today’s feature with History Channel “Forged In Fire” winner Cody Adolphson.
Growing up in North Dakota, Cody Adolphson had always been around knives. He is a hunter and his father is a welder, so hot sharp metal was part of Adolphson’s upbringing.
“I’ve always wanted to get into making knives. I always carry a knife. I always use a knife,” Adolphson said. “I’m a welder by trade, so been around metal my whole life.”
One day Adolphson saw the show “Forged In Fire” on the History Channel and the creative metal smithing itch began to grow.
“I saw the show come on and I started getting into it more and more, then I finally made the decision in January 2020 to pursuit it and actually learn how to make knives,” Adolphson said.
He contacted a bladesmith via social media and was able to communicate his passion and path to the point to where today the two are “good friends”. Adolphson took a bladesmithing class with his mentor and friend in Wisconsin where he made his first damascus knife.
“I was hooked,” Adolpson said.
After the class in the Badger state, Adolphson began to learn more from his friend and mentor Tyler Hackbarth. In fact it’s this relationship that came out on the air during Adolphson’s Forged In Fire appearance.
“He’s actually a two-time Forged In Fire Champion,” Adolphson said.
His abilities caught the eyes of the producers at The History Channel too. Adolphson recently had an opportunity to compete on The History Channel’s “Forged In Fire“, a competition set to bladesmithing and blacksmithing weapons from specific time periods and cultures.
According to IMDB, “Forged in Fire” tests some of the best bladesmiths in the industry as they attempt to re-create some of history’s most iconic edged weapons. Former Army Ranger Wil Willis hosts the competition series that sees four master bladesmiths challenged in each episode to forge the swords, which are then tested by a panel of judges consisting of J. Neilson, who has been making knives for more than 20 years, hand-to-hand combat specialist Doug Marcaida, and David Baker, an authority on replicating period-accurate weaponry.
The contestant who survives the elimination rounds and wins the episode’s contest earns $10,000 and the title of Forged in Fire champion.
Adolphson was that bladesmith who survived, won and took home the $10,000 prize.
“I made a Cinquedea Sword,” Adolphson said. “It is an Italian Renaissance era sword that a nobleman carried and it’s a very wide blade at the base. Cinquedea actually means five-finger-blade, the base of the blade is the width of your five fingers.”
The championship sword took 32 hours to complete over 4 days. The show also allows the finalists to return to their “home forge” to forge the final entry.
“I can not reveal where we were for the show, but for the finale they were right here in my shop,” Adolphson said. “In the finale round the smith goes back to their home forge and makes a weapon from history. Then they bring you back and test it.”
Adolphson survived two preliminary rounds of knife forging before winning the finals, demonstrating his wide array of blacksmithing talents, concentration and artistic creativity.
“The show obviously helped jumpstart my knife-making business and look forward to forging a new chapter in life,” Adolphson said.
Adolphson started Living The Crude Life right after high school when he started welding for WesCon at the Marathon Refinery in Mandan, North Dakota.
“I started this when I was 18, jumped in a welding truck and went to work,” Adolphson said. “I started with WesCon, local company, and traveled around with them for a while. Built the refinery in Dickinson, worked up in Watford here and there and then ended up coming back to the refinery.”
Second generation welder, Adolphson has been welding since he was 10-year-old and, despite entering into knife making, sees it always in his future for the rest of his life.
“I’ve done welding for the past 11-years and knife making kinda caught my eye, one day I’d life to go full time,” Adolphson said. “That’s the goal, but I’ll always do some kind of welding in my shop here.”
Understanding the foundational opportunities welding can present for an entrepreneur, Adolphson found himself being drawn to the outdoors for the next chapter in life.
“Growing up in North Dakota, I’ve always been around hunting and always carried a knife,” Adolphson said. “I’ve always wanted to get into making knives and I am a welder by trade, and also have been around metal my whole life.”
