Knoxville, Nov. 5,6,7 Spirit of Steel Knife Show

http://www.spiritofsteel.com/

The Knives Illustrated 2010
SPIRIT OF STEEL KNIFE SHOW

Knoxville, Tennessee
Marriott Hotel
November 5, 6, 7, 2010

Should be a nice show.

Attendance in TX was too low so they decided to try a different venue. Perhaps Bruce will decide to alternate between TX and TN?

You're welcome to crash at my place if it helps.

FIrst "day" of the show was fun. Got a big hug from Missy of Cas Ibera, hung out with Breed and Wheeler, spent some time with Jerry Skelton(possibly best switchblade dealer in the U.S.), got to play with Paragon's new giant Cupid OTF, thanked John W. Smith for helping sell one of his knives a buddy of mine had to earn some money with, looked through a dozen piles of damascus billets, tested Cas's new "combat waki" (nice), laughed while Bill Wiggins told a story about having run down a thief stealing a couple of BP rifles as Ethan Becker doubled over in pain laughing so hard over the image of some stupid meth head having a 300lb blacksmith park a 4-wheeler on top of him, took Walter Brend and his wife to dinner at Littons (Walter almost teared up at the first bite of strawberry shortcake).

Back to the show tomorrow.

Second day:

Helped set up Bill Wiggens's seminar on competition cutting and Ethan Becker's kitchen knife use/properties seminar. Insisted young Tom show off the nightmarish injury pictures from cutting through a free hanging rope and into his leg.

Spent some time chatting with Cas and Taylor and Kershaw and CRKT and Emerson. Taylor's pen is actually nice. And inexpensive. Cas won the foreign manufacturer knife award. Kershaw has a newish fixed blade flat sided knife with a "lazy S" shape that the guy at the show said he used on a whitetail without any appreciable edge dulling. It sure was nice in the hand. CRKT's Onions are just "sexy". One of the Emerson guys and I are on friendly terms and he and I talked about where he should try to eat in town and how to get to the gunshow at 75 Expo. Ethan and Bill and I had an overpriced mediocre lunch in the hotel. It was purported to be much better than the awful supper and worse service the night before. Kim and Gary and I had a marvelous dinner at Chesapeak's.

The show is slooowwww. First years in a new place (part of the country) are expected to be slow, but there were fewer folks coming in than you'd expect at an NKCA show. Makers aren't selling anything or just one or two. John Smith would usually have nothing on his table after the first 4 hours and he's only sold one knife. Walter Brend has sold one. I hope there's a second year for this show in Knoxville. Perhaps Oct. would be better than Nov.?

More tomorrow.

BTW, I'll be there today wearing a yellow on black Hawaiian shirt if anyone wants to say "Hi".

Well, the show wasn't a raging success for most makers, but it was the first time and that will be the slowest going forward.

I picked up some nice pieces Sunday and had a lot of fun so I at least enjoyed it.

I'm going to put together a Dining Survival Guide for folks at the show so they're not trapped at the hotel and the local ABS folks are going to put on an informal grill and grin at one of the local smith's forge the Friday night of the show so we can make it as much of a social as commercial success as possible.