My name is Mike Deibert, and I am a journeyman bladesmith/blacksmith who lives in Trussville, Alabama. I live here with my beautiful wife, Lauren, and my five handsome boys, Joseph (8) and Noah (7), Abbott (4), and twins Benjamin and Isaiah  (2).  We are making a new start for ourselves in the U.S. after coming off of the mission field in Nicaragua, where we lived for 13 years. In Nicaragua we taught and promoted the arts, especially blacksmithing and bladesmithing. You can read more about the continuing program here: www.esvoministries.com.

I love the outdoors, and it seems that I always have.  Growing up in rural northern Ohio made being in outdoors a daily reality.  Often I would spend complete days in the woods exploring, trying to dam the creek, skipping shale across the Vermillion river or searching the farmer's fields for arrow heads.  I wasn't always old enough to carry a knife, but when I came of age I had a knife with me at all times.  The very first knife I remember loving was a Parker Cutlery King Cobra.  It was a miniature of the Buck 110 that was way too big for me at the time.  Although it was a pocket knife I made a belt sheath for it from a leather comb sleeve.  That knife never left my side.  It was my key to adventure.  All I had to do was to pick up its tiny weighty body and it would beckon me to go and cut some branches off my grandmother's willow tree.  On one tragic day the Cobra had fallen out of its sheath.  I searched for hours in the field around my grandfather's old manure spreader, which I was using as a pirate ship at the time.  My uncle found it the next day, but I still recall the sadness I felt when I knew I had lost my favorite knife.  That was when I knew I was hooked on knives.  I still have all my childhood knives in a shoebox at my parent's house.  

I love to create and when I took that first intro class to blacksmithing, I knew I was hooked.  I started forging iron as a hobby about 16 years ago.  The forge has always held a mysterious aura that seems to invite me to be creatively dangerous.  Making a decorative object gives me great satisfaction, but making a tool from carbon steel makes me feel like a true craftsman.  When I discovered that I could make knives in the forge that is when my blacksmithing took on a whole new dimension. Combining wood, brass, steel and metallurgy gives me great joy and there are few things that satisfy me more than the feel of a freshly finished knife in my hand and the steady pace at which it glides through a fallen branch.  

Updates

As of September 2018, I am proud to announce that I competed in and won History Channel’s “Forged in Fire” (Season 5, Episode 27).  Check it out if you have a moment!