Dipping a toe into the knife-making waters, Adolphson began taking an order here and there while working full time as a pipe welder. It was this part-time forging that opened his eyes to a whole new world of possibilities in the world of bladesmithing.
“I’ve made handles with meteorites and mammoth tusk,” Adolphson. “These knives are forever knives and meant to be handed down for generations.”
Below is the raw, unedited transcript from our artificial intelligence translator.
Jason Spiess
... here we are folks live and local at the little wolf ironworks
Cody Adolphson
I
Jason Spiess
guess forging center mike up to the ... Cody Adolf son is our special guest here. He is the champion, the 2022 champion for history channel's forged in fire now the way I've been describing it to people and you're gonna describe it next. So get ready for your description of what forged in fire is. I say it's kind of like survivor meets american idol but with swords and knives and daggers, really cool
Cody Adolphson
stuff. Kind of. I like the fact that you need a skill skill on the show in order to compete
Jason Spiess
like chopped, you know, you actually have a little bit of a skill and a craft and trade.
Cody Adolphson
Yeah, exactly. It's a time competition between four blade smiths to build what they want you to build and see if you have what it takes. And my episode was season nine, episode six. So I'm just that episode's champion.
Jason Spiess
Oh that episodes champion,
Cody Adolphson
There's multiple champions,
Jason Spiess
it's like chop them. Okay, every episode is a different champion. Okay and you got some prize money?
Cody Adolphson
$10,000.
Jason Spiess
Nice. Okay, so that's and the idea is, is either to go take a vacation or invested in your business.
Cody Adolphson
Right, okay,
Jason Spiess
so let's talk about just the whole craft and trade and the skill of foraging, welding, working with fire, let's talk with foraging. Is this blacksmith? Is this what this is
Cody Adolphson
Yeah, blacksmithing? Blade smith thing, It's the same thing they used to do when they used to forge weapons for throughout time.
Jason Spiess
Okay, so blade smith in blacksmithing. Is there any other type of words that we might know about? Fire star fire smith. ... So walk me through the process here about how a knife is made because what I'm looking at here right now folks, we'll have the pictures available at dot com as well as super talk at 12:17 a.m. dot com or links to that.
It starts out actually and an artist sketchbook with a pencil and it looks like somebody would be drawing a painting or a portrait of a person, you know, a sketch artist. But this is of a knife, Walk me through how this starts. So
Cody Adolphson
I see knives, social media, anywhere in life that shields or anywhere get an idea for my own shape and I draw it up but I'm really into Damascus. So the way a blade really starts with me is actually forge out layered steel, which is Damascus steel.
Jason Spiess
No, it's I'm not familiar with the word Damascus.
Cody Adolphson
Damascus is two types of different layered steel. Where when you forge it out, depending on how you manipulate the metal and how many layers you have of the steel. The pattern changes in the steel,
Jason Spiess
What would be the other word besides Damascus? That's
Cody Adolphson
used
Jason Spiess
steel,
Cody Adolphson
layered steel, pattern steel, but it's mostly Damascus steel. And so then after you make your knife and you clean it up and you dip it into a acid edge. Then your actual pattern shows after that forging process.
Jason Spiess
I see now I'm understanding what you're talking about. So that's where the artistic part really takes a new level,
Cody Adolphson
right? You can do pretty much anything with steel. I mean there's people that put pictures in steel. I mean it's crazy. That's
Jason Spiess
how does that happen.
Cody Adolphson
So there's a whole another process of putting in. No. So what they do is they take nickel and then they shape it into what picture they want. They put it into a canister Damascus canister. And people that have seen the show will understand what I'm saying and they actually put that into the steel and then it'll they'll tile it and forge weld it back together again and will actually repeat down the blade. It's so
Jason Spiess
I can take my family picture.
Cody Adolphson
Well to an extent it's two dimensional silhouetted shape
Jason Spiess
type of
Cody Adolphson
deal. You can do basic pictures of it. It's just it's crazy. People have put their names in steel just it's endless possibilities are absolutely endless with steel. Does
Jason Spiess
that take a lot of time then compared to just a traditional knife?
