Forged Blades Take the Weekend: ABS Hammer-In and Moran Show
Production knives dominate the EDC conversation, but the part of the knife world that still moves metal by hand continues on its own calendar. This weekend is a crowded one for it: Knife Magazine previews both the ABS Piney Woods Hammer-In and the William F. Moran Foundation's All Forged Knife Show.
The hammer-in is a teaching event as much as a gathering. Knife Magazine notes that one of the scheduled talks will cover using classic bowies as inspiration in modern designs — a session that speaks directly to the tension forged makers live with, where the forms that built the craft are also the forms that limit it. Hammer-ins matter because they are one of the few places where techniques like san mai construction, differential heat treatment, and hamon finishing get demonstrated live rather than described in a forum post.
The Moran Foundation show is narrower by design: every knife displayed must be forged rather than stock removed, which is what makes the event unique in the American show circuit. William F. Moran is a foundational figure in modern bladesmithing and the reason the ABS journeyman and master smith programs exist in their current form. A show with a forged-only rule ends up looking nothing like a typical knife show floor, and for collectors it functions as a snapshot of where the craft is right now.
The distinction between forged and stock-removal knives is often overstated when buyers compare them in the hand, but it is not meaningless. Forged blades can be made with a distal taper and grain flow that stock removal struggles to match, and hand-forged work carries a maker's time rather than a machine's. Against that, a $100 production folder from a modern factory will out-cut most forged blades on consistency and steel selection.
Buying forged work is a different hobby than buying EDC gear, and buyers should treat it that way. If you want a knife to use daily, the Kizer and CIVIVI lines cover that for a fraction of what a forged blade costs. If you want the craft itself, the weekend's events are the best place to see it.