| Ask Richfield resident Buster Warenski why he gave up life as a painter to become a knife-maker and he will give you a straight and simple answer: "making knives is fun and painting wasn't."  "I was always making knives on the side when I could when I was working as a painting contractor," he says. "It was just a hobby that sort of got out of hand."
Out of hand is one way to put it. Warenski's knives are in such demand that his waiting list has been known to exceed 10 years and he charges between $3,000 to $ 10,000 per knife and has clients all over the world. "The Japanese market is very good, we sell to collectors her in the U.&, the European market, Canada, Australia, France, England, Italy," he says. Not bad for a "hobby that got out of hand." Warenski opened his business, Warenski Custom Knives, out of his home in 1973. "It took a year to see if I would have enough work to make it full time, and by 1974, 1 had more than enough. We advertised a little bit in the beginning, but I haven't advertised in about 20 years because I have such a backlog. I still take custom orders, but it is always with the understanding that I will do it when I have the time." Warenski, who started his "hobby" in the mid 1960s, says he can make "any kind of knife that a person can dream up, or I can dream up, or any picture someone can scrounge up," he said. "I do mostly artsy stuff, rather than hunting or utility knives. And I've made three knives that were solid gold: the blades, the handles and sheaths, everything was gold. One of them sold in the six-figures." He makes knives mostly for collectors who know exactly what they want and how much that kind of high-quality product costs. "I would say there are 300 to 400 knifemakers like myself in the country who have massive collections of knives." Warenski can only make about 25 knives a year, with each knife taking between two weeks and several months to craft, depending on the design. "I always start by drawing a picture of the knife: the shape, the blade, the handle. I spend a lot of time with pencil and paper trying to come up with something new." He then moves to his shop, where he will "lay out" the knife place on a piece of steel and grind it to shape, working later with heat and a special polishing technique. He crafts his handles from a variety of materials, including stone, jade, marble and other exotic stone. "My wife, Julie, does all of the engraving for my knives, and she does engraving for other knife makers as well," Warenski says.  Warenski still operates out of his home in Richfield, where he has lived nearly all his life. He recently added a web page, www.warenskiknives.com. "It only been running about two months, but we are getting upwards of 600 hits a day, which is quite good."
Julie Warenski |
