The Full Story
About Sojourner Knives
At Sojourner Knives, my goal is to make knives the way I’d want them made if I were the one buying them.
Each knife is built by hand with the goal of creating a dependable tool — something you can carry and feel confident in using every day.
If I wouldn’t spend my own money on it, I won’t sell it.
Rooted in West Virginia
West Virginia has always been home for me. I grew up here.
There’s something about building tools in the place you call home that just feels right.
The knives that leave my shop are shaped by the environment around me—the woods, the hills, and the amazing, hard-working people in this community.
Being able to do this here in my home state is one of the most rewarding parts of this journey.
How I Got Started
I got into making knives for a pretty simple reason: I wanted to buy all of them.
The problem was, I couldn’t afford to buy all the knives I liked—and I definitely couldn’t justify it to my wife. So instead of just looking at them, I started wondering if I could figure out how to make them myself.
That sent me down the YouTube rabbit hole.
I started watching videos, reading what I could, and spending time in the shop trying to figure things out one step at a time. What started as curiosity slowly turned into a real interest in the craft.
Before long I had another realization: if I sold a few knives, I could buy better tools and equipment—which meant I could make better knives.
So that’s what I did.
I’ve been making knives for about four years now, and that process eventually grew into Sojourner Knives, which officially launched last February.
What Matters
I’ve always been a detail-oriented person, and once I started making knives that became even more obvious.
Not just how a knife looks, but how it feels in the hand and how it actually performs when you use it.
I care about every detail—how the grind lines come together, how the handle feels when you pick it up, and whether the knife just feels right overall.
Quality is a huge deal to me, and I want every knife that leaves the shop to reflect that.
At the end of the day, I’m building the kind of knife I’d want to use myself.
If I wouldn’t spend my own money on it, I won’t sell it.
The Work Ethic
Each Sojourner knife is made here in West Virginia, where I live and work.
This is home for me, and it’s where every knife is designed, ground, and finished by my hands in my shop.
I build knives in small batches because that’s the pace that allows me to keep the quality where I want it. I've found that if I try to do too many at once, the details start to slip—and those details matter.
Knife making also involves a lot of learning outside the shop. I love learning and spend lots of time researching materials, heat treatment, geometry, and how different design choices affect how a knife performs.
That research heavily influences the decisions I make when building a knife—from the steel I choose to the handle materials and construction methods.
The goal is always the same: to build a knife that feels right in the hand, and holds up to real use.
Why "Sojourner"
The name Sojourner comes from Philippians 3:20.
It says, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” (ESV)
I’ve been a follower of Jesus for a long time, and that verse has always stuck with me. It’s a reminder that this world isn’t my final home. My citizenship is in heaven.
Because of that, the idea of being a sojourner—someone just passing through on the way home—has always resonated with me.
When it came time to give this thing a name, I wanted it to reflect that identity.
Sojourner seemed to fit perfectly.
