The 10th Mid America Bladesmithing Symposium and Knife Show is upon us again, and will take place at the Miami County Fairgrounds, Troy, Ohio, August 22, 23 and 24th, 2014. We want to extend this invitation to you.

We have an excellent line up of demonstrators this year. Master Smith, Jim Crowell will be coming in from Arkansas teaching blade forging, grinding, and heat treating and putting a handle on. This is an excellent opportunity to learn from a master, no matter your present level of Bladesmith, you will learn a lot. If you are in to Damascus, Brian Thie, Journeyman Smith from Iowa, is demonstrating his Mosaic Damascus. Master Smith, Kevin Cashen, from Michigan will be doing a demonstration on handles and guards. Master Smith James Batson will be demonstrating Dog bone handled Bowies. If you crave the Journeyman status or Master status, B. R. Hughes and Kevin Cashen will be presenting on judging standards. Butch Sheely will be doing a demo on a silver wrap knife handles. Karl Andersen, Journeyman Smith from Minnesota, will be doing a demo on take down knife design. Journeyman Smith Bill Wiggins from North Carolina will demonstrate stainless laminate. I believe this might be one of our most diverse weekends yet. You should surely find something that interests you.

Our evening session for Friday night will be a surprise from Bill Wiggins and Joel Worley. Saturday evening we will have a cutting demonstration from Jim Crowell, Kevin Cashen and Bill Wiggins.

If you have never attended the Mid American, I think you will enjoy the experience. The facility at the Miami County Fairgrounds is great. The Southern Ohio Forge and Anvil organization, SOFA, is our host. Sofa also hosts the Quad State Round-up every September, which draws close to 1,000 blacksmiths and bladesmiths, so they are very experienced with large hammer-ins. This makes the ABS Mid American an easy task for them and they take very good care of us.

There are two main forging stations; each with either coal or gas forges. Each station also has its own air hammer. The area for green coal, or hands on forging, has a number of coal forges with all of the hand tools required. The classroom sessions are in a large air conditioned hall, we also use this same building for the knife show, auction and the cutting demonstration. It is always a dilemma to choose what to watch or participate in each day, demonstration, classroom or hands on, but what a great dilemma to have. You see the great line up of demonstrators, some familiar some new, so I think we will enjoy learning all the techniques and ideas.

We will start our weekend on Thursday with registration time and the optional demonstrator’s dinner. Let the office know if you are able to attend so we can give an estimate to the restaurant. All are welcome and we will introduce the demonstrators and guests and enjoy a meal together.

The Auction and knife show on Saturday afternoon, August 23, is the only time that we are open to the public. We have done what we can to advertise and bring in the public so we have a better possibility of having buyers for the knife show.

Please be sure to bring items for our auction. Any items made by the demonstrators at the event, blades, etc. will be in the auction. Please be generous in your participation as it is what keeps the cost of registration down and allows us to bring in great artists. We thank all who donate and buy.

All have a safe journey and we will see you there.

Looking forward to it.

I will be demonstrating mosaic damascus. The method I will show will start with a normal stack of steel and not a can. I do things to the steel to develop patterns on the end of the bar. The pattern is multiplied by doing 4 ways and then tile cut to get the pattern on the sides of the billet.

I feel that I am working for you while I am there, so I would like input from you on what you would like to see or not see. I can focus more on techniques, pattern development, tricks to yield more steel, tricks to insure best results, or aything else you can think of.

This is you chance to tell me what you would like to see as there is nothing that can be done on Sunday if you say "I wish you would have shown..."

This is a great event at a great facility and I look forward to seeing everyone there.

Brian

Here are two knives I will be showing how to build during my demo:

Hi all,I have 51 pre-registered for the event, should be a great turnout. All are welcome and you can register on site. I will shut down the registration on the website soon, but that does not mean we don't want you to show up at the door. Butch and I are looking forward to seeing all of you.

It's a great hammer in. I cant be there but I know you all will enjoy it. Safe travels.