Walker, Brad (BW Knives)

BW Knives began as a project that my two sons and I jumped into in 2016. We were watching an episode of Forged in Fire, and one of them said “daddy, we can do that.” So we built a very crude makeshift forge out of cinder blocks, fire brick, and a hair dryer. We had a lot of fun, made a lot of mistakes, and even had a few burns. We used that forge for a few months then I bought a propane forge and we were set. Railroad spikes and scrap steel were some of the first materials that we forged. We made some knives, coat hooks, leaves, keychains, fireplace pokers, and anything else we could come up with. We watched a ton of YouTube videos and continued to learn and practice. We were using a spot in our front yard and it was quite a task moving everything outside each time we worked. Eventually, I cleaned out my garage and our new workshop was ready. After some time, I wanted a name for what we did. Tempered Creations was born. My goal was to start selling the items that we made instead of giving them away. As time went on, it was just me and my youngest son, Kaleb. We both realized that we enjoyed knife making much more that blacksmithing. To me, the Tempered Creations name no longer fit with what we were doing. So in 2020, BW Knives and KW Knives was born. My son, Kaleb, has completed a few knives. His are leaps and bounds better that my first “attempts”. In 2021, Kaleb wanted to distinguish himself as a knifemaker. KW Knives became Crossroad Custom.