In 2020, before the Covid thing came to Australia, the Royer boys came down to the Australian Blade Symposium.
Kyle Royer is an actual Master Blade Smith. He is also a very clever cookie. Normally when we have international guests we give them a grand tour of cool things in and around Sydney. About the coolest thing we did with the Royers was show them the Ocean. Coming from middle America, the big blue expanse of the Pacific suitably impressed them. Sadly all other plans went out the window due to absolutely torrential and drought breaking rain. This was good, as you may recall this was the year the Australia was on fire, but it also meant that the Royer boys only got a few wet excursions.
One day we were planning a big day out, but it was just far too wet. I said, hey, come to my place and we will make a hammer. Now Kyle was pretty proud of the fact that he only had two hammers in his shop. A big one and a small one. I found this odd. I shit you not. I would have close to 100 hammers. Why? I don’t know. There is just something about giving random objects blunt force trauma that has always fascinated me. I have giant sledge hammers and little tiny Japanese tagane hammers and pretty much everything conceivable in between.
Anyhow I think now days If you watch the Royer videos you will see him forging and fitting up his knives using two of my hammers. A double carbide Niroc Knockometer and a rounding hammer we made on a rainy day in March 2020……