Page 6 - Blade (January 2019)

READERS RESPOND |
How To Join The Guild
y name is Calvin Robinson and I
am the former Knifemakers’ Guild
Mdirector in charge of membership.
I would like to encourage anyone interested
to pursue membership in the Guild.
The Guild is constantly adding new
members, mostly knifemaker members
both Voting and Probationary, though
we also have other membership cat-
egories: Youth, Honorary, Associate
and Knifemaker Emeritus. All are ex-
plained in detail on the Guild website
www.knifemakersguild.com.
I would like to explain some new require-
ments for Probationary Membership that
seem to have caused confusion with long-
time members and applicants alike. Two
new forms are now required along with the
Application: a Comments Sheet and a Score
Sheet. The same four voting members who
sign the Application must make the obser-
vations about the applicant’s knives on the
Comment Sheet and do the scoring of the
applicant’s knives on the Score Sheet. Th e
Application, Comment Sheet and Score
Sheet all can be downloaded from the
Guild website.
Here is the process for becoming a knife-
maker member: Obtain an Application,
Comment Sheet and Score Sheet from our
website or directly from Les Adams, the
new Guild director in charge of member-
ship (see end of this letter for his contact
information). Read and understand the
Application. Go to the Guild website and
read and understand the Guild’s bylaws to
be sure you are qualified to become a mem-
ber. You must then present four of your
best knives to four Guild Voting Members
for inspection. Each Voting Member must
approve your work as to Guild quality, sign
your Application, comment on each indi-
vidual knife on the Comment Sheet, and
score each individual knife on the Score
Sheet. Once this is completed, send all the
paperwork and $25 to Les Adams. Les will
approve your Application and notify you.
From there you must pay for a table at
our next available annual show, the In-
ternational Custom Cutlery Exposition
(ICCE). Th e Thursday before the show you
must present four of your best knives to the
Guild Technical Committee for inspection
and approval. Upon approval of the knives
by the Technical Committee, you must at-
6 BLADE JANUARY 2019
tend the Guild business meeting the Friday
morning of the show in order to be voted in
as a Probationary Member. You may then
display and sell your knives at the show.
You will remain a Probationary Member
for a minimum of two years. During the
probationary period you must abstain from
making any claim to be anything other than
a Probationary Member of the Guild.
An option for the Technical Committee
approved by the Guild Board of Directors II was reading one of the “Top 10 Knife
and first used at the 2015 ICCE allows the
committee to award Probationary Sta-
tus to a maker who has presented knives
that don’t quite meet Guild standards. Th e
Committee will require the maker to pres-
ent four knives for its approval at the show
in the interim year. The maker will be given
a conditional Probationary Membership
and allowed to show his or her knives with
the understanding that improvements must
be made to his or her work. This is instead
of failing to receive Probationary Status and
having to start the process all over again.
To advance to Voting Membership, the
applicant must attend and display at the
second ICCE following his/her Probation-
ary acceptance, and again present four
knives of his/her best work to the Tech-
nical Committee for inspection and ap-
proval. Again, the applicant must attend
the Friday morning business meeting of
the applicable ICCE in order to be voted in
as a Voting Member.
I encourage those interested in joining
the Guild to contact Les Adams with any
questions. Guild members represent a wide
variety of knifemaking styles, and we would
like to continue increasing our membership
to include new trends and styles in the vast
knifemaking world. Come join us!
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For more information contact Les Ad-
ams, the new Guild director in charge of
membership, at 3516 S.W. 2nd St., Dept.
BL1, Cape Coral, FL 33991 786-999-3060
patadams2226@yahoo.com.
Calvin Robinson, Pace, Florida
Wonderful Warthog
’ve been interested in knife sharpeners
for a while and have gone through a few.
Sharpeners” comparisons written on the
web by God knows who. One of the com-
parisons has a sharpener I’d never heard of:
the Warthog Sharpeners V-Sharp Classic II.
I bought one and really like it. I didn’t see it
in the latest issue and think you should be
aware of it. The unit comes from South Af-
rica and doesn’t have much distribution in
the USA, so I think it’s relatively unknown,
though there are YouTube videos of the
sharpener in use. It is available on Amazon,
which is where I bought mine.
Try it, you’ll like it.
Richard Shilling, a letter via e-mail
Editor’s note: We are indeed familiar with
Warthog sharpeners—in fact, the company
has exhibited at the BLADE Show a number
of times, including at the most recent rendi-
tion of the event at the Cobb Galleria Centre
in Atlanta. By the way, the show will return
to the Cobb in Atlanta June 7-9. Meanwhile,
thanks for the heads up on the V-Sharp Clas-
sic II! For more on Warthog sharpeners, call
225-261-4252 and/or visit warthogusa.com.
To read about the latest knives, knife news,
blogs and more, visit blademag.com.
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