Ace of Blades: An Interview with Bladesmith John Medlin
(Image credit: History)
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Ace Kitchen & Company, located in South Carolina, is owned and operated by John Medlin. He and his employees create everything from hammers to kitchen pans, custom cutting boards, spatulas, and nearly anything else a person could want for their kitchen and home.
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John took time out of his busy schedule to talk with us about his company, his appearance on Forged in Fire, and how answering one email set his wild journey into motion.
John’s Origin Story
BRUTE de FORGE: How did you get into forging?
John Medlin: As a teenager, I would play around behind my dad's shop. He had a high-pressure burner grill, and I would take big pole barn nails, lay them across the burner, and get them red hot. Then, I would beat them down on a piece of steel or whatever we had in the shop. I guess that's where some of it started.
I graduated high school and went to college in Greenville, South Carolina, and I was there for six years before we moved back to St. Matthew, South Carolina—where I grew up. The place my wife and I bought had a shop, which was great because I love making things. I did leather work right out of college and made knife sheaths, holsters, and items like that for people. So, when we bought the place with the shop, I started playing around with leatherwork again. I built a brake drum coal forge, which was my first forge. I was given my first anvil about ten years ago. It was about one hundred pounds, cast iron, and cheap, but it did the job. My forging took off from there. It didn't start with knives. I started with hooks and bottle openers and progressed to blades. Now, I do this full-time.
BDF: How has the transition to full-time smith been for you?
JM: Overall, satisfying. I don't think working for yourself is for everybody, though. I enjoyed the places I worked before, but I always wanted to own and operate my own business. I didn't think it would be in the realm of blacksmithing, honestly, but there is just something about it. I'd come out to work in the shop after I got off of work, and it was very stress-free and satisfying. I never felt that with anything else I did.
“ I always wanted to own and operate my own business. I didn’t think it would be in the realm of blacksmithing, honestly, but there is just something about it.”
I went to school and got a Master's degree in psychology, and I still use the skills I got from that degree. I still work with kids, but I teach in a different setting.
John’s journey to the Forged in Fire floor
BDF: We have a lot to discuss, so let’s start with Forged in Fire. How did you get on the show?
JM: My wife is the only reason I got asked to be on the show. She had taken pictures of my work and put it on her Instagram. I remember showing her an email from one of the producers, and I thought it was a scam. My wife convinced me that it was not a scam and that it was real, so I emailed back. It was a great experience. I came out of it being good friends with Steve Koster, who's a phenomenal maker.
BDF: Do you think your appearance on Forged in Fire has benefited you?
JM: I think so. When I first got into the metalwork, I hadn't watched Forged in Fire. We didn't have the History Channel, but people would always ask me about the show because they knew I made knives. I didn’t use Instagram, Facebook, or social media much then. I made things because I enjoyed it. It was stress relief, and I liked making tools that other people could use.
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Almost a year after appearing on the show, this guy reached out to me. I think he started following me after seeing me compete and said, “Hey, would you be interested in making some knives for a company?” I said I'd be happy to talk to him, but I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know what that entailed.
(Image credit: History)
When he got in contact with the actual company in Portland, Oregon, it was a coal company that was closing down. They had been in business for about thirty years, and they wanted someone to take the steam pipes out of the factory and make cleavers out of them for their employees. So, I talked with them and quoted them two different ways. One quote was if I made the cleavers out of their steam pipes, and the other was if I made them out of normal steel. Using the steam pipes was much more expensive.
“ It all came from one email that I followed up on, which led to being on Forged in Fire. I’m not saying being on the show makes you successful, but it gives you the exposure.”
(Image credit: John Medlin)
Anyway, I submitted it, and the order was around $60,000. It was over two hundred knives, which would have been very time-consuming to do by myself. I didn't hear a thing back from them for six weeks and figured it was too expensive. Then, out of the blue, I got a phone call from them telling me to proceed with the order.
I always tell people that, in my opinion, it all came from one email that I followed up on, which led to being on Forged in Fire. I’m not saying being on the show makes you successful, but it gives you the exposure. People like Steve Koster or Neil Kamimura, who do phenomenal work, would not have gotten the attention they get now without the show.
BDF: Would you return if they asked you?