Cody Adolphson
Yeah, I mean you can forge out a traditional knife, get it forged to shape in a couple hours and he treated and temporary. You can get it done in a few hours. Obviously
Jason Spiess
takes longer than that with
Cody Adolphson
The Damascus. There are some steals that I've made that I've had 12 hours of forging alone into the steel before I even make the knife it's a time consuming patience is a big part of this.
Jason Spiess
I don't see an anvil around here. Oh there it is. Okay to say
Cody Adolphson
344 is holding up a box. I
Jason Spiess
thought that was the box holder. Okay that's another
Cody Adolphson
100 year old. And do
Jason Spiess
you do you get a bang on the iron or do you have one of those machines that does most of the actors.
Cody Adolphson
I have just bought a big blue with my prize money and
Jason Spiess
blue
Cody Adolphson
It's a power hammer. It's 110 lb power hammer. ...
Jason Spiess
How does that work then? The Blue Max 1 10
Cody Adolphson
so it's powered by air and it brings up your hammer and then it hits a sensor and it drops it
Jason Spiess
magnum force air compressor over there.
Cody Adolphson
Yeah ran by the air compressor and then I have a press which is electric and that's hydraulic controlled. So and then yeah I swing the hammer just as much as using these sometimes.
Jason Spiess
So what is the other one is called the coal iron works? Is that the name of the machine?
Cody Adolphson
That's my forging press. It's a 16 ton forging press
Jason Spiess
and that just looks like what it forges the layers together.
Cody Adolphson
That squishes squishes 16 tons has squishing power on it and then the other one just hammers it out, speeds up my drawing out process.
Jason Spiess
I bet I could fit my arm in there.
Cody Adolphson
Oh yeah with that set of dies. that's my set of flat dies for after heat treat or straightening out a billet. So depending on what dies I have in my machine is what it does to the steel. Okay,
Jason Spiess
well this is some interesting things now. We're taking a look at the fire portion here now. How hot does this fire get? Does this flame get in the oven?
Cody Adolphson
Like it's up to 3,000°
Jason Spiess
3,000°. You ever cook in there? Have you ever put a hot dog in there just to see what happens?
Cody Adolphson
I've turned off the forge for about 20 minutes and flash cooked a hot dog.
Jason Spiess
Okay,
Cody Adolphson
no,
Jason Spiess
just melt that
Cody Adolphson
thing. That's crazy how hot it gets in there. The steel gets so hot, you can barely look at it. Okay, how
Jason Spiess
did you get into the show by the way?
Cody Adolphson
So growing up in North Dakota, I've been around hunting, always carried a knife, I always wanted to get into making knives and then I'm a welder by trade. So been around metal my whole life and uh, so I saw the show come on and I started getting into it more and more and more and I finally made the decision in January of 2020 to pursue it and actually learn how to make knives.
So I got ahold of a, now, one of my best friends who I followed him on instagram and he's actually a two time forged in fire champion. And when I took a class with him out in Wisconsin and then I just fell in love. I made my first Damascus knife and I was hooked
Jason Spiess
to time forging champion.
Cody Adolphson
Yeah, he's two time forged in fire champion.
Jason Spiess
Okay. And then you guys became buddies. And now now does he treat you different now that you're a champ?
Cody Adolphson
No, no, we treat each other pretty much the same. What
Jason Spiess
did he for his championship?
Cody Adolphson
So he was on the battle of the branches episodes. So he was army. So he went up against four army guys, other smiths and then he had to beat those other three guys and then move on against a guy from another one of the branches. So he made an army cavalry saber I believe. And then George Washington's Cotto ... I made a sword. ... Sword is a italian renaissance era sword that nobleman carried.
