AWARD Entry and Photos: Summary slides

On Wed 17th of May Riley and Christian hosted the second live stream of the Australian Beginner Knifemaking Awards 2023, here are the slides with some summary comments:

Agenda

• How to enter?
• What photos to take for the judges for max scoring?

Your Hosts

Hosted by Riley Burns and Christian Mathieson, the Live streams is an opportunity to go over the criteria in a bit more detail, offer help and answer questions. Plus there is a giveaway on every stream as a thank you for taking part!

The stream goes out on the Australian Beginner Knifemaking Group on Facebook: LINK, 

as well as on the Nordic Edge facebook page.

Australian Knife Making Awards 2023

The AWARDS is a free to enter, online only knife making competition organised by Nordic Edge, and judged by the Australian Knifemaker Guild for the categories where the maker makes the blade. For the Best Knife From Kit category, these are judges by the Nordic Edge secret society of knife makers and collectors.

4 Categories - 2 Beginner & 2 Open

There is much more info about the categories and criteria, like who can enter as a beginner and what the requirements are for each category, look up the Award Start slides for those specifics.

To enter in the Beginner Categories you need to be fairly new to knife making; as in not being a member of the Australian Knifemakers Guild, never having exhibited at a knife show. You basically need to look at your own work and if you identify as an advanced maker doing your own pattern damascus, you might want to be in the Open Categories.

The 2 Open Categories are open to any maker in Australia and New Zealand, independent of skill and experience level.

Do look up the actual criteria for the category you are entering, taking special note of the Best Beginner Outdoor Knife requiring a metal guard and the Best in Show being the only category for damascus or san mai steel.

How to enter

The link to enter is not public, you can only find this on the Australian Beginner Knifemaking Group.

This is just to filter a bit so we don't dissapoint overseas makers wanting to take part and not getting any feedback on their work from the Guild who is freely giving of their time here to help ANZ makers up their skills.

To get the actual link, check out the pinned post on the Fb group - you have until MAY 28th at 4 PM AEST.

Information you need is some info about yourself as a maker, details of the knife, what category, and the 4 photos you can upload in total.

Photos

Note the specific

requirements of the photos; the judges can only score you on what they see!

So make sure you give the judges what they want per photo:

Here is a summary of the photos you need of the knife;

The Judges have a cut-down version of the Guild entry criteria written by Mastersmith Shawn McIntyre to score the knives on, doing what they can based on the photos alone.

Each of the scoring criteria is a 1-8 range where 4 is the "ok, or not visible or not relevant" score.

Anytthing you show them that is good, will give a higher score.

Anything you show them that is ..not so great, will result in a lower score.

So make sure you end up getting those points by taking photos that show off all the hard work.

Riley is a well-established photographer of products and knives amongst other things, giving some tips for taking better photos with a mobile phone. For pro photos, a quality camera and some experimenting will be needed but there are things you can do to get better photos also with a mobile phone.

No photoshop!

Note the requirement to not edit the photo, removing blemishes or scratches etc. This will usually be very visible to the judges and your knife will be discqualified. Optimising the photo is of course ok, make the knife look as good as you can but do not edit as in change the appearance outside of colour, light, contrast, balance.

GIVEAWAY

Every live stream ends in a giveaway, this week the prizes were

• Stainless Damascus billet in X-Pattern, 325 x 50 x 3 mm
• Leather knife Roll for 6 knives, with a patch for your makers mark
•  UBHF - the Nordic Edge handle finish for wood and other natural materials

Thank you to the sponsors and partners

This is mostly just for some fun and getting some feedback on your work from experienced makers.

But we do also send out a trophy and prize to each of the 12 winners, this would not be possible without the sponsors!

So a massive thank you to the sponsors for taking part in the AWARDS this year, please do check them out and see if maybe you can support them back. They are all involved in the Australian knife making community.

• Tharwa Valley Forge - the biggst and best knife making school in Australia by a long shot
• Rod Hoare Knife Images - professional knife photographer for lasting, high quality images of your work
• On The Mark Engraving - for makers mark for steel and leather, doing both logo design as well as the stamps
• Northern Iron Forge - fulltime blacksmith and knifemaker with quality hand-made hammers and more in QLD
• 84Engineering - quality Australian-made grinders, it is probably safe to say more knife makers in Australia use the 84Engineering grinders than any other brand out there.
• Oblivion Blades - Making custom steel and knives made in Newcastle, NSW they are known for high-quality steel billets with both Japanese and Western steels.
• Australian Knifemakers Guild - judging the AWARDS and providing helpful comments back to the makers taking part, the Guild is the key body in Australia to further knife making and support makers increasing their skills.
• Nordic Edge - run by makers for makers, supplying tools and other parts for makers in Australia & New Zealand.

Timeline

The entries are now open until Sunday 28th of May, 4 PM AEST.

Then Judging starts Sunday 28th and the Winner Presentation is Wed 31st of May.

But before then we have the live stream Wed 24th of May at 8 PM which will cover Judging/Scoring to help you review your own knife before entering to fix any minor issues, as well as going over the prizes to be won.