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Lorien

Lorien

Nose to the Grindstone
Moderator
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
Joined
Dec 5, 2005
Messages
27,877
Where did your interest in custom and handmade knives come from, and how did you go about getting to where you've gotten?:)
 
From Gawd. :)
It started with Charles Weiss and ended with a nice assortment of makers whose names I will not bore you with.
NEXT!!
 
Had some time to kill while in Atlanta on business and waiting for a flight home so I wondered into the Blade Show.
I've gotten to where I've gotten by having a strong interest in custom knives and other people who share this interest.
 
I always had knives as a small child, but no real interest in anything beyond camping.

Then about 6 years ago my uncle died and left me a small collection of knives. Most were production knives but in one small leather pouch was a knife that looked different. It had someones name on the blade! That name was Joe Kious.

I looked him up and was shocked at the cost of his knives. I took a closer look at the knife and childishly exclaimed "I could make this!"

From there started my foray into making kits, modifying kits, replicating each piece of the kits and eventually realizing I didn't need the kits anymore. A few years and a ton of machinery later, here I am...still unable to afford custom knives but at least able to make some to the best of my ability!
 
That is a good question. Well, I have been a knife nut since I was a little girl. My Mom gave me my first knife when I was 7 or 8. That developed into a love of knives, on thing led to another....and now I am just into custom knives. It was a progressive thing. I think what helped my progression is knife magazines, and knife forums. The knife forums especially, since I got/get to interact with knife makers!! That has made a huge difference for me.

I ger to see knives that I would not necessarily see in a magazine. And getting to know the knife makers, that has just been amazing, and means the world to me.

Besides the ineteraction with knife makers, the interaction with other knife nuts has been a wonderful experience as well. I have made some amazing friends through knife forums such as this. People showing their knives, and thier interaction with knives has been an incredible learning experience!! I love knife nuts helping/ teaching other knife nuts. It has been an invaulable experience.

I feel blessed to have the friendships that I have made, and for the wonderful knives that I have been able to acquire!! It is quite a ride my friends!!

 
Mine has been a normal progression from production knives, to high end production knives, to lower priced custom knives, to mid-priced custom knives, and onward it goes.

If it weren't for this forum, I would never have started collecting custom knives. I had started getting bored with high end production knives, so I figured I would check out the custom forum. I had seen and handled custom knives since the early 1960s, but had not taken the leap. After spending a short time hanging around this place, I made my first custom knife purchase. I've never looked back since.
 
My interest in customs came from all the picts of Elishewitz's knives that Ichiro used to have in American Handgunner years ago. That led me to find online places that sold custom knives , and also different forums. Went thru the production route , with Sebbies and W&H's and the like.
Attended my first custom knife show , the old Vegas Classic ( when it was at Circus Circus ) and became even further hooked.

Not being content with buying , and having the ol " not enuff cash " syndrome , I began making knives , which has stopped me from buying fixed blades....but not folders :)

My first custom folder was a Shinosky , my first custom fixed blade was a Blackwood Henchman in S30v and CF.

Even though I have a few customs , they all get used. The best part is I get to share my knife hobby with my 3 sons. :)
 
I was deer hunting and fell down. My production knife broke, if this had been in the big woods I could've been in deep poo poo. I asked my godfather how much for one of his knives.

Holy !@$!@#$! but I'm you're godson.

That is the godson price.

I'll make my own damn knife cheaper than that.

Good luck, let me know when you need help (I refuse to give him that satisfaction ;) )

Well I reckon my first knife I could trust hunting probably cost me about $500 in wasted materials and testing. I was making knives with a 3x21 craftsman belt sander upside down in a vice.

People started buying knives from me, I went to a gun and knife show, a local maker invited me over for lessons. In the meantime I made enough to get better tools and a weird belt sander/grinder that bolted to a bench grinder. Man I was in heaven with that tool :D Was doing stock removal at this time.

Deployed to Kosovo, spent a lot of time on the internet, found out about the neo tribal bladesmiths (I always wanted to forge but thought it was expensive) got home, bought a cheap anvil and built a charcol forge, then a coal forge, then a propane forge. Sold enough knives to buy a Burr King. Met my teacher and learned more about whomping steel.

Got divorced, lost everything but the Burr King and my hammers. Got remarried to a lady who's father is a blacksmith. Bought another anvil and retooled and I'm back in the swing so to speak :) Built a waste oil forge, welding temps aren't an issue, keeping it at forging temps is the issue :)

I'm a Japanese redneck, so I have this conflicted ideas in style. Mainly I like minimalist knives with a lot of curves.

Probably more than y'all wanted to know. I can't afford the knives I like so I strive to learn to make the knives I like or at least like the knive I make :p
 
Wow, there are some great, eloquent stories in here since this afternoon. I'm very pleased that this thread has motivated some to share personal history:).

My story is not very exciting; it started right around the time I became a member on this forum- maybe a year before, when I met a guy in my town who'd just opened an antique store.

The guy, Gary, is nuts for collecting! He collects all sorts of crazy stuff as a travelling salesman- or had, for around 40 years before retiring. His nest egg was an enormous collection of all sorts of weird stuff, which he has put to work in the form of inventory for his store. Its entire inventory represents his lifetime of collecting.

Well, it turns out, of course, that he has several display cabinets full of knives! Mostly pocket knives of the slipjoint variety. However, he also had a Gerber Mk2, (this knife; http://www.militarycarryknives.com/KnifeGA4.jpg ) which brought me, abruptly, back to my teenage years some 20 years previous, at a time when Rambo's knife and Conan's secret of steel permeated my cultural dialectic.

