Dear Patrons and Fellow Blade Enthusiasts,
For those who are contemplating starting your own bladesmithing business or for students who want to return to continue their studies with Murray, the Carter Cutlery Journeyman Program is designed for you.
If ever I was in a position to generously give back to my loyal customers in abundance, now is the time. Due to hundreds of personal requests and email inquiries, I have developed the Carter Cutlery Journeyman Program, and with the full blessings of my Sensei Sakemoto in Japan, I will share all of my hard earned bladesmithing and business experience with you.
Testimonial from John Zelko, surgeon and 500 Level Intensive Bladesmithing Class Graduate
I wanted to give you my impressions of the last 5 days. I just used my sanmai wabocho to make dinner tonight. I knew the blade was good, but until I used it, I didn’t realize how good. Scary sharp, perfectly balanced, thin, light, and it glided through the vegetables without effort. No visible trauma to the face of the ripe tomatoes. I had to keep reducing the force necessary to cut. Very unlike any knife I have used before. It was surgical level force.
You know I am a surgeon, but I am also a professor of surgery and have taught for over 30 years. I have won teaching awards, and I chose your course because the YouTube videos I watched showed me the quality of your instruction. You have refined your teaching with an intensity that matches your blade-making.
I go to many surgical meetings and am lucky to come away with a few useful pieces of information. The intensive course you put on gave me more knowledge in a few days than I have gotten in years. I appreciate your approach in assuming any student coming in wants to become a master bladesmith. You have codified knife making to the Nth degree, and it showed in watching my every move and correcting my mistakes before they were irreversible and I ended up with extraordinary knives, not just good knives.
I have just scratched the surface and will be back for more courses. Feel free to give my email address to any potential student who wants more information on your teaching style and content.
My wife loves her neck knife and marveled at the wabocho zipping through dinner. You have a good team of people at the shop. You are obviously doing something right.
The Carter Cutlery Journeyman Program Benefits:
- Attend 15 full days of intensive Traditional Japanese Bladesmithing instruction, which is $15,000 worth of instruction. You are free to attend any class I offer, 100, 101, 102, 103, 201, 202, 203, 301, 302, 401 and 500 (with the only exception being the 402 Sword Forging class). You can attend any of these classes in the order that makes the most sense to you personally, and you can even repeat a class if you so desire. The only limiting factor is that you have a total of 15 days of classes. I normally don’t do it, but if requested, I’ll make an exception and offer exclusive one-on-one instruction in the shop, but one day of one-on-one will count as two days credit. The last day of the 15 will be spent in a classroom environment where we will learn proven business strategies and then create a personalized custom business plan for you.
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Receive two years of constant coaching. This includes monthly phone consultation over a period of two years (24 months) and unlimited email correspondence. The duration of each monthly phone call will be 30 minutes. After you complete the 15 days of intensive instruction, it is in my greatest interest to see you through to success, so I will do as much as I can do for you. The 24 month phone consultation will start upon completion of your second course in Traditional Japanese Bladesmithing. That is 12 hours of the finest bladesmithing consultation over the phone, plus many more via email.
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Receive enough Japanese laminated steel, handle material, liner material, pins, and kydex to complete 10 custom neck knives to sell. These materials will allow you to immediately exploit the skills I will share with you and help build your experience and confidence. What’s more, the proceeds from these knives can help you purchase new equipment that you will want for your future shop.
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Receive a complete set of Japanese Water stones and my award winning sharpening DVD instructional set, consisting of both “Blade Sharpening Fundamentals” and “Advanced Blade Sharpening Techniques.” These two DVDs have taught thousands of students to competently and confidently hand sharpen any tool they come across. As an extra bonus, we will include all three copies of our Kitchen Cuts videos.
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Receive personally autographed copies of “Bladesmithing with Murray Carter” and “101 Knife Designs”. In these books with hundreds of detailed photographs and drawings, I will reveal all my bladesmithing secrets and proven knife patterns, as well as include a detailed biography of my time growing up in Canada and then in Japan.
- I am also going to make it incredibly easy for you to join by letting you apply any tuition you may have already paid for Traditional Japanese Bladesmithing instruction towards the tuition of this program. So, for example, if you have taken a six day class with me already, you can apply $6000 towards the total cost of the program.
Why Murray is uniquely qualified to guide you:
In April of 1988, just one year after having graduated from a Canadian high school, I set out on a journey that was to so shape and mold me that I would never again return to the life or lifestyle I had before leaving.
I had just started my tenth grade in school, and I was young and optimistic. A friend of mine invited me to go with him to watch a fighting competition of some kind, so just for the sake of it I went. It turned out to be a karate event, where several of Canada’s top competitors were battling for some coveted titles. One man, Dave Griffin, at the time a third degree black belt (currently fourth or fifth), won the competition. Mr Griffin was a very large and strong man, with a barrel chest and “trucker” moustache, but with gentleness and finesse that contradicted his appearance. When I discovered his dojo (karate school) was in my neighborhood, I immediately enrolled for evening classes. Thus, my fascination with all things Japanese began.
Determined to learn as much as I could, I begged Sensei Griffin to let me participate in both the beginner’s and advanced classes, which were scheduled back-to-back. I can remember coming home exhausted many karate nights, but the persistence paid off as I rapidly made my way up the ranks, and even won a few competitions. In my free time I read as much as I could about Japan, which for all intents and purposes, was literally on the other side of the world. It was still a time before Japan’s influence was to be felt all the way over to the east coast of Atlantic Canada. Trying to learn more about Japan while stuck in Nova Scotia, was akin to trying to find snow in the desert. Except for a few outdated books in the regional library, there was nothing more I could find. Remember, this was 1985, way before the days of the internet and “Google” searches!
