CaffreyKnives.net is the kind of site that makes me love doing this. It's the personal homepage of Ed Caffrey, an American Bladesmith Society Mastersmith working out of Great Falls, Montana, and it is enormous. The sidebar navigation alone has over 40 links. Photo galleries, written articles, how-to videos, forge-building guides, steel identification charts, class testimonials, and page after page of knives, hammers, and Damascus ink pens. All of it hand-built, all of it real.
The first thing I noticed was the sheer volume of what Ed has put here. This isn't a portfolio site with five pages and a contact form. The navigation includes links to things like "Build a Forge," "Salt Tanks," "1 VFD to run 2 grinders," "Steel Element Content," and "Pyrometer." There's a page dedicated to marking your blades. Another on the ABS Journeyman performance test. A section honoring his father. It's the kind of site where every page exists because Ed had something specific he wanted to share, and he just... built a page for it.
I spent a lot of time on the page Ed calls "The Overall Package." It's basically his philosophy of what makes a truly good knife, and the writing is clear, passionate, and deeply informed. He walks through steel selection, grind geometry, heat treatment, blade tapering, and finishing, all while explaining the trade-offs involved. One line that stuck with me: "Harder is not always better!" He talks about how a slightly softer blade can actually give you a more durable edge. He talks about how a knife should "flow" when you hold it at arm's length and follow its outline with your eyes. You can feel the decades of experience behind every paragraph.
The available knives page is wonderful to browse. Each knife gets a full description with steel type, grind style, handle material, blade length, and price. A Macadamia Damascus Hunter with 1080 and 15N20 steel runs $1,100. He even offers to sell a matched pair at a discount as a "His & Hers" or "Father & Son" set. Every knife over $500 comes with a 3-day inspection period and a no-questions-asked return policy. That kind of confidence in your own work says a lot.
Then there are the EBKs, which stands for "Ed's Belt Knives." These little EDC (everyday carry) knives are apparently the design that started a whole trend. Ed notes with some pride that "everyone laughed at the EBKs when I first came up with the idea... and now every serious Bladesmith/Knifemaker offers a similar knife." They come with molded Kydex sheaths originally designed for horizontal belt carry so you could reach them while on horseback. That's a Montana detail if I ever heard one.
I also got pulled into the Damascus ink pens section. These are actual steel pens, forged from 1080 and Nickel 200 Damascus, hot blued, and finished with clear Gun-Kote. They come in click and bolt action styles. Ed is upfront about the fact that steel pens are heavy, calling it "the nature of the beast." The craftsmanship looks incredible.
There's a bittersweet note on the "What's New" page. Ed shares that due to a progressive lung disease, he's had to stop teaching his one-on-one bladesmithing classes, which were clearly something he loved deeply. "Teaching has always been my favorite part of this craft," he writes. He's also battled prostate cancer. But he's still making knives, still posting updates, still maintaining this massive site. He says he "can't imagine ever giving up Bladesmithing all together."
The site itself looks exactly like what it is: a working craftsman's website, built to be functional rather than fashionable. No slick templates, no JavaScript animations. Just pages and pages of real content from someone who has spent 30-plus years mastering a craft and wants to pass along everything he knows. The sharpening and repair page alone is worth reading just for Ed's honest, no-nonsense advice about when a knife is and isn't worth fixing.
Go spend some time at caffreyknives.net. Click around. Read the articles. Look at the knives. You'll come away knowing more about bladesmithing than you expected, and you'll have met someone worth meeting, even if only through a screen.