And it's a really wide blade at the base. So Chico day actually means five finger blade at the base of the blade is the width of your five fingers. So then it has it's a big heavy blade but it has fullers in it, which is ground in notches that run down the blade to lighten up your blade. So it's well double And I had to put 12 folders into my sword.
Jason Spiess
Okay. And do they pick that? They
Cody Adolphson
picked that?
Jason Spiess
They picked that now, did you know it was
Cody Adolphson
you know, so the funny part about it when I was being casted for the show is talking to the producers and they kept saying we want you for this episode, we want you for this episode, this is weird, okay whatever. Sure. So they make you a backup for the previous episode before you just in case someone gets sick or something comes up then you
Jason Spiess
have an understudy before your main event, that's interesting.
Cody Adolphson
So they I end up going out there and more backstory behind this is after I make it through my 1st and 2nd round and they reveal this sword, I realized why they wanted me for this episode. So Tyler, my mentor, he went on against Ben Abbott, one of the judges, he was on beat the judges, so he was on the show three times and he had to make a chinchilla against Ben Abbott. So it all kind of clicked right as they revealed the sword, it was kind of like okay you guys had this
Jason Spiess
plan to
Cody Adolphson
an extent if I made it to that point, you know they had planned, if I could make it,
Jason Spiess
you planned storylines that I wouldn't put it past anybody.
Cody Adolphson
It was it was wild, so
Jason Spiess
did you make any other swords daggers or knives or just the one
Cody Adolphson
just the one for the show for the finale? But I mean my 1st and 2nd round I had to make those two Damascus Canister Damascus blades to matching blades in three hours to
Jason Spiess
matching blades in three hours. And what size are those?
Cody Adolphson
Those were 7 - 9".
Jason Spiess
Okay, those would be knives or daggers,
Cody Adolphson
knives
Jason Spiess
and then you do the sword at the end. How big was the sword?
Cody Adolphson
So the overall length with about 32". The blade itself was 26 to 28in. I believe my parameters
Jason Spiess
were a baseball bat,
Cody Adolphson
it's a sword.
Jason Spiess
And how long did that take?
Cody Adolphson
So that took me a total of 32 hours to complete
Jason Spiess
32 hours.
Cody Adolphson
They give me four days.
Jason Spiess
No kidding. So this is quite a production of this
Cody Adolphson
show. Holy
Jason Spiess
Smokes. Where was it at?
Cody Adolphson
So I can't reveal where we went and filmed but they came here for the finale. They were actually here filming at my
Jason Spiess
shop, that's
Cody Adolphson
how that works. The finale around the smiths, go back to their home forge and make a weapon from history and then they bring you back and then they tested. Yeah,
Jason Spiess
I know the show is really successful. In fact there was even a competing show and I don't know the name of Bill Goldberg
Cody Adolphson
was a
Jason Spiess
knife or death. Yeah, okay. Yeah, they even have to get a little bit brutal with the title
Cody Adolphson
attention
Jason Spiess
bringing Bill Goldberg and getting aggressive
Cody Adolphson
name, not
Jason Spiess
like you know something classy forged in fire. So who's the who's is there a celebrity that they need for this or who was the involvement with the forged in fire? Is there a Myron Mixon? I, Myron Mixon is like the big barbecue guy. So they bring in, you know that
Cody Adolphson
I mean they've got they've got a master blade smith, that's jane Wilson, he was my judge on that episode. So him and Ben Abbott switch out episode episode Ben Abbott's a two time forged in fire champion. Well now he's an eight time forged in Fire Champion because they had a series of beat Ben Abbott, they brought back, guys try to
Jason Spiess
beat ...
Cody Adolphson
that guy, he's a wizard ... and then they have um Dave baker who is a weapons recreation specialist, so he knows all the history of these blades and whatnot. So he was actually in Hollywood, he used to make prop weapons and so he actually, so the finale weapons that they pull and reveal to us to build, he builds all of those in that shop to prove that they can be built in that time.
