Kerry Brooks
04-15-2012, 11:43 PM
Good article in today's Arkansas Democrat Gazette about Jerry Fisk and JR Cook by Rhonda Owen. Congrats guys.
NASHVILLE — Radiant crimson flames roar from opposite sides of what looks like an oversize stockpot that’s brewing not chicken broth, but a gas-fueled fire of 3,000 degrees.
“When you’re forging in the summer, it’s like being in front of hell with the gates open,” says custom knife maker Jerry Fisk, who’s standing a few feet from the pot-shaped forge holding a rod attached to a dull-looking rectangle of iron in the depths of the blaze.
He’s transforming unimpressive layers of iron into steel for a gleaming handmade knife blade that’ll slice not just the skin and pulp of a tomato, but the tiny seeds within. Not that slicing vegetables will be the knife’s purpose - a knife by a master bladesmith such as Fisk is a collector’s item, something to display and value for its artistry and aesthetics as well as the fact that it’ll lop off a few fingers if you grab it by the pointy end.
Fisk, 58, pulls the glowing red metal from the fire, slaps it on an anvil as he grabs a hammer, then begins pounding. Sparks fly, landing on and around him while they strike his protective plastic face mask. After sprinkling the hot metal with borax powder that melts to seal it against oxygenation, he thrusts the piece back into the forge to reheat, then brings it out again and puts it in a pneumatic press, or hammer, to be pounded and stretched to twice its length.
Quickly, before it cools, he positions the metal - now several inches long - on the anvil’s edge, strikes the center with another rod to crease the metal halfway, then folds it onto itself before returning the piece to the forge. Heat, hammer to twice its length, fold, repeat again and again, until you’ve got steel folded 176 to 21,000 times or more, Fisk says. Folding creates unique patterns and strengthens the steel.
Fisk’s work methods are based on smithing techniques that date back to the Middle Ages. The master bladesmith creates distinctive knives of Damascus steel (named for a pattern-welding style created by swordsmiths in what is now Syria) fitted with hand cut handles of walrus tusk, mother of pearl, giraffe bone, stag horn, specialty woods and other materials. The knives also feature decorative engraving and etching.
“Knife-making is an art form - a very sharp art form,” says Fisk, a self-taught knife-maker known internationally for his skill and knowledge. And it’s a natural one for Arkansas, given the state’s history as the place where, in 1831, James Black forged the long, fixed-handle fighting knife that legendary frontiersman Jim Bowie later carried in the battle of the Alamo. The Bowie is a staple of bladesmiths who not only design and make knives, but forge the metal for them.
While most Arkansans possess at least a passing knowledge of the Bowie knife, they’re probably unaware that the state boasts a record number of knife makers who have satisfied the stringent requirements of the American Bladesmith Society to become master bladesmiths.
The organization lists only 115 bladesmiths in the United States and other countries as masters - 16 of those are in Arkansas.
As well as being home to more master bladesmiths than any other state or nation, Arkansas also lays claim to two “Living Treasures” in the art of traditional knife-making - Fisk and James R. Cook, who live and work in Nashville, not far from the birthplace of the Bowie knife.
The University of North Carolina designated Fisk a “National Living Treasure” in 1999; the Arkansas Arts Council named Cook, 56, an “Arkansas living treasure” in 2007. Both institutions recognize artists in a variety of fields for their skill and contribution to preserving traditional art forms - among them basket-making, weaving and woodcarving. Fisk and Cook are the only knife-makers recognized so far.
HONED HERITAGE
They and others attribute Arkansas’ wealth of knife makers to its history and the Texarkana College/Bill Moran School of Bladesmithing at Historic Washington State Park in Hempstead County. The school, which offers classes in all aspects of hand forging and knife-making, is located near where historians believe Black forged the Bowie knife.
Some contemporary knifemakers use a knife template, then saw and grind the metal into shape. But Fisk and Cook forge steel themselves in studios outfitted with anvils, handheld hammers and tools, hydraulic and pneumatic hammers, grinders, polishers and engraving equipment. They create dramatically patterned Damascus steel by layering and manipulating metal of varying quality and composition.
Creating Damascus steel was considered a lost art until 1973, when Maryland knife maker Moran re-created it and revealed the technique to others. In 1976, Moran founded the American Bladesmith Society dedicated to preserving the art of forged blades.
ARTISTRY AND STRENGTH
Making custom knives is a blend of brute force - forging and pounding the metal - and finely etched and engraved detail. Days and weeks are devoted to shaping and refining each blade; it sometimes takes several tries to get the desired quality. Fisk and Cook say they’ve worked countless hours on knives only to discover a flaw or minute crack in the metal in the final stage. A flaw isn’t acceptable because it affects the strength of the steel so what might have been art quickly becomes trash.
Fisk drives his discarded blades into a patch of ground outside of his shop. “It’s like a knife graveyard and someday archaeologists will find it and think a huge battle happened there,” he says.
