This artcle was published in the Nasua Telegraph
Published: Sunday, July 14, 2013
WILLIAM WROBEL
Staff Writer
John Miller was 7 or 8 when his father handed him his first knife, a Western clip point. The gesture may have been nice, but something just didn’t fit.
Even with sentimental value, it just wasn’t right. After years of searching for a suitable field knife, he decided to make his own.
Miller is the owner of Pinnacle Mountain Knives, a Lyndeborough-based knife company with a workforce of one, sometimes two. It’s just Miller and his wife in a workshop off their home, shaping, grinding, heat-treating and sheathing a few knives a week and shipping them off around the country to hunters, chefs and everyday carriers.
Miller is from northern Vermont, slightly south of the Canadian border, where knives are seen as everyday tools, rather than weapons or status symbols.
Up in the North Country, a knife is a survival tool, and something that Miller took with him when he ventured off into the wilderness on his first solo hunting trip at age 9 – just in case. He recalled his father pointing out that a knife could save his life if he was ever lost in the woods.
Miller owns his own consulting firm, Lyndeborough Object Technology, spending a large amount of time with computers rather than out in the woods. So now he creates a few knives a week from scratch for those who do a little more adventuring.
It started with woodworking, just as a way to get away from the consulting, beginning in a small garage shop and then graduating to another building on the property.
“I got into woodworking to get off the computer. By having a separate building, even if it’s 20 feet from the house, by being out here it separates me from my work,” Miller said.
The operation grew from furniture to furniture and knives. At first, the knife business was simply for the love of the game.
“I love making furniture, and I’ve done woodworking for over 30 years now, and I started into knives without the intention of actually selling them,” he said.
But after he sold a few and the orders started to pile up, Miller changed his views and began to make more and more. This resulted in the current four-month backlog he now has.
The process begins with a plate of steel, the type determined by the customer, which over the course of five hours or so is transformed into a high-quality working tool.
Miller said the process takes him about five hours of work, from drawing out the design of the knife to using a grinder to shape the steel before heat-treating the metal at 2,000 degrees for 10 minutes and cooling it in liquid nitrogen. Finally, he fixes the hand-carved handle to the blade and sharpens up the final product.
Five hours is a time that was greatly improved upon over the course of 10 years.
Miller said his first knife took three attempts and a full month to create a well-crafted piece. Over the years, he has learned to lose a little less skin to the power tools and honed his fingers to be a little more sure of themselves in the shop.
“It was in a small garage; we didn’t have the shop like this. Just like with anything that you do, you develop the skill and then you need to grow,” he said.
For only a few knives a week when he’s not consulting, that’s not bad.
In a few more years, Miller hopes he can retire from consulting and make knives full-time.
But for now, he continues to forge on, making only a few a week and perfecting the process, making a name for himself and keeping his company’s 100 percent guarantee, which he has yet to be taken up on. He makes repeat sales to about 30 percent of his current clientele.
“I hope to retire in about six years and transition into full-time then. But right now, my objective is to get my knives out there, build a reputation and then actually make some money,” Miller said.
“It’s been 100 percent satisfaction so far, but if anyone ever complained about a knife that we made, I’d give them their money back in full,” he said.
Miller said he will take on any kind of design aside from fantasy products and is currently working on a folder design to add to his repertoire.
Whether you’re a knife newbie or a sharpened veteran, Pinnacle Mountain Custom Knives is something to experience at least once.
Miller’s knives can be viewed and purchased at pmcknives.com.
© 2013, The Telegraph, Nashua, New Hampshire