Jason Spiess
This just start out as just
Cody Adolphson
a rectangle
Jason Spiess
of steel
Cody Adolphson
after I forge it. So they actually start out as a stack of eighth inch thick steel 25 layers high is what I start
Jason Spiess
with
Cody Adolphson
and then I heat it up and forge weld it together,
Jason Spiess
wow! So you're making layered
Cody Adolphson
cake, ... right? It's
Jason Spiess
the bean dip, you bet hey let's take a brief pause and we come back and continue the conversation here with Cody in the 2022 episode
Cody Adolphson
Season nine, episode 6
Jason Spiess
Champion forged in fire History channel's forged in fire? We're here at Little Wolf Ironworks, live in his studio here and we come back, we're gonna talk about how he brings this into the real world, is going to be selling some knives, Is he gonna be doing some other things with the world of forging? What can you do in the world of forging these days?
He's also a welder over at the marathon refinery. I want to talk about that too. ... Welcome back here, live in studio at the Little Wolf Ironworks industrial shop here in bismarck, North Dakota Jason's piece here with the crude life and super talk 12 70 Cody, Adolf son is the champion of season nine, episode six, the champion of the forged in fire on the History channel.
He made a sword for the Championship round a couple of knives leading up to it. And when we teased at the break, we wanted to find out how we can apply this into the real world. You want some good prize money he invested in the blue max 1 10, which I imagine some people know what that is. I don't ...
Cody Adolphson
actually Big
Jason Spiess
Blue, There you go. It's the big blue, not to be confused with big boy, just get in line, it moves fast, Big
Cody Adolphson
boy, get
Jason Spiess
the Hawaiian flying style. All right, that's what I call it. Okay, so you've got the little Wolf Ironworks, what is it that you do with Little Wolf Ironworks, how can you apply this out into the real world? So
Cody Adolphson
I make custom knives. People order a knife, they kind of pick what kind of steel, whether Damascus mono steel, they can pick handle material and I make them a knife, I make them a handed down heirloom that they can hand down for generation to generation.
Jason Spiess
This is a forever knife. I was explaining to my son, I said it's one of those knives that you know, you give your grandchildren and if they lose it 10,000 years from now somebody finds and it still works. I'd
Cody Adolphson
hope so that's my goal.
Jason Spiess
But it is like one of those forever knights.
Cody Adolphson
It is, yeah, that's that's my goal where somebody buys a knife for me, they can handed down generation generation and you know, make it a special thing.
Jason Spiess
I can see a lot of you know family names and family crests and just, you know, some things that can be really put into their um, you know, I was noticing in your um, was that a snap on tools, what is that?
Cody Adolphson
Just some type of a toolbox
Jason Spiess
toolbox? Was the antlers. So you could even do antlers,
Cody Adolphson
antlers, I have made handles with meteorite mammoth tusk?
Jason Spiess
Meteorite that
Cody Adolphson
I know a guy. Oh okay.
Jason Spiess
It's
Cody Adolphson
actually from the largest meteorite formation on in the world, it's the Campo del Cielo Media in Argentina.
Jason Spiess
Okay I suppose you can just buy that offline or something.
Cody Adolphson
Yeah. You just gotta know who to talk
Jason Spiess
to. You just got to go to the right dark website as a holy smokes. I'm holding it here. I've wondered about that because a lot of iron, right? Iron and nickel and meteorites. Yeah, they say a lot of meteorites are high in iron and nickel. I didn't, I couldn't remember nickel but I remember the iron part of it. In fact a lot of the ancients that was sacred. If you made a knife out of meteorite
Cody Adolphson
you can forge it into a knife.
Jason Spiess
Yeah, that's pretty neat. So okay, how about anything else? Are you going to do anything else with the blue max or is it just for knives? Can you can you do, you
Cody Adolphson
can do ornamental blacksmithing with it, you can do quite a bit with
Jason Spiess
them. Do you see yourself being one of those artists that sell you know the twisted rod, iron and all that different stuff.
