toddmiller

I have been happily married for most of the twenty eight years my wife and I have been together. I am sure she feels the same. We have two grown, independent and happy children. I am a full time high school teacher at Chimacum High School on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. I teach general science, physics and woodworking. I have become serious about knifemaking since I attended Kerry Stagmer's Hammer-in in March of 2010. Before that I played around, mostly unsuccessfully, making knives but I got inspired there and built a power hammer and 2x72" grinder. I feel like I have made pretty good progress since then but I still have a lot to learn. Before this hobby I self taught myself fine woodworking and welding and made my living doing those things for about 25 years until I made a major life change and became a teacher 14 years ago. This fall I took my first class in anything hands-on I have wanted to learn, in this case bladesmithing, from Tom Ferry and it sped up my learning curve immensely. At this point I tend to not offer a lot of advice because I really feel I don't know that much. Ask me about boatbuilding, teaching or fine woodwork and I am all there. But I believe in the importance of experience and when it comes to knifemaking I don't have that much.
My wife an I like to sail and travel and tend to be gone for most of the summer. Last summer we spent a month in India and the two summers before that we took the sailboat I built to Alaska getting as north as Glacier Bay. So I have done most of my knife making in the non-summer months. Besides all that I like to cuddle by the fireplace and take walks on the beach. Or maybe it is cuddle on the beach and take walks by the fireplace. If only we had a fireplace.

Knifemaking, travel, sailing, building things