Cheers to 10 years: reflecting on our origin, growth and future

Sep 16

6 min read

Iron Grove officially began mid-September 2016 in a small barn on our Dripping Springs homestead. Here's the story. A lot has changed since then, but some things never will.

The first shop: a pre-fab wooden barn with a hand-built lean-to.

Kinda Humble Non-beginnings

The plan was never to forge steel full time; the plan was to farm. We moved onto some acreage outside Austin in the summer of 2016 with the primary goal of a more self-sustainable life removed from the city buzz that often left us feeling discontented. Chickens, goats, gardens and rain tanks always seemed like the real escape from the modern life that doesn't prioritize meaning and wellbeing as much as productivity and consumption. We wanted hands-in-the-dirt, grass stains on our jeans and self-determination over our own resources as much as a small family of new homesteading hobbyists could really muster.

At that point making knives was mostly for fun. I was working as a welder/fabricator for a small duct and pipe shop, same thing my dad did, after an apprenticeship and a couple semesters of night classes studying steel sculpture that included some forging. My earliest knives were for my wonderful wife Lynne, an ex-chef and restaurant owner, who was the first to encourage me to try to sell the blades I'd been making in our backyard on weekends between a never-ending list of projects around our new homestead. Mostly using reclaimed saw blades, plow discs and various wastes of industry, cool but pretty simple carbon steel chef knives were coming into new life here and she insisted that they were worth sharing. So, at her behest, I started an Esty account for my forgework and an Instagram to promote it without much thought for its future. It was sometime in September that the first sales came in but we never expected where it would lead. A little extra cash was my highest ambition while I focused on planting seeds, collecting eggs and filtering water to lessen our necessary income and hopefully live the farm life. But then something strange happened, and it changed our family's lives going forward.

The Up Take

I'd never used social media before. I don't really watch TV. I largely live in the bubble that is my own family and interests, so I was completely unaware of who the names of some of our earliest customers belonged to. I think that actually helped here. One morning I woke up to hundreds of notifications and inquiries into our knives that made very little sense to me and went searching for what had happened to bring such sudden intrigue. As it turns out, some well-known chefs and food-personalities (I think that's what you'd call them) had received the knives they had purchased without my knowledge and took to the online sphere to share their experience both in the quality of the tools and in not being lauded for their namesake. They certainly didn't have to do that; I was just happy to have a customer and be making something cool on our way to the farm life, but I have since expressed extreme gratitude for their kindness. This turned out to be a pivotal point where the decision had to be made: dive into knifemaking as a small business or get back to gardening after my day job. I honestly felt uncertain, so I looked to my original muse, Lynne, for support. And she was all in. I quit my job, invested in some new equipment and went to work.

For the next few years Iron Grove couldn't make enough knives. Ive written about this on this blog before, we were sold-out for years and in a constant state of growth thanks to our amazing clients, cross-promotions and the positive aspects of social media allowing us to reach chef, hunters and cooking enthusiasts all over the world. We hired more bladesmiths, a woodworker and a machinist, took on large contract jobs and broke our work into Collections to combat sparsity frustrations and explore new concepts outside our current branding. As we grew in the craft our focused has shifted from the simple carbon steel blades of our origin to bespoke proprietary steels only made here, without permanent templates to reproduce them, which the artist in me loves. But as our batch numbers got bigger, our shop hours got longer, and the less we've been able to have personal interactions with the people who made this all possible; the work began to feel heavier, more like a day job and less like an artistic endeavor for the good of an awesome community I really wanted to be a part of. I thought growth is what a small business is supposed to want. But the more large-scale work we did, the less we enjoyed it and I know that the work suffers when that happens. We are craftsmen, not a factory. Somewhere around year 7, I found myself doing more managing than anything and came to the conclusion that this sort of growth is not right for me. We were technically successful, but growing tired to quick to sustain and that didn't benefit anyone on either side of this business. I want my hands in the work every day. Pouring myself into this work is my relative-to-this-topic definition of success! And as counter intuitive as it may seem, our company needed to shrink in order to stay true to what really matters to us, and what I believe really matters to those who have always supported us.

Getting smaller became imperative for real success.

Growing Smaller

In the past few years, we've refined everything. We've distilled down to a core crew again, said no to draining contract work, and lessened our batch releases quite a bit and prioritized quality work over anything. We are centered around the artistry of bladesmithing again, we are trying new things and failing all the time. And the work has never been better.

We're still evolving. I'm not sure if we'll ever settle in one place. This might be my favorite thing about this craft overall: it's insurmountable. There's always new territory to explore and I don't think I'll ever master it. But the mission has never been more clear. It's in the unconfined labor of this craft that the meaning is really found and the highest work is created. There's our success.

Ten years in and I just feel grateful for the opportunities we've had. Someone will read this and that alone is still pretty amazing to me. This work is so fulfilling that I dream about it and wake up excited to get into the shop. We spend our workday sweating and laughing and joyfully theorizing about what we can do next that it often doesn't feel like work at all until you look down and notice you're bleeding (we do make knives after all.) I can't say for sure what the future holds but I can say without any hesitation that I'm looking forward to it. Ive learned that the most meaningful goal to me is to stay small in all the good ways possible. Answer the phone, respond to the email, build relationships where people know who they're buying from and what it means to us to get to make things we love for people who really use them. Make art. We'll keep pushing the limits of what we can do with our hands at every turn, where the line between tool and sculpture is and blending form with function until the cows come home and we all get a sense of that farm life, however we find it.

A Celebratory Sale

Brass tacks: 10 years is a big deal. And what can we offer beyond what we do best at a better price? So, a site-wide 10% automatic discount on the whole website, tools, customs, classes and all, for all clients and customers to partake. Our Newsletter Subscribers however, as an ongoing thanks for all their support, can apply the current Subscriber code that can be combined with our sale and adds up to a total of 25% off all carbon steel, layered steels, Signatures, customs, and classes (first time for these). Everything we make or do, exclusively for our Subscribers who have helped this whole venture be possible.

Here's the links:

Repeatable models we make as a team

Homestead Collection: irongrovetoolcompany.com/homestead

Personal one-offs and exploratory work

Signature Collection: irongrovetoolcompany.com/signature

Choose your own materials to be hammered out

Custom Tool Builder: irongrovetoolcompany.com/custom-tool-builder

Get your hands dirty in the Iron Grove shop

Class details: irongrovetoolcompany.com/classes

This week's Cheers to 10 years sale was impromptu and is running 8/12-8/19. It applies to the whole website: tools, customs, classes and all.

Thanks for all the love throughout the years. I hope our work serves your well and inspires more gatherings 'round the table.

-Daniel Collier, hobby farmer