Cody Adolphson
I had a lady asked me one time how much I charge per foot of ornamental blacksmith, hand railing. And I threw some outrageous number. He said, oh that's not bad and I just kind of stood back and
Jason Spiess
let me rework those numbers
Cody Adolphson
so I could ask for more.
Jason Spiess
But that shows that there's at least there's a market
Cody Adolphson
out there. Yeah, it's I mean it's a trade, it's just like any other trade and somebody has to do
Jason Spiess
it. And how much of this is like welding because you're a welder by trade. Right? Yeah.
Cody Adolphson
By trade. I'm a welder. I have my own welding truck.
Jason Spiess
Did you did you go to trade school for that or just kind of learning to fly? No,
Cody Adolphson
my my college is what you're standing in. This is where I learned how to weld to. My dad was a welder to. So I'm second generation welder.
Jason Spiess
Alright, so then talk to me about that. You're over at the marathon refinery? Yeah,
Cody Adolphson
I worked for a contractor over at the refinery. So I I started this when I was 18, jumped in a welding truck and went to work. So
Jason Spiess
what did you start out in the field? I
Cody Adolphson
started here at the refinery with west con local
Jason Spiess
company that started
Cody Adolphson
so I started with them. Dad worked for them for years and then I kind of traveled around with them for awhile. Built the refinery in Dickinson and worked up in Watford and here and there, you
Jason Spiess
know,
Cody Adolphson
and then just kind of came back to the refinery every so often when there was a job here and since I was local didn't have to pay me for travel pay.
Jason Spiess
Yeah.
Cody Adolphson
So right, I just shacked up at mom and dad's here and went to work and cash all the money. Right?
Jason Spiess
Yeah, they can negotiate.
Cody Adolphson
Yeah. So I just I've done that for the last 11 years and knife making kind of got my eye and one day I'd like to go full time, that's that's the goal,
Jason Spiess
Are you seeing more of the welding opportunities open because there's been a big push for people to get in the welding in the last 10 years. That's why I was wondering, you know, you're, you're wanting to go more towards the artistic passionate custom, high end rod, which I think is great. But I'm also wondering on the, well, is that really picking up or what?
Cody Adolphson
Yeah, I mean we're losing skilled trades like crazy,
Jason Spiess
Oh, there's something like 85% retirement rate. I think that's over actually. I think they're gone actually.
Cody Adolphson
Yeah, it's it's scary. I mean honestly you work out there every day, you just see the work ethic, you see, you know, back when I first started, its it's completely different from what is now, you know, you're not getting the same quality of hands on your jobs and you know, people are just there for a paycheck, they don't do this for, there's no pride in it anymore. The
Jason Spiess
other part I wondered about is, you know, when I was, I'm in my mid forties and when I went into the workplace, they said that I will probably have 3 to 7 jobs and throughout my career, but they said throughout my career, meaning I'd probably work in the media as a writer or talk show or something within that vein, you know what I'm saying Nowadays, they tell people that
you're gonna have like 15 jobs every two years, expect a new job type of thing. Are people leaving welding then when they, when they go there. I mean what's going on with that?
Cody Adolphson
I have no idea. I mean, but you're out in the oil field yeah, you're gonna have 15 different jobs you end up on in a year or two years, you know? You know how it is?
Jason Spiess
Yeah, and that's yeah, I mean a lot of people try to stay in there if they can, if it's down, they've got to go do something else.
Cody Adolphson
You know this job ends, you go to the next one, this pipeline ends, you go to the next
Jason Spiess
one is yours guys seem a little bit like a lateral move though, you know, I mean welding and forging metal seems pretty close.
Cody Adolphson
Yeah, I mean I picked up, I picked up welding really quick and easy when I was younger. I've been around it since I think I welded the first time when I was six years old. Like I said, my dad's been doing it since
Jason Spiess
that was the other thing I was bringing up about the different trades and stuff is that you know, a lot of welders and pipefitters, electricians, that's their job for life and that's what I'm wondering if. I don't think a lot of the younger people are looking at it like that, you know?
