Congrats to Lone Wolf!

The 2009 Blade Show, which was held this year in Atlanta (May 29-31st), was billed as "the world's biggest knife show." National groups, including the American Bladesmith Society and Knifemaker Guild, meet every year at the Blade show.

The awards given at the show are prestigious, with categories for custom knives as well as manufactured. Lone Wolf had two knives that won awards: the Blackfoot won Best Buy of the Year, and the Paul Defender won Best Overall Knife of the Year. You might remember me talking about the latter of those in my last post.



All of the knives that garnered awards can be viewed in an upcoming issue of Blade Magazine. It's always a really fun issue; I highly recommend picking up a copy.

Speaking of the Knifemaker Guild, don't forget that their annual Guild Show is in Louisville this year. It'll be held at the Seelbach from September 18-20th. To see a list of table holders and print out a free pass, check out their website.

Damascus

When there's free time in the store, one of my favorite things to do has always been to drool over pretty knives in Blade magazine or Knives Illustrated. (Hint: guys, make wallpapers of the pretty pictures for your free download section! Please!)

The general term "Damascus" is modernly used to describe metal with a visible grain pattern, sometimes with a texture, sometimes not. This can be created in many ways, from folding the metal to creating a mosaic of different steel rods to form any desired pattern.

Historically, Damascus steel blades were Middle-Eastern in origin, with legendary strength and sharpness.

If you're interested in the metallurgy and the history end of things, here's a very informative article from JOM, the Journal of the Minerals, Metals & Materials Society. (50.9 1998, pp. 58-64.)

I highly recommend going to look at an image search if you're curious. Sadly, copyright prevents me from posting pictures here. For really drool-worthy pictures, I recommend the two magazines above.

Looking on Youtube there are a lot of videos about how to make Damascus steel of different sorts. However, if you want a more professional sort of tutorial video, this2 DVD set by Mastersmith JD Smith looks like it would be pretty good. Does anyone have any recommendations?