BLADE Show 2010

The past few weeks have been crazy, in a good way! The final days and hours before BLADE is always hectic and exciting. Almost like the week before Christmas...workbenches that are normally kept in decent order are bestrewn with filing jigs, worn-out pieces of sandpaper and the sad remains of guard-stock that never quite fit right. Over in the heat controlled handle material box completed knives begin to pile up absorbing coat after coat of finishing oil. Once the sand in the hourglass has just about run out it's time to start building sheaths. These always seem to take longer than they should with some turning out just as you'd hoped... and some not so much. The final shaping of the leather on the grinder sends floating pink shreds everywhere making it look as if we'd been plucking muppets in our spare time and leaving us shaking it out of our hair and explaining to disbelieving friends 'uh, that's not really MY dandruff'... It's rare it seems I'm out of the shop before 8 pm to even start dinner... conversations center on plunglines, damascus etchant and 'let's hope it rains since we don't have time to haul water'.

Adam trims a moose antler down to size for a handle...

The finished product!

My first fighter from anvil...

...To grinder...

...To BLADE show

Finally we'd finished all the knives we were going to get done. The night before we left we had a 'private viewing' for our friends and neighbors...

...had to have something to show for all the turned down invitations to adventures we'd been dishing out the past month! It was a fun time, lot's of ice tea and chocolates were consumed. Someone even came up with the idea to all pick a favorite and runner up and have a best of show award. After they all went home we packed our knives straight into the hardcase. The next day was gorgeously sunny for our boat trip into town.

It's always exciting to think about plunging into extreme civilization like Seattle and Atlanta for a few days. We were pretty wide eyed staring at all the people and very much looking forward to go 'out' to eat. We walked over to a quaint little pub and seeing the sign proclaiming 'Alehouse' I got excited "It comes in houses?! I'm gettin' one"

When the car came to pick us up and take us to our hotel we laughed out loud to see the man holding a sign that said 'Adam Bell'. My maiden name is Bell. I'd made the reservations months ago and the name change process (now that we're married) has been glacially slow since we live out of town. When Adam called for the car he gave him his first name. Anyhow, I'm sure my Dad would enjoy the sight of that..."right this way Mr. Bell"


We arrived Thursday evening, dropped our luggage in the room, each poked a favorite knife in our belt/pocket and set out into hot, muggy, Atlanta air. The first friend we found was Jim Rodebaugh, we got a privileged view of the thirteen or so beauties he had hammered out for the show. My favorite was the Exhibition Hunter which was later bought by Buddy Thomasen.

You can see it here
htt://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread/php?t=749050

After that we walked over to see our good friend Jason Knight who had his array of cutlery spread out in J. Paranee's room. Adam's pal Jimmy Chin was also there carrying a lovely damascus kiridashi. Here he is at the show explaining his Taiwanese Chieftan's garb to an enthralled Billy Rigill and Mike DuBois.

...I'm caught mid-pose with the boar tusk hat...

The morning of the show dawned pretty early for us Alaskan's...it was 2 am AK time when we pried ourselves out of bed to try to get there early enough to get some of the more beautiful pieces of ivory tusks (for knife handles) before it was all gone. And then set up our table. Here's a picture of it the second day...there's a few knives missing and that's a good thing!

Rodrigo S'Freddo, Jimmy Chin and Adam plot our bladesmithing trip to Brazil in Feb.

Thinking we would be hurrying back to hang our gillnet and prepare the boat for opening day of fishing season (June 20) I hadn't cut us any slack in travel plans. We checked out of the hotel Sunday morning before the show opened, tucked our bags under the knife table all day and then left straight from there to the airport. It was a whirlwind tour! Sold some knives, spent more on handle material than we made of course, another one of those circle of life things. As always it was great to see old friends and make new ones... to meet knife people from around the world and be inspired by other's talent and creativity...we very much enjoyed our time far, far away but by the end of the week Shrek and Fiona were very glad to get back to their swamp!