This week we had the privilege of talking with the one and only J. Neilson. Most people recognize him as the judge who breaks things on History Channel’s Forged in Fire, but J is also an ABS Mastersmith and owner of Mountain Hollow Forge, tucked away in the mountains of Pennsylvania.

We were lucky enough to also talk with his apprentice Shelley Jack. Shelley is a trained nurse studying for her Master’s degree but fell in love with forging quickly. Her natural artistic talent has made her a quick study, leaving J to sometimes wonder who exactly is the master and who is the apprentice.

We discussed the benefits of becoming a Mastersmith, Shelley’s time as an apprentice, J’s tenure on Forged in Fire, and some exciting things they each have in the works!

BRUTE de FORGE: Thank you both for sitting down with us today. I always start with the same question because I love hearing different stories. How did you get into forging and bladesmithing?

J. Nielson: I was a kid in the mid to late 70s and early 80s, and that was when all the crazy sword-swinging movies came out. I read a lot of fantasy books and things of nature, so I was always into the whole sword-swinging stuff. That's what initially got me interested in knife making. Like most people, I probably watched the opening scene of Conan the Barbarian way too many times as a kid. As I got older, I kept that appreciation.

Then I started playing around with steel and realized that it is very impractical to be walking around Virginia with a sword on your back, so I figured knives were the next best thing. When I began, I was refinishing old bayonets and cleaning up stuff. I would go to flea markets and buy a box of knives for five bucks and try to refinish them.

Then I decided to try and make them on my own. So, I was doing stock removal. Then Damascus became a big thing again. Bill Moran kind of rediscovered Damascus in America and put that information out there for everyone. Because I'm stubborn and pigheaded, I didn't want to buy Damascus, like a lot of people were doing at the time; I wanted to make my own. That's what got me into forging and forging blades, and then it just snowballed out of control from there.

BDF: What did you do before you were a full-time bladesmith?

J: Just about any menial job you could possibly think of. I was not career oriented. I was the first person in my whole family to graduate high school, so nobody was worried about any career options for me. I drove a forklift once, got into welding, and was also in the service industry. I did all kinds of jobs, but I never had a career. I never went to school for anything. It was just basic labor until I started doing this, so it wasn't like I was really giving up anything in pursuit of something else.

BDF: How long have you been making blades, then?

J: I've been doing it full-time, for income, for over 25 years. I never expected it to become what it has.

Then the TV thing came along right out of the blue. I was literally sitting in my shop forging steel and got a phone call. They said, “Hey, we're starting this knife-making competition, and we want to know if you want to be involved?” So, of course, I'm standing there like, “Okay, who is this?” We had heard about a possible knife-making TV show for a while, but, you know, those were just rumors. Nobody had ever heard anything concrete. So, I initially thought it was just one of my friends messing around. It took them probably ten minutes to convince me it was really someone from the History Channel.

I remember the first time I met David Baker during the pilot, and we both agreed it would last two, maybe three seasons tops. The other day, I returned from doing a location shoot for season ten! It's been a fun ride.

BDF: What about you, Shelley? How did you get into bladesmithing?

Shelley: I met him!

J: Oh, you have to tell her the story! She put her foot in her mouth when we met.

Shelley: So, this is a running joke. J and I met about nine months ago. I've only been making knives for about eight months, but I've always been very creative and artistic. I have a really good eye for symmetry and stuff like that. But I'm a travel nurse for my real job. I was on my way back from a vacation in Ireland, and I was flying out of Pennsylvania to go home for a little while, and I happened to get seated next to this lovely gentleman on a plane.

We hit it off and started talking. He told me he was headed to the Atlanta Blade Show and that he was a judge on a show called Forged in Fire. I said, “Oh, yeah, I think I've heard of it and maybe watched an episode or two.” That wasn’t true. I had never watched it. I was just bullshitting. But I knew some stuff about it and asked what the crazy pattern on the metal was and he told me it was Damascus. I said, “Yeah, I don't even really like Damascus.” Now, in my defense, I had only seen flea market Damascus, and in this industry, it is known as Crap-ascus. It's very cheap metal. Sometimes it's even just a surface etching, but it's always very poor quality. That was the only Damascus I had ever seen, though!

