TAHLEQUAH – After receiving his first knife at a young age, Cherokee Nation citizen Brad Terrapin’s interest in knives and knife making was ignited. However, it was not until his adult years he would fan the flame and pursue his passion and learn the art.
“Growing up, every little boy had a knife,” he said. “You wanted to know how it was made. Most little boys are curious, like, how do they make this? Do they just cut it out of metal? It wasn’t until later on that I really got into knives and stuff. My wife fostered that idea, that curiosity.”
After taking a class in 2021 with local knife makers Randy Tanner and Henry Walker, Terrapin created his first knife, a skinner made from what’s called 80CrV2 steel with a wood handle.
“For the better part of 2021, mostly 2022, and part of 2023 I took the class, learned all I could or as much as I could in that amount of time and made a bunch of knives, gave a lot away,” Terrapin said.
Since then, he’s made several knife styles including sheep’s foot, bird and trout, fillet and Japanese styles like Kiridashi.
“I mean there’s four million styles of knives. It just depends on what you want to make,” he said. “That’s really the only way to learn is to experiment. Just try.”
Terrapin starts by drawing a sketch of the type of knife he wants to make.
“From the beginning, I’ll trace out the billet of metal of steel. I’ll just draw it out. And I cut it out as a template and trace it onto the billet,” he said.
From there he uses a 2-by-72-inch belt grinder, a heat-treat oven, a band saw and a drill press.
Terrapin uses the belt grinder to shape the metal, such as a billet of Damascus steel.
After the knife is shaped by the grinder, it will go into the heat-treat oven. Then, he will begin shaping the handle, usually made of wood like spalted maple, hackberry or bois d’arc.
“I’ll take the handle, trace it out, cut it out a little bit on the band saw and then glue one side on, trace the other side, glue it on,” he said.
In total, one knife can take about 10 to 12 hours to complete.
“Attention to detail is everything. You can get away with some small stuff, but in the end, it’s going to come back, and it’ll affect things later on in the knife. Like if it’s not flat, your handle is not going to be flat against the metal,” he said.
As a novice knife maker, Terrapin said he has more goals to accomplish.
“I accomplished one of my goals. I made a knife and it got into the Trail of Tears art show. I just tried it just to see if I could do it,” he said.
He would also like to acquire more tools to make his own billets.
“When you can start making your own stuff, it starts getting cheaper because right now I have to buy it and ship it in,” he said. “To be able to do this, I mean, it’s an invaluable skill, metalworking in general. I just want to keep learning, start making more stuff.”
Terrapin posts his work to view and sell on his personal Facebook page.
