- Joined
- Mar 10, 2000
- Messages
- 777
Special Feature
Lethal Weapon
November 16, 2001
By Louise Witt
Web exclusive
A small-town biz finds its tomahawks in demand by soldiers bound for Afghanistan.
Subscribe to FORTUNE SMALL BUSINESS
Chad Hopkins picks up an unfinished ax as he wanders through Ryan Johnson's cluttered blacksmith shop in Hixson, Tenn. The 24-year-old Marine reservist says he wants to see how it feels to hold Johnson's $350 Eagle Talon tomahawk; he's considering taking one to Afghanistan if called up to fight the Taliban. The slightly built, bespectacled Hopkins, who's on a two-man crew that tows broken-down military vehicles, thinks a tomahawk would be indispensable if his rifle jams.
Made of high-carbon steel, the weapon can pierce bulletproof Kevlar body armor. "If your weapon fails, you need something that's practical and reliable," says Hopkins, running his fingers along the sharpened blade. "Maybe my wife will get me one for a present, an early Christmas present."
A foreman at a local door store, Hopkins isn't daunted by the prospect of hand-to-hand combat with Afghani soldiers known for their bloody and ruthless tactics on the battlefield. "You're trained to kill," he says. "That's my job. I look forward to going into battle and doing what I've been trained to do." After a pause, he adds, "But I don't look forward to killing."
Hopkins is one of dozens of servicemen who have contacted Johnson since Sept. 11 to buy an Eagle Talon ax. So far, the small shop, located a half-hour north of Chattanooga, Tenn., in the Appalachian foothills, has orders for 80 and he's already shipped half of them. In another two weeks, Johnson, 28, and his 63-year-old father, Bob, will finish making the other 40 and send them out. As more soldiers get ready to be sent to Asia, Johnson expects additional orders. "When you look at one of the tomahawks and hold one in your hands that tells you exactly how ugly this war is going to be," he adds.
Tomahawks aren't standard U.S. military equipment. However, soldiers can carry their own personal knives, and tomahawks fall under that category. Some view them as essential. The tools can chop wood, dig holes and pound stakes. A tomahawk can also serve as a deadly device in hand-to-hand combat, though the military doesn't advise using one except as a last resort.
"Wouldn't use it that often as a weapon," says Col. Stephen Bucci, personal assistant to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who was a battalion commander. "Getting that close to an enemy obviates the technological advantages we have over most people in the world. But if you are real close, a tomahawk is a good weapon to have, if you don't have a gun."
Johnson's fascination with tomahawks goes back to childhood. When he was nine, his father gave him a book on swords and blades of the American Revolution. Soon he was collecting crossbows, knives and tomahawks. Johnson eventually realized if he were a blacksmith he could make his own armaments. Three years later, Bob introduced Ryan to Joe Humble, a man in his 70s who ran a local blacksmith club. "When other kids were out playing football, I was hanging out with older blacksmiths," Johnson says. During his senior year of high school, Johnson apprenticed with a renowned blacksmith in Carbondale, Colo. He returned home to attend the University of Tennessee, earning two mechanical engineering degrees: one with a concentration in thermal science and another with a concentration in mechanics. After graduation, he became a full-time blacksmith.
Johnson's workshop is behind his parents' house, 30 miles south of where he and his wife live. His rustic blacksmith equipment is jammed in one corner. A gas furnace that looks like a giant overturned stew pot is attached to a Sears, Roebuck & Co. Shopvac. The vacuum cleaner acts as bellows. A mechanized trip hammer, once used by the Chattanooga Buggy Co. in the early 1900s, pounds the heated metal. And Johnson finishes shaping pieces on an old-fashioned anvil that sits on a tree stump. He tries to be as authentic as possible when making reproductions of early American tomahawks and knives.