So, we exchanged information and started emailing back and forth. When I returned to Pennsylvania to do another assignment, we decided to go on a date. In the meantime, I had researched more about who he was, and I was like, “Holy crap. He really is kind of a big deal.” I looked at his website and dove headfirst into this world of custom knife-making. Not even two weeks later, I said, “I owe you an apology. I had no idea what Damascus really was, how it was made, or the beauty of it.” So, that's our running joke. When I met him, I didn't even like Damascus!

But we stayed in contact a little longer, and I came to his place to visit. We went out to the shop, and he showed me around and said, “Would you like to try it?” I said sure, why not, and I absolutely fell in love with it. I forged my first blade and finished it, and I just took to it like fish to water. I am now about nine or ten knives in. I post them regularly on Instagram and my social media.

Everybody keeps saying there's no way it is only my ninth knife, but it helps that I have one of the best teachers. I made my very first Damascus blade last week. In the next couple of days, we're going to do a San-Mai. We are taking it in steps.

J: She keeps seeing stuff on social media from other makers and telling me she wants to do this or that, and I keep telling her to slow down. I have to pull back the reins occasionally and remind her to walk before she runs. She does an excellent job, though.

“When you think you’ve made a perfect knife, you should quit and start doing something else because you’re not going to go anywhere from there.”

One of the reasons I don't usually take on apprentices is that I lack the patience to have somebody in the shop for days at a time. Usually, I'm ready to throw them out. But aside from the fact that she does have a good eye, she's got one of the qualities that I would look for in any knife maker or creator, and that is that she constantly wants to improve. When she's about 70% to 80% done with a piece, she already knows what she wants to do next and how to improve on what she just completed. She is constantly trying to make the next one better.

I've told her—and I've told people for years—when you think you've made a perfect knife, you should quit and start doing something else because you're not going to go anywhere from there. As I said, I've been doing this full-time for many years, and I still haven't made the perfect knife. I'm still trying to get there. So that's one of the things that makes a good maker; constantly striving to improve, not for anybody else's sake, but for your own. You should sometimes lay awake at night and think about new ideas and think about ways to improve your blades. She has that quality, and that's one of the reasons, I think, she will be very good.

Shelley: If I see something that's wrong or doesn't look quite right, I don't want him to fix it, I want him to show me or tell me how to fix it. I am the most critical of my work, and when it's wrong, I want to be the one to fix it. I can pick up any of the knives I've made and tell you what I wish I had done differently. It's stuff that nobody else would ever know, but I know, and I want to take that knowledge to the next one and build off that.

J: That's one of the differences between a maker and a good maker. Nobody else might see your mistakes, but you know they're there and constantly try to improve them. When I passed my Master Smith test for the ABS in 2008, a guy mentored me, and when I passed, he said, “You know what this means, right? It doesn't mean you make perfect knives. This means you know how to hide your mistakes, so nobody else knows that you didn't make a perfect knife.” That's honestly the truth.

BDF: Is your goal to become a Master Smith, Shelley?

Shelley: Probably not. I'm not going to be a full-time maker. When you reach the level of a journeyman or a master, that's an accomplishment if you are going to be a full-time maker. It goes towards quality and income. For me, this is a craft that I can share with people and express myself while spending time with J. This is something we both really enjoy doing together. It is going to be more of a hobby for me than an actual source of income. If I were going to be making a living and wanted to put that ‘MS’ behind my name to add value to my products, I might consider it more seriously. Maybe that's the wrong way of thinking about it, but that's where I'm at.

J: You've spent your training and schooling in nursing.

Shelley: Right, I’m a nurse. I'm almost done with my Master's degree in nursing. So, I'm going to be a master nurse! I plan to do education and teaching with that. Knife-making is something that I enjoy as a hobby.

BDF: What are the benefits of becoming a Master Smith?

