Hi, I’m Jesse, a bladesmith living in Chicago This Summer.

After twelve straight months of school, I’m taking a term off to pursue knifemaking at a makerspace on the North side of Chicago. I initially got into metalwork at the end of high school, where I learned to forge and weld from a local blacksmith. With the goal of creating a chef’s knife for my father, an avid home cook, I did an independent study in bladesmithing my Senior Spring. I used a piece of OSIF-Grade steel (Old Shit I Found) to create an unfortunate hunk of metal that still sits unused in a drawer at home. Everyone starts somewhere.

During my pandemic gap year, I took an Introduction to Bladesmithing course to refine my skills. This Summer, after an additional 400 hours of practice, 10 chef interviews, 5 cover-to-cover metallurgy textbooks, and 2 Zoom calls to Dartmouth Material Science professors, I’m ready to release my work to the world.