Attended the Blade Show on Friday. A rainy day with IMHO , a fairly small crowd.

We walked through the Custom slide first , Maybe there were some uber famous makers there but I was unaware. Saw lots of nicely done blades but also a lot of custom stuff that was fairly useless. And 95% of the prices were surprisingly high.

I'm used to gun shows and can relate to rare guns. But a recently built blade ,by some guy who I have never heard of, for $1K or more? Didn't get that at all.

The other side with knife makers tools, and the large commercial builders like Benchmade , etc. I enjoyed that side a bit more.

Chatted with Bill Harsey at Chris Reeve for some time. I met Bill several yrs back when we visited the CR shop in Boise and got a tour. Nice guys and I like his designs.

They were doing a brisk business.

Smoky Mtn Knife Works was there selling BM/ZT and Spidercos, etc at a nice price. Bought a BM Bug Out as a gift for my Nieces husband. Also brought home a BM Proper but a limited edition with blue scales.

Visited the Benchmade factory on Thursday. No tour, but one can look down on the factory floor, at least a part of it. And the Factory Store was nice too. As expected everything they build fo sale or on display. Where bought the new Proper. A nice -30% for LE / Mil.

Heard from one of the vendors that the show was packed both Saturday and Sunday. So it may become a regular show for Portland?

I was surprised at the amount of small custom makers.