Wanna see a whole bunch of handmade deadly sharp implements?!

I'll be spending part of this coming weekend at the SouthEastern Custom Knife Show, sponsored by the North Carolina Custom Knifemakers Guild. This is the tenth annual event that the guild has organized and it just keeps getting better and better with each passing year (it's already become considered one of the premiere crafting events of its kind in the country). I first attended back in '98 and have been quite a few times since then. This isn't the kind of cutlery that you buy in a store, mind ya: these are handmade - either by stock-removing from "blanks" of steel or forging 'em out the old fashioned way on an anvil - by people who've dedicated a lot of time and love into a craft that can only be called a high artform. I've no idea if he'll be there this time but the past few years have seen Bill Moran as one of the guests (Moran is the dude who about thirty years ago re-discovered, after it being lost for hundreds of years, the secret for making Damascus, or multi-layered, steel) and having met him a number of times I can tell you that it's a real treat to meet a real American legend as he is. I did hear that Ed Halligan, creator of the innovative K.I.S.S. knife, would probably be there. The symposium this year will include Knife World editor Mark Zalesky and Dr. James Batson discussing the history of the Bowie knife (I've sat through one and believe me, it's a pretty colorful thing to listen to) and Buddy Thomason talking about Scagel knives (of which he is a collector and authority of). The show runs this coming Saturday and Sunday, September 11th-12th at the Benton Convention Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.