In the past the show has been held at the Hyatt Rickey’s – but that complex was demolished, so Doug and the club had to scramble to find a new location. The Crowne Plaza Cabana is located right on El Camino Real, close to the old show location. This was nice because for those of us who had been coming in the past, it was easy to find and in familiar surroundings. The hotel itself was a big step up from the Hyatt. Except for my gripes about the desk and cleaning staff, it was an excellent location. Keiko, the meeting coordinator did a great job getting us the stuff we needed. The room seemed much larger in the past, and drew a number of top makers as well as some up and comers.
One maker who I had not heard of before whose work really stood out was Dan Pfanensteil (sp?). He won the Best Sword with a very stunning Wakizashi, and also had a nice fighter with a super dramatic hamon. I didn’t have the courage to ask his pricing, but his work was really top notch.
As the show photographer, I got a to spend a decent amount of time, under very bright lighting with some of the nicer knives in the room. Two of the nicer knives, in the “tactical folder” genre that really stood out to me, were Matt Cucchihara’s Batwing Flipper and Derek Fraley’s Torrent flipper. The common problem I’ve seen with flippers is that they don’t flip, or rather they half flip and then need a big wrist flick to open all the way. With the road paved by Kit Carson, Ken Onion and other pioneers, and then the “trend” toward flipper knives just exploding, a number of relatively new makers, and even some experienced ones wanted to jump on the flipper bandwagon. Most would agree that Phil Boguszweski is one of the masters of the flip, and the standard by which all others are judged. If you can’t make a flipper that doesn’t flip, just stick to making standard models until you can. I think this is the approach Matt took, ‘cause I don’t recall ever seeing a flipper from him, but these first few really work. The length of pull, the smoothness in the action and the détente are all contributing factors to his knife really really working well. On Derek’s Deluge linerlock that Luana (one half of “LarryLuana”) showed me as well as the framelock Torrent, he had all of those considerations fulfilled as well. I can see these two USN makers keep going in the right direction, it’s only a matter of time before PhilB has got to really start worrying about his market share