J: There were no social media platforms when I started this venture. There was barely any internet. I still remember the first knife-making video I acquired was a VHS; most kids don't even know what those are anymore. So, at the time, becoming a Master Smith was a good thing for me because once I decided to start making knives as a hobby, eventually, people wanted to start buying the knives I was making. After a while, business began to pick up, but there were and are certain serious collectors that will only look at your stuff if you have a Master Smith or Journeyman stamp on your blades. So that was a big reason why I joined the ABS. Aside from the knowledge base, it was a financial boost.

I was lucky enough to pass my Journeyman and Master Smith tests on the first try, so I went from Apprentice to Master Smith in only five years, which gave me a better reputation. More people looked at my blades and were interested in buying my stuff. Especially the serious collectors. So, it helped me a lot financially.

“Once you become a Master Smith, you are kind of obligated to help other people. That’s one of the reasons you do it.”

It also helped me with the knowledge base because I could reach out to other Master Smiths with questions. Once you become a Master Smith, you are kind of obligated to help other people. That's one of the reasons you do it. I got to that point where I had people asking my opinion on blades and how to do this, how to do that. It's like teaching anything; the more you teach, the more you gradually learn. So, I'm helping people, and I'm learning stuff from them as well. It just self-promotes the whole maker industry.

Shelley: It is a quality standard to reach. It's a goal to strive for as far as your product and your creativity. It is a bar that you can set for yourself and others. Then, once you get there, it creates other opportunities. Again, it’s a quality standard.

J: It was probably more of a boost to my knifemaking pre-social media. Now everything's on social media. There are pictures and information that I didn’t have available when I started. Today, it's a lot easier for people. So, as a requirement to making knives and making them for a living, I’m not sure it's as essential these days, but I still think it's a very good idea. I think people who really want to get better have that goal in mind.

Shelley: Even though I don't see myself pursuing a Journeyman or Master Smith status, I felt like becoming an Apprentice lets people know I’m serious about it. But I am part of the ABS.

I know this guy has a reputation as a destroyer of knives, but he will take the time and answer anybody's questions. I went to a handful of shows and hammer-ins with him, and he will stop at a table and talk to someone and genuinely answer their questions and help them. He gives back to the community.

J: It's funny because it takes a lot of work to make a knife. You need to shape it, make sure the structure and heat treatment are right, make everything comfortable, get the edge right, and all of that. Nobody is going to send it off to a stranger to beat the living hell out of it, right? That’s my job on TV. But now, I have people on a regular basis that will contact me and say, “Hey, if I send you one of my knives, will you beat the hell out of it and videotape it for me?” I tell them, yes, but it might come back in more than one box.

BDF: Did you design all the tests for the show initially?

J: I started out designing the test and the challenges, and as we got further into it, the production and the challenge team on the show started taking it over and just clearing ideas with the other guys and me. So, we come up with ideas jointly. A lot of times, it is just checking on things and making sure they will work or not.

But before the TV show, nobody would work their butt off and make something beautifully handcrafted to hand it to somebody else to see if they could break it. That's what I did with my stuff when I was starting. I guess people realize that making knives isn't enough. You need to test them, and you need to use them. If a knife is going to fail, I'd rather fail in my hands than in a customer's hands or something like that. So, I got in the habit of beating the hell out of my stuff, making sure it would hold up. I mean, when I started, there was no internet. Then there were early social media, and I would take my knives regularly, test them, and post videos. I guess maybe the TV people saw that and said, “Hey, we got a job for you!”

“Before the TV show, nobody would work their butt off and make something beautifully handcrafted to hand it to somebody else to see if they could break it. ”

BDF: Did you ever find out how they found you or why they picked you?

J: No, they never told me. To this day, I think somebody else was supposed to be doing my job. Doug and Dave had been talking for a couple of weeks before they even reached out to me, and I thought that was kind of odd. So, I think they had somebody else in mind, but nobody has ever confirmed that. It's been eight years, and nobody will admit it to me!

I caught hell from the knife-making community before the first season aired. Before it aired, I went to a knife show, and I had other makers literally cursing me because I was doing a reality TV show, and they thought it was going to ruin knife-making for all of them. It was not until, probably, two or three seasons later that a lot of those same people came up to me and apologized because it had increased people's sales and increased people's classes. So, I took a little crap in the beginning, but it all worked out.

