Michael Rader would be the last to tell you just how popular his knife and sword work is, or how the demand for it has him at his forge pretty much full time. However, it shows in the way his face lights up with a satisfied glow when talking about his blades.

An honor graduate from Green River Community College in Auburn, Washington, with degrees in the arts, water supply, and wastewater treatment technology, Rader parlayed a love of martial arts training into making swords and knives.

“I got started around 1990 when my martial arts instructor invited a guest to teach us how to actually fight with swords as opposed to just waving them around,” Rader recalls. “He was a gruff old man with cowboy boots, dirty shirt and worn-out jeans. He would come out Monday nights for over a year and beat the crap out of us with wooden swords.”

Rader’s tenacious attendance and dedicated interest paid off for him. “I later learned that ‘the old man’ actually made swords and I started my apprenticeship with him by making wooden handles and scabbards for his pieces. Later, he taught me how to do a rough polish and sharpening,” Rader notes. “After some time, I started doing some of the forging and grinding. Later, I started to do some of the heat treating on knives.”

During this time he also traveled to various medieval and renaissance fairs in the Pacific Northwest to help the old man sell his work. “Walking staff-swords and sword-canes were very popular at the fairs, and I must have made nearly 800 of them over the years,” Rader says. “I continued selling at fairs with the old man and also sold at gun shows for a number of years on my own. In late 2001 I quit my day job, stopped teaching martial arts classes and became a full-time swordmaker.”

When asked to comment on what was one of the hardest skills to learn in bladesmithing, his response is as thoughtful and precise as his latest blade.

“Two things are difficult for me,” he admits. “One, getting flawless fit and finish on my pieces. Working on my ABS journeyman smith knives was a nightmare and I spent over a month working on my five—plus two alternates—which is way too long to spend on a handful of simple knives. I still struggle with making everything fit tight and even with no scratches. “And two: business. The business of being a custom maker is really unusual and prices seem pretty arbitrary. How do you price art? How do you tactfully handle customers that want to tell you to the nearest 1/1,000th of an inch how to make a sword? I’m learning but still feel a bit like a fish out of water when planning to be a financially successful maker. “The easiest part is forging, grinding, heat treating, handles, guards and sharpening,” he maintains. “Making a knife or sword is really, really easy.” During his 16 years of bladesmithing, what changes has Rader seen occur in the business?

“The sword industry has three main facets that I’m aware of,” he begins. “The first one is purely movie driven. When a new action flick comes out with a sword-wielding hero or villain, interest is renewed in many different people, from comic book geeks to martial artists. This is a constant ebb-and-flow.

“The second facet is driven by your ‘average’ sword collectors that were born interested in swords and will be that way all of their lives. These two facets have not changed much in my limited experience.

“The third is collectors who see swords as an investment,” he continues. “This is new to me and even though it may have always been around, I’m seeing it more and more. People want something ‘real’ to invest in. Perhaps it’s a result of inflation fears or diversification. It is a well-known fact that knives from custom makers go up in value as the makers’ reputations increase. I would say that more people now are jumping on this bandwagon than 10 or 15 years ago, but I could be wrong. I still have a lot to learn about the industry.”

Rader credits the purveyor market as his best asset for further education about the industry.

“Without a doubt, my association with BladeGallery.com was pivotal. Daniel O’Malley came up to my table at the 2005 Oregon Knife Collectors Association Show and after complimenting a few of my pieces, made some suggestions to make them better. After that, I fixed a few things and took a couple of swords up to the Blade Gallery showroom in Kirkland [Washington]. My swords have been selling like hotcakes ever since,” Rader notes.

He credits several knife events and a number of makers for gains in his study of bladesmithing.

“Going to the Spokane Hammer-in in the fall of 2003 where I got a chance to see Ed Caffrey, Shane Taylor, Rick Dunkerley, Tom Ferry, Tom Clark, Ed Schempp, John Davis, Gary House, Jerry Fisk and others work and teach was a real boost,” he recalls. “When I first met Tom Ferry at a Northwest Knife Collectors Show in Puyallup [Washington], he challenged me to start heat treating my own sword blades and to improve the quality of my work. He also convinced me to join the ABS.

“Right now I’m trying to bring my damascus skills up to par, improve styling and make some radical improvements to the fit and finish of my pieces. I plan to continue to make interesting pieces and try to maintain my creativity and unique styling.”

What are Rader’s plans for his blademaking career?

“Don’t laugh but my goal, as written in my business plan, is ‘to make the most sought after, modern-made swords in America.’ I’m still not quite sure how to define or measure that level of achievement, but I have it firmly in my mind that I want every person out there who collects swords to want one of mine in their collection,” he stresses. “There are some really good swordmakers out there—Kevin Cashen, Vince Evans, Don Fogg and Howard Clark are a few that come to mind—and I plan for my swords to be more in demand than any other maker in America. Hopefully, I can even rank up there with some of the best Japanese makers, too.

“I like the challenge of trying to make each sword different than the last one, and better. I’m always trying to make things fit better and look nicer.”

Which of his blades is his favorite?

“I guess my favorite piece,” he smiles, “is the one I’m working on now.”