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We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Journeyman Bladesmith Jason Kraus, founder and owner of NorthStar Forge. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jason below.
Hi Jason, thanks for joining us today. Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?
Throughout the years, I’ve experienced feasts and famines when there isn’t business coming in and the flow of students has ceased. It gets very scary when you don’t know where your next check is coming from or anticipating the day when clients no longer seek luxury items, like hand-forged knives.
But then I remember how my bad days at the forge are better than any good day I had anywhere else I’ve worked. I’m often reminded of how blessed I am that I’ve found a way to get paid to do my favorite thing, especially when I hear how unhappy many of my students and members are with their day-to-day jobs.
Jason, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Growing up, I always struggled with dyslexia and knew I would do better with a hands-on career. Also, I always appreciated knives, ever since watching the TV show McGyver and seeing all he could do with just a Swiss Army pocket knife. I still have the exact model he used since being gifted it when I was 5 years old. Between that and a fascination with the glowing coals of a campfire, I felt called to put the two together.
In my 20s, before becoming a bladesmith, I spent time as an apprentice chef where I learned just how I like chef knives to perform. The heat of the kitchen also helped me prepare for the fire of the forge. Later, I began painting houses and started my own company. The toxic fumes and highly competitive field had me searching for more.
In 2011, I was introduced to the works of Master Smith Bob Kramer out of Washington and was encouraged to attend the Bill Moran School of Bladesmithing in Arkansas through the American Bladesmithing Society (ABS).
This two-week long course opened my eyes to a whole new world of knives – how they are made and how they are expected to perform. This also inspired me to begin my journey toward becoming an ABS Master Smith. I’m half-way there, acquiring my Journeyman Smith certification in 2022.
When I returned from Bill Moran, I rented a shop and purchased all the necessary equipment to start forging on my own and began the long process of learning the art of bladesmithing and knifemaking.
Some of my favorite knives to make are bowies, Scottish dirks, and anything with damascus steel.
One of the highlights of my career has been competing on the History Channel’s Forged in Fire series (Season 3, episode 15) and Discovery’s Master of Arms (Season 1, episode 8). It was fun to compete with other smiths, who have since become life-long friends.
Some of my favorite aspects of this field is being able to repair or bring back to life family heirlooms like a great-grandfather’s knife or a son’s ka-bar (US Marine Corps knife), as well as create new family heirlooms that will outlive their maker.
It also brings great joy to introduce others to the rebirth of this craft and to share it through the classes I teach. Nothing satisfies me more than helping someone forge their first knife or even better, forging a new bladesmith!
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
I would sill be in dire straights if I hadn’t met my wife, who is now my business partner.
Running a business and bladesmithing requires multiple hats, way more than I can – or want – to wear.
I chose to be a bladesmith, but in order to do it full-time, there are necessary requirements and obligations of running your own business. It also requires diversifying your streams of income, which creates other obstacles and growing pains.
Luckily, I had an awesome web guy to create a professional website and supported the online sales demand in my early years.
As business demands increased and classes grew, so did the emails, phone calls, fulfillments, and accounting needs – just to name a few.
Meeting my wife has been a vital part of my success.
I never would’ve guessed a young journalist would fall in love with me after sharing my story in her newspaper.
We met just before COVID and became best friends around many campfires and hiking excursions.
Fortunately, she has just as much enthusiasm about my forging business as I do and happened to have all the strengths that compensated for my weaknesses.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Bladesmithing is a great hobby, but it certainly comes with many challenges when you make it your full-time gig.
There are times when you are spending three days just making damascus before you even start making a knife that you potentially ruin on day six of its creation. This costs time and materials you can’t pass along to the client. These frustrations also enforce the voices in your head that say “Quit! Go get a ‘real’ job.”
It’s vital that you learn to ignore those voices and create a habit of it. Focus on the good things, like the achievements, rather than the pitfalls. It’s important to remember to keep moving forward and look at every step as a victory.
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The two professional knife photos are as marked “SharpByCoop”, and the others are our pics.
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