The February 25th (Saturday) meeting of the GCKG actually started on Friday night with a get together at the shop of TwinBlades (Harry and Charlie Mathews) in Statesboro Ga. If you have never been to a meeting hosted by the Mathews brothers you surely miss a treat in the beautiful scenery of south Georgia and the multitude of different trophies you will find on the walls of the cabin. And what would be a good Friday night get-together without good food
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And lots of knives to look at
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Saturday morning found your Board members hard at work
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And discussions between novice, Emory Fennell and old pros. Emory was a student of John's for a while before John died.
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I was totally blown away to find an impromptu tribute to John by TjBoux Johnson. TjBoux is machinist in Swainsboro. He introduced his son, Zack, to John and Zack soon became one of John's students. Thank you TjBoux for your touching display of friendship to my John. John's greatest talent was not in his knifemaking but in his ability to be a good friend to most all folks he met and his strong desire to see folks develop their craft.
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I will upload more pictures in a 2nd post to show the rest of the day to those of you who could not make it.

The first demo was a flat ginding demo by Dean. Looking on is Zack and Emory (John's last 2 students) and John Costa. Emory had been working with my John for about a year; and John had just begun working with Zack on hollow grinding before his accident. He was very proud of the effort these guys were making to develop their craft.
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And what would be a knife meeting without everyone bringing samples of their work for others to see?
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And with Pop making an appearance most of the guys were in "knife heaven"
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But I began to worry when the guys didn't seem to know which end to light :rolleyes:
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But never fear, John Costa got it all figured out and had the anvil ringing before you knew what was going on.
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I didn't get to stay till the end to see what his creation looked like. Maybe he will post a picture of the end results.

The weather was cold and wet for the meeting but with about 35 in attendance there was plenty of sharing of ideas and techniques all day long.

Thank you guys for another great day for developing knifemaking talents. John would have been so proud.

Thanks for sharing the pictures Joan. As always we had a great meeting. Good fellowship, good food, good talks, and good demos. Thank you Dean Gates, Wayne Hensley, and John Costa. The Matthews brothers (and family) and Dean & Lori Gates went to extremes to make everone comfortable and see that we were well fed.

Brother John forged the hawk head from a farrier's horseshoe rasp. It now resides on my shop bench being fitted with curly hickory and other little dandies. If you want to see the finished product, you'll have to come up to the Trackrock Hammer-in, Blairsville, GA, on the 25th of March. Bring your hammer, favorite steel and some of your latest work to share.