As I posted in the Youth Hammer-In topic another forum section, a youngster named Jonathan Stanley came into my store and showed me the knives he had been making. Rather than repeat everything I said there, I will just fast forward to now. I asked his mom if I could post the links she had sent me of photo albums of Jonathan's knives. She has given her permission. Here is the letter he orginally sent with the first album. The second album has a video in it of him working at his forge.

"Hi my name is Jonathan.

In case you don't know me, I LoVe knives. I first started collecting knives when I was about 6 and now I am 13. Now, not only do I collect knives, I make andforge them too. So this email is about how it all started.

Ever since I could remember, my grandparents would always ask me "What do you want for Christmas?" or "What do you want for your birthday?" and I just didn't know what to answer. My older brother collected dolphins and my older sister collected horses so Iwanted to collect something too. Then one day we went to the dollar store and I saw my first multi-tool Swiss-army "type" knife. I was fascinated by the many blades it had and all the different tools, so Dad let me get it. Ever since then I have loved and collectedknives, and you can only guess the faces of my grandparents when they asked "So what do you want for Christmas this year?" and I replied "A knife."

Well after a year or two of collecting knives my Dad said, "Hold on there. You're getting too many knives!" So I decided to get rid of the knives I did not need and to start making my own. I started by taking an old, rusted, worn out kitchen knife and makinga dagger out of it. I even carved a picture of a turkey on the handle of it (in the pictures in the web album below it's called "The Turkey Hunter".) It was a meager start but at least I learned a lot from making it.

Then I met a man by the name of Glen Avaritt who is a world renown expert top-notch (and every other cool name) knife maker who showed me around his knife making workshop. He was even so kind as to give me some supplies to fuel my interest (thanks again Mr. Glen.) So ever since then I have been on a never ending knife making adventure.

A couple of months ago I found a video of how to hand forge knives... no I don't mean how to make fake knives, I mean the kind of forging by heating up thick steel until it turns orange and then hammering it out to make a knife.

When most people think about forging knives they think that you have to buy big huge bellows and a mammoth forge and charcoal from the store...... but the thing is, you don't. All you need is some simple materials like a trash bag or a beach ball pump, a metalpipe, and an old metal wash tub, and charcoal (homemade or store bought.) I started off making my own charcoal by taking old dead cedar or hickory and throwing it in an open fire until it start's falling apart then covering with dirt, but now I use a 50/50mix of store bought and homemade.

With these few simple materials I've made most of the knives you are about to see. Some of the others I got to go to a nice friends house, Mr. Donny Diggs, who was so cool to let me learn from him and use his equipment to cut and sharpen(thanks again Mr. Donny.) Now after getting to use some nice equipment I'm always trying to sell some of my knives to make some money so I can buy better equipment to make my knives be of a better quality.

I like to take pictures of the knives I make so what I've done is put together a Picasa web album showing you a little bit of what all I do. By that I mean, all the knives I've made, some of my knife collection, some of the knives I am working on, and a littlebit of my forging. So, if you aren't asleep by now and if your eye's don't have wall-mart bags under them (mom says I can really run my mouth) I just have a few more words to say.

Well hope you enjoyed this little story about me and my knives. I also hope you enjoy all the pictures and videos in the Picasa web album below, Bye.

Jonathan Keith Stanley"

Here is the first album.

Jonathan's 1st album

Jonathan's 2nd Album. Much longer than the 1st