JM: Part of me would want to do it again. We have so many orders to fill right now. This is our second year working full-time, and I would much rather my company continue to grow than get to have another fun experience on Forged in Fire.
Branching out beyond blades
BDF: Beyond blades, you produce and create so many other products. Do you consider yourself more of a blacksmith than a bladesmith?
JM: So, I focus a lot on knives. Last October, I took my journeyman performance test and passed with Steve Koster. I was supposed to present those in June, but we were doing so much work in the shop that I didn't get time to finish. That said, lately, as far as what is paying the bills and keeping the shop running, it is more blacksmith-style items.
BDF: Let’s talk about your shop, Ace Kitchen & Company. How did that come about?
(Image credit: John Medlin)
JM: About two years ago, I hired a friend, Joy Decker. She wanted to try to make a pre-depression copper pan. I'd already made some copper scoops, but she wanted to try making a whole saucepan out of copper. Copper is crazy expensive, though, so we decided to use carbon steel. From there, the door opened to a lot of the other stuff that we make now. I would hate to show you some of our original plans! We’ve come a long way. Now, we produce a whole line of pans. We have an eight-inch, ten-inch, and twelve-inch carbon steel pan. We also make a fourteen-inch walk and a fifteen-inch pizza pan.
One of the problems we were facing was reaching the amount of people we needed to reach to be more than just me making knives. Social media would label the knives I was making as weapons. That’s the primary reason we called ourselves Ace Kitchen & Company. We still make knives, swords, hammers, and all kinds of crazy stuff, but we needed to reach a broader audience in order to expand. So, the pans have been great. A lot of the work for the pans is cold work. My spinning lathe molds the steel cold; it doesn’t have to get hot.
“Social media would label the knives I was making as weapons.... We still make knives, swords, hammers, and all kinds of crazy stuff, but we needed to reach a broader audience in order to expand.”
We've come up with some crazy processes as far as how to bend the handles, for example. I was doing it myself initially. It was no big deal if I did five or ten handles a week. But now we do three to four hundred handles weekly, so we had to get better equipment. We also have air conditioning in the shop now, which has been huge.
BDF: I was curious about how you make everything—the handles, for example—look uniform.
(Image credit: John Medlin)
JM: The handles come to us as round stock. When we first started making them, we'd flatten both ends underneath the power hammer or press and bend them over the anvil. Last year, we sold between fifty and one hundred of our custom cutting boards with handles. A lot of businesses use them as client gifts. However, one of our contracts this year was for three hundred and fifty cutting boards, so we needed seven hundred handles! We ended up building custom jigs so that we could slide the stock bar under the jig, compress it, and bend the curvature into it while keeping the end flat. It’s fantastic and saves us so much time!
Building the jigs took a couple of days, but it has saved us so much time. Even with our pans and our panhandles, it has made a difference. Our pan handles are forged stainless now. When you’re producing at a high level, the machinery and tools you use are important. It keeps all your products uniform.
The first show we did in Charleston, the first one that we took pans to, we sold between thirty and forty pans. At that point, each one was hand hammered, and every handle was hand forged. We still use the same process, but we upped our tooling game. It has helped us keep our costs down for us and our customers.
“When you’re producing at a high level, the machinery and tools you use are important. It keeps all your products uniform. ”
We get to do more prototyping for other companies now and develop gift ideas or new products. We’ve done bottle openers, spatulas, frying pans, knives made of rebar, and many other things. Maria, my wife, was here earlier, working on social media. Joy, she’s shop manager now, was working on handles for cutting boards. Everything we make is designed, engineered, and produced here in South Carolina!
An “Ace” up John’s sleeve
BDF: So, Ace Kitchen & Company is the name of your business. Can you tell me about your logo/maker’s mark? What is the significance of it?
JM: It’s the ace of spades. When I first got started doing leatherwork, I used the name Ace. I used to build a lot of holsters for business, and ACE was an acronym. It stood for “affordable, concealable, and efficient”, or something like that.
When I began making knives—after the first twenty or thirty, which were complete junk—I started marking them the same way. I have always loved the spade shape, which went well with ACE. I ended up spinning the idea to a graphics guy in North Carolina, and he was able to take an anvil and use it as the base of the spade and add our logo across the top.
BDF: You mentioned that you have done leather sheathing several times now.
