Born to Build. Forged by Hand.

Spencer Haynes Bladesmith · Maker · ABS Apprentice Smith

Some people find their calling. Mine found me when I was six years old.

I grew up in the Rocky Mountains, born into a logging family where the outdoors wasn't a weekend hobby — it was just life. My brothers and I spent our childhood in the timber and the wilderness, and my Dad carried an Old Timer folder in his pocket every single day. For my fifth birthday, all I wanted was a pocket knife. That probably tells you everything you need to know about me.

When I was six I made my Dad a knife for Father's Day. Stick handle, used jigsaw blade, a drilled hole and a screw to hold it together. I did it completely on my own, unsupervised, and surprised him with it when he got home from work. He loved it and still has it to this day.

By fourteen I was grinding bevels on flat bar stock with a bench grinder out on the ranch, turning scrap metal into something I could take up into the mountains. I didn't know what I was doing. I just knew I had to make something.

In 2014, while building a house, I took some scrap rebar home, fired up my Dad's torch, and hammered it over a steel plate until it looked like a knife. An ugly one — but a knife. Something clicked. I started consuming every YouTube video and forum thread I could find, built a forge out of a charcoal BBQ grill, and used a section of railroad track as an anvil. I taught myself everything.

There was a stretch where things got hard. I was homeless. I sold two blades for food money. And honestly? That felt good. That's when I knew I was hooked.

Northern Edge Company started in 2019, but the foundation goes back to 2014 and the roots go back even further than that. I'm currently an ABS Apprentice Smith working toward my Journeyman rating, with Master Smith as the long-term goal — not for the title, but because I need something to push against. I need to prove things to myself. That's just how I'm wired.

Knifemaking hits a sweet spot for me because it pulls from everything I love — metalworking, woodworking, sculpting, design, leatherwork, and eventually engraving, inlay, and gemstone setting. There aren't many things you can pour that many crafts into and still end up with one object. An object someone carries every day. Relies on. A simple tool that can also be a piece of art.

That's what drives me. Beauty in the utility. If I can make something that's a piece of my soul — and someone can take it out into the woods, or use it to feed their family, or just carry it because it means something to them — that's the most fulfilling thing I know.

I'm a maker. A craftsman. An artist. Whatever you want to call it. I've been doing this with my hands my whole life and I don't plan on stopping.

Ready to own something made with all of that behind it?

-Every piece that leaves this shop carries a story that started in the Rocky Mountains.