Nguyen, Don

Sometimes I don’t even know. It was an interesting transition in my early college life; I was stressed, not sure where I was going, and bouncing around a bunch of different majors. I wanted to be a musician, I was getting into chiropractics, I dreamt of being a theoretical physicist – all of these weren’t for me, they were for other people. When I was a kid I wanted to be a car designer – I loved the aspect of taking an idea and having it become a physical thing. That was a joy that was buried when I started getting into “real life”. ​During college, I cooked a lot as an escape from coursework. I was at a friend’s house making something with a lot of onions (curry probably). Well, I look in his drawer, and all he had was a small serrated knife. That was the catalyst; it was horrible. In hindsight it’s pretty hilarious, trying to saw through multiple large onions with a tiny steak knife. That moment triggered me to bring my own knife, which led me to learn how to sharpen from YouTube, and many hours later watching videos late at night, I saw Japanese bladesmiths making sushi knives. That was it; I wanted that, I wanted to pursue that craft – as a living. It was sudden; I wanted to drop out of school right then and there to pursue a knifemaking career. Obviously my parents weren’t super pleased, and naturally there was a compromise – I started making knives part-time while studying machining and welding at the community college, then graduating in Materials Engineering at the University of Arizona. I went full-time shortly after in 2016 and I’ve been full-time ever since. The long term goal is to keep improving the craft, growing the business, and eventually building with more people who care about what we do. I want to be designing and making the best knives possible.