What makes you a "Knife Guy"

I contacted this disease as a child in my formative years. Dad took me to a gun show and there was a knife maker there. I didnt know knife making was possible! I was 13 at that time, now I'm 64 and apparently there is no cure for my passion except the next fix.

Hunting, fishing, outdoors, scouting, Buster Warenski (I grew up in Richfield, Ut.), art, lines, curves, beautiful polished woods, exotic handle materials, shiny metals, the pursuit of perfection, one of mans oldest tools/weapons, and probably many other reasons I can't think of right now make me a "knife guy". And like Bruce said, "It's a disease. It can't be cured. In my opinion that's a good thing.

For me it all began at the age of 12, I grew up in a small Indiana farming town, right on the Ohio River....boys worked on the farm in the summer, and hunted/trapped in the fall/winter. That summer my best pal and I had worked all summer bucking hay bales, all to purchase new knives for the upcoming hunting/trapping season.

We each purchased a "well known brand/type" of knife that was suppose to be "the best". The first use of those knives came in the way of skinning a beaver.....he sharpened his knife 4 times, and I sharpened mine 5.... to get through skinning that one beaver. There had to be something better. We each started scrounging around the farm shops, building crude knives.....but each one was better then the last.

My knifemaking "career" took off when I was 19. I joined the Air Force, and met a man who introduced me to a forge....since then its been a love affair that continues to drive me to this day. For me the best part of knifemaking is knowing its a never ending learning process, and that every day I step foot in the shop, I'm going to learn something new. Knifemaking has taken me around the world teaching, and meeting many great Knifemakers from all corners of the globe. It doesn't matter if we even spoke/speak the same language......knifemaking is universal.

After retiring from the Air Force, I literally took off my uniform one day, and the next, put on my jeans and boots, and went to the knife shop. That was a dozen years ago, and I still look forward to "going to work" each and every day.

I grew up the only son of a farmer. I worked on the farm every day and I farmed it myself for 20 years. I had to have a good knife it was a part of life. Have always wanted to make knives and have been working slowly toward it for a few years now. Made a few scrap pile additions but have yet to make a good knife. I will though, I will. Ed

Grew up that way. Raised on a farm where my dad taught us to use a knife and to shoot before any of us started school. Naturally mechanically inclined from fixing and building things and then jobs in the machining field so knife making came as natural as getting out of bed in the morning. In fact it was a guy at work running a cnc machine next to my bridgeport mill that got me started into knife making back in 1988. First knife was made by cutting the profile out of a large metal cutting saw blade with a die grinder & cut off wheel(s), talk about being a sucker for punishment! Didn't take me long to find a better way through forging after a visit with a mastersmith.