My name is Monty Wheeler. In 2022 I started blacksmithing and knife making as a hobby. I’m a member of the American Bladesmith Society, working towards my Journeyman Smith status and hope to one day achieve Master Bladesmith status. I’m a husband, father of 4, pappy of 3, and a native Texan. Also I’m a Nuclear Engineer (by degree, but not so much by profession).
I was born and raised in Houston, TX. Growing up as a kid, I spent every weekend at my family ranch in Chappel Hill, Texas. I learned how to shoot, hunt, and fish at an early age. There was always work to do too. Fence work, fixing the tractor, bailing and stacking hay in the barn for the cows to have during the winter were normal activities for us. Using a knife became 2nd nature and I quickly learned the value of a good knife.
At an early age I was fascinated with machinery and tools and making and fixing things. I was always taking things apart (just to put them back together), or welding scrap pieces of steel just to see what cool things I could make. As I got older I started working in my dad’s shop (he’s a metal sculptor). I learned how to use a bandsaw, table saw, belt sander, and how to work with wood and metals. Mostly we used soft metals like aluminum, brass, and copper. I learned how to use a drill press and a buffer, how to braise copper and brass, and much more. Sometimes we would take the scrap pieces of aluminum or brass, melt them in the kiln, and make sand castings for the sculptures, I learned how to do that too.
Knives made by C.K. Chandler (my Grandpa)
My grandfather made knives as a hobby. Most of what he made were kitchen knives for my grandmother. He would use them for carving and whittling too. He would take old bandsaw blades and grind them into various shaped knives and put a handle on them. They were sharp and saw a lot of use, I still have several in my kitchen and use them for carving meat.
He always sharpened his knives on a stone and he got them razor sharp. People would give him their knives to sharpen because he would always get them sharper than they could. I got my first knife when I was 8 years old (a folding Schrade Uncle Henry…great knife) and he taught me how to sharpen it on an Arkansas stone. I’m still trying to get my knives as sharp as he would have done.
Many years ago, I was out at my deer lease and found some old leaf spring. It had probably come off a Jeep or one of the other various hunting vehicles that had been out there over the years. I told myself “I could make a knife out of that” so I picked it up and brought it home. It sat in my garage for probably 10 years, but I knew that one day I would make some knives with it.
In 2022 I bought a propane forge, and a small anvil and blacksmiths hammer. I read books and watched blacksmithing videos to learn what I could. I found some scrap steel and started my forging journey. I made bottle openers, split crosses, leaf keychains and nails, as well as a few tools like punches, drifts, and tongs so I could learn. After about a year of practicing forging odds and ends, I decided to make my first knife, so I picked up the leaf spring and gave it a shot. It wasn’t pretty…
My First Knife (A Skinner)
But I kept trying and after a few attempts, made my first knife. It was by no means perfect in any way but completing it made me want to make another, because I knew I could do better. So I made another and another and I got better with each one. I soon realized that I was trying to make a perfect knife and it wasn’t going to be easy. I’m still on that journey, to make the best knives that I can and to make them as perfectly as I can.
I built a YouTube Channel to document my knife making journey. There you’ll find videos of some of my various knife making projects. Click on the image to go to my YouTube Channel.
Some short clips and some of my older videos of me learning to forge are on my second channel “ArtMetalScience Clips”, click on the image to see those.