Kevin
06-04-04, 12:32 AM
http://www.coutelcutlery.com/photogallery/photo32767/comp%20knife.jpg
This weekend I attended the Batson Knife Symposium in Alabama. It was truly a great show, lots of demos by top blade smiths, knife show and lots of nice things to buy :) ..
The knife show included an ABS Cutting competition. ....
.......competitons are held at different venues over the year and the competitors with the most points accumulated over the year get to attend the world championship finals in June (Atlanta). The more competitions you attend the more chance of getting points.
This was the first official ABS competiton I entered.....so even if I won,. there was no chance of scoring enough points to enter the finals.
. The picture shows the knife I made and used.
Blade length and sizes for the comp/ must not exceed a 10 inch blade and no more than 2 inches wide. My blade is 9 1/2 inches long. Forged from 1095.
... convex grind all the way to a zero edge. The handle is a full tang with curly maple slabs which I textured for better grip. The handle has a distinct palm swell and , a necessary lanyard hole.
I designed the curve to handle the heavy duty cutting and chopping chores (when chopping, it falls nicely into the front curve), and the last few inches were designed for skinning (will skin a paper business card without cutting through). It has a finger choil in the ricasso so I could choke up on the blade for fine cutting if needed.
The blade was left with forge scale on the back and the ricasso area........ steel was blued.
The competition consisted of 19 competitors, several of them ABS MS and JS smiths........ This was the final competition to decide on the 5 finalists that will enter the world championships held in Atlanta this June. Finalists are chosen by a points system ..the more contests you enter, then the more points you will accrue. Some contestants travel around the US entering the competitions to win as many points as they can. This competition was important as it would make a final decision on who the finalists would be.
Some great makers and competitors , including the likes of Jim Crowell (last years world champion),John Fitch, Dicky Robinson and many others.
The judge was living legend knife maker Jerry Fisk.
There are various stages of the competiton. The first stage is inevitably the 2 x 4 chopping test....The 2x4 wood has to be chopped inside 15 seconds to score any points, and of course , there must be no edge damage to the blade ,which is inspected by judges afterwards.
My time was 11:54 seconds which I was very pleased with (quicker than some of the finalists!).
I took 7th place out of 19 on the chopping 2 x 4 test....John Fitch won the chopping stage with a time of 8:11 seconds (John Fitch is so consistant with the competitons that he must be the favorite to win the championships in June).
Other stages consisted of chopping a thick wooden dowel between a narrow predetermined mark (I missed !) and slicing a coconut in its husk which was placed on top of a tin coffee can. I sliced the coconut ok but also sliced into the can and thought it had damaged my edge , but it hadnt......
Two competitors were disqualified because of damaged blades.
Another stage was sticking a ping pong ball with the point of a blade. This I knew was going to cause me problems as I hadnt anticipated a stabbing test and didnt design my knife for this (neither did a lot of others!)....Also, stabbing a ping pong ball is quite dificult , as if you do not get it dead centre, it shoots off the table!!...not many passed this test...and I missed again!
Then of course, there is the 1 inch wide free hanging rope test ...a great test after the knives have been abused so much and not re sharpened!). I always think a 1 inch wide manila rope looks MUCH wider than 1 inch!)....The rope is free hanging and 6 inches is marked up from the bottom. The rope has to be cut in one strike within the 6 inche zone. I made an easy cut.
Overall, my knife performed as well as I could expect....if anything, it was operator error that let me down...and so I need to improve my aim for next time :rolleyes: .....and maybe make a bit more of a point for stabbing ping pong balls :)
It had been a great weekend, and I got to meet a lot of nice people, including attending a demo by Don Fogg (I really hope you manage to get him to attend next years BB hammerin as for me, it was the highlight of my weekend to see him work).
And , as usual, I spent more money than I had on lots of goodies!!!
:thanks:
This weekend I attended the Batson Knife Symposium in Alabama. It was truly a great show, lots of demos by top blade smiths, knife show and lots of nice things to buy :) ..
The knife show included an ABS Cutting competition. ....
.......competitons are held at different venues over the year and the competitors with the most points accumulated over the year get to attend the world championship finals in June (Atlanta). The more competitions you attend the more chance of getting points.
This was the first official ABS competiton I entered.....so even if I won,. there was no chance of scoring enough points to enter the finals.
. The picture shows the knife I made and used.
Blade length and sizes for the comp/ must not exceed a 10 inch blade and no more than 2 inches wide. My blade is 9 1/2 inches long. Forged from 1095.
... convex grind all the way to a zero edge. The handle is a full tang with curly maple slabs which I textured for better grip. The handle has a distinct palm swell and , a necessary lanyard hole.
I designed the curve to handle the heavy duty cutting and chopping chores (when chopping, it falls nicely into the front curve), and the last few inches were designed for skinning (will skin a paper business card without cutting through). It has a finger choil in the ricasso so I could choke up on the blade for fine cutting if needed.
The blade was left with forge scale on the back and the ricasso area........ steel was blued.
The competition consisted of 19 competitors, several of them ABS MS and JS smiths........ This was the final competition to decide on the 5 finalists that will enter the world championships held in Atlanta this June. Finalists are chosen by a points system ..the more contests you enter, then the more points you will accrue. Some contestants travel around the US entering the competitions to win as many points as they can. This competition was important as it would make a final decision on who the finalists would be.
Some great makers and competitors , including the likes of Jim Crowell (last years world champion),John Fitch, Dicky Robinson and many others.
The judge was living legend knife maker Jerry Fisk.
There are various stages of the competiton. The first stage is inevitably the 2 x 4 chopping test....The 2x4 wood has to be chopped inside 15 seconds to score any points, and of course , there must be no edge damage to the blade ,which is inspected by judges afterwards.
My time was 11:54 seconds which I was very pleased with (quicker than some of the finalists!).
I took 7th place out of 19 on the chopping 2 x 4 test....John Fitch won the chopping stage with a time of 8:11 seconds (John Fitch is so consistant with the competitons that he must be the favorite to win the championships in June).
Other stages consisted of chopping a thick wooden dowel between a narrow predetermined mark (I missed !) and slicing a coconut in its husk which was placed on top of a tin coffee can. I sliced the coconut ok but also sliced into the can and thought it had damaged my edge , but it hadnt......
Two competitors were disqualified because of damaged blades.
Another stage was sticking a ping pong ball with the point of a blade. This I knew was going to cause me problems as I hadnt anticipated a stabbing test and didnt design my knife for this (neither did a lot of others!)....Also, stabbing a ping pong ball is quite dificult , as if you do not get it dead centre, it shoots off the table!!...not many passed this test...and I missed again!
Then of course, there is the 1 inch wide free hanging rope test ...a great test after the knives have been abused so much and not re sharpened!). I always think a 1 inch wide manila rope looks MUCH wider than 1 inch!)....The rope is free hanging and 6 inches is marked up from the bottom. The rope has to be cut in one strike within the 6 inche zone. I made an easy cut.
Overall, my knife performed as well as I could expect....if anything, it was operator error that let me down...and so I need to improve my aim for next time :rolleyes: .....and maybe make a bit more of a point for stabbing ping pong balls :)
It had been a great weekend, and I got to meet a lot of nice people, including attending a demo by Don Fogg (I really hope you manage to get him to attend next years BB hammerin as for me, it was the highlight of my weekend to see him work).
And , as usual, I spent more money than I had on lots of goodies!!!
:thanks: