See who took home the hardware from the custom knife competition at BLADE Show Texas
With its roots in fine custom knives, BLADE Show Texas tends to draw the top names in makers. In turn, the custom knife awards competition turns out to be a heavyweight slugfest of some of the country’s most accomplished blade artisans. The 2024 competition at the Feb. 23-24 show lived up to this expectation completely.
The judging hall buried in the catacombs of the Ft. Worth Convention Center was packed to the gills with exceptional specimens in 12 categories. To say the 3-judge panel had their work cut out is an overstatement as large as the Lone Star State itself. But after much debate and some furrowing of brows, this team of custom knife experts came up with the top picks from each category.
This included Best Of Show (and Best Bowie), Mike Quesenberry’s dog-gone outstanding bowie knife—a creation that sucked the air out of the room. A testament to how competitive the competition was, the judges for the first time awarded “Contender” awards in three categories for knives that were worthy of top honors, but were just edged out of the highest award.
Best Of Show: Mike Quesenberry
![Edited CustomBestOfShow](https://blademag.com/wp-content/uploads/Edited-CustomBestOfShow-1024x683.jpg)
Best Art Knife: Mike Quesenberry
![Edited Art](https://blademag.com/wp-content/uploads/Edited-Art-1024x683.jpg)
Best Bowie: Mike Quesenberry
![Edited Bowie](https://blademag.com/wp-content/uploads/Edited-Bowie-1024x683.jpg)
Bowie Contender: Franco De Souza
![Edited Conteder_1](https://blademag.com/wp-content/uploads/Edited-Conteder_1-1024x683.jpg)
Best Damascus: Franco De Souza
![Edited Damascus](https://blademag.com/wp-content/uploads/Edited-Damascus-1024x683.jpg)
Best EDC: Karis Fisher
![Edited EDC](https://blademag.com/wp-content/uploads/Edited-EDC-1024x683.jpg)
Best Fighter: Franco De Souza
![Edited Fighter](https://blademag.com/wp-content/uploads/Edited-Fighter-1024x683.jpg)
Best Folding Knife: Jared Oeser
![Edited Folding](https://blademag.com/wp-content/uploads/Edited-Folding-1024x683.jpg)
Best Hunting Knife: James Rodebauh
![Edited Hunting](https://blademag.com/wp-content/uploads/Edited-Hunting-1024x683.jpg)
Hunting Knife Contender: Peyton Ramm
![Edited Contener_3](https://blademag.com/wp-content/uploads/Edited-Contener_3-1024x683.jpg)
Best Kitchen Knife: Harvey Dean
![Edited Kitchen](https://blademag.com/wp-content/uploads/Edited-Kitchen-1024x683.jpg)
Best Slipjoint: Tim Robertson
![Edited SlipJoint](https://blademag.com/wp-content/uploads/Edited-SlipJoint-1024x683.jpg)
Slipjoint Contender: Phil Jacob
![Edited Contender_2](https://blademag.com/wp-content/uploads/Edited-Contender_2-1024x683.jpg)
Best M.A.C.K.: Princeton Wong
![Edited MACK](https://blademag.com/wp-content/uploads/Edited-MACK-1024x683.jpg)
Best Of The Rest: Jason Knight/Winburn Steel
![Edited Best of the rest](https://blademag.com/wp-content/uploads/Edited-Best-of-the-rest-1024x509.jpg)
Check Out Previous Custom Award Winners:
Read the full article here