Johnson's customers didn't use to be soldiers, but knife and tomahawk connoisseurs willing to pay several hundred dollars for hand-forged pieces. Col. Bucci was so impressed with the workmanship that earlier this year he bought a Spanish Cross tomahawk. The blade is inlaid with silver decorations, the hand-finished handle is made of curly maple, and the blade has a cutout in the shape of a cross. "It's gorgeous," Bucci says, adding that he bought that particular model because he's a "Christian."
Johnson didn't think about designing a modern military implement until he met (Master) Sgt. John Blair, who's with the Security Forces Squadron at Moody Air Force Base in Valdosta, Ga., at a blade and cutlery show last spring in Atlanta. Blair, 37, whose unit secures airfields for the Air Force in hot spots around the world, was searching for an ax that would come in handy if he faced soldiers wearing body armor. "With the proliferation of Kevlar, rest assured our enemies are wearing the same thing," he says. "We've gone full circle; we're back to armor. One of the more primitive weapons a knight had was an ax with a spike on the back. That got me thinking about a tomahawk."
Blair had seen the Mohawk tomahawk, used in the 1750s during the French-Indian War, on Johnson's Website and thought that its sleek design would serve as a good base for a more modern ax. Johnson worked out various configurations on a computer. Finally, at the end of the summer, Johnson had a prototype. The two-pound ax is 18-inches-long with a three-inch blade and a spike on the opposite end. "I wanted it to be light enough so it wasn't a burden," Johnson says. "But heavy enough to do some damage."
Johnson needs to make the Eagle Talon tomahawk in large quantities, so he doesn't have enough time to forge them completely by hand. Instead he e-mails his computer-generated design to a laser company in Chattanooga. Using laser beams the company cuts tomahawks out of a giant steel sheet. It's up to Johnson to sharpen the blades and smooth the edges on a grinding machine. Then he treats the tomahawks in a furnace he built that slowly heats the metal so that it has a higher carbon content around the edges. Once that's done, his father covers the handles--either with tightly wound parachute cord or a stiff plastic-coated canvas cover.
The last time American soldiers carried tomahawks was during the Vietnam War. Four thousand so-called Vietnam Tomahawks were issued to Army Rangers and other special units. They mainly used them to set up camps, dig trenches and cut through the jungle. But soldiers couldn't bring them back when they returned home after the war. "The government thought it would be too barbaric or brutal to show the tomahawks," says Justin Gingrich, a military-to-civilian liaison for the Ranger Training Brigade at Fort Benning, Ga., who retired earlier this month to join the American Tomahawk Co. in Midland, N.J.
Bob Johnson considers American Tomahawk a friendly competitor, but Andy Prisco, president of American Tomahawk, doesn't think the two are rivals. "Ryan is a good young man who makes wonderful period pieces," he says. "But we manufacture everything." The 15-employee company makes most of its axes at an undisclosed location north of Missoula, Mont., and subcontracts with other factories around the country. Since starting production in January 2001, American Tomahawk has sold several thousand axes. The Army bought 60% of the company's axes, which cost $100 to $300. (American Tomahawk's axes were used in a throwing contest in the Best Ranger Competition in April.) "Paramilitary individuals," as Prisco describes survivalists and sportsmen, bought the rest.
A 33-year-old former professional knife and tomahawk thrower, Prisco decided to "resurrect" the American Tomahawk late last year after he had a "vision of how to help a man who was wronged." The wronged man was Peter LaGana, an ex-Marine who designed and manufactured the Vietnam Tomahawk until 1970 when military orders stopped. LaGana gave Prisco permission to make his tomahawk and use his defunct company's name. The 74-year-old, who lives in a mining town in western Pennsylvania, serves as a consultant. To complete the resurrection, Prisco wants the U.S. military to classify the tomahawk as a standard-issue piece of equipment. "He encountered a difficult time marketing the tomahawks after the media portrayed them being used in less than humane ways," he says, "but they're indispensable tools for soldiers."
Back in the rolling hills of Tennessee, Johnson spends 12 to 14 hours a day grinding down blades for his Eagle Talon tomahawks for the country's latest war. "It makes me proud; we're on the vengeance side of the game," he says. "Our generation is ready for it, but we're going to have a rude awakening about what war is about."
