I enjoy creating using a variety of methods and materials. Steel, wood, and leather are my primary mediums. I work in a small off grid workshop, here at our homestead in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. Half the shop is dedicated to forging and metalwork and the other half is a wood shop. I enjoy dividing my time equally between the two. 

I forge primarily in a coal forge, operated by a hand powered blower. Nearly all of my tools are antique, acquired from years of searching and bargaining. The rest have been made by me. 

High carbon steel, appropriate for hand forging using traditional methods, is used in all of my forged cutlery. I only use new, known steel in my knives, no scrap or old springs. The only exception to this is occasionally files, used for their texture. 

I enjoy using traditional hand tools and methods, but where appropriate I do use the most modern equipment I can. This particularly applies to heat treatment. Gone are the days of judging temperature by eye and quenching in bacon grease and old transmission fluid. All my cutlery is heat treated in a modern heat treat oven, with precise temperature control, using protocols specifically designed by metallurgists for that particular steel. I also use modern, engineered quench oils to ensure the maximum performance a steel can provide. 

Contrastingly, in my forged utensils, hardware and decorative items, I frequently use scrap, recycled from larger steel fabricators. This gives new life to material that would have otherwise gone to the scrap yard. 

My woodwork uses almost exclusively locally sourced wood. My baskets are made of hand pounded black ash, harvested locally. Nearly all of my knife handles are curly maple cut within about a mile of the shop. 

When I am not working in my shop, I am spending time with my family or friends enjoying the local woods, lakes, and hills. And if I’m not doing that, I’m working as a carpenter or, in the summers, as a timber cutter on forest fires in Washington and Oregon.