10/1/2008
I’ve been quite busy attending knife shows the last couple of weeks. The Knife Group Association show in Oklahoma City was the weekend of Sept. 20th & 21st and I went to the Spirit of Steel show in Dallas last weekend. I will be in Wichita Kansas the weekend of Oct. 4th & 5th for the Chisholm Trail Gun Collector’s Association Show. At the Spirit of Steel Show, I was blessed to receive the award for Best Damascus Design. I won the award for a folding dagger that I had entered in the judging competition. The dagger is pictured on the “Knife Gallery” page of this site. This dagger was my first attempt at building a folder of the locking liner design.
I am happy to report that one of my knives is soon to receive the touch of another artist. The knife is a Bowie that I made for the ABS Mastersmith test. The owner of the knife has commissioned Linda Karst-Stone to scrim the mammoth ivory handle. She will do both sides of the handle in a “Mountain Man” theme. The knife is in Linda’s possession at this time, with the work expected to be completed in three to four months. We plan to have the knife professionally photographed and submitted to the knife publications. I am very pleased to have one of my knives embellished by such a renowned artist and hope to see photos of it in print.
I am currently working on plans for a knife for the 2009 ABS auction. At the 2008 ABS banquet, my name was drawn to make the Master Smith knife for next year’s auction. I am planning a damascus Bowie, with a “Dog Bone” style handle of mammoth ivory and a sculptured steel guard. Also in the planning stage is a Michael Price style dagger. The dagger will have a damascus blade, mother of pearl handle slabs and stainless steel fittings. I will soon be welding up the damascus for these two knives and starting the construction of them.
Next week, I will be making a change to my shop schedule. Just over a year ago, I took an engraving class taught by Steve Dunn. During the class, Steve told us that when he started engraving, he spent one hour each day for a year practicing. This was sound advice that I planned to follow, but I was reluctant to take time out of the shop to do it. So, I thought that I could just practice engraving after shop hours and not interfere with knifemaking time. Well…… it didn’t happen. So, I will refocus and spent at least one hour each day practicing engraving before I go to the shop to work on knives. This will reduce the time that I have available to work on knives, but hopefully, I will develop the required skills to do high quality engraving. I have knives in the shop waiting to be engraved and knives on order that are to be engraved. So, developing the skill to engrave well is a must for me. I do not expect this to affect the delivery timelines for knives that I currently have on order, but it may extend the delivery timelines of future orders.
Have a great October and I hope to see you in Wichita!!
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