Welcome to CaltonCutlery! My name is Joe Calton, and I enjoy making knives and tinkering in the shop!
The first knife I can remember making was a sword made from a steel fence post when I was about 8. I used a carpenters hammer and a chunk of concrete in the back yard for an anvil. It took me hours to pound that post flat {I remember taping my hands up after the blisters started}, then bend over the corners at the end to make a point, and then duct taped a chunk of wood to the ricasso to form a guard, and some cardboard and rope formed the scabbard. I looked pretty rough, but it was the best sword in the neighborhood that I knew of, and it did really well against the other kids’ wooden swords.
Fast forward a few decades and I now get to make my childhood dreams along with kitchen knives, edc’s, hunters, rough use knives, choppers, straight razors, and some folders using materials and techniques that were once just a dream if I even realized they existed. Not only do I get to make the knives, but I was lucky enough to build a good portion of the specialty machines and tools to build the knives, including 4 forced air propane forges, a foundry furnace, a 50 pound guided helve hammer, 3- 2×72″ belt grinders, PID controlled kiln, and a whole bunch of hand tools.
I prefer to make knives that I personally use. or at least use knives in that class. so while you will see kitchen knives {I cook}, neckers and edc’s {I carry a knife everyday}, rough use knives {I used to do a lot of work rehabbing houses and plumbing}, hunters {I harvest about 60-70% of the meat that goes across my kitchen table}, and straight razors {if I don’t shave on a regular basis, my dust mask wont seal}, you wont see any fighting knives as I’m not in that line of work and wouldn’t know a good fighting knife from a bad one, or art knives as to me the art in a knife is in its ability to make my work easier.
I only use a small handful of steels, in the quest to master those few steels. 1095, 5160, 52100, 440c, some w-1, and I use a mix of 1095 and 15n20 to make my pattern welded Damascus. on occasion I will use others, like 1084 powder to make canned Damascus.
For handle materials, I greatly prefer the simplicity and timeless beauty of natural wood. I stock most of the common semi-exotics like cocobolo, bocote, granadillo, bubbinga, wenge, osage orange, katalox, purpleheart, several rosewoods, several maples, hickory, walnut, ect…. for synthetics, I will work with micarta and g-10.
Every knife is completely made by my hands, from the steel to the sheaths. I do try to keep a good choice of available knives on hand for immediate purchase, as well as taking orders for custom knives.
Enjoy your visit to the site, take a look at some of the knives, and if you see something you like, or one strikes an order in your mind feel free to contact me using the contact page!