Shelley: Just last year, we went to a show, and people came up to him and told him how much they appreciate what he's done for the community. I thought that was funny.

BDF: So, you have seen an increased interest in bladesmithing since the show began.

J: Yes, absolutely. It’s been a big, big boost to the industry. That was one of the reasons that I decided to go ahead and do it, aside from the fact that it got me some notoriety which wasn’t going to hurt because, again, it is how I made my living. But there are so many knife makers out there that nobody knows about. Take me, for example; I'm tucked up at the end of a dead-end dirt road on top of a mountain with nobody around me. Nobody knows I'm here. There have been hundreds and hundreds of knifemakers that we pulled out of the woodwork and are now full-time bladesmiths when before it was just a hobby for them. Now they're teaching classes. It was just a massive boost to the industry. The market did get saturated at one point, but just like anything else, the cream rises to the top.

“There have been hundreds and hundreds of knifemakers that we pulled out of the woodwork and are now full-time bladesmiths when before it was just a hobby for them.”

We're in a situation now on the show where we're creating our own contestants. We've been on for eight years now, and we had had people over the last couple of seasons saying, “I started knife making when I was 14 after I watched Forged in Fire for the first time.” The show lit a fire under them, and they got into it. That’s awesome. But I always tell people, don't watch Forged in Fire to learn how to make knives. Forged in Fire is where you learn what not to do, for the most part.

But there are a ton of new makers out there, and it’s like anything else some people get into it, they make noise for a few years, then fade away and disappear. Some people really got into it and worked hard at it. We have some amazing smiths come on the show from across the country, and they are making knives, teaching classes, doing demonstrations, and making a living. If you can make a living with your hands doing something you love, that's fantastic.

BDF: What are the most significant changes you’ve seen happen on the show change over the years?

J: When we started filming Forged in Fire, they tried to hand me a script. At that time, I was the only one on the show that actually made knives regularly. Dave was a prop guy and did production stuff. I was answering all the questions and setting up the tests and the challenges, and they tried to hand me a script for the first episode. I just looked at it; I looked at them and said, “Do any of you make knives? No. Do you think you’re going to give me a script that tells me how to tell people how to make knives? Does this make any freaking sense at all?” They've never tried to give me a script ever again. Everything you hear on the show is straight from my mouth. Though I will say, now they need my opinion less and less (laughing).

“Forged in Fire is where you learn what not to do.”

But the complexity of the challenges has increased incredibly since we started. For example, we'll do a challenge sometimes where we throw a pile of scrap or a car in front of the contestants and say, “Find what you need.” When we first started, we'd give them a pristine bar of steel and tell them to make a knife out of that. Now we've got to make all kinds of Damascus canisters, salvaging steel, and multiple types of steel they need.

That's another thing; many of the knife makers, especially when I was coming up, were scrappers. There was really nothing made for the knife-making industry. We would take steel from the auto industry. Tools and handle materials from the manufacturing industry. We still use micarta for handle material, and micarta is an insulator for subways. G-10, another composite, is used for insulation on space shuttles. We would take stuff from other industries because nobody made anything for knife makers! For the last four or five years now, there has been a rise in companies developing steel specifically for knife makers and different handle materials. So, knife-making has become popular enough for industry manufacturers to say, “Okay, we need to fill a niche for these guys too.”

BDF: Interesting, so not only has there been an increase in people learning the hobby, but you have also seen the markets expand.

Shelley: Exactly. For example, the shirts we are wearing now (read ‘Texas Farrier Supply’ on the front). Texas Farrier Supply now has a whole part of its farrier supply store dedicated to knifemaking supplies.

Now there are people that are making handle materials, and that's all they do! There are different colors and materials—all that stuff wasn’t available before. This Texas Farrier Supply just added to their building, so they have room for belts, grinders, heat treat ovens, etc. All those tools were used for other things and have now been specialized for knife making.

