- Joined
- Apr 21, 2007
- Messages
- 14
As we have posted on our website and as I have mentioned on the forum recently, Ellis Custom Knifeworks is undergoing a significant change in the upcoming week. Darren and I are selling the business to Wayne Suhrbier, who is a knife maker and blacksmith located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Under Wayne, the business will be called High Temperature Tools & Refractory and the new website will be www.hightemptools.com. If you go to our website, www.elliscustomknifeworks.com, you will be redirected to the new web address. High Temperature Tools & Refractory is the name of the business that Darren Started in 2002 to build and sell industrial kilns, forges, salt pots, heat treating ovens, and vacuum tube furnaces. He did this part time for a number of years and then went full time for several years before the downturn in the economy. He returned to graduate school in 2009 to complete his Ph.D. Since 2009, Ellis Custom Knifeworks and High Temperature Tools & Refractory have been "loosely" run under the same name together, as Darren stopped with the fabrication work after going back to school full time.
Darren and I started Ellis Custom Knifeworks in 1999 after he got involved with making custom cutlery and straight razors for shaving as a hands-on hobby to offset the long hours of time he spent sitting behind a computer analyzing data as a graduate student in physics. It didn't take long for him to realize that there was a shortage of places to purchase refractory materials in small quantities to reline the forges he built. He asked other makers in Knoxville if they were interested in buying smaller quantities from what he had left and the response was a resounding "yes." The result was that he bought a couple bags of Satanite and a couple boxes of Inswool and started repackaging them and selling them in small quantities at hammer-ins.
For the first couple years, Darren went to hammer-ins with a carload of supplies and would leave them out with a glass jar asking people to pay for what they took if he wasn't there when they came by. As the business grew, I started to come with Darren to man the table and help out while he took part in other hammer-in/show activities. We both trusted everyone we met in the knife making community and were happy to become part of it.
The business has come a long way in the past 12 years. We initially ran it out of a small room in our house, before it took over our workshop/garage. The next step was to add a 10x20 storage tent to give us more space to work and store materials. For the past four years we have been running the business out of a 2000+ square foot warehouse space in the Ironwood Studios building (where ABANA headquarters was located) in the historic North Knoxville area. Our business has served many thousands of customers over the years transcending many areas, including; Knifemaking/Bladesmithing, Ceramics, Blacksmithing, Farriers, Engineering companies, Universities, Trade Schools, and Government organizations. Our biggest customer base, however, has always been the small business owners who need high temperature materials and individuals who need these materials for hobbies.
As nearly all of our customers have known from the beginning, both Darren and I have been in graduate school, working, and running the business. This has meant many late nights and long weekends at the shop trying to get orders out to all of our great customers. We have had numerous loyal customers who have placed many orders with us over the years and who have sent many new makers our way. We have been extremely lucky to become a part of this community and several other communities.
Now that I have finished graduate and law school and am working longer hours and Darren is spending more and more time on his career in science, it has become harder to juggle everything and to continue to get all of your orders out. For several months, we have been talking with Wayne and working out the details of transferring the business over to him. We love this community and want you all to be taken care of in the best way possible and we truly believe that Wayne will be able to do that.
Wayne has been a knife maker since 2002 and has had a table at the Blade Show for several years. He is also a regular at Batson's at Tannehill. He has helped us out numerous times in the last several years by helping me at Batson's when our tables have been full of customers, at the Blade Show watching the tables periodically to give me short breaks, and sometimes coming to Knoxville to help us around the shop. He is already knowledgeable about most of the materials we have carried, he uses many of them himself in his work, and he is enthusiastic about taking over the business. He will eventually be building our forge designs (which he now owns the designs and fixtures for), and he also has the formula for our Bubble Alumina refractory coating. Most importantly, he is going to be able to run the business full time.
Wayne is coming to Knoxville this coming week to move the shop to Tuscaloosa. Starting on Wednesday or Thursday, the shopping cart on the new website will be activated and you will be able to start placing orders. He will then start shipping within a matter of days of returning home. I suspect by the first of July, he will have everything completely operational for the supplies part of the business and in the coming months will begin making forges.
