What is your background?

In the mid 1980's 86 to be exact I wanted a knife to carry to rendevious I was in a blackpowder club so I went to a gun show to buy me a bowie knife I took about a hundred dollars with me and the only thing I found was some cheepo junk that wouldn't make good trotline weight so I went back home and found me an old file about 15 in long and got me a welder's grinder and went to work at the next rendevous a guy offered me 100.00 for my work of art that I had 25 or so hours in and I just sold it to him and been hooked ever since

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tbark
 
The "School of hard Knocks!" Not being a smarta**, but thats how I did it. I began with stock removal, and as time went by became bored with that. As for the forging portion, after seeking out informaiton and getting a lot of misleading and uneducated answers, I learned that the folks who had lived many, many years were the ones in the know. Most or my initial forging knowledge came from an 86 year old gentleman in Arkansas who had been a Blacksmith for over 40 years.
At the time I received my ABS Journeymans rating, I was told that I was the first to receive this rating without attending the ABS school, so I guess he knew what he was talking about. I personally don't have a great deal of faith in education/training alone, because without desire and drive, it's nothing but a diploma or certificate. My biggest gripe with this comes from metalurgists. I have, on three different occasions had a metalurgist in my shop to view what I do, and although they stood there watching, with their own eyes, they still denied that it was possible to chop a 2x4 with a blade, and then bend that blade 90 degrees without breaking/cracking, all because "The text books say that is impossible!" I consider people like this to be educated far beyond their intellengence.
http://www.mtn-webtech.com/~caffrey

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Ed Caffrey
"The Montana Bladesmith"




[This message has been edited by Ed Caffrey (edited 10 November 1999).]
 
I have met a few of those kind of people to ED ,one fellow told me one time you couldn't hollow grind a knife on a bench grinder to .

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tbark
 
I have been trained in heat treating, metallurgy, machining, CNC programming, welding, polishing, etc. While attending a Navy school for Heat Treat & Metallurgy I was asked by a Chief Petty Officer to make him a dive knife for my class project. That was the first knife I built. I was hooked.
I try to combine every gift I have and thoroughly enjoy what I do.
I don’t remember who said it – “One man with a passion will accomplish more than a thousand with an interest.”

Gene

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I Carry My Crosses for Christ to Give any Glory to God.
centercross.com
geneosborn@centercross.com



[This message has been edited by CenterCross (edited 10 November 1999).]
 
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