J: Brodbeck Grinders is another example. Brodbeck Grinders are fantastic! I've bought five of those now. We just bought two more for the Texas shop. They have put together a fantastic grinder company. As a matter of fact, they just got picked up by the largest knife supply company in Australia. So, it's not just knife makers. We see growth in suppliers, belts, belt grinders, fasteners, epoxies, power hammers, hydraulic presses, etc. These things have been used in manufacturing forever, but knife-making is enough of a niche now to have a market. They're now making things specifically for bladesmiths. So, we're getting there! We're getting there.

BDF: Do they ever hand you an episode outline, and you look at it and think this will be a disaster?

J: When we first started shooting season one, the TV people asked, “How do we add drama to these episodes?” I told them that they did not need to add drama. I told them these smiths would add enough drama on their own. After shooting episode two, I think, they were like, “You're right. We don't need to do anything.” We've seen Master Smiths come on the show, tons of great knifemakers, and something always creates drama. There’s the scary red clock, the judges staring at them the whole time, camera people bouncing around, Will or Grady screaming about time, and stuff like that. Most makers work alone in their shops, so any of that added noise causes a lot of stress.

I experienced it when I did Beat the Judges. It sucked! It is not the way I normally work. It's very stressful for makers, and I've seen people just lose it. But it's amazing what these guys and girls can do. It seems like every time we push them harder, and they pull it out. It's impressive.

BDF: What would you like to see for the future of the show?

J: I would love to see a youth episode. I've been trying since season two. They've got Chopped Junior! The person who started Chopped is the same guy who started Forged in Fire. To me, it’s the same premise, and they do a youth episode of Chopped.

I get kids that write me actual letters—on paper with stamps, which I didn’t think kids knew how to do anymore—saying I’m 15 or 16 years old, I've been forging knives for two years, and I'd love to be on Forged in Fire! On Chopped, the kids are around open flames, using compressed gas and liquid nitrogen, knives, and all kinds of equipment. What's the difference? They can hurt themselves on that as well as this. To me, as far as liability goes, it's not really any different than a cooking show. I think it's more of the perception of knives and making them as opposed to a chef in the kitchen cooking. But that's what I would love to see, a youth challenge.

BDF: I wanted to ask about this Texas shop you keep talking about on social media. Are you moving to Texas?

J: Shelley lives south of Dallas, and she's got a big piece of property in the middle of nowhere. She was going to make a pottery shed.

Shelley: Yeah, it was going to be my ‘She Shed,’ but the pottery idea went out the window. I’m hooked on the knife thing.

J: She's got her place in Texas, and I’ve got my place here in Pennsylvania, but, honestly, I’m not getting any younger. Winters in Pennsylvania are getting too damn cold, and I know the summers in Texas are ridiculously hot, so we're planning on doing the snowbird thing. So, when it's six degrees in Pennsylvania, we'll work in Texas; when it’s 106 in Texas, we will come to Pennsylvania. We are in the process of setting up a shop on her property, so we'll have one there and one here. Also, there is a significant knife-maker presence in Texas.

Shelley: At one point, while I was showing him around Texas, I talked to him about a show that was coming up in November, which at that point was a couple of months away. I looked at him and said, “Have you ever thought about just showing up to a knife show? Just walking in the door without telling anyone and seeing how long it takes to get recognized?” He goes, “I've always wanted to do that.” Then an advertisement popped up that Doug Marcaida was going to be at that show as well.

J: I had to do it then. I wanted to show up and ask him for an autograph and crash his party. We didn’t even make it past the front door before people started to recognize me.

Shelley: That show was so much fun! We met so many great people, and they were so excited about a shop in Texas. People have come out of the woodwork to help us. That's how we ended up in the Texas knife-making community. Our calendar this year is already full of shows. But that's part of his giving back to the community. He doesn't charge for his appearances at these events.

J: Typically, the only thing I ask is if I'm in Connecticut, shooting the show, I ask for them to set up travel arrangements and find me someplace to stay. I’m busy while filming, so that helps me when I know the travel aspect is taken care of.

