My basic bio
All Contact Info - HERE
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Me at the coal forge 1983 - notice hammer and anvil where I labored for years making house jewelry and wood carving tools. This was on a 350 acre sheep ranch, where I lived and looked after a 150 head of sheep.
Lunch break
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I am from Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, where Russian is the primary language, you can get borsht in any restaurant, and where personalized knee capping services are a simple phone call away.
My life with metal began when I dedicated a year as an apprentice in a traditional blacksmith in southern Oregon. This means that I lived at the forge, swung a sledge hammer when called for, and learned all aspects of forging and smithing in a non electrified shop. I lived next to the forge in a log cabin with power or water and worked 7 days a week for 9 hours a day, which was my choice.
I learned forging technique and design, as well as horse shoeing and wagon making. I loved forging the most, and was determined to not only master the skills and designs involved, but refine my skills over time.
After finishing this apprenticeship, I made forged "house jewelry" for three years, selling my work at low end craft fairs. Another fork in the road came up again, when one choice was to borrow a bunch of money and get into gates and grilles as a specialty welder/smith or go deeper into forging by pursuing work forging wood carving tools. This meant forging tool steel, which is much more delicate than the mild steel I had always used.
At this point I decided to go for it and refine my forging skills by working with tool steel , and spent a few amazing days with a master tool smith who forged a beautiful line of wood carving tools that were so fine. His name was Dick Anderson from Washington state and I salute his fine craftsmanship.
After this amazing meeting, I spent 2 years of my spare time getting ready to produce those fine woodcarving tools. These were fully forged, by hand, from round high carbon tool steel. This meant that I had to make a line shaft, without a design. After making the line shaft, which took a year of weekends , I had to figure out how to use it so that I could grind, polish and buff the tools which I had just forged. So I needed to find and buy the equipment to place on the machines I made, and then master the skills of using that equipment . This meant figuring out what size buffs to buy, what buffing compounds to use and how to use them . Then there was the carving tool designs themselves to figure out, and of course then I needed to use them a lot to figure out what needed tweaking where. Without a retired good hearted Army mechanic who generously offered me his time to help this along , this would never have happened. So it not only became a learning curve for my craft, but I also got to know this rare generous good hearted man named Charlie Hoover.
As soon as I needed to create something new, another experienced old timer stepped in to help. He was a retired mill wright with time on his hands, and we had fun together. His name was George Gallios. May he rest in peace.
He helped me make dies for creating wood gouges. When I had all my tools lined up, then I could begin to master the designs and actual work. All in all I invested 3.5 years mastering this difficult craft and making the transition to tools. This transition was made much more difficult by having no one to question or even a book to turn to ( no internet yet ) . Then I made these tools full time for 7 years. These included, in all sizes - traditional and modern adzes { learned from a Kahune' in Hawaii }, chisels and gouges , scorps, draw knives, 15 different carving knives, and many other specialty tools for violin makers, log cabin builders, etc.
It was a natural leap for me to make kitchen knives from here, as people at my now high end art shows often visited and encouraged me to copy their knives. After making so many forged tools from carbon steel, I fully believed through experience that stainless steel was good for blender parts, but not appropriate for edge tools. So I became a maker of carbon steel kitchen knives.
As long as the steel is properly heat treated and good quality, carbon steel is and always has been the perfect steel for keeping a fine sharp edge, which is always keen and 'bright' and easy to re-sharpen. Many of my designs have come from professional chefs who wished to have their favorite knives copied. I now currently make kitchen knives exclusively, and sell Arrow Brand kitchen knives worldwide . To view my work, go back to my home page or click here
www.wildfirecutlery.com .