Cody Adolphson
No, honestly, like I said it's scary, we're losing our skilled trades like crazy, there's not gonna be enough people to do what needs to be done,
Jason Spiess
do it for five years, make good money and then
Cody Adolphson
do something else.
Jason Spiess
I don't know
Cody Adolphson
I mean if I do go full time I'll still do welding on the side. I mean I'll always have a welding business.
Jason Spiess
It's
Cody Adolphson
something to do around here and people are begging for it around here.
Jason Spiess
2nd generation you know a few people
Cody Adolphson
one or two.
Jason Spiess
Well let's talk a little bit about these knives then if someone were to buy them, let's get some knives sold for you here. See if we can't do that somehow. So how does somebody buy a knife? I mean do they do they just call you up, do they send you a sketch? Do they text you?
Cody Adolphson
So I post all my knives that I build on social media, my instagram or my facebook and usually the way it works is someone sees a knife that I finish and they say oh I love this, I would like something like this. Then I would say well this particular knife is gonna cost X. Amount of dollars and then sometimes that's too much for them.
Sometimes they go with it and then I offer to go to a mono steel compared to Damascus or whatever the knife I posted was. So get a hold me on social media, my number is on my facebook, you can text me, you can call me, we can get something set up and actually work through you and you design your knife with me to make it yours.
Jason Spiess
Okay. So at the 10th annual blocking barbecue, you're gonna be having a knife as part of the auction there. Walk us through that process. So it's, it's gonna be like a meat cleaver, is that right?
Cody Adolphson
Yeah, So I made it a nice thin like meat slicer cleaver shape and it's actually out of think that one's out of 40 layers of 1095 and pure nickel layered in between it. So I call that dark mascots. So it's really, there's a lot of darks and then just nice bright white lines running through
Jason Spiess
the
Cody Adolphson
dark mass. ... So yeah, it's a nice thin profile. I actually just treated the other night and got it in temper right now. Just bringing that. How
Jason Spiess
long does a knife like that take? So start to finish. I'm talking about drawing on the concept on the artist's sketch pad with the pencil and the whole deal.
Cody Adolphson
You're probably looking about 14 hours.
Jason Spiess
Okay, so how much goes into say the sketch in about an hour or two.
Cody Adolphson
Not even
Jason Spiess
That's half hour, 15,
Cody Adolphson
15 minutes. I'll just kind of run with it, draw a couple straight lines and run some curves in there and
Jason Spiess
you know, it reminds me of back when I used to play dungeons and dragons, back when I was a kid in the players handbook, they would have like hand drawn weapons. That's what that reminds me of shading and just kind of Some of it because they were hand drawn, they weren't, you know, they weren't uh digital by back then. Of course the book was from, I think the 70's or 80's or something. So you start with the hand drawn. Yeah,
Cody Adolphson
I get a shape or if I'm forging, I'll kind of just work a shape into it. Just, it could be my own brainchild in the moment of forging. Now,
Jason Spiess
If a knife is say 9" versus 7", is that a big difference in time?
Cody Adolphson
A little bit, Probably in the grinding stage, you need a little bit more steel or if I'm forging out of Damascus or making out a mono steel. So the price range goes up, obviously smaller to bigger knives,
Jason Spiess
but
Cody Adolphson
not much difference in time really depending. And then your construction of the knife could make a difference in time. So you can have a hidden tang a through tang or a full tang. Like the ones you see in front of this is considered a full tang knife.
Jason Spiess
So
Cody Adolphson
in a hidden tang would look more like this one in front of you to where this is actually gonna pass through the handle material.
Jason Spiess
What's the difference between the knives that have holes punched in the handle and ones that don't.
