My name is Edward Braun and I am a 31yr old university English instructor, knifemaker, gunsmith, and life long tinkerer in Valdosta, GA. My initial direction towards bladesmithing was less than altruistic and pure happenstance--my salary has steadily been reduced at the university, my wife unemployed due to heart issues; and the local demand for custom firearms work rapidly diminishing. One day a young man showed up asking me to build a custom AR in exchange for a SouthBend lathe, old Craftsman benchtop mill (plus all their tooling), and all the other odds and ends he'd inherited when a machinist relative left him his shop.
As a "down" he gave me a buffalo 1x42" belt grinder, Delta Shopmaster press, and a box containing the manuals for the lathe, mill, 1972 machinist handbook (and other editions) and what he thought was a jeweling fixture (it was a broken vernier).
I assembled his rifle and he left with the promise to meet with me two weeks later. Two months later and it was apparent that he'd no intention of coming back--hopping from Georgia to Vegas on to Germany. Dejectedly, I sat and actually picked for the first time through the box of random stuff he'd dropped on my shop floor, untouched. I was surprised to find it inordinately heavy and soon found why--under the thin smattering of manuals and outdated catalogs, I found a Jantz parcel containing several sample sheets of G10, Micarta, and fiber liner, as well as 7 440C unprofiled paddle blanks, Tim McCreight's book "Custom Knife Making" and several antler racks. I took a look back on pics I'd snapped of the equipment, and quickly realized that old boy whose equipment I'd meant to adopt had been making a Bader clone.
About that time an old customer came by to drop off an even older Savage 29A for refurb and say the steel, books, and asked for a knife. I owed him for continually coming to me for gun work, I've long suspected he'd done it more as a favor to me to keep me busy since work had dried up, and so agreed. That first knife soon followed by two more requests and I wasn't even trying to sell them--folks called with set figures in mind, I just agreed more from shock then avarice. I was given copies of Goddard's books, materials, and still reading whatever the BF searches were producing.
I gradually came to the realization that working steel was calling to me in a whole new way. Between gunsmithing and other endeavors, I have always had a passion for metal work...but this was something alien, new, and refreshing. I'd find myself emerging from the shop after a 6 hour session shaping a blade in better spirits, happy, and all the many jumbled billions of tangential thoughts that normally course my mind in sync and harmony.
I suddenly discovered something during those first few knives beyond the challenge and fun in the experience, I completely lost myself in the work--hitting the zen like state of mind Bushido practitioners called Minushi, "mind without mind." The world sings to me while I'm crafting a blade and for the first time in life feel complete.
Embracing that feeling, I continually shifted direction in aesthetics, themes, materials, and all at a rapid clip without rushing the work. My admiration for the work of other makers neithers discourages me nor tempts me emulate, it simply makes me want to push myself harder, but as Herbert wrote, "The slow blade penetrates the shield." And so restrain myself, trying to be more reserved and mindful that I'm a young pup in an old dog's game.
Please bear with me gentle reader and i'll get to the point--
In a way I have come to grips, and the reality, that I had pointedly and poignantly thumbed my nose by various extents at the blade and blacksmithing world. I came from a mass of acronyms--degrees, techniques, machining labels, and so on. Blacksmithing was low tech...but then I made a knife and then I wanted, no, needed a forge. Something was screaming at me to do it. My epiphany was the effort I'd previously exerted to ignore such aspects of metal work--as a custom gunmaker a knife was an accent to the final package. I was a technocrat of the worst sort, a science snob the likes of which Tai Goo's Pet Peeve thread has discussed.
My shift was as sudden as my initial turn onto the bladesmith trade--
I justified it, at first, as needing a way to anneal and temper steel--I needed that forge. I spent six month researching everyone from Lionel's smelter to Zeoller/Reil's designs on down the list to Fogg and so on before settling on a hybrid of sorts with one of Rex's 1" Hybrid burners.
Next thing I knew I was on the hunt for guaranteed sources of steel and anvil--without anyone stocking hardening steels within 200 miles, I resorted to researching makes, models, and years of auto manufacturers to locate a decent stock of 5160, eventually ripping the 120 pounds of leaf springs from an early 70's Chevy for 60 bucks. I practiced, I learned, I studied, and around August last year began making damascus--cable then layered (although I'd been making mokume gane from the start).
...I'm still hunting a decent anvil, however, a friend with Harbor Fright offered me one of their 55lbers (I swapped a broken milling vice in exchange, they ended up owing me 5 bucks for it) and I ended up having a 3/4" plate of AR500 welded to the top. I ache for a Hay Budden or similar like a man in the desert longs for a glass of water.
To the point, and despite having read everything I could get my hands on metallurgy from tech manuals to Kevin Cashen's extensive posts, and yet...it amazed me how the same steel, same breed off the same bar, could have two completely different physical qualities all by being quenched in two different mediums.
The pure alchemy of the moment as steel phases is a moment as captivating and awe inspiring as the moments when my kids were born. I'm torn between the artist who simply is happy to be working with his hands...and the technowizard who demands the utmost in performance from his skill and his materials. In truth, perhaps I'm just a skeptic and realist who is mesmerized that magic still exists in some small way in this world.
Each step on this path has been rich, rewarding, and helped me find a love for life I'd not known short of the joy my wife and 4 children bring to me. I have always been a jack of all trades, proud of my DIY attitude and work ethic, but bladesmithing has added a whole new definition and dimension to my character, personality, and life philosophy. I readily admire the works of folks like Salem Straub, Jay Fisher, Tai Goo, Randy Haas, and so many of the other major makers present on these forums and web in general; I would readily give my eye teeth to study with them and one day might. For now I am content being abe to finally be comfortable enough to be a contributing member to this site, and hopefully earn the respect of those whom I respect.
Sorry for the novel, thank you for the chance to introduce myself; I hope I can be of some use.
Ed Braun
www.alefforge.com
, not easily mastered unless you had a full machine shop. The knowledge here opened my eyes to the possibilities and I've since started assembling my own shop.