So, in my typical fashion, at 17 years old and having graduated from school, I determined that the best way to find out about Japan was to go there myself. I planned, prepared and saved money (by working three jobs at the same time, one of which was for Sensei Griffin) for a year and then embarked on my adventure. What comes to mind? A sad farewell at the airport? Or perhaps hasty handshakes and kisses at the train station? Nothing of the sort for this adventurer! My parents drove me to the highway where they let me out and said goodbye to me as I unfurled my hitch-hiking sign which said boldly in black type on a large blaze-orange background “Japan or Bust!” So I started my journey by hitching rides from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Vancouver, Canada, some 6400 kilometers away. Now, that folks is sheer determination. (I lament, for the sake of today’s young folks, that hitch-hiking is no longer socially acceptable or safe, because it did give me a wonderful opportunity to meet with people from all walks of life).
After many wonderful and exciting adventures I safely arrived in Japan and fell into the apprenticeship with my Bladesmithing Sensei, Mr. Yasuyuki Sakemoto, 16th generation Yoshimoto bladesmith. Again, in my typical fashion, determined to learn as much as I could, I spent every available minute of each day watching my sensei and trying my hand at forging and grinding. I can remember many a frustrating night, unwilling to give up, grinding and polishing a blade into the wee hours of the morning because I was not satisfied with mediocrity. I can remember blood coming from having ground my fingertips and metal dust in my eyes and nostrils, but still not wanting to stop what I was learning until I “got it right.”
I remember working in my new shop, after I had been asked to become the 17th Yoshimoto Bladesmith, working alone late at night, examining the metallurgy in a batch of kitchen knives I had just forged and heat treated. One of the blades didn’t flex and return to true after I assaulted its edge with a brass rod by pushing the rounded edge of the rod against the blade edge until it moved unnaturally to the side. In a fit of passion, I hurled that blade as far as I could into the adjacent Take Yabu (bamboo forest), yelling as I threw it “I’ll master heat treating by hand in a charcoal forge soon enough!” Then came testing the next blade, which upon failing my high standards, received the same treatment as the first. Blade after blade, until there must have been twenty or thirty blades scattered in the bamboo, until I was left with just three or four blades that had passed the test. Although I was mad, I wasn’t discouraged because I knew these few remaining blades were worthy of the “Carter” stamp and that my reputation would be held intact for keeping such stringent quality control over the blades I sold. (Although the bamboo forest was never visited by children, when cooler heads prevailed, I did go search for those thrown blades to discard them in a more responsible manner!)
Well, I did finally master the heat treating by hand in a charcoal forge, and after having forged, completed, and sold close to 12,000 knives, I moved with my family from Japan to the US (after overcoming many hurdles and challenges to immigrate to this country post-9/11). Confident that I knew a thing or two about Traditional Japanese Bladesmithing, I then turned my attention to learning how to get my knives better known around the world In other words, I started to research successful marketing techniques. I searched out the best marketing geniuses in the industry, and when the opportunity arose to spend eight days of intensive tutorial with a real expert, combined with monthly phone consultation follow up over a one year period, I jumped at the chance. I am now in a position to confidently share both bladesmithing and business skills with anybody who is committed to learn.
Once you become a Carter Cutlery Journeyman, I will show you how to forge and complete a variety of knives, both outdoor knives and culinary blades, as well as teach you how to expertly sharpen and maintain them. I will also teach you the “secrets” of the trade and help you formulate a business plan, and then I will offer constant support over a two year period by coaching you along your journey to success.
The cost of this program is $9,900.
Here is WHY and HOW I can Extend Such a Great Offer to YOU…
WHY #1 The reason is simple… I want to pass on the kindness Sensei Sakemoto showed me by training me up to become the bladesmith I am today. As I train more students to forge High Performance Japanese blades and then they successfully market them all over the world, awareness for high quality blades will increase, thereby increasing the demand at the same time. Carter Cutlery will prosper as well, making it a wonderful symbiotic relationship.
WHY #2 Additionally, I can’t wait for you to come and attend one of our amazing Japanese Bladesmithing Courses and have the knifemaking adventure of a lifetime. Apart from learning how to make the best knives possible, you will be privy to the very inner workings of Carter Cutlery. Once you experience first-hand HOW and WHY we do things the way we do, you will value your relationship with us even more.
WHY#3 It is never going to be easier or cost less for me to “Exchange In Abundance” with you and for you to accept than right now–before demand and prices for my cutlery and time dramatically escalate with increased exposure.
HOW Can I do this? It’s real simple. Carter Cutlery is not about money. Carter Cutlery is about PURPOSE. Our purpose is to serve our customers by forging the highest performance cutlery possible and by sharing ancient bladesmithing education, as if our very lives depended on it. When I make it easy for you to become a Journeyman, and teach you all I know to become a successful smith and businessman, the whole cutlery industry benefits. Awareness for high performance blades increases, which in turn benefits both you and me. With my “Exchange In Abundance” philosophy we all win: You, me, our customers and the whole cutlery industry.
Thank you for taking advantage of this great offer!
Sincerely,
Murray Carter
ABS Master Bladesmith