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Biography |
O.K...so you are wondering "who is this guy?"
A lot of friends have complained about the lack of biographical information on the site - here you go.
RMJ Forge is Ryan Johnson, his father Bob and Pip the shop cat.
Ryan forging a knife at the Joe Humble Forge - 1998
I am 34 years old and live in Chattanooga Tennessee. As a child I was always interested in weapons and was fortunate enough to have parents that allowed me to responsibly play with weapons. I was the kid that was always dressed like a Ninja, always shooting crossbows, always throwing knives and tomahawks.
When I was nine years old my father brought home two books that piqued my interest in tomahawks and American Indian woodcraft: Swords and Blades of the American Revolution by George Nueman and Ben Hunt's Guide to Indiancraft by Ben Hunt. It was at the age of twelve that things got serious. I was at my grandparents house looking at a painting of a blacksmith. "If I had a blacksmith shop" I thought " I could make any weapon I wanted...any tomahawk I wanted" A monster was born.
I went home and began gathering books on blacksmithing. My parents heard of a blacksmith in the area, contacted him and arranged a meeting. I was under the impression that there were no blacksmiths left. My dad picked me up from school one day and said " We're going to visit a blacksmith shop today" I was the most excited kid you ever saw. The blacksmith turned out to be Joe Humble, and a long lasting friendship was born. In his late sixties when I met him, Joe was the president of a regional blacksmithing club. Each month the club would meet at different shops across the southeast teaching forging skills and talking blacksmithing. I spent my teenage years going to these meetings and soaking up the knowledge and friendships that were in abundance there. Joe was a WWII veteran, and freely shared his war experiences with me on trips. These stories played a big role in my tactical designing later on.
When I was seventeen I was fortunate enough to spend my senior year of high school at the Colorado Rocky Mountain School in Carbondale Colorado. There I worked with Francis Whittaker, the "Dean of American Blacksmithing". Working with Whittaker helped hone my forging skills and the various school sponsored treks into the beautiful Colorado and Utah wilderness areas taught me much about living in the outdoors.
I attended the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where I earned two different engineering degrees. After graduating I began making tomahawks and knives full time.
In the spring of 2001 I was asked to design a tactical tomahawk. Soon after the 9/11 attacks, soldiers were carrying RMJ Forge tomahawks in Afghanistan and other areas of conflict.
I now mostly make tactical tomahawks for military personnel and a few historical pieces every now and then. I help teach prototyping skills at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and I also teach/demonstrate tomahawk forging and damascus forging at various blacksmith meetings and conferences. My beautiful wife Karen takes care of our daughters, spending the rest of her time taking care of me and keeping me out of trouble.
Bob at work at the finishing bench fitting a handle to a spike tomahawk head.
Bob got his start in the scouts and spending most of his time in the woods. An amateur archaeologist, dad spent a lot of time studying American Indians and the artifacts they left behind in our area. A jack of all trades, Bob is an excellent woodworker, leatherworker, electronics tech and world class cook. Bob had some serious health problems in 2001 - 2003 and took a long break from the shop. Bob consults on tomahawk design and manufacturing processes - and comes up with some darned good concepts.
Pip inspecting a spike tomahawk. Bob's chair is the coveted cat sleeping spot.
Pip "The Wonder-Cat" as I like to call him came to the shop in 1992 and has lived there ever since. He doesn't really do much these days except inspect tomahawks and greet visitors. Over the last few years pictures of Pip on the website have been much more popular than any picture of Ryan or Bob.