Knife Community Life

I’m going to go ahead and start this off by introducing myself.  I’m Anne.  I’m the wife of the mind behind Auxiliary Manufacturing, Mike/Michael/Cool Guy.

To second this off, I had NO idea what this niche had in store for me.  Mike started asking me to help him at shows and essentially be his ‘bathroom break’ person at shows.  I’m a team player, I went along.  Knowing nearly nothing about knives or the process that was involved in making them, I put myself into it.  I thought “Okay, I can stand here and look cute while he goes to the bathroom or gets lunch”….  I had no idea that it would be so involved and amazing, being in this world!

From the top (short version):

Mike started his knife making in Chicago,IL.  I worked full time to support that “Hobby”/“Career” as a manager at a bar/restaurant.  It’s what we do, support each other in every turn.  When he was offered an opportunity in Reno,NV to grow his business I jumped on board immediately.  We moved and made shit happen.  What I wasn’t ready for was how involved I would be.  He needed my help more than ever after the pandemic hit and deals fell through.  Mike ventured out on his own again and we needed to make every move count.  We hit all the local gun shows, started getting involved with ‘Blade Show’, and any other shows we could.  Ultimately we resided to doing the ‘Knife’ forward venues for obvious reasons.

So here we are today.  We do the ‘Blade Show’ shows and a couple of other things along the way, and I couldn’t be happier to be doing them.  Are they long?  YES.  Are they expensive? YES.  Are they worth it? 100% YES!!!!

Getting into the actual Community of it:

I would like to make mention that whatever you think of the people that make knives or do iron work that you see on the internet that may lead you to believe that they are “hard” or “unapproachable” or “angry” or really any one thing, you’re probably wrong.  I don’t say this to start an argument or disagreement.  I say this because I have personally, and mostly mistakenly, walked up to a number of these individuals and had, not only amazing conversations, but have also been engaged by their perspective and thoughts.  Who knew that a ‘monkey’ that just mashed metal could have a cognitive thought and feelings and such amazing opinions.  I, as some random girl at a knife show(at least in the beginning), was shown the utmost respect and attention.  If there are any other Knife Ladies out there, I’m sure y’all can attest to lack of attention at these kinds of shows.  There is something about this community that wants to bring you (and yes, this is a universal ‘you’) in.  This is a close knit community…they protect, they keep account.   Ultimately, they (we) are a family!

“Knife Community Life” input is not over!!!

Anne Jarvis

OXOOOOXO

Why I do this... or My dreams realized... or Cooking's fun but making knives is more fun

My first knife was a buck 110, given to me by my father in preparation of my first hunting trip. I had already learned to shoot, cleaned my rifle, rolled up my bedroll, and now it was time to learn to sharpen my knife. I’ll never forget my dads old and chipped sharpening stone, but man did he make it work. In no time both his and my buck knives were razor sharp and ready to field dress my first deer. While I wouldn’t get my first deer that year my love of knives was born.

While my mother didn’t approve of my new found love of knives she accepted it as boys will be boys. Throughout my youth I collected whatever knives I could get my hands on, finally time went by and i was out of high school and already had plenty of restaurant experience under by belt, so it only made sense to further that by going to culinary school, where I truly began to hone my knife skills.

After a quite a few years of post school cooking, cheffing, and managing, I discovered the world of handmade custom knives and was immediately obsessed. I picked up a few here and there where I could, but that still didn’t scratch my knife itch. So I decided I’d look into how hard it would be make my own knife. I stumbled upon the biltsharp tutorial and learned a lot of the process, for that series.

On my next day off I went straight to harbor freight and picked up a 1x30, I had already ordered a small piece of 1080 online and was ready to get grinding! Here I am on the front porch of my apartment grinding my first knife (a mini clever at that) on my little grinder. I had already built a brake drum forge, gotten some hardwood lump charcoal, and some old oil from the restaurant I was working at during the time, so I was ready to heat treat too.

Now my knife is ground and heat treated, although I had virtually no temperature control and used a trusty magnet on a stick to know when to quench, it turned out pretty ok, considering I had no idea what I was doing. I got it glued up as soon as I could with some un-stabilized poplar (have I mentioned I had no idea what I was doing?). Once shaped and sanded, I threw a very sloppy edge on it, then BOOM! My very first knife was born. It wasn’t pretty or very functional, but man I was happy and I knew I had to find a way to make this my life.