Living on a farm in the middle of the bush in Northern Ontario meant lots of outdoorsy rambles and whatnot. I had a huge love for knives back then, reinforced by a familial immersion into the Society for Creative Anachronism, where I was surrounded by swords, chivalry and combat, (fun, combat:)).

At any rate, I saved and scrounged for things like an EK commando knife, a Gerber BMF and one of those little bolt on thumb openers for Buck lockbacks. At the time, I also bought magazines regularly and also learned how to throw knives and make ninja stars in shop class.

Ok, off track a little there, but background nonetheless. To cut that part short, I got hooked on mountain biking, and forgot about knives for the most part until, 20 years later, I saw that Mark 2 in Gary's cabinet.

I spent a lot of time at Gary's, in his back room going through shoebox after shoebox of old pocket knives, I'll never forget that oily, musty smell. I developed an eye for quality with these knives and have a nice little collection of Wostenholms, and other stag handled beauties.

But Gary also had a couple of hunting knives, which took me awhile to notice. I decided to get them too, since they were affordable enough, (I traded bicycle repairs and parts for almost everything). At this point I found an outlet for Knives Illustrated. I read about Burt Foster and others, and later read an article on Bladeforums, and that's about when I joined up here.

I did a little research on these two hunting knives I'd scrounged, and found out that they were both made by Canadian knife making colleagues; Peter Marzitelli and Bob Lay. I found Peter's contact info, and now call him a friend. We have some great conversations, usually about anything but knives.

I really started to get off on drawing designs out on paper after talking with Peter- he's so focused on curves and angles. I drew a lot of knife designs when I was a kid, and doing it again felt just like going home.

I found and contacted a local maker, Seth Burton of Cosmo Knives and had him make me three knives I'd designed which were based on some of the production knives I had begun to acquire over the internet.

I've since bought knives directly from Tai and Matt, somewhat to my spec, although to their design, and I've acquired a few 'previously enjoyed' handmades from the classifieds here on the forum. I've recently decided to pull back on my knife buying since I've realized how easy it is to spend a lot of money on them. Fortunately, I have bartering in my blood, and I've done very well for myself from a value perspective.

I quickly realized that it was perfectly reasonable for me to sell knives at my bike shop, and therefore get them at wholesale, and once I started doing that, I realized that I could start up a whole other enterprise, selling knives from a virtual store, thus Bladeworks.ca was born.

Over the past year, I've become accustomed to this forum, and am now a daily contributor. I am very lucky to call many other contributors to this forum friends, even though I've never met them personally. I've met people personally who I first met on this forum, and that's the coolest!

I know not where this interest is taking me, but I've given myself over to it openly and have received the support I need from those whose support I care the most to get. Namely my wife's. At first, my rekindled interest felt strangely like a dirty little secret, but I let go of that really quick. I don't think my parents, (pacifist hippies:)) were real excited about my interest in knives when I was younger, unlike some, whose mothers wish them a happy birthday in Bladeforum:thumbup::).

Production knives are good and cool and all that, and I hope that maybe I'll make some money off them, but my heart is here in the custom and handmade knife arena, where the imagination is the only true limiter. I don't know whether I'll drift into the 'dealer' or the 'maker' categories, or something else entirely. To be frank, I'm simply riding the wave, I'll see where it takes me.

For such a short history, that sure took a lot longer than I expected.:yawn:
I didn't create this thread to tell my own story, I'm more interested in reading others. But thanks to a long distance conversation with a friend here in the forum, I guess I've found some encouragement to do a little writing. Thanks D:thumbup:
 
Lorien said:
Where did your interest in custom and handmade knives come from, and how did you go about getting to where you've gotten?:)
Click to expand...

I started collecting factory knives around 1993. Among the first were some Puma knives, later followed by a SOG Seal 2000, Benchmade CQC7, Gerber Applegate Covert folder.

When I read about custom knives, and looked at pictures, I thought they were fantastic. Didn't have the funds to buy them at the time. So I continued buying production knives. (TOPS, Fallkniven, Extrema Ratio etc...) Black, big and tactical were the key words then.

The first custom I purchased was a "Full Contact" folder by Greg Lightfoot. I was still on the "tactical path".

Then, around august 2006, I discovered the different knifeforums, and found out about knifeshows. My first show (BKS show in Gembloux, Belgium, nov. 2006) was a real eye-opener! It has gone uphill from there. In 2007 I attended a knifeshow in Belgium, and one in the Netherlands. In 2008 I attended the same knifeshows plus I went to the show in Solingen, Germany. My budget increased as well the last couple of years.

The result of this is my "score" for 2008:
IMG_0956.jpg


You will notice that the majority of the knives I purchased in 2008 are customs. It has been a good year!

Kind regards,

Jos
 
Lorien,

I have a feeling that this thread will fill in many blanks regarding
quite a few knife nuts from around the world....

The why and the how makers and collectors began their
what-becomes-to-be a lifelong interest in knives is maybe the
most interesting story in their passion for knives.

We are surely going to hear some great stories, most of them
never appearing in print before this!

Great idea for a thread, my friend!!

All the best,
David Darom (ddd)
 
Been interested since I was a kid, bought my first custom in the early 80's, bought my first frou frou chi chi forged bowie circa '90/91 - described by the frou frou chi chi maker as an "Arkansas Camp Knife". ;) Been more or less hooked on such frilly little knives since then - so much so that I've even taken an interest in making them.

Roger
 
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