Australian Blade Ed 3 Dec 2017

To their credit they were very gracious and welcoming considering they had never laid eyes
on me before. One, Bruce Crawley, even invited me to his shop to run over a few things with
me. Next thing I knew I was being told I had to join the Guild. Also the first ever Guild Show
(1993) was only a few months away and I needed to build as many knives as I could to
display there. Awestruck and having no idea what I was getting into, like a putz, I agreed.
Looking back now it was the best “worst” decision I ever made. I learnt heaps really fast. A
few years later in 1999, Bruce and I travelled to Blade Show in Atlanta where we both sold
well and set up some great contacts. A week later we followed up with a second show in St
Louis where we both picked up a swag of awards. We joked with the American makers they
were probably going to lynch us in the carpark but they replied we deserved them and
obviously they had to lift their game. That was a great day.
I refer to those first ten to fifteen years as the Dark Ages. So far removed from what’s
available today and so much harder to get started. Machinery, materials, and information
were very thin on the ground. Like me, most guys had to build their own grinders. Popular
steels and handle materials all had to be shipped from the States. The only instructional
information to be had was in a few books. The only thing we could buy cheaper in the States
was grinding belts. Including shipping they were still half the price of buying them here.
Setting up today is still not cheap, but if you have the coin you can be up and running in a
couple of weeks these days, all from local suppliers. As for information I don’t think it is
possible to watch or read everything that is now freely available with the tap of a screen.