Bob kramer knives biography

Bob Kramer (born 1958) is an American bladesmith, "widely considered the greatest American knifesmith working today".
Bob Kramer.
Bob Kramer gives a special lecture at DMSE on his life's journey to becoming one of the world's most acclaimed bladesmiths.

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An Interview with Master Bladesmith Bob Kramer

Joe Bartlett aka The Knife Nerd reached out to world renown knife maker Bob Kramer to see if we could interview and video him and his work…and Bob said, “Sure, come on down!” I was stunned that a guy with such notoriety would agree to be interviewed by 2 local joes (no pun intended Joe!) So we got to spend time in his shop, watching how he folds steel, and gaining some insights into his craft.

If you don’t know who Bob Kramer is, here is a brief bio
Bob Kramer is one of only 117 certified Master Bladesmiths in the world, and I believe he is the only one who specializes in creating only culinary knives (most of them focus on hunting/fighting knives & swords). He is particularly suited for creating knives for chefs because he spent time working in kitchens (including the Seattle Four Seasons) before he forged his way into knife making. He has been interviewed by Anthony Bourdain for the Raw Craft video series. And his knives are recognized as among the best in the world. He has designed high quality

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Any decent knife can be made sharp; its “edge geometry” is the key to how it will cut.Illustration by Jaime Hernandez

Bob Kramer is one of a hundred and twenty-two people in the world, and the only former chef, to have been certified in the United States as a Master Bladesmith. To earn that title, which is conferred by the American Bladesmith Society, Kramer underwent five years of study, culminating in the manufacture, through hand-forging, of six knives. One of those was a roughly finished, fifteen-inch bowie knife, which Kramer had to use to accomplish four tasks, in this order: cut through an inch-thick piece of Manila rope in a single swipe; chop through a two-by-four, twice; place the blade on his forearm and, with the belly of the blade that had done all the chopping, shave a swath of arm hair; and, finally, lock the knife in a vise and permanently bend it ninety degrees. The combination of these challenges tests steel’s two chief but conflicting capabilities: its flexibility and its hardness.

Despite attaining a master’s status, Kramer remains in awe of steel’s unsol

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Master bladesmith Bob Kramer’s lessons from the school of life

He began by displaying pictures of some of his Kramer Knives — blades with intricate patterns that “go all the way through the steel,” one with a gold inlay of a boy riding a fish, a “plug weld,” or metal insert, and another with steel made from the metals found in a meteorite.

Kramer traced his life journey back to his childhood in Michigan as the youngest of six; his older brothers and sisters “were looking outwards. They want to move on, they want to begin their lives. And I’m just trying to figure out like how to survive, how to get some chicken off the plate or get a little bit of attention.”

So he was “a little bit of a goofball.” In school, Kramer took to wood shop — measuring and cutting materials and making things — rather than reading and writing book reports. Later, in a high school divided into alternative-lifestyle hippies and letter-sweater-wearing jocks, he learned how to juggle, do card tricks, and ride a unicycle.

After a short time as a college student at Wayne State Un