Meet the Blacksmiths

Details: Knife and Sharpening Open House, Sunday, September 16th from 1 PM-4PM at the Westin River North.

There is a cool event coming up this Sunday organized by Chef Knives to Go, a Madison-based emporium of all things sharp. They sell all manner of knives, sharpening stones, and accessories - mostly focusing on Japanese knives.

This Sunday, they are bringing a number of respected Japanese and American blacksmiths/knifemakers to the Westin for a kind of knife show and tell. There will also be woodworkers with cutting boards, handles, sayas (knife storage), etc. Chef Knives to Go will also have a table devoted to sharpening stones and equipment. While the makers will bring products to sell, it's a totally free event and there isn't any requirement to buy anything. You should be able to handle a bunch of different products/knives on actual cutting boards. There will be sharpening demonstrations and some free food and drink.

Here's the event link. There is a link there to a Google doc sign-up. You only need a name (no email or anything).

Over the last couple of years, I have purchased a number of knives from this company and have found them to be really impressive. More importantly, the owners are super-nice, knowledgeable knife enthusiasts who are always looking for new products and making well-priced house brands that are great values.

Moreover, they maintain a forum that is one of the friendlier places I've found on the internet (like this place!). It's full of helpful and supportive knife and sharpening nuts. In fact, folks often send their own knives out for others to try them and I've had a chance to try even more knives than I own.

In any case, I think this will be a pretty cool event. Some folks on the forum over there are flying in to attend for the chance to meet some makers and also each other and talk knives. I figured I'd cross-post here in case there is any interest.