Cody Adolphson
So yeah, the ones with the holes punched in that's for weight reduction and epoxy to go on each side of the scale
Jason Spiess
and
Cody Adolphson
that's a full tang. And then the one that doesn't, that's a hidden tang for a through tang. So I'll either glue it into the handle material or I'll actually thread the back end and then put a pommel on it and actually have a mechanical connection that way.
Jason Spiess
So then when it goes into the oven here, the oven gets how hot again. That
Cody Adolphson
Gets about 3,000°
Jason Spiess
3,000°. The gets the steal the metal gets nice and red hot, white hot and then you put it in the blue max or the coal iron works or the anvil with the old school
Cody Adolphson
hammer
Jason Spiess
all the above.
Cody Adolphson
Just
Jason Spiess
the shape is there, is there like one that does more, the flattening one that does the fine tuning one that
Cody Adolphson
does. So the press more. It's not as shocking to the metal. It's a more controlled press
Jason Spiess
compared to the sandwich.
Cody Adolphson
So compared to the big blue where you're coming down and hammering it with 100 and £10 of hammer
Jason Spiess
sledgehammer on the watermelon.
Cody Adolphson
So that could, that could shock the steel. So where you could actually pop the steel open. So with the press it's a lot more controlled and I can just set the welds and then I can go to the big blue and then draw out that billet, It's the big blue is more just, it's for speed, helps me draw it out instead of sitting at the press and drawing it out each so I can do it in less heat takes less time compared to uh
Jason Spiess
is there anything else that you add to besides like a nickel that you ever just you
Cody Adolphson
could clad just about anything onto a knife? I mean not all of its hard noble. So I could put it on the outside to where the high carbon steel which is hard noble ends up on your
Jason Spiess
carbon steel.
Cody Adolphson
Okay, I do mostly high carbon steel.
Jason Spiess
That's what I was curious about. Okay, I was gonna ask if you add a carbon but that's
Cody Adolphson
already in there. So it's all high carbon steels, 10 95 15 and 2010 84 80 CRV two. I mean there's a bunch of them and they all they all take different processes of heat treating and tempering and then that changes the hardness of the steel. But you could clad, I've clattered a guy's grandpa's hammer on the outside of a knife because his grandpa was a carpenter. So he wanted his grandpa's hammer on his
Jason Spiess
knife.
Cody Adolphson
My buddy is clouded in 19. Machine gun barrel. You can do just about anything. Meteorite wrought iron from an old ship anchor chain.
Jason Spiess
That sounds
Cody Adolphson
Yeah, that sounds pretty cool.
Jason Spiess
Well, alright that's about gonna do it here. Unless there's anything else you think that we left out of this interview, is there? You want to give a plug for what you do at the marathon refinery is welding? Right?
Cody Adolphson
Yeah, I'm a welder, pipe welding welding, truck rig
Jason Spiess
trucks. Are you looking for other jobs or they pretty much got you so busy there. You can't take
Cody Adolphson
that, that's a full time gig. So I worked for a contractor. I've worked for them for about four years
Jason Spiess
now. But you are looking for a little bit of knife sales.
Cody Adolphson
Yeah, so the show obviously helped with that substantially.
Jason Spiess
But yeah that's I mean that's gonna be something you know that you can always put on all of your advertisements, all of your marketing, all of your articles as a line, you know, champion or paragraph, that kind of thing. So
Cody Adolphson
yeah, no, but anyone wants to get a hold of me. Social media instagram facebook little of Ironworks shoot me a message.
Jason Spiess
Well thank you sir. Oh by the way, here's a gift for you. We have a official not too many people get these very sought after in the open market here. You gotta get these on the dark web
Cody Adolphson
to this
Jason Spiess
is from your own crude light, nice manly sea foam green. Those are pelican high end there. It's not, it's not quite the yeti which is the big sexy one. It's this similar. They do the same. Exactly. So I got one myself there we have people that come back and want them for their spouses to afterwards. Hey, thanks a lot.
The Crude Life Podcast: Forged In Fire Winner Cody Adolphson