I’ve been asked a few times as to why I became a custom knife maker so here it is…
I have from a very early age had a desire to create. I’ve drawn/sketched and sold several pieces of art over the years. When in high school I became a published author. I wanted to shoot rimfire silhouette and couldn’t afford the equipment so I made my own gun to compete with in high school and actually qualified for nationals with it. I’ve made furniture. I’ve done building construction and maintenance. I’ve made bows and custom arrows. Now I make knives.
What got me into knives is another story all together. I am and always have been an outdoorsman. As an outdoorsman I began looking for performance in a couple select knives for my adventures that was hard to buy on a shelf. This pushed me into the handmade knife market as a consumer. Fast forward a few years and I meet up with a local knife maker to buy my second handmade from him. I was debating between two similar models and wanted to feel them in hand before committing. We got to talking about design and he asked if I was a knife maker. I found the question odd since I was buying his work instead of just making what I wanted but when I replied “no” he offered for me to try my hand at knife making.
At this point in time I was in an apartment with a one car garage for workspace. I was acquiring hand tools to allow me to do traditional woodworking without power tools because of space limitations. Dan was making knives in a large portable outbuilding/shed behind his house professionally. I thought what the heck, I’ll give it a whirl.
As I fell down the rabbit hole I began to realize it was a craft that satisfied my hunger to learn new things as well as create new things. In addition to this it’s a craft that has limitless opportunities for advancing your skill set and breadth of knowledge AND it was one that could be done in small spaces. So with the help of Dan and dozens of other mentors I began down the journey of learning to make handmade knives.
My focus is and always has been on personal growth as a craftsman and quality of my products. The more I make the higher my standards become. My designs are intended for field and kitchen use because those are the areas that I most often use a knife myself. Below are a few examples of some of my recent work and I look forward to sharing one of my passions with you in the future. If you haven’t looked at it check out the Hunting Knives and Crafters forum. There are a lot of talented knife makers on there. Thanks for letting me share my work with you...
Topic: Becoming a custom knifemaker (Read 1581 times)
