hi, my name is Joe and I Am a norse pagan bladesmith & knifemaker based in manchester UK
I started knifemaking after being an avid knife collector for many years and doing bushcraft and outdoor activities such as knife throwing i realised that a lot of high end equipment is very expensive and inaccesible for the majority of beginners, So I scrapped and scraped together the equipment needed to begin and thats where my journey started, with a two brick mapp forge, a cheap sealey 1x30 grinder, a sledgehammer head and my grandfathers old hammers.
originally i began this as a hobby, in order to expand my knife collection and try out new blade types without having to spend hundreds of pounds in the process, then during some experimentation with throwing knives i realised i had a product that was just as viable as other top end products but for a much more reasonable price, So i opened an etsy store and began to sell my blades worldwide.
I now have a full range of bushcraft and survival knives, a range of throwing knives, I make chefs' & kitchen knives, kiridashis, folders, Edc blades, leather sheathes, you name it all with norse themed designs.
the result is an easily identifiable range of blades with unique and efficient designs.
my knives are made using as eco friendly materials as i can source, with almost all the materials being made in the UK & being made from recycled materials (eg. recycled steel, brass and timber sourced from felling dieback infected trees and preventative work) and trying to minimalise plastic use throughout my designs. I want my knives to last forever with care but also to have a minimal environmental impact in their creation.
PS: my logo is that of an Ash tree, symbolising the mighty ash tree yggdrasil, the namesake of my business, with a mjolnir at he base of the rootstock and a Jera elder futhark rune within the foliage which is the runic alphabet version of J & Y, which references both my name, Joe and my business name Yggdrasil Forge . my passion for trees and nature as a youngster earned me the nickname treeboy and then evenually treeman so I could think of no more fitting name for my business than yggdrasil forge as it links both my passion for nature and my faith.
I also use a lot of Ash wood in my handles as Ash trees are dying en masse from a disease called ash dieback. going forward I hope to donate an amount of money from each sale towards the woodland trust in order to hopefully preserve these beautiful trees.