End Of Another Good Year

Not long after receiving my KITH knife and the Sunday after Clifton’s Stroll Through Xmas I came down with an uncommon (for me) cold. This dang thing was nice enough to allow me to work but nasty enough to keep me down the rest of the time.

So on the 29^th of December Leslie talked me into going out hunting for the first time in over two weeks. She has been hunting most days. I made it for 1 ½ hours. The next day I got to my stand by 3:00 and did my best to stay quiet and keep my attention up. Only a couple squirrels romped around for the first two hours. With less than 10 minutes left from the bottom of the hollow came the sound of the footsteps of a deer. I see the body move in a purposeful gait. It is lost for a moment in the tangles. Before I know it the deer is alongside me not 15 yards away. One antler is all I can see. I mentally ask the deer if I can take him and he puts his head down to eat. BANG! My shot is good and there will be venison in the freezer this year. One antler is all he had, and am very thankful for his snacrifice.

So ends another year-2011.

A Stroll Through Christmas.

“A stroll through Christmas” on Main Street Clifton, TN was the last show of the year. December 16th and 17th from 6:00pm until 8:00pm both nights. Main Street was illuminated by candle light, every business was theme decorated, and carolers were singing traditional Christmas songs.

Children had cookies with Santa (a free professional photo will be given for each child), free crafts for kids, a Christmas tree farm, restaurants were open, and shopping available for families. Each night will ended with a Civil War Christmas presentation at the historic Presbyterian Church. Sponsored by the Rotary Club of Clifton.

This turned out much better than I had expected as I sold my nicest knife to a wonderful lady as a present to her husband. It was funny because just minutes after she bought it, he came by to look at it. I told him that somebody online wanted it and it was left at home. I'll bet he was surprised!

Walk In The Park

Friday Dec. 9^th we set up at Pickwick State Park for their “Walk In The Park” Christmas event that included 50 vendors and specials for couples staying at the hotel. This was the first time setting up at this event so we weren’t sure what to expect.

Friday setup went well but with a noon opening there weren’t many customers walking the isles for the first three or four hours. My sales were very slow as were most of the other vendors.

Saturday opened at 10:00 a.m. and there seemed to be a good amount of customers coming through. Sales picked up Saturday, and after a long day on our feet, it ended up being a successful show for us. Guess that means it’s time to create more stuff for next years shows. I’m going to try locating a few more heritage type shows as people who attend them are more interested in hand-made things like I make.

XMas 2011 KITH

The knife I received was from Jason Carter. It is a 9 7/8” knife of W2 with filework at the top of the handle and jimping at the spine/handle junction. The handle is made of buffalo horn with red liners and brass peened pins. It is a fine knife and it has taken on a patina from cutting up venison tenderloin. I am making a new sheath for this knife as the original sheath is way too loose for my taste.

"Alright! It finally came. Bob the postman drove right up to the house to sign for the box from Jason Carter. Thanks man! Nice knife. I'm telling you I'm going to put it through the wringer. It's Aldo's W2 in a drop point with a nice hamon. The buffalo handle fits my hand really well Jason. Great job. Thanks and Merry Christmas to all you KITHers. LOL Hope the rest of you guys get your knives soon.

"Ok. I've had shows to do and work and...blah, blah, blah. Here's a couple pics of my knife and some venison tenderloins. I used the knife to cut them out and cut them up after they were so wonderfully grilled along with some fried taters. You can see the steam rising from the plate. It is making my mouth water thinking about how good that meal was. What is cool is that the blood helped etch it a little. Gotta love high carbon steel. "

2011 Christmas KITH

The 2011 Christmas Bladeforums KITH went off well with 26 or 27 participants.

My knife for the KITH was a Clip Point Hunter with Osage Micarta that went to Steve Grosvenor.

"WOO HOO I have received my KITH knife from Arcadia Knives, a wonderful hunting knife with handle material I need to learn more about "Osage Micarta" as well as a BONUS gift Thank you Patrick."

Thanks again Patrick I hope to get a chance to use it soon!

PS: As soon as my wife saw the necklace the first thing she asked is if I could make her something like that???

XMas 2011 KITH

My submission for the XMas 2011 KITH is ready to ship to whoevers name is drawn on BladeForums.com. There are some AWESOME knives submitted so far. I would be proud to receive any one of these knives.

Everyone involved has to have their knives posted as "Ready To Ship" by December 1st. This will give the delivery service plenty of time to deliver prior to XMas day. Possible exceptions are international entrants.


This is my entry for the 2011 Christmas KITH:

It is a Clip Point Hunter with a little Belly to it
1095 High Carbon Steel 3/32" thick
I'll call the handle material Osage Micarta. It really looks like Osage Orange.
Brass Pins and Thong Tube
Blade Length of 3 3/4"
Overall Length of 8 1/8"
Black Hand Stitched Leather Sheath

Photo isn't the greatest.
Hope y'all like it.

I will update this after names have been drawn. So the next question is...Do I leave the knife I receive in the box until XMas or do I tear that thing open as soon as I find it in the mailbox? What usually happens is my intentions are to wait, wait, wait. But when the box is in hand the urge to open it overcomes all the will I muster to save it. Guess I'm still a little boy when it comes to presents like new knives.

Whew!!!!!

Another one bites the dust. I am so glad that the Franklin, TN “2011 Pumpkinfest” is behind me. There was so much work done for this show. It is time to relax a little before the next show.

The day started out a little on the rough side. One of my headlights was out. That happened to be the good one that died. The other was so dim you really could hardly see the line on the side of the road. We made it through the windy road that turns into the highway. Uh-oh there is Super Fog hitting us and I can’t see 50 feet ahead of me, it’s dark and there is no letup of this dang fog. Now Leslie is starting to get car sick and it’s still dark out. We finally made it to the show and got things set up with plenty of time before the show starts.

We could not believe how many people attended Pumpkinfest. So many nice folks stopped by to check out the goods. It took a long time before we made the first sale but after that things seemed to go very smoothly. There were a lot of folks dressed up for Halloween. We’ll be back next year to get those customers that wanted to buy, but were unsure of a new vendor.

Finally Finished

So I’ve had 2 gorgeous knives for my friend completed for some time now. He wanted two similar knives to be used for camping. We worked out a design and the blades were cut and ground. Handle material and sheath styles were decided upon. Next I talked him into matching Fire Stix to add to the sheath.

These knives gave me my first attempt at wood stabilizing. The handle materials picked were quilted maple for his wife and spalted sycamore for his brother-in-law. It was easier than I thought it would be to stabilize. It just takes a little time and patience. The vacuum was on for 1 ½ hours to get the juice drawn in well. The only thing I didn’t care for was the smell of the stabilizing chemical-Nelsonite. I left the blanks sit out for months before I cut them and got them ready to attach to the knives.

Preparing for my fall shows kept me from working on the sheaths for longer than I had hoped. When I was working on the sheaths for all the other knives these were fitted and formed and…..I didn’t get the loop for the Fire Stix right. The sheaths had to be redone. That is always a bummer but hey, it was the first time for the fire stix loop and I eventually got it worked out.

He received both knives on November 4th and he was very excited to say the least.

X-Mas In The Park

X-Mas In The Park at Pickwick Convention Center Dec. 9-10, 2011 is the next show for us. This will be the shows 7th year running and our first. Hopefully it will prove to be a great show to attend. We are currently looking for another stocking stuffer that we can sell the heck out of. Look forward knife to seeing knife Y’all there to knife shop for that knife special gift.