Ash Blaeds’s Knives Are On Point
Aric Geesaman in his workshop.
About four years ago, around the time that Aric Geesaman’s third child was due to be born, the amateur bladesmith with a background in biological sciences decided to turn his garage-studio hobby into a full-time gig.
His reasons for diving headfirst into his handcrafted-knife business, Ash Blaeds, were partly practical, as he and his wife calculated the prohibitive cost of day care for their growing family. But forging high-carbon steel into beautiful instruments of slicing and dicing also has sentimental value for the McCordsville maker, who uses found wood from Indy Urban Hardwood to sculpt the polished handles favored by some of Indy’s top chefs.
“Growing up, my family liked to go camping and fishing, and those were times when I realized the importance of always having a good knife,” says Geesaman. He still has old knives passed down from his grandparents—pocketknives, a kitchen knife, a small butcher knife.
Geesaman designs his hardwood-handled blades, which cost anywhere from $200 to $900, to become heirlooms as well as investments worth protecting. “It makes me shudder a little bit when I see people scooping things up with their knife or using it to whack the side of something,” he says. “Treat your edge like it’s a scalpel, not a hammer.”
