is loose pizza cutter discs that rattle, so he tightened his down with the help of a foldingknife pivot fitting. The arm and guard are forged stainless with a blackened brut de forge look. He forged the crossguard in a plantlike shape, drawing the quillons out and giving them fullers for a bud-like appearance. The grip is ebony inlaid with bits of silver to resemble stars in the night sky. If 20th-century actor,…

The three featured cover pieces (page 12) are custom household cutlery with a Japanese design flair. The Honyaki Gyuto hybrid chef’s knife by Dmitriy Popov boasts a 9.45-inch blade of differentially heat-treated W2 tool steel, an ideal material for the handsome hamon. Dre Laborde’s straight-edge kiritsuke chef’s knife has a curly maple handle and a handsome matching sheath of stabilized maple (page 45). And the Haetori Honesuki, an all-around kitchen utility knife by Tony Cetani, is highlighted by a 5.5-inch blade of Chevron copper-mai steel with an 80CrV2 carbon steel core forged by Baker Forge. The mosaic damascus pizza cutter is by ABS Master Smith Andrew Meers. Enjoy it all you can in the story on page 82, as Andrew is focusing on making his award-winning fixed blades and folders…

Mostly used in connection with chef’s or cook’s knives, the handle known as a wa, or traditional Japanese, tends to have an overall lighter feel and bladeforward balance. “The design is simple, functional and aesthetically pleasing,” notes tophamknifeco.com. “Nine times out of 10 [the wa is] of a hiddentang construction where the tang is narrow and burnt into the handle to ensure a tight fit.” Full-tang versions are uncommon. According to The Cook’s Edge, knives with wa handles have a tang that is around three-quarters the length of the grip. The wa is often octagonal in shape/has octagonal facets and comes in all types of materials. The geometry indexes the knife so you can tell by feel where the blade is and how it’s oriented. Again, according to tophamknifeco.com, Japanese…

Assisted-opening knives, aka assisted openers or springassist knives, boast quick one-hand opening and a “fiddle factor” as well. They represent a hybrid genre between manual folders and full-blown automatics. They cover both the higher and lower ends of the knife market, so there’s one for everyone—including you. Boker Plus offers the Kihon designed in conjunction with custom knifemaker Lucas Burnley. Lucas is a hot tactical maker whose Japanese-inspired designs have garnered him worldwide acclaim. The Kihon’s modified clip-point blade is a little over 3 inches and D2 tool steel, long known for toughness and impact resistance. The blade is flat ground for exceptional cutting through a variety of media. A machined recess on the spine serves as a thumb rest to apply pressure and more control. Ambidextrous thumb studs double…

SAMURAI CHEF’S KNIVES P. 12 Tony Cetani, Star, Idaho 208-616-3557 hourglassknives@gmail.com, hourglassknives.com; DP Custom Knives, attn: Dmitriy Popov, Dept. BL12, 26 Wattle Tree Rd., Holgate, New South Wales 2250 Australia +61420240302 dmitriy.popov1@gmail.com, dpcustomknives.com.au; Gallus Blades, attn: Dre Laborde, Dept. BL12, 35 High Ridge Rd. West Hartford, CT 06117 202-309-0763 Gallusblades@gmail.com, Gallusblades.com; Eric Hemker, Dept. BL12, 20417 Huntington Ave., Harper Woods, MI 48225 517-227-1905 eric@hemkerblacksmithing.com, Hemkerblacksmithing.com KITCHEN SPORTIES P. 24 Spyderco, attn: J. Laituri, Dept. BL12, 820 Spyderco Way, Golden, CO 80403 800-525-7770 spyderco.com, sfo@spyderco.com; TOPS Knives, attn: Craig Powell, Dept. BL12, 3415 E. 109 N., Idaho Falls, ID 83401 208-542-0113 info@topsknives.com, www.topsknives.com; White River Knife & Tool, attn: Matt Cammenga, Dept. BL12, 130 Mason Dr., Coopersville, MI 49404 616-997-0026 matt@thewhiteriver.com, www.whiteriverknives.com PRETTY FLICKIN’ QUICK P. 32 Boker Plus, c/o Boker…

This year I received the BLADE Magazine 2022 Publisher’s Award at the 41st Annual BLADE Show in Atlanta. I am honored by the readers of BLADE® who have stuck with me through the years. Without your support I would have had a very short life as a knife writer. I well remember the day BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall-Of-Fame® member/then BLADE managing editor Steve Shackleford called and said Cutlery Hall-Of-Famer Bruce Voyles, then editor/publisher of BLADE, had read one of my first brochures, “The Using Knive and Function.” It seems Bruce felt I could write something for the benefit of BLADE and its readers. I don’t know if he had noticed that I misspelled Knive in the brochure’s title. I imagine he did though he never said anything about it. Anyhow,…

