What is our theory and process around the knives we make?
A knife can be so much more than just an edged tool that performs a function and then forgotten in a drawer. So much of today’s life is disposable, and that fact has caused us to forget how special a purpose built, quality instrument or tool can be.
Remember when you were a kid? Do you remember your first knife? I do, mine was a stag handled fixed blade with a brass guard and leather spacers. It had a take-down nut in the handle that wouldn’t seem to stay tight and deep fullers on each side of the blade. It only took about a week before I stuck it through the threads of the thin leather sheath it came with. That was my first lesson in taking care of something. From then on, for many years, I took extra care when placing it in its sheath to not further damage the fraying threads. That knife whittled bows, whittled walking sticks, was tied to the end of a broom handle whenever I needed a spear, was used to dig holes through tough ground, chopped low hanging branches infringing on my path through the woods, and was brandished against invisible enemy warriors with obvious success - I’m still here today.
At its core a knife is a tool representing the advancement and ingenuity of human kind. Its purpose, without any romanticism, is for the most part to make something else - from dinner to walking sticks to the in-between things that get us our dinner or process our firewood. It gets us from here to there more efficiently and more smoothly than without one.
But when you only have one knife or you can’t simply replace your knife if it gets dull - it takes on an entirely different significance. It becomes your partner, a companion into the unknown, a trusted friend. You know it’s every scratch and ding, you know it’s balance, you know it’s feel and direction without having to look, and you’re pretty sure you could stick it in that tree dead on from ten paces. It won’t let you down… it wouldn’t let you down.
We make knives to remind us of the close partnership that can be had, and in that, remind us of the beauty and physicality of life.