About Us

Growing up in the 90s in a small town in Kentucky, you tend to focus on many of the typical day-to-day things that others may take for granted. Things were more permanent and less disposable. That said, even the best-crafted tools require some maintenance to make the long journey from generation to generation. One aspect of the maintenance of the sharp object variety that always seems so mystical to me was sharpening. 

My dad was, and I imagine, still capable of honing an edge that was a thing of local legend. He didn't have a fancy setup or spend tons of time with the Case pocket knives he carried, but what he did with those two-sided oil stones was remarkable. I knew folks who wouldn't even touch those knives, fearing they might reach out and grab them. I watched hours of the process but still never truly understood it for many years. The rhythm of a blade slowly ground to a razor-fine edge had a cathartic quality that, to this day, puts my mind at ease. I continued to watch and even began attempting to sharpen my knives, occasionally with success and sometimes with the loss of a bit of blood. Still, it took years to refine the skill and produce repeatable results consistently. In learning how to sharpen an edge, I truly learned about more than just stones and angles. There was the whole question of what steel the knife was composed of, what style of grind it was manufactured with, and how it was heat treated, to name some of the more prominent aspects though only scuffing their surfaces. Blades and their crafting is a rabbit hole that I love to take others down, but with a warning that once you take the first step, there may be no return. That said, it was a long while before I truly started to understand what a knife was other than just something that cuts. Of course, that led me to the next phase of the obsession: making my own. 

I "made" my first knife during lunch at Ditch Wich in Danville, Indiana. It was a dagger made from a reclaimed screwdriver handle and a piece of steel that appeared hardened. I fussed with a die grinder and scotch bright pads for a week until I had roughly shaped my cobbled shank, but it felt like I had just forged Excalibur. For all practical purposes, it was a knife or, more specifically, a dagger. It was double-edged and stabby if you want to distill the legendary dagger down to its fundamental core. 

Fast forward to several ego deaths, failures, and movements in jobs and states the fire cooler a bit for making knives until I found Bladesmith Forum. It set my journey on a proper course and forced me to be objective about my skills and where they needed to be; this forum did just that. This wealth of information was laid bare under the guiding hand of Don Fogg and his peers. On top of that, the number and willingness of hobbyists and experts alike to share was a level of collaboration I'd never experienced before. Had it not been for those folks and that forum, many of whom I still count as teachers and friends today, I would not have realized how much I dearly love the pursuit of being a student of this age-old craft. 

So that brings me to today and our little website, which is the online face of Ouroboros Blades, LLC. Ouroboros was started to help sell my work and fund future investments in its improvement. From there, we trademarked our logo, a whole other story, and began producing goods. Again, as rabbit holes, they tend to branch, which is what happened with our pens and leather goods. Like any other operation, knife-making creates what we will call "waste," but in this case, it wasn't. The smaller pieces and leftover scraps needed a home, and that's when I discovered leatherwork and pen turning. The leftover bits from sheaths and wood from knife handles were given new purposes as wallets and pens so that the remnants could still perform a function rather than lining the bottom of a waste bin. 

So please look at our wares and those of our partner makers because who doesn't enjoy the warm lullaby smell of Italian leather or the unmistakable feel and balance of a kitchen knife skillfully ground by hand? Items crafted by flesh and bone and imparted with a piece of their maker's soul have a magic about them that transcends the product they may be identified as and take on heirloom quality. Masterfully made objects are thoughtful and made to serve generations to come. 

Thanks for dropping by and supporting us. 

Charlie Meek

Owner

Ouroboros Blades, LLC