But I don't need to be greedy and get paid. I'm happy to help. It's part of the knifemaker community thing. They are the most open and sharing group of people. I mean a great example that I mentioned earlier is Bill Moran. Back in 1979, or something like that, he rediscovered how to make Damascus. Instead of making Damascus knives himself and hoarding the information, he set pamphlets on his table, telling everyone how to do it! It was step-by-step instructions that he was giving away to people.

“Contestants will stop what they’re doing in a timed competition for money to help another contestant. That really sums up the knife-thinking industry.”

But that's the way the industry is; everybody's willing to help everybody out. I've seen it dozens of times during the Forged in Fire competitions, where people are vying for $10,000 and the title of Forged in Fire Champion; we have contestants stopping what they're doing and helping another contestant who is having an issue with a tool. Contestants will stop what they're doing in a timed competition for money to help another contestant. That really sums up the knife-thinking industry.

So, the least I can do for the industry that has done so much for me is try and give back.

Words of wisdom for aspiring bladesmiths

BDF: What advice do you have for aspiring bladesmiths?

J: For anybody just starting, try to find as many bladesmiths as possible and reach out to them or visit them if possible. I didn't do an apprenticeship under anybody. There was a lot of trial and error. But I would pick up tips from other makers and try them. Some of them I would keep, some I would modify for myself, and some I would throw away because they didn't work out for me. So, I always suggest going to other shops and seeing what others do and their equipment. It will help you with your style as you figure out what works for you.

When we did our first hammer-in together at Texas Farrier Supply—after Shelley did all the heavy lifting with the canister and I ran my mouth for an hour—it was an open forge, and several forges were going. I told her, “Go! Get away from me and find somebody else. You don't want to learn everything from me. Other makers do things in different ways. Go work with somebody else.” I've told Shelley several times that just because I show her how to do something doesn't mean that's the way she needs to do it. It's the way I do it. If it works for her, great. If it doesn't, I'm not going to get offended.

So, I suggest people visit other knifemakers. If they can't hop around to see people or if nobody is close by, then find a hammer-in and meet other people. Watch demonstrations, watch how others do things, and talk to as many people as you can. Our industry is happy to help.

BDF: Do you have any advice, Shelley?

Shelley: Find yourself a knife maker with a nice shop already set up! (laughing)

Besides visiting other smiths, watch videos. I’ll spend a couple of hours looking at different pictures of knives and different styles. I will ask him, “How do you do that? What does this entail?” Don't be afraid to ask questions. He helps me avoid some of the pitfalls, whereas if I were trying to do it myself, I would have to learn the hard way. Asking those questions could help you avoid disasters and save time.

What’s Next for J and Shelley?

BDF: Do you have any shows coming up soon that people should be on the look at for?

Shelley: We have the Texas Blade Show on March 17 and 18th. He'll be there on Saturday, signing autographs and doing a meet and greet for Brodbeck Ironworks.

J: Those guys are great. Anytime I can help and support them, I try to.

Shelley: There is Texas Select Event in Belleville, Texas, on April 1st and 2nd. That will be the first time I will ever have knives on the table for sale, so I'm excited.

J: I'll be doing a Brodbeck Ironworks thing again with them. It will be the biggest gathering of Forged in Fire champions and competitors at a show. It has gotten huge, and it will be our first time there. We will be doing the canister Damascus demonstration because I'm known for canister Damascus, and people have screwed it up on the show so many times. So, it's a good demonstration of how you do it.

Shelley: Then, the hydraulic press we will use during the demonstration will be raffled off in the silent auction.

J: I'll be pointing at it a lot, but she will be running the thing. But I’ll have to do a couple of things with it, I suppose. So anyway, stop by and see us if you’re in the area!

Follow J. Neilson (@j.neilsonknives) and Shelley (@justshelley_thegypsysoul) on Instagram or check out J’s website for more information on upcoming events and shows and to see more of their work.

A Conversation with Forged in Fire Judge J. Neilson and his Apprentice Shelley Jack

Words of wisdom for aspiring bladesmiths

What’s Next for J and Shelley?

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