Joshua Prince - Never Say Never - (Fire and Steel) Podcast Details

Description

In knife making for a short amount of time, does not appear to have slowed him down in his pursuit to create next-level imaginative themed knives. His past experiences in pottery, jewelry and woodwork amongst others have paved the way to him getting to where he is now. His knives show the ability to think outside of the box and create knives that don't follow the rules.

What we spoke about

Joshua got into bladesmithing originally after finding video and content from blacksmiths.
He feels that his knives take their shape because of the skills that he brought from the other hobbies.
He is excited by the ideas he has that give him themes.
The reason he tends to make more than one of a knife is because he's expecting failures.
He tends to not make themes more than once but also says, "never say never."
He doesn't feel he has a style particularly. He pushes limits and styles so regularly.
Made his first knife that he considers to be high level and is super proud of, 2 years ago.
His work is split up between the basement of his house and his garage.
He finds it very rewarding to dig back through his old unfinished knives and finishes them.
If he's not happy with something it's usually the profile. Which you can always change.
Within the preexisting damascus patterns, he looks for other ways in which it can be recombined. He never considers a pattern a failure.
He likes to take a drawing into the forge with but will drift away if the process takes him to somewhere he likes.
When working on the high heel show he had to balance the fanciful idea and something that conforms to what it requires to be used.
He expects for his knives to be used and gets photos of them in use.
Has ideas sometimes but eventually, knives are done when he is done working on them because it just takes so much to do.
Over time he is trying to synthesize creativity with a conforming style and its hard to capture that.
At some point, you just must give yourself permission to do what you want to an extent.
The technical side needs to be spot on but taking a little bit of license is something we're all entitled to.
Feels that Australia has a high concentration of highly skilled makers.
It takes practice to design a knife as we all think we can draw a knife until we first try.
Has considered making other styles of knives.
Highly honored by what Steve Schwarzer.
He recently decided he wanted precious stones in knives and spent countless hours setting his first.
Purchased his first power hammer 3 years ago form Alibaba.
Most of his stuff is done on his press, belt grinder, leg vice, and anvil.
Has the same issue we all have doesn't have enough space and tools but he never waits he just finds ways to do stuff.
Leaves all his early stuff on Instagram and doesn't want to remove things he doesn't think are too good. Doesn't curate too much but tries to keep his Instagram to knife-related stuff.
Advice to new makers. Finish what you started.