Lethal Weapon
November 16, 2001
By Louise Witt
Web exclusive
A small-town biz finds its tomahawks in demand by soldiers bound for Afghanistan.
Subscribe to FORTUNE SMALL BUSINESS
Chad Hopkins picks up an unfinished ax as he wanders through Ryan Johnson's cluttered blacksmith shop in Hixson, Tenn. The 24-year-old Marine reservist says he wants to see how it feels to hold Johnson's $350 Eagle Talon tomahawk; he's considering taking one to Afghanistan if called up to fight the Taliban. The slightly built, bespectacled Hopkins, who's on a two-man crew that tows broken-down military vehicles, thinks a tomahawk would be indispensable if his rifle jams.
Made of high-carbon steel, the weapon can pierce bulletproof Kevlar body armor. "If your weapon fails, you need something that's practical and reliable," says Hopkins, running his fingers along the sharpened blade. "Maybe my wife will get me one for a present, an early Christmas present."
A foreman at a local door store, Hopkins isn't daunted by the prospect of hand-to-hand combat with Afghani soldiers known for their bloody and ruthless tactics on the battlefield. "You're trained to kill," he says. "That's my job. I look forward to going into battle and doing what I've been trained to do." After a pause, he adds, "But I don't look forward to killing."
Hopkins is one of dozens of servicemen who have contacted Johnson since Sept. 11 to buy an Eagle Talon ax. So far, the small shop, located a half-hour north of Chattanooga, Tenn., in the Appalachian foothills, has orders for 80 and he's already shipped half of them. In another two weeks, Johnson, 28, and his 63-year-old father, Bob, will finish making the other 40 and send them out. As more soldiers get ready to be sent to Asia, Johnson expects additional orders. "When you look at one of the tomahawks and hold one in your hands that tells you exactly how ugly this war is going to be," he adds.
Tomahawks aren't standard U.S. military equipment. However, soldiers can carry their own personal knives, and tomahawks fall under that category. Some view them as essential. The tools can chop wood, dig holes and pound stakes. A tomahawk can also serve as a deadly device in hand-to-hand combat, though the military doesn't advise using one except as a last resort.
"Wouldn't use it that often as a weapon," says Col. Stephen Bucci, personal assistant to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who was a battalion commander. "Getting that close to an enemy obviates the technological advantages we have over most people in the world. But if you are real close, a tomahawk is a good weapon to have, if you don't have a gun."
Johnson's fascination with tomahawks goes back to childhood. When he was nine, his father gave him a book on swords and blades of the American Revolution. Soon he was collecting crossbows, knives and tomahawks. Johnson eventually realized if he were a blacksmith he could make his own armaments. Three years later, Bob introduced Ryan to Joe Humble, a man in his 70s who ran a local blacksmith club. "When other kids were out playing football, I was hanging out with older blacksmiths," Johnson says. During his senior year of high school, Johnson apprenticed with a renowned blacksmith in Carbondale, Colo. He returned home to attend the University of Tennessee, earning two mechanical engineering degrees: one with a concentration in thermal science and another with a concentration in mechanics. After graduation, he became a full-time blacksmith.
Johnson's workshop is behind his parents' house, 30 miles south of where he and his wife live. His rustic blacksmith equipment is jammed in one corner. A gas furnace that looks like a giant overturned stew pot is attached to a Sears, Roebuck & Co. Shopvac. The vacuum cleaner acts as bellows. A mechanized trip hammer, once used by the Chattanooga Buggy Co. in the early 1900s, pounds the heated metal. And Johnson finishes shaping pieces on an old-fashioned anvil that sits on a tree stump. He tries to be as authentic as possible when making reproductions of early American tomahawks and knives.
Johnson's customers didn't use to be soldiers, but knife and tomahawk connoisseurs willing to pay several hundred dollars for hand-forged pieces. Col. Bucci was so impressed with the workmanship that earlier this year he bought a Spanish Cross tomahawk. The blade is inlaid with silver decorations, the hand-finished handle is made of curly maple, and the blade has a cutout in the shape of a cross. "It's gorgeous," Bucci says, adding that he bought that particular model because he's a "Christian."
