For as long as I can remember I have worked with my hands making things. My father had a small woodshop in our basement where he made birdhouses and other small items. Before I was able to use the tools, I played with the sawdust and scrap wood. By the time I was a teenager, I had built a shaving horse and was carving walking sticks, spoons and chair parts with a drawknife.

In my late teens, I served a three-year apprenticeship with a semi-retired master furniture maker. Looking back, it was one of the most formative experiences of my life. As we worked side by side each day, Hugh Bowman not only taught me the skills of making fine furniture, but guided my understanding of what it meant to be a craftsman, a Christian, and a citizen of my community.

Simultaneous with my apprenticeship, I began pursuing the art of blacksmithing. With encouragement from Bea Hensley, a renowned blacksmith in the area, I went to work. It was a long road, learning by doing, reading, observing, and more doing. I benefited greatly from the local blacksmith’s meetings, and sought out other blacksmiths wherever I could find them.

As the years have passed, I have become that husband and father with my children playing in the sawdust at my feet. I am filled with gratitude to be able to do what I love: work full-time from home, live a quiet and peaceable life in rural NC, and actively participate in my children’s education and training, right there at a pile of sawdust and scrap wood!

Our Team

As I became aware of the growing need for high-quality tools for green woodworking, I began to shift my focus away from general blacksmithing and furniture work, to only toolmaking. It soon became apparent that I would need help if I wanted to make any volume of tools, but I really didn’t want employees. My old friend, Justin, began helping me on Saturdays as I forged batches of adzes. We analyzed how to make the process more efficient, and brainstormed about different business models. Justin discovered he had a natural talent for grinding, and soon set up his own shop to grind and finish my tools.

Today we have grown into a team of six highly skilled craftsmen, independently working in the spirit of the old cottage industry to produce a line of specialty woodworking tools you will be proud to use. Each member of our team is a self-employed craftsman of the first order, working from a shop in their own backyard, on a unified line of tools.