Chef ’s knives are among the most exotic and spectacular of custom pieces, as witnessed by the cover of our annual kitchen knife issue and lead story (page 12) on examples of the “food fighters” with a Japanese flair. Not only are custom chef’s knives exotic and spectacular but they also come in a wide variety of designs and materials, all of which helps make them some of the most versatile knives in terms of both utility and aesthetics. Custom chef’s knives have enjoyed a nice run the past several years, and as with many custom knife trends, many makers have tried their hand at building them. Consequently, as with most custom knife trends, chef’s knives have exploded in numbers. If you’ve been reading BLADE® in recent months, you may…

SPEC CHART MODEL: Mini Cleaver  BLADE LENGTH: 3” BLADE MATERIAL: 1084 carbon steel BLADE GRIND: High flat w/aged patina on the bevels, and forged finish on the flats and small l secondary cutting edge bevel HANDLE: Multi-part combo scales of blue-dyed camel bone bolster w/a sandwich stack of black fiber, brass and natural linen Micarta®; finished w/ironwood, brass pins and blue vulcanized fiber liners KNIFE TO KNOW: There’s a hidden pin behind the bolster for added handle stability; Chris James also makes the cleaver in an smaller micro version OVERALL LENGTH: 6.5”  SHEATH: Tooled leather pouch by Chris James MAKER’S PRICE FOR A SIMILAR CLEAVER (INCLUDING SHEATH): $550 MAKER: CJ Knives, attn: Chris James, Dept. BL12, 614 Seminole St., Russellville, AL 35653 256-810-4535 Cjknives1@gmail.com, cjknives.com (SharpByCoop image) SPEC CHART MODEL: Chef’s…

It’s been around a while now—long enough for an update on its relevance and impact on the knife industry. Meanwhile, social media in some ways remains a new frontier for both knifemakers and the market. It isn’t unusual for those interested in buying an existing knife or commissioning one from a pro to use social media such as Instagram, Facebook and other windows into the lives and work of custom makers. The media provide outreach and information on an unprecedented scale, and custom makers who take advantage of the opportunity to put themselves in front of the buying public take different approaches. Some use video, others still photos. Some use music, others narration of what the viewer is seeing. Some allow the hum and whir of machines or the ring…

In July 1990 I was in the Army, home on leave from South Korea and attending The Knifemakers’ Guild Show in Orlando, Florida. While there, I was introduced to the forged blade. I stopped by the table of ABS Master Smith Jim Crowell. He explained to me what it took to gain the prestigious rating of ABS master smith. It wasn’t just the quality of the knife that impressed me. I was amazed at how a 15-inch knife with a 10-inch blade could be so lightweight. While I was not new to fixed blades, my experience to that point had been with stockremoval knives. Jim explained that distal tapering is a procedure to thin the blade from guard to tip and spine to edge. The amount of tapering depends on…

“THE KNIFE’S WEIGHT MADE THE PUSH CUTS EASY TO CONTROL.” Old-school knives often have a classic look, and it’s even better when you can tell what the original material or tool was before it was transformed into a blade. When using recycled steel, more time is involved to prep the material for its new life. Can it be hardened, will it forge, will the steel take a polish? Paul Gonzales did his homework in producing the Manzano Farrier Rasp Blade. There’s no doubt as to what the blade was before it became a knife. EDGE ASSESSMENT To assess the original edge, I sliced 20-pound-bond copy paper. The Manzano performed smoothly, making a zipping noise as it went through the paper. The knife’s weight made the push cuts easy to control.…

NOVEMBER NOV. 4-5 MT. VERNON, IL Mt. Vernon Knife Show, Roland Lewis Community Bldg. Call 618-242-4514 e-mail bvilleknife@yahoo.com.* NOV. 4-6 PIGEON FORGE, TN Spirit of Steel Fall Pigeon Forge Knife Show, Smoky Mountain Convention Center. Contact J. Bruce Voyles 423-238-6753 knifeauctions@gmail.com, jbrucevoyles.com.* NOV. 7-11 TEXARKANA, TX Damascus Steel Class, the ABS Moran School of Bladesmithing, Texarkana College. Call 903-823-3270, visit cbe.texarkanacollege. edu or contact Don McIntosh mcintoshknives@gmail.com.** NOV. 12-13 TULSA, OK Wanenmacher’s Tulsa Arms Show, Tulsa Fairgrounds. Contact mail@tulsaarmsshow.com, 918-492-0401 mail@tulsaarmsshow.com, tulsaarmsshow.com, gunshowtrader.com/gun-shows/wanenmachers-tulsa-armsshow/. NOV. 18-19 NASHVILLE, TN Nashville Custom Knife Show, Sheraton Grand Nashville Downtown. Visit fiftyfiftyproductions.net.* NOV. 19-20 CONROE, TX Texas Custom Knife Show, Southern Star Brewing Co. Contact Mike Thomas, razorsharpmt@yahoo.com, texascustomknifeshow.com.* NOV. 19-20 WHARTON, TX Wharton Gun & Knife Show, Wharton Civic Center. Contact Diamondback Guns Shows…