Johnson didn't think about designing a modern military implement until he met (Master) Sgt. John Blair, who's with the Security Forces Squadron at Moody Air Force Base in Valdosta, Ga., at a blade and cutlery show last spring in Atlanta. Blair, 37, whose unit secures airfields for the Air Force in hot spots around the world, was searching for an ax that would come in handy if he faced soldiers wearing body armor. "With the proliferation of Kevlar, rest assured our enemies are wearing the same thing," he says. "We've gone full circle; we're back to armor. One of the more primitive weapons a knight had was an ax with a spike on the back. That got me thinking about a tomahawk."
Blair had seen the Mohawk tomahawk, used in the 1750s during the French-Indian War, on Johnson's Website and thought that its sleek design would serve as a good base for a more modern ax. Johnson worked out various configurations on a computer. Finally, at the end of the summer, Johnson had a prototype. The two-pound ax is 18-inches-long with a three-inch blade and a spike on the opposite end. "I wanted it to be light enough so it wasn't a burden," Johnson says. "But heavy enough to do some damage."
Johnson needs to make the Eagle Talon tomahawk in large quantities, so he doesn't have enough time to forge them completely by hand. Instead he e-mails his computer-generated design to a laser company in Chattanooga. Using laser beams the company cuts tomahawks out of a giant steel sheet. It's up to Johnson to sharpen the blades and smooth the edges on a grinding machine. Then he treats the tomahawks in a furnace he built that slowly heats the metal so that it has a higher carbon content around the edges. Once that's done, his father covers the handles--either with tightly wound parachute cord or a stiff plastic-coated canvas cover.
The last time American soldiers carried tomahawks was during the Vietnam War. Four thousand so-called Vietnam Tomahawks were issued to Army Rangers and other special units. They mainly used them to set up camps, dig trenches and cut through the jungle. But soldiers couldn't bring them back when they returned home after the war. "The government thought it would be too barbaric or brutal to show the tomahawks," says Justin Gingrich, a military-to-civilian liaison for the Ranger Training Brigade at Fort Benning, Ga., who retired earlier this month to join the American Tomahawk Co. in Midland, N.J.
Bob Johnson considers American Tomahawk a friendly competitor, but Andy Prisco, president of American Tomahawk, doesn't think the two are rivals. "Ryan is a good young man who makes wonderful period pieces," he says. "But we manufacture everything." The 15-employee company makes most of its axes at an undisclosed location north of Missoula, Mont., and subcontracts with other factories around the country. Since starting production in January 2001, American Tomahawk has sold several thousand axes. The Army bought 60% of the company's axes, which cost $100 to $300. (American Tomahawk's axes were used in a throwing contest in the Best Ranger Competition in April.) "Paramilitary individuals," as Prisco describes survivalists and sportsmen, bought the rest.
A 33-year-old former professional knife and tomahawk thrower, Prisco decided to "resurrect" the American Tomahawk late last year after he had a "vision of how to help a man who was wronged." The wronged man was Peter LaGana, an ex-Marine who designed and manufactured the Vietnam Tomahawk until 1970 when military orders stopped. LaGana gave Prisco permission to make his tomahawk and use his defunct company's name. The 74-year-old, who lives in a mining town in western Pennsylvania, serves as a consultant. To complete the resurrection, Prisco wants the U.S. military to classify the tomahawk as a standard-issue piece of equipment. "He encountered a difficult time marketing the tomahawks after the media portrayed them being used in less than humane ways," he says, "but they're indispensable tools for soldiers."
Back in the rolling hills of Tennessee, Johnson spends 12 to 14 hours a day grinding down blades for his Eagle Talon tomahawks for the country's latest war. "It makes me proud; we're on the vengeance side of the game," he says. "Our generation is ready for it, but we're going to have a rude awakening about what war is about."