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Sorry I didn't post this earlier. Local Hammer-In this weekend at Ron Claiborn's near "East Town" Mall in Knoxville. It's open to the public. Lots of bladesmiths with lots of custom knives. Lots of seminars and demonstrations. You might find a custom knife at a good price. You might learn something as well.

Gary, Have you ever attended a dedicated knife show that was primarily custom knives? If not, this will be an eye-opener.

The Knives Illustrated Spirit of Steel Show is going to be at the Downtown Knoxville Marriott Aug. 5 and 6. Should be a nice show. I'm hoping it's a little bigger each year so we can keep a good dedicated knife show in town. I hope Graham knives and Blind Horse show back up. Kim Breed and Gary Wheeler are going to come and if Walter Brend is feeling well enough he'll be there. Ethan Becker and I will be manning the Knife Rights booth at the show so drop by and say hello (and join up:D).

Yes

I spent most of my time in the KnifeRights booth and some of the time out and about at the show. I was happy to see Colonial Cutlery springing back with new autos and that they joined KnifeRights. I thought the 1911 folders were cool. The new DPX knives handled nicely. CRKT is producing Ken Onion's Octopus cane. Carbon fiber over fiberglass with a cast stainless octypus.

Gary is on target. The new knives will be ready to ship by SHOT. LeadWaster, Did Uncle Ethan sign the boxes for your boys? If not, ya'll should sign up for one of the woodscraft classes at ETO that Ethan will be helping with.

Looks cool and pretty clever using a mag, but it also looks like it would be very uncomfortable if you actually had to use it.

What does it do that a bang stick doesn't?

I'll be there Thursday evening through Sunday. In one respect I'm not happy to see the show being promoted with the Tactical Gear show. It takes all the available time the show is open to the public to appreciate the custom knives and manufacturer's booths while still getting in a couple of seminars. I'm afraid that it robs an attendee of meeting and developing a relationship with a maker, designer or manufacturer and actually learning. It ain't a shopping trip to WalMart.

How long do house fires stay above 1,000 degrees?

I recommend Surefire ep3 plugs under electronic muffs with a 1.5 msec response time. Spend the money for a quality brand. You only have so much hearing to loose before it becomes a true burden. Foam plugs under quality electronic muffs are fine as well.

Look through A.G. Russel's website and see if anything jumps out at you. A. G. Russell Knives: The Knife Authority Since 1964 - Your Source for Knives and Knife Accessories

What do you intend to do with the knife? That may seem like a silly question, but picking the knife just based on the "best" steel someone recommends may leave you unsatisfied. Best could be edge retention if you cut a lot of carpet or cardboard or just hate sharpening. It could mean resistance to rust is important because you use your knife primarily to cut fruit for snacks. It also might mean that you don't want to pay a lot for a knife that uses a very modern steel. So before recommending a steel it is always good to find out what you want to do with the knife. I have a lot of knives, both production and custom, and the steel (or other alloy) that went into them is only part of what makes them good or great for their intended purpose.

I also like the 2 perspectives. There's a lot to be gotten from the no chances, waste no energy aboriginal approach of Cody Lundin and the aggressive military survival approach of Dave Canterbury. Lundin has been teaching minimalist survival for a long time and has been a recognized part of the bushcraft community out west as far back as I can remember. I still don't quite accept the whole no shoes thing in spite of the idea that you may not have any in a survival situation and you need to prepare yourself for that. The guys at a shop in Knoxville are proponents of the Canterbury approach and supposedly becoming affiliated with his school somehow.

If it hasn't been mentioned already, TN licenses water well drilling contractors. Here's the state webpage on it. The Official State of Tennessee's Department of Environment and Conservation, State Parks Website

I've only missed a couple and should be there this year. Blade is an entirely different sort of show so there isn't much of a good comparison to make. It is a mixture of trade show with companies showing product and custom makers at tables selling their knives. Folks like Ernie Emerson and Busse set up booths instead of tables. Some of the most famous custom makers in the world set up at the show and lots of knife makers with the potential to become the best on the world do as well. A lot of knife making material is available and some retail production knives as well as vintage. There are seminars and demonstrations and competitions and more knife nuts in one place than you've ever seen.

Ethan Becker dropped in at ETO this afternoon with bags of "goodies". Some were familiar, but a few were brand new never seen before. There were a trio of ~4.5" fixed blades that I'd not seen before. One was a smaller version of the venerable Magnum, a minimag if you will. Another was a classic bushcrafter grinde and the third was a clip point. All 3 had green micarta 3-D scales and wore black powder coat. Ethan pulled an updated version of the Machaxe out of another bag. He claims it is possibly the best chopper he's ever made. Considering the older BKTs I have and their chopping ability I need to get my hands on this proto to find out how it compares. I almost forgot to mention a non BKT he had along with him. Blue Ridge Sports, a very large distributor, has an exclusive on a stack leather washer handle KaBar new USN Mk I that you can see at the top of the image with the 3 new Beckers. Nice knife.

Whole house burn tests conducted by NIST showed 600C temps for 3+ hrs. If the safe is "insulated" with gypsum it turns into a steam bath as the water cooks out of the gypsum. That means rust under most circumstances. If your concern is fire protection look for RSCs with alumina or ceramic fiber batting insulation which will avoid the problem of steaming your firearms. I completely agree that 10 gauge is the minimum steel thickness if your concern is anything other than kids getting to your guns.

Yes and they're excellent.

Nice Who's your FIL?

Ka-Bar USN MkII knives have always used stack leather washer handles. You can restore them by soaking in mineral oil if the leather isn't too far gone and then dip in paraffin. If the washers are gone you can buy replacements and tap out the pin holding the butt-cap in place and restack them with new. Be sure to compress the washers while you put the pin back.

Think about that for a moment. The pawn shop sells them at a price that makes a profit. Maybe 1$ each. That means they paid $4/ea and the guy that sold them to them made money (and he isn't the manufacturer). Then the smuggler who got them into the US made money so that by the time you trace them back to the source, who made money, there's probably $2 in materials and labor in them. With an off the dock source running additional production of knives contracted by CS you get similar quality, but fewer middlemen for a cheaper price. To get dirt cheap you're dealing with real knockoffs that are using cheap plastics and cheaper metal. Run the knife for a few weeks and monitor how many cycles the pivot or lock lasts.

I have a couple of Kelgens and think Ken's a pretty nice guy. He shows up at the youth Hammer-In on the bottoms below SMKW. Be careful with the pyrite ammonite. It can blacken with exposure to air. Ask Ken if he protected the surface to prevent oxidation or if you need to clean it with acetone and protect with a pure paraffin coating.

Perhaps, but that's changing as well.

Except that's not quite what their law says. If you are a tradesman or have some other legitimate reason to carry one, you may do so. It is roughly equivalent to our "defense to prosecution" rules. Most Americans believe that owning a switchblade is against the law universally, but there are many laws with exemptions or various "defense to prosecution" exceptions that permit it. Same in the UK. Most Brits think that anything with a lock is totally verboten, but there are exceptions. A law doesn't have to completely forbid I thing for the majority of people to believe it does.