PNW Gathering?

Oct 9th..... I'm going to have to find a way to make this road trip happen.

 

Dam I think I'm in Sedona that week... no road trip down for me. Looking to be a great event! Show those ECG guys how it's done right

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I looked up what the flight costs. It was cheap enough I may well be coming. Would be really fun. I'll look closer into this

 

Do it.

 

A few handles are going out today for the test knives.

 

Updated List:

1. Maumasi Fire Arts
2. Haburn Knives
3. Dalman
4. Bryan Raquin
5. Harner?

 

This came up in discussion with a few folks and I thought I might post it here.

I have a nagging suspicion that it'll be tricky for makers to genericize their knives enough to prevent testers from identifying them on visual inspection. If I wanted to do a blindish test, I'd probably want something like foggy glasses to discourage me from looking at the knife closely, while being able to still see well enough to not cut myself during the test.

Maybe it's a bit too precautious, but since you're going with finishing rules and generic handles, it may be something to consider.

 

Thanks for the input, Robert.
This is a friendly "competition" where enthusiast can enjoy using blades by a variety of custom smiths that under normal circumstances might be difficult to come across.
The proceeds of the knives, if purchased, will go to charity.
Some anonymity is achieved by providing a generic blade profile and handle. Some of the blades will be recognized, but why does it matter? This is for fun, for you guys and gals.

 

Updated List:

1. Maumasi Fire Arts
2. Haburn Knives
3. Dalman
4. Bryan Raquin
5. Dan Prendergast

 

Updated List:

1. Maumasi Fire Arts
2. Haburn Knives
3. Dalman
4. Bryan Raquin
5. Dan Prendergast
6. Don Nguyen

 

my knife is ready to go

 

Looks like there's some damn stiff competition. I can't wait to see how the different blades stack up. I have been putting my feelers out and have a couple talented chefs in line for judging the different knives.

To help us get a head count, how many of you are, or are thinking, you'll be able to make it to the gathering?

Interested in hearing what folks are thinkin will make some good cut testing tasks. Also, curious what attributes you might think are the most important to test for? Food release? Ease of cutting? Wedging? Edge retention? Ease of sharpening?

These are designed for general use so obviously it's hard to get to specific about tasks, but I really look forward to seeing everyone's thoughts!

Thank you all! I'll be posting this over in the KKF too!

Cheers!

 

I think I'll try to make it up, sounds like a fun one. You guys need any help with food?

 

Event Update!

Food:
@Haburn and I will be providing some grub in the way of some finger foods. We would love for this to be a potlatch food situation (thanks for the question @pleue), so please don't hesitate to bring a dish, some of your favorite cured meats, cheese, etc to share! I will be providing some of the standard veggies for chopping, i.e. carrots, potatos, cucumbers, tomatos, onions, pepers, mushrooms, etc. If others would like to help contribute there as well, it would be wonderful. I'm gonna get a hold of some pizza dough, mozz, and tom-sauce, so that ultimately we can throw together some pizzas and salads for us all to enjoy along with general munching.

If there's anything specific that you would like to have available to do some cut testing with, please be sure to bring it with you. However, there is a 'farm stand' literally 5 min down the road from where the event will be held, so if you forget anything or run out of anything, they'll take care of you.

Event Location:
Originally the plan was to have the gathering at my shop, but as the group has grown and as I have no running water, therefore no available lavatory, I've decided that it makes more sense to move the gathering to a locale that can accommodate all attending. The gathering will be located at The Albee's Gardens. It is a great event space set on 5 beautifully manicured and maintained acres. They have plenty of room, facilities, tables, that we might want or need. Once we're all wrapped up at the Albee's I will be offering a brief shop tour (my shop is tiny), before finally bringing the gathering to a close.

Chef's Knife Cutting Competition:
We have two judges lined up so far, but ideally we would have a third. Here's our current line up: Chef Derek Bugge (pronounced boogie) Executive Chef at '99 Park' in the heart of Bellevue, WA. Next up is Taro Kobayashi, aka mametaro over in KKF. Taro is an immensely talented chef that will be driving all the way up with his crew, from Eugene, OR. If you're ever in or passing by Eugene make a point to make a reservation (he's always packed to the gills) and get some of Taro's awesome food into your belly.

Event Activities:

1. The gathering will begin at noon at The Albee's Gardens. Great time for hand shakes and introductions.
2. At around 1pm I'm going to fire up my forge and offer a blade forging demonstration where I'll walk you through my process for forging a kitchen knife.
3. At around 2 (or whenever the forging demo is finished) we will begin the Cutting Comp. At the same time I would encourage for folks to begin laying out their knives and swaping stories, cuttin stuff up, and generally knife knerd out.
4. As folks start working their way through veggies I'm gonna start slangin' pizzas, so cut some awesomeness up and bring it over to me so I can throw it on a pizza for you.

Any and all questions or comments are welcome, so please don't hesitate to chime it! That's what this is about, community!

Kindest regards,
Mareko

 

Man, that all sounds amazing!

 

Two of the competition knives arrived!

 

Sick!


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The PNW Gathering is just around the corner! I hope you all are gettin stoked for some knife shenanigans!

I wanna see some previews of what folks plan on bringing. I'll kick it off with my wife's wedding gift knife, my proof of concept knife I started while I was still working for BK, and my take on the oyster shucker.




Oh ya! And I'll have my wife and baby boy in tow.

I'm pretty sure there'll be other examples of my work their, but right now I can only vouch for myself.

Can't wait to see what other folks are bringin!

Cheers!


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Ooh, exciting!

 

I had another thought regarding the gathering and sharing photos and whatnot. I hope others will do their best to share pictures here on the forum (as will I), but as I know a lot of folks also use Instagram and Facebook, I was thinking it would be smart to use a common hashtag that would make it easy to find pictures and video from this event.

How does, #kk4apnw sound?

I know some folks may not be familiar with hashtags and others may absolutely hate them, but when it comes to events, having a common hashtag for all to use helps aggregate content that is being created based around that event. Picture, video, blog entries, etc, making it easier to search and find what your looking for.

I'm interested in seeing what you all think. I hope some folks are hip to it, I'll definitely be using the #kk4apnw hashtag and anything I post, you'll be able to find by Google searching #kk4apnw.

Cheers!!

Ps. In Instagram once it's been used it'll auto-fill for you when you begin to type the hashtag, that way you don't have to type I every dang time.


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