4D Blades and Tools

Hey folks, my friend (and sometimes student) Abinadi Flores has some really nice desert ironwood for sale. $35 apiece. Message him if you are interested.

Or message me if you just wanna chat 😁

Frame handle fit up on this big Bowie 🔥🔥🔥 what’s on your workbench? 

They say a picture is worth 1000 words. I definitely don’t have enough pictures or words to express how grateful I am that you were part of my life. Thank you for sharing your spark (both literally and figuratively) with so many people. Thank you for your knowledge and inspiration. Thank you for being my friend. May your fire burn bright 🔥🔥🔥

I spent most of the day yesterday, fitting guards and bolsters on this set. There’s still lots of work to do, but they are coming along nicely 😊

A little over a week ago a friend messaged me to let me know that one of my knives had been featured in 🔥🔥🔥 I immediately messaged the customer who had commissioned the knife, then I spent the next hour searching my house from top to bottom for my copy of the issue to no avail 😢 finally, my daughter sheepishly told me that she thinks she threw it away. Resigned, I hurried to Amazon to see if I could find another copy. It came today! I’ve already posted about this once. But there’s something about holding the magazine in your hands and smelling the pages that really brings it to life.🥰 it brought back all the memories of teenage me standing in the grocery store by the magazine rack and flipping through the pages of knife magazines. I became familiar with many of the great names in the Bladesmithing industry while my parents shopped for mundane things like mayonnaise and Ramen noodles. I never could have dreamed that one day one of my knives would be in the same magazine! I am super honored and touched. I hope I will have more opportunities in the future to share my work through this media.💕🔥🔥🔥

Today is National Knife Day! 🔪

In honor of the occasion, I thought I would share a few of my favorite knives that I have made over the years.

Interestingly, Forbes once ranked the most important tools in human history, with input from experts, editors and more than 3,000 readers.

The knife came in at #1.

Humans have been making cutting tools for more than two million years. Stone eventually became copper, bronze, iron and steel, but the basic idea has remained remarkably consistent: a handle and an edge.

I started making knives when I was 14 years old, and more than three decades later I am still fascinated by how much there is to explore in something so fundamentally simple.

So, in honor of National Knife Day, here are a few of my favorites. 🔥🔨🔪

Which one is your favorite?

This is a short video of making wrought iron san Mai for use in a Japanese Gyuto chef knife. If you are curious about Bladesmithing, take some time to watch the whole video. It shows the entire process of making the San Mai. The video itself is only about three minutes long, but the entire process took five hours 🙂

Making 52100 and wrought iron San Mai for a Japanese Gyuto Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

Got home this evening to find my 18 yr old daughter making dinner with a couple of $1000+ knives, and I’m not even bothered. First of all she is cooking dinner (so I don’t have to) second she is developing some real culinary talent. And third, I often tell people that “if you want to enjoy cooking then get a really good knife! 🔥🔥🔥 I am all about knife shaped art, and if you want to buy a knife and treat it like art and hang it on the wall then that is your prerogative. But, there is something about using a beautiful and well made tool that really scratches an itch in my brain, and I love that my kids have inherited this trait from me 🥰🥰🥰🔪🔪🔪

I love making memorial pieces.

There is something almost sacred about being entrusted with a memory and finding a way to turn it into functional art.

Over the years, I’ve made knives to remember loved ones lost and loved ones still with us. I’ve made them to commemorate important periods in someone’s life, shared experiences, accomplishments, places, and pieces of family history.

Sometimes, the story can become part of the knife itself.

I’ve turned meaningful pieces of clothing and fabric into Micarta for handles. I’ve incorporated coins and other objects into knives. Certain pieces of iron and steel can even be forged into San Mai and given an entirely new life as part of a blade.

Often these materials have very little monetary value.

But to the person who hands them to me, they can be priceless.

That’s what makes these projects different.

I’m not simply being asked to make a knife. I’m being trusted with a small piece of someone’s story—and asked to make something worthy of carrying it forward.

If there’s a person, memory, or piece of your history you’d like to preserve, send me a message. I’d love to hear the story.