My name is Dean Laner.   I was born March 9th 1967 in Auburn, California.  Ever since I was a young boy, always wanted to learn how to make knives, but never knew where to go.

When I got married in 1992. My wife’s best friend’s husband happened to be a knife Maker and had a whole box of knives that he brought to my wedding. I thought. Wow, that is so neat.

Well, we happened to take our honeymoon where he lived up in the Trinity. Alps stopped by a shop 1 day while we are on our honeymoon and he showed me around.  He showed me his equipment. And I thought , well , I think I can do this! So I went home and gave it a shot. My dad was a machine so I figured he could help me if I got stuck.

So with the piece of old bandsaw blade from the Forest Hill Mill’s washing machine motor and Aidan’s grinding wheel. I went to town and ground out my first blade.

I used a piece of deer horn and some old brass my dad had laying around and put my first knife together. I wasn’t very fast.  I started in May and finished it in November.  What a process that was!

Well, I found out about gun shows and how they always had knives and custom knife makers. I started going to the shows down at CalExpo. I ran across a knife maker I knew down there and I had one of my knives with me and I thought,  “I’ll ask this guy what he thinks about my stuff.”  Much to my surprise he said, “Oh that’s pretty nice”

But in knew better.  Looking at his blades I knew I needed to be at that level. He asked me if I was sure that this was something I really want to do? Knowing I still had a long way to go, I said, “Yes, I knew I wanted to be a knife maker.”

He told me to go home and gave me a few tips for my next knives.  So I went home, applied what I learned and 6 months later went back to the gun show to show him my work.  He said, “You’re doing pretty good.” He gave me some more direction and I went back to the grinder. Six months later, I went back to him and showed him my work. This time he said, “You know, you might be one hell of a knife Maker.

He told me about better equipment that was conveniently being sold upstairs at the gun show. I never thought I would ever pay $2000 for the grinder!  But was 34 years ago and that grinder is still going strong! 

I went back showed him my work .  He taught me about good steel. You should use good Still, so I went nasty or kinda steel and he told me what kind of steel so I bought some and started going on from there.

I started making knives looking at other people’s work.  Through trial-and-error I kept learning.  I didn’t have anybody to teach me except for the little bit of advice at the gun shows. But determination, passion and one or two mistakes along the way, I got better.  And this was when there was no YouTube or internet to learn from other people.

Now I’ve been making knives for 31 years.