A Damascus knife sits on what used to be an old phonebook used by John Martens to demonstrate the sharpness of the knife during the Wes Knodel Gun and Knife Show on Saturday at the Southwest Washington Fairgrounds.
John Martens, pictured, and Lennie Thede bring their Wickedly Sharp and Bright knife business to many of the monthly Wes Knodel Gun and Knife Shows held at the Southwest Washington Fairgrounds.
John Martens and Lennie Thede have seen the full spectrum of knife work pass across their tables during the five years the two men have been in business together. Some customers find out they own a far nicer blade than previously thought, but it’s most often the other way around.
Like the batteries and sodas lining grocery store cash registers as potential impulse buys, most people who visit the booth of Wickedly Sharp and Bright, LLC didn’t make a point of driving out to the Southwest Washington Fairgrounds with the intention of buying a new blade or sharpening an old one.
Martens and Thede have heard all the jokes about bringing knives to a gun show enough times that they aren’t funny anymore. That hasn’t stopped the pair from becoming fixtures at the monthly events put on by Wes Knodel Gun Shows, Inc.
“People a lot of times see their knives as (an) accessory or an afterthought before seeing they can get it sharpened or customized here,” Martens said. “Guys will hand us some of the dullest blades, and those are the most dangerous kind. This is one of the smaller shows for us, but there have been times here where we haven’t been able to keep up.”
Thede founded the business about a decade ago, with Martens joining the fray in 2014. The latter is based in Rochester with the former operating out of Olympia.
They also sell ammunition and gun accessories, but given the wall-to-wall display of firepower at the gun show Saturday, they cut themselves a niche out of their small portion of the pavilion.
Martens pulled out a well-used Damascus blade he uses as a demonstration tool for onlookers and tried to cut through the remnants of what was once a local phone book. Damascus is considered one of the higher-end knife manufacturers, but even its reputed blade couldn’t hack it through more than a few pages.
After receiving a few minutes of attention from a dual-armed machine operated by Martens, the Damascus knife slid like butter through the ream of names and phone numbers.
“People will think they’ve got a really good blade, but I can look at it and tell them otherwise, or vice-versa,” Martens said.
Martens added that while his wares aren’t as tied to the ever-present debate about gun ownership and firearm safety nationwide, the climate around recent legislation such as Initiative 1639, which raised the minimum age to purchase a gun and added storage requirements for lawful gun owners, rubs off on other methods of self-defense.
“People know that no matter what happens in the courts or with the gun debate, knives aren’t going anywhere,” he said.
Knodel, whose company puts on events from Spokane to Medford, Oregon, said the amount of support gun ownership enjoys in Southwest Washington allows him to put on more shows each year in Lewis County than at any other location, including Portland, Oregon.
Knodel added the Southwest Washington Fairgrounds as a stop on his Pacific Northwest swing in 2002. What was a calendar of eight shows quickly became nine and then a full dozen. He figured the packed house on Saturday was due in part to the severe weather than battered the region last month.
“I think the people here just trust me to do a good job,” Knodel said. “They believe this is a constitutional right and some people maybe want to go a different direction, so they protest in a way by coming down here.”
Most of the tables manned by dealers and private sellers were covered with firearms and accessories, though some had political miscellanea such as toilet paper printed with Bill Clinton’s face or a “Socialism” poster similar to an image used by Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign.
Knodel said he can’t recall ever having protestors outside his shows in Centralia, but that if they did show up, he would not ask them to leave.
“I’ve had them in Tacoma and in Portland, and I’ll let them in to use the restrooms,” Knodel said. “I’ve found that if I’m polite to them, they’re pretty polite back. It just seems like as far as the community around here, the level of support is unlike a lot of other places I go.”
