I guess I started out like just about everybody else. I always had a knife in my pocket, everybody did. Boys or men, who did not carry a pocketknife was considered to be a strange and eccentric character.

Like Ed; my first doubts on knife quality came about on a trapping venture. I had just started hitting it full time and needed another knife; I decided to go big and bought a Buck trapper pattern. I literally used both blades to skin a coon, and it didn't get better.

When you are up at three and don't finish putting up fur till 9 that night you understand the intolerance for a knife that won't hold an edge.

A few years later I decided I needed a custom knife. Sent off a few letters; got back some replies. WOW!!!! Those guys wanted 70 dollars for a knife. Man I can make one for that. Little did I know.

I did some reading and started making stock removal blades from old files. I would put them in the wood heater overnight to anneal, file them to shape, and reharden in a bucket of transformer oil. I could not believe they cut better than what I could buy in town.

In the late 80's I happened to meet an old codger from Arkansas named Fisk. He helped me get past ugly crap and into just kinda ugly. Shortly after that I attended a Hammer-In in Old Washington and watched Bill Moran forge and cut. He could cut things that I could not even dream of. He even said nice things about my knives.

Went home; built me a coal forge out of a truck brake drum and been forging exclusivly ever since. A lot of water under the bridge. Some days I begin to think that I might learn how to do this someday.

M