A Cut Above

By Editor | February 27, 2019 |

Joshua Nicolaides of Vandalia got the idea of making his own knives after one that he bought from a retail store broke.

After he starting out learning the process using books and videos, Nicolaides got connected with Dustin Rhodes, a rural Shobonier man who started blacksmithing at the age of 12.
Now, two years after his mentor showed off his blacksmithing skills on two television shows, Nicolaides has appeared on TV himself.
In an episode that aired last Wednesday, Nicolaides was announced as the winner of a three-round competition on the History Channel’s “Forged in Fire.”
He was announced as the winner of $10,000 after a crew from the show visited Rhodes’ workshop in rural Shobonier for five days to film Nicolaides make the weapon chosen for the final round of competition – a colichemarde, a small sword like those used in late in the 1700s and early 1800s.
“It’s a variation of a Revolutionary War sword,” Rhodes said.
Nicolaides was picked to compete in the final round, “to build a bigger and badder weapon,” after advancing through the first round, which was making the replica of a blade that they had on display, and the second round, making and attaching a handle.
He didn’t expect to make it past the first round.
“I really messed up,” Nicolaides said. “I didn’t meet the parameters that they set.
“Right after the first round, right before they told us (who was advancing), I thought I was going to go home. I just knew that I was and I actually accepted that I was going home,” he said.
Two of the others also did not meet the competition parameters, and Nicolaides advanced with the one whose knife blade did.
He was picked to advance even though Nicolaides wasn’t real happy with how his entry looked.
“It was uglier than sin, but it held up,” he said.
In the finals, Nicolaides said, “I had to make two blades – the one I made on the first day broke.
“And that was a blessing in disguise,” he said.
“With the second one, I had a better understanding of what I had to do.”
Nicolaides, who “learned by myself for a while,” acquired knowledge by working with Rhodes, and knew that his mentor had appeared on two TV shows.
Rhodes was in the second episode of Forged in Fire in season No. 4, and was eliminated in the second round. In the first round, the four competitors were tasked with creating a blade from a golf club and ball bearing.
He then appeared on Master of Arms, a blacksmithing competition on the Discovery Channel, and was finalist.
In that competition, participants had to make a battleax, and in the second round, a flintlock axe pistol. The finalists had to combine the two into one, with both functioning.
Without mentioning it to Rhodes, Nicolaides decided to enter a Forged in Fire competition, which consisted of answering a number of questions by email and then participating in interviews by Skype.
That was early last year.
Then, once he was chosen, in late summer, Nicolaides was flown out to New York, then drove to Connecticut for the first two rounds of competition, which were completed in three days.
Just a couple of days later, the Forged in Fire crew was at Rhodes’ shop in rural Shobonier for 45 hours of filming, with temperatures in the shop rising to well over 100 degrees.
“I had to wait months and months and months to go shoot and months and months and months after that to be able to tell anybody,” Nicolaides said.
“The shop looks a little different (than in the episode),” he said. “There are more things in the shop, and now that I’ve got 10 grand, there’s going to be even more stuff coming in here.
“Dustin was awesome enough to let me use this shop (for filming),” Nicolaides said. “He had everything ready for me to go when I got home, had all the steel I needed, all the (grinder) belts I could possibly need.
“Just about anything I could ask for, I had,” he said.
About the final round, Nicolaides said, “Aw, man, that was nuts, because I had never made anything like that before. I don’t make colichemardes, I don’t make French swords; I make hunting knives and bushcraft (survival) knives and stuff like that.
“So, for me, this was something that was completely different,” he said. “I’d never made that kind of weapon before, and I’d also never done the hollow grinding and stuff like that that was required to make that (sword).”
Nicolaides said that he got into blacksmithing after doing “a lot of survival skills back in the day.
“And a lot of the knives I bought didn’t hold up – they would break or chip out, so I decided that I could make one myself,” he said.
“That was wrong,” Nicolaides said. “I tried.”
“My first knife I won’t even show to the public. It was a screwdriver that I beat on with an old claw hammer and used a cinder block as an anvil.”
He started watching YouTube videos and reading articles online “and I was getting better.
“I did that for a couple of years, and then Dustin took me under his wing whenever my neighbor told me about him.
“Got to talking to him on Facebook and he invited me out, and the next thing you know, I was his apprentice,” Nicolaides said.
“When I got started, I had nothing,” Nicolaides said. “Dustin allowed me to come out here and work, and he provided what I needed.
“He’s one of the guys who will give the shirt off of his back to help somebody,” Nicolaides said.
Rhodes started to learn about blacksmithing at the age of 12, when his family was participating in frontier re-enactments.
In Rhodes’ shop, the two men use a tougher carbon steel for their products. “We turn out several hundred knives a year,” as well as swords, battle axes and other blade items.
“We’ve even occasionally do small canons,” Rhodes said.
They sell their products both nationally and internationally “through multiple venues,” Rhodes said.
They do so through Facebook and Instagram, by going to historic rendezvouses and knife shows and through links on websites such as Forged in Fire Knife Makers and Bladesmith and Knifemakers Market Place.
“It’s mostly online,” Rhodes said.
There are people who “cut out steel, shape it and heat treat it and call it a knife.”
“We sell to a lot of collectors and a lot of (knife) enthusiasts,” Nicolaides said.
“There is a massive resurgence in making and buying custom knives,” Rhodes said. “That’s due to shows like Forged in Fire and Master of Arms.”
Sometimes, a potential customer will question the price of their knives.
“Something we hear from time to time is that (knives) don’t cost that much” at retail stores,” Nicolaides said. “But those won’t hold up like what we make,” he said. “What we make is durable.”
Both Nicolaides and Rhodes have full-time jobs, going to the shop after work and on weekends.
“It actually makes work at your day job easier,” Rhodes said.
The money they make from their products go to good causes.
“The money you make at your job can go to paying your bills. This (money) is for making life better for your kids, taking them on vacations and doing other things for them,” Nicolaides said.
For Rhodes, it has been paying for his house and a motorcycle.
And, the two share their wealth to help others.
They support programs like Wounded Warrior, “and we do a lot with cancer research,” said Nicolaides, who has had family members battling the disease.
“We try to help out (others) when we can,” Rhodes said.
As for the $10,000 he won on Forged in Fire, Nicolaides said, “A lot of it’s going to go into building my own shop.”
He now works out of his basement. “Once I get this shop built, I will be in a lot better shape.”
“Making these things takes a lot of processes and a lot of knowledge,” Nicolaides said. “The key is taking that knowledge about science and that experience and growing from that.”
The two men admit that even with safety measures taken, there are times that injuries can occur.
“You get cut, you get burned, you get heat stroke,” Rhodes said.
Nicolaides said, “One time I made a Pez dispenser out of my finger, and then I stabbed myself to the bone.”

Joshua Nicolaides (left), who was recently announced as a winner in a Forged in Fire episode on History Channel, and Dustin Rhodes are shown with some of their products in Rhodes’ workshop in rural Shobonier.

Above is Joshua Nicolaides’ sword that won him $10,000 in a Forged in Fire competition.

In a screenshot from History Channel’s Forged in Fire episode on Feb. 20, Joshua Nicolaides is shown working on his sword for the show in Dustin Rhodes’ blacksmithing shop in rural Shobonier.