From Benches to Blades

FROM BEACHES TO BLADES A KNIFEMAKER’S STORY

ARTICLE BY AMBER MORIN & PHOTOS BY CARMEN MCCONNEL

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In the words of a working cowboy, “A good knife is like a good friend – always there when you need them, but sometimes hard to find.” Luckily for cowhands, ranchers, hunters and sportsmen that live in Arizona and the West, they don’t have to travel far to find a custom knifemaker, Davey Patterson. Davey has been making knives for years, but he is not what you might imagine as a typical knife maker and cowboy. He’s worked in surf shops, motorcycle shops, in construction, and grew up skateboarding in the beach town of Cardiff, California. For some, hailing from California is a sin. For others, growing up on the west coast is a dream. No matter where you fall on the spectrum, you’ll find this surfer turned fabricator, mechanic, cowboy, and now knifesmith’s story relatable on one level or another.

Growing up in California didn’t stop Davey, like many of us, from watching John Wayne movies as a kid. His favorite was El Dorado. However, he wondered, did cowboys like that still exist? It seemed that The Duke simply portrayed times that had long since passed. Surely the cowboy was just a historical romanticized figure living only on the big screen, but it didn’t stop Davey from wanting to learn how to ride a horse. That opportunity presented itself to him many years later when his neighbors, from Cardiff, introduced to Davey to their friends in Payson, Arizona. Davey didn’t just find himself in love with being on horseback, but with the whole idea of cowboying. In a matter of a few years, Davey ended up moving in and

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living with his new-found Arizona friends. He day worked on ranches across northern Arizona and found that he didn’t want to leave. So, he didn’t! Eventually, his curiosity landed him in the knife making trade. It seemed to him that ranchers, managers, and ranch help were always talking about spurs, and bits and knives. Davey naturally took to talking about knives. That was when the idea struck him that he could get to know more people and get his foot in the door more often if he started making knives. His assumption worked and now even George Straight has a Davey Patterson Knife.

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It wasn’t easy getting to this point in his knife making career or getting over 5,000 Instagram followers. It took time, years in fact, and resilience. There was a lot of trial and error. Starting out, like many self-taught artisans and craftsmen, Davey questioned whether he had the skills to make, much less sell, his work. His biggest challenge was building confidence, then getting his knives to look like the image he had in his mind, and lastly learning to create clean looking, long lasting leather holsters for his custom creations. There were times he questioned his decision to start knife making. His first knife took him 3 to

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4 days to complete without making a holster for it. But, with a no quit attitude years later he has his craft down to one day. This timeframe, however, is dependent on the Arizona climate, which isn’t always generous when it comes to blacksmithing processes like annealing and tempering that Davey must do in order to work with and harden his knives. As you can imagine, summer is challenging, and he starts work before dawn.

Davey has several models. Some have entertaining names such as the chili pepper, frijole, and the panhandle, but they all have purposes for the daily use and work of a cowboy, outdoorsman, and hunter. The notcher and button models, however, mean the most to him. These are the knife blade designs that started the whole vision for his work and eventually with a lot of sweat equity and time became tangible realities. Fortunately for Davey, his vision is now his fulltime career, IF he’s not chasing cows. He makes a living from the knives he makes and hopes to continue the trade for many years to come while learning as much as he can. In his own words, “I like seeing good use of a knife and knowing that it is a good tool for the person who owns it.”

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