My interest in weaponry began when I was young and learning Shorin-ryu Karate. To be honest I had no skill at the martial arts, but it laid the seed for my future studies. In college I studied History and History of Technology with an emphasis on ancient and medieval metal working practices. From those studies I began to view cutting tools in their historical perspective but never quite loosing the mystery and excitement of my dojo days.

Slowly, while attending college I began to learn and practice blacksmithing under the guiding hammer of Paul Marx. Paul taught a short non-credit class at a local tech school for many years and for some reason he saw potential in me - to this day I do not understand why as my early forgings demonstrated absolutely no potential in the slightest. Over time, however, this changed and I developed the basic competency of skills and thanks to farm auctions I also acquired the basic tools required to set up my own forge shop.

In my current body of work I seek to make essentially two types of blades -- historical reconstructions and modern creations. I have a deep respect for and interest in the work of those who have come before and have been systematically recreating certain techniques of steel manufacture. Among these are the smelting of iron ores, carborization of iron, smelting of various crucible steels and the rediscovery of wootz steel. My modern creations revolve around the manipulation of steel chemistry and patterns in new and beautiful directions.

I have a good base of knowledge surrounding "Damascus" steel - both pattern-welded and Indo/Persian wootz crucible steel. My pattern-welding mainly focuses on complex mosaic steels, but I have control enough in the wide variety of more conventional twisted, random, ladder patterns. My wootz studies have been ongoing since 1992 and to my knowledge I am the only person who has created wootz by both traditional as well as modern methods.

I guess the end result is that I have been developing the skills and techniques to make the cutlery I find interesting whether that be a Persian Shamshir in wootz with the famed "kirk and rose pattern on the blade" or a Norwegian laminated blade for your next hunting trip.

I also demonstrate and offer one-on-one in studio instruction for those who wish to learn how to make cutlery or ancient steel by their own hand.