(Image credit: John Medlin)
JM: Yeah, that's one of the things that pushed me more towards knives. I grew up around knives, and I've always liked them. After I got into leatherwork, I started building custom holsters for people and fixing leatherwork. Knifemakers began to send me some of their knives to build sheaths for, and eventually, I thought, “I can make these. I can make something with this.” I still make about ninety percent of the sheaths for my knives.
BDF: On top of that, you also take custom orders and teach classes, correct?
JM: I would say I take ninety-five percent of the requests that come in for orders or custom stuff. Right now, we're booked pretty far out. For a knife, I'm booked until almost Christmas. It's not so much the number; it's just making the time to do all the other orders.
I teach classes on the weekends, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. I've been doing that for a couple of years. We have a knife-making class that is one on one. You can also come and make your own pan and spatula.
A lot of the business we get comes from the knifemaking side. One of the first classes I did in the shop was with a guy in management or on the board of a bigger company, and he had such a good time making knives with his son. Since then, we've done their employee gifts. We made around a thousand or fifteen hundred pieces for them last year. We have some of the same contracts back this year and some other ones that are even bigger. I can’t turn those down! So, I still take some custom orders; I just tell people it takes longer to get them.
I really want to focus on the teaching aspect. That's really why I wanted to get my journeyman certification. I enjoy it. We have homeschooled groups come in, and we'll do six or eight-week classes where we meet once a week. About a year ago, we started doing corporate classes, which is something I would have never initially thought about. We've had dentist offices, safety protocol companies, homeschool organizations, and steel companies send their employees as a retreat. We just did a big one for CMC Steel, and they sent their college interns.
“I really want to focus on the teaching aspect. That’s really why I wanted to get my journeyman certification.”
We did a group of about five people from the UK. They had flown in as part of a company from overseas, and they had to make kitchenware because they couldn't take knives back through customs. So, they made spatulas and ladles and were so excited to take them back to England with them. How cool is that?
The teaching part of this has done well. I've enjoyed it so much. As far as money flow, it has not brought in a ton of money, but it is so fulfilling. In March of next year, I'm flying to Africa, and I'll be teaching at a school for the deaf. I'll spend three weeks there teaching at a school that's four-hour truck drive from an airport. It’s crazy to me!
The journey to Mastersmith
BDF: You mentioned taking your Journeyman test earlier. Is your ultimate goal to become a Mastersmith?
JM: I think so. It's more of a personal challenge. I don't know that there is Mastersmith in South Carolina, so having that title to go along with the classes would be great.
I like the standard the ABS sets. With so many things in life, society, and everything else, standards have just plummeted. So, I enjoy the fact that it sets a standard, and if you can make it to that, great. If you need to work with somebody else to get there and level up your game, great. But at least there is something there to work toward.
BDF: Do you have a signature style?
(Image credit: John Medlin)
JM: If I could pick a knife that I would make consistently, it would be closer to a brute de forge style. Over the last few years, I have focused on leveling up my forging game. One of the guys that I started following early on was Lin Rhea, the Mastersmith. I really like his style.
One of the first classes I took was with Jason Knight in Tennessee. There is a major focus on clean forge work, where you forge the blade almost to completion instead of making a general shape and finishing everything on a grinder. I really liked that, and I've been working on it for the last few years.
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I tell people there's nothing you will create that hasn't already been created. You're not going to re-create the wheel. The biggest thing for me is making sure that the function and the art meet. Something might be very artsy, but will it be functional? If it handles awful or is too heavy, what’s the point? So, I have tried to have a style where art and function meet.
Want to be a smith? Here’s John’s advice
BDF: Do you have any advice for aspiring smiths?
JM: Yes. Get yourself some good equipment. Put some money aside and buy decent equipment like a press, a small power hammer, and a grinder. It might take me four hours to hammer something by hand, whereas it only takes thirty minutes to make it with my press, and I can sell it for the same amount of money. In the long run, it will also save your shoulders, hands, and rotator cuff.
Also, I always tell people that the quality of work is essential, but so are the connections you make with people.
To see more from John, follow his Instagram @john_medlin951. Also, follow Ace Kitchen & Company @acekitchenandco, visit their Facebook page Ace Kitchen & Co., and view all of their products at acekitchenandco.com.
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