I spent the entire day at the Blade Show today walking around, going table-to-table, to let as many of you as possible know about this change in person. I said it many, many times today -- we are confident that this is an excellent change that is good for everybody involved: ourselves, Wayne, and, most importantly, all of you as customers in need of refractory.
Darren and I will still try to make our way to knife shows and hammer-ins when we can and will enjoy being able to experience the events as "spectators" again. We look forward to seeing those of you who we have become friends with over the years.
We hope that you will all look to Wayne for your refractory materials -- we trust him to take good care of you.
Sincerely,
Kathryn & Darren
Darren and I started Ellis Custom Knifeworks in 1999 after he got involved with making custom cutlery and straight razors for shaving as a hands-on hobby to offset the long hours of time he spent sitting behind a computer analyzing data as a graduate student in physics. It didn't take long for him to realize that there was a shortage of places to purchase refractory materials in small quantities to reline the forges he built. He asked other makers in Knoxville if they were interested in buying smaller quantities from what he had left and the response was a resounding "yes." The result was that he bought a couple bags of Satanite and a couple boxes of Inswool and started repackaging them and selling them in small quantities at hammer-ins.
For the first couple years, Darren went to hammer-ins with a carload of supplies and would leave them out with a glass jar asking people to pay for what they took if he wasn't there when they came by. As the business grew, I started to come with Darren to man the table and help out while he took part in other hammer-in/show activities. We both trusted everyone we met in the knife making community and were happy to become part of it.
The business has come a long way in the past 12 years. We initially ran it out of a small room in our house, before it took over our workshop/garage. The next step was to add a 10x20 storage tent to give us more space to work and store materials. For the past four years we have been running the business out of a 2000+ square foot warehouse space in the Ironwood Studios building (where ABANA headquarters was located) in the historic North Knoxville area. Our business has served many thousands of customers over the years transcending many areas, including; Knifemaking/Bladesmithing, Ceramics, Blacksmithing, Farriers, Engineering companies, Universities, Trade Schools, and Government organizations. Our biggest customer base, however, has always been the small business owners who need high temperature materials and individuals who need these materials for hobbies.
As nearly all of our customers have known from the beginning, both Darren and I have been in graduate school, working, and running the business. This has meant many late nights and long weekends at the shop trying to get orders out to all of our great customers. We have had numerous loyal customers who have placed many orders with us over the years and who have sent many new makers our way. We have been extremely lucky to become a part of this community and several other communities.
Now that I have finished graduate and law school and am working longer hours and Darren is spending more and more time on his career in science, it has become harder to juggle everything and to continue to get all of your orders out. For several months, we have been talking with Wayne and working out the details of transferring the business over to him. We love this community and want you all to be taken care of in the best way possible and we truly believe that Wayne will be able to do that.
Wayne has been a knife maker since 2002 and has had a table at the Blade Show for several years. He is also a regular at Batson's at Tannehill. He has helped us out numerous times in the last several years by helping me at Batson's when our tables have been full of customers, at the Blade Show watching the tables periodically to give me short breaks, and sometimes coming to Knoxville to help us around the shop. He is already knowledgeable about most of the materials we have carried, he uses many of them himself in his work, and he is enthusiastic about taking over the business. He will eventually be building our forge designs (which he now owns the designs and fixtures for), and he also has the formula for our Bubble Alumina refractory coating. Most importantly, he is going to be able to run the business full time.
Wayne is coming to Knoxville this coming week to move the shop to Tuscaloosa. Starting on Wednesday or Thursday, the shopping cart on the new website will be activated and you will be able to start placing orders. He will then start shipping within a matter of days of returning home. I suspect by the first of July, he will have everything completely operational for the supplies part of the business and in the coming months will begin making forges.
I spent the entire day at the Blade Show today walking around, going table-to-table, to let as many of you as possible know about this change in person. I said it many, many times today -- we are confident that this is an excellent change that is good for everybody involved: ourselves, Wayne, and, most importantly, all of you as customers in need of refractory.
Darren and I will still try to make our way to knife shows and hammer-ins when we can and will enjoy being able to experience the events as "spectators" again. We look forward to seeing those of you who we have become friends with over the years.
We hope that you will all look to Wayne for your refractory materials -- we trust him to take good care of you.
Sincerely,
Kathryn & Darren
I'm sure he will figure it out.