Bladesmithing also involves a measure of chemistry as they often mix and add materials to enhance their steel, Fisk says. “If I start with a poor quality piece of steel, I can improve it; every time I fold it, I add sugar to it. When that sugar burns, it’s pure carbon. That makes it stronger.”
Patterns - waves, swirls, feathering, mosaics and pictures - are formed by the way metals are folded or stacked and cut as well as through surface manipulation, Cook says. “To set a pattern by surface manipulation, I would forge by using something like a gear mesh with alternating teeth that mashes the pattern inside from top to bottom. That actually pushes the steel into a wave. Another way to make a pattern - like a mosaic picture - is in how you stack or twist the metal.”
Cook says he tries to create pictures when he twists the metal, but the results don’t always match his vision. “You might be trying for a horse’s head and get a pheasant,” he says, chuckling. “Then you say, ‘That’s exactly what I intended.’”
Many patterns are random, determined merely by how the hammer strikes the metal. Creating an original or specific pattern takes time for experimentation - and time is at a premium, especially for full-time knife-makers. Custom knife-making for Fisk and Cook isn’t just an art, but their livelihood.
“You can’t take a lot of time to set up a pattern that might not work when you need to make a knife to sell to make car payments,” Cook says.
Cook enjoys designing “theme knives” such as a Bowie knife he created for a January knife show in San Antonio, home of the Alamo. The knife’s design commemorated the creation of the Bowie knife in Arkansas and the fact that Bowie carried it with him to his death defending the Alamo.
“I made a feather-pattern Damascus Bowie knife,” Cook says. “On one side of the blade, I etched an outline of the state of Arkansas with an anvil inside. On the other side, I etched the state of Texas with the Alamo inside. Then I carried the knife from Arkansas to the Alamo to retrace the steps Jim Bowie made with his knife.”
He and Fisk work year round to produce perhaps as few as 40 knives that sell for $1,100 to more than $36,000 (for a set of three made by Fisk using a pound each of silver, gold and bronze). They have waiting lists of three to nine years for their one-of-a-kind knives.
Their clients come from all walks of life - some buy knives for specific purposes such as cooking or hunting while others just want something handmade especially for them.
Even though it’s their livelihood, Fisk notes, money isn’t the reason to go into knife-making.
“You have to really love this - it’s hot and dirty work,” he says. “In the summer, it can get up to 140 degrees in my shop. But I have a lot of fun with this. I like to say I ‘go to fun’ instead of ‘go to work’ every day.”
NASHVILLE — Radiant crimson flames roar from opposite sides of what looks like an oversize stockpot that’s brewing not chicken broth, but a gas-fueled fire of 3,000 degrees.
“When you’re forging in the summer, it’s like being in front of hell with the gates open,” says custom knife maker Jerry Fisk, who’s standing a few feet from the pot-shaped forge holding a rod attached to a dull-looking rectangle of iron in the depths of the blaze.
He’s transforming unimpressive layers of iron into steel for a gleaming handmade knife blade that’ll slice not just the skin and pulp of a tomato, but the tiny seeds within. Not that slicing vegetables will be the knife’s purpose - a knife by a master bladesmith such as Fisk is a collector’s item, something to display and value for its artistry and aesthetics as well as the fact that it’ll lop off a few fingers if you grab it by the pointy end.
Fisk, 58, pulls the glowing red metal from the fire, slaps it on an anvil as he grabs a hammer, then begins pounding. Sparks fly, landing on and around him while they strike his protective plastic face mask. After sprinkling the hot metal with borax powder that melts to seal it against oxygenation, he thrusts the piece back into the forge to reheat, then brings it out again and puts it in a pneumatic press, or hammer, to be pounded and stretched to twice its length.
Quickly, before it cools, he positions the metal - now several inches long - on the anvil’s edge, strikes the center with another rod to crease the metal halfway, then folds it onto itself before returning the piece to the forge. Heat, hammer to twice its length, fold, repeat again and again, until you’ve got steel folded 176 to 21,000 times or more, Fisk says. Folding creates unique patterns and strengthens the steel.
Fisk’s work methods are based on smithing techniques that date back to the Middle Ages. The master bladesmith creates distinctive knives of Damascus steel (named for a pattern-welding style created by swordsmiths in what is now Syria) fitted with hand cut handles of walrus tusk, mother of pearl, giraffe bone, stag horn, specialty woods and other materials. The knives also feature decorative engraving and etching.
“Knife-making is an art form - a very sharp art form,” says Fisk, a self-taught knife-maker known internationally for his skill and knowledge. And it’s a natural one for Arkansas, given the state’s history as the place where, in 1831, James Black forged the long, fixed-handle fighting knife that legendary frontiersman Jim Bowie later carried in the battle of the Alamo. The Bowie is a staple of bladesmiths who not only design and make knives, but forge the metal for them.
While most Arkansans possess at least a passing knowledge of the Bowie knife, they’re probably unaware that the state boasts a record number of knife makers who have satisfied the stringent requirements of the American Bladesmith Society to become master bladesmiths.
The organization lists only 115 bladesmiths in the United States and other countries as masters - 16 of those are in Arkansas.
As well as being home to more master bladesmiths than any other state or nation, Arkansas also lays claim to two “Living Treasures” in the art of traditional knife-making - Fisk and James R. Cook, who live and work in Nashville, not far from the birthplace of the Bowie knife.
The University of North Carolina designated Fisk a “National Living Treasure” in 1999; the Arkansas Arts Council named Cook, 56, an “Arkansas living treasure” in 2007. Both institutions recognize artists in a variety of fields for their skill and contribution to preserving traditional art forms - among them basket-making, weaving and woodcarving. Fisk and Cook are the only knife-makers recognized so far.
HONED HERITAGE
They and others attribute Arkansas’ wealth of knife makers to its history and the Texarkana College/Bill Moran School of Bladesmithing at Historic Washington State Park in Hempstead County. The school, which offers classes in all aspects of hand forging and knife-making, is located near where historians believe Black forged the Bowie knife.
Some contemporary knifemakers use a knife template, then saw and grind the metal into shape. But Fisk and Cook forge steel themselves in studios outfitted with anvils, handheld hammers and tools, hydraulic and pneumatic hammers, grinders, polishers and engraving equipment. They create dramatically patterned Damascus steel by layering and manipulating metal of varying quality and composition.
Creating Damascus steel was considered a lost art until 1973, when Maryland knife maker Moran re-created it and revealed the technique to others. In 1976, Moran founded the American Bladesmith Society dedicated to preserving the art of forged blades.
ARTISTRY AND STRENGTH
Making custom knives is a blend of brute force - forging and pounding the metal - and finely etched and engraved detail. Days and weeks are devoted to shaping and refining each blade; it sometimes takes several tries to get the desired quality. Fisk and Cook say they’ve worked countless hours on knives only to discover a flaw or minute crack in the metal in the final stage. A flaw isn’t acceptable because it affects the strength of the steel so what might have been art quickly becomes trash.
Fisk drives his discarded blades into a patch of ground outside of his shop. “It’s like a knife graveyard and someday archaeologists will find it and think a huge battle happened there,” he says.
Bladesmithing also involves a measure of chemistry as they often mix and add materials to enhance their steel, Fisk says. “If I start with a poor quality piece of steel, I can improve it; every time I fold it, I add sugar to it. When that sugar burns, it’s pure carbon. That makes it stronger.”
Patterns - waves, swirls, feathering, mosaics and pictures - are formed by the way metals are folded or stacked and cut as well as through surface manipulation, Cook says. “To set a pattern by surface manipulation, I would forge by using something like a gear mesh with alternating teeth that mashes the pattern inside from top to bottom. That actually pushes the steel into a wave. Another way to make a pattern - like a mosaic picture - is in how you stack or twist the metal.”
Cook says he tries to create pictures when he twists the metal, but the results don’t always match his vision. “You might be trying for a horse’s head and get a pheasant,” he says, chuckling. “Then you say, ‘That’s exactly what I intended.’”
Many patterns are random, determined merely by how the hammer strikes the metal. Creating an original or specific pattern takes time for experimentation - and time is at a premium, especially for full-time knife-makers. Custom knife-making for Fisk and Cook isn’t just an art, but their livelihood.
“You can’t take a lot of time to set up a pattern that might not work when you need to make a knife to sell to make car payments,” Cook says.
Cook enjoys designing “theme knives” such as a Bowie knife he created for a January knife show in San Antonio, home of the Alamo. The knife’s design commemorated the creation of the Bowie knife in Arkansas and the fact that Bowie carried it with him to his death defending the Alamo.
“I made a feather-pattern Damascus Bowie knife,” Cook says. “On one side of the blade, I etched an outline of the state of Arkansas with an anvil inside. On the other side, I etched the state of Texas with the Alamo inside. Then I carried the knife from Arkansas to the Alamo to retrace the steps Jim Bowie made with his knife.”
He and Fisk work year round to produce perhaps as few as 40 knives that sell for $1,100 to more than $36,000 (for a set of three made by Fisk using a pound each of silver, gold and bronze). They have waiting lists of three to nine years for their one-of-a-kind knives.
Their clients come from all walks of life - some buy knives for specific purposes such as cooking or hunting while others just want something handmade especially for them.
Even though it’s their livelihood, Fisk notes, money isn’t the reason to go into knife-making.
“You have to really love this - it’s hot and dirty work,” he says. “In the summer, it can get up to 140 degrees in my shop. But I have a lot of fun with this. I like to say I ‘go to fun’ instead of ‘go to work’ every day.”