Artisans come in all forms and guises. Genuine artisans, however, have at least one characteristic in common — a passion in the veins for what they do. That could describe Ed Sanders. This practitioner of ancient arts is a skilled metalsmith, crafting knives with handles of antler, bone and exotic woods in the rural reaches of Clay County. He is a sought-after gunsmith as well, repairing, rebuilding and restoring long guns and handguns.
A trip to his place is an excursion, a long ride on lightly-traveled roads, following yellow signs to the gun shop on Darracott Road. His modest, green block building sits on farmland he’s lived on for 40 or so years. Visitors are greeted by a notice that reads “Unload and carry all weapons in stock first so I won’t think it’s a robbery” and a couple dozen empty shotgun shells on the ground near the door, where some test firing took place.
Step inside the shop, where all manner of items and artifacts have converged. On the left are display cases of knives and guns, plus objets d’art, curiosities that have captured Sanders’ attention. To the right, shelves and floor are filled with anything imaginable — iron bells, stacks of antlers, an old doll, a stuffed otter and coyote.
Sanders steps behind a glass-covered case of knives. Like the man who made them, each is unique. Some of the blades are distinguished by handsome jeweling similar to patterned jeweling found on a rifle bolt. Sanders adapted the technique for his knives.
“Don’t touch that blade,” he cautions the Dispatch photographer as she lifts one from the case. “It’ll cut you like a straight razor.” To illustrate, he takes it and lightly touches the blade to his forearm. It lifts the hair right off his skin.
Many of his knives are one of a kind. Some clients want a handle made with an antler from a special hunt, or perhaps a first deer. There are prized woods, like black walnut and purpleheart from South America.
“I got people who bring me wood I’ve never seen before, folks in the military or traveling,” Sanders says, fitting a knife snugly into a leather sheath. He makes those too.
Early on
The Clay County native’s passion for metalsmithing is by no means new.
“Some kids, when they’re little, they start thinking about being a doctor or a nurse, but my deal was I wanted to work with iron,” he explains. “On our farm, I’d find me a piece of iron and get me a fire going and shape things. Somehow, it just stayed with me.”
He made his first real knife when he was 12. It’s crude, he says, with a handle of cedar, wrapped with leather. For decades, he thought it lost. It was a thrill to discover it in his mother’s house late in her life. She had found it and put it back for him. He keeps it in the shop today.
As a teenager, Sanders began an apprenticeship in machine shop where he gained skills in machine work and welding and learned more about metallurgy.
“I’d ask questions, go way beyond what I was supposed to do — and I bought books,” he says. He was determined to absorb all he could. The machining background proved to be a strong foundation for expanding into gunsmithing, which he taught himself. Sanders eventually went on to teach at the West Point High School vocational center, then later devoted himself full-time to his shop.
Sanders’ grandson, Brooks White, and his nephew, Bobby Graham, work with him. White has been in the shop since he was 5 years old, he says, hanging on his granddaddy’s back pocket.
“I’m doing my best to learn everything. It’s been awesome,” White says before turning to sharpen a knife he made for his brother in the Marine Corps. The handle bears the image of an eagle embedded on one side, his brother’s name on the other, and a .30-06 shell implanted in turquoise on the butt of the handle. The knife went with his brother to the Middle East.
“A lot of people don’t get anything like this,” White says of his grandfather’s tutelage. “Working here over the years I’ve been able to put hands on and learn special tools to work with older guns they don’t even make parts for any more. We’ll make ’em on the lathe. Learning all that really jump-starts my experience. Shoot, yeah, it’s been great.”
Old battles and secrets
Ed Sanders has great gun stories.
The oldest firearm he’s worked on dates to the Revolutionary War. He restored it for a client in South Carolina; it had belonged to an ancestor.
“He had all this paperwork he’d researched about the gun and his great-great-I can’t remember how many greats-grandfather,” Sanders began. “He even had papers that showed (his relative) had been at Valley Forge with George Washington and mustered out with a severance pay of $3.”
Sanders remembers, smiles, and shakes his head. “This rifle had parts tied on with wire — but he asked if I could fix it, and I told him if time and money aren’t an issue, I could do it.”
The confident smith stumbled on another piece of history in a vintage Springfield Trapdoor 45-70. As he went about disassembling, cleaning and restoring the rifle for a customer, he discovered a piece of yellowed paper tucked in a small hole in the stock.
“I slid that paper out. It was so old, I was afraid it was gonna break, but it didn’t,” says Sanders. “It said that the gun had been sold to Mr. so-and-so, at Circle M Ranch in the Montana Territory, and it was signed ‘B’hm Young’.”
Could the seller of this gun possibly have been Brigham Young, the towering figure of Mormonism and first governor of the Utah Territory? Dates suggest it could have been. The Montana Territory existed from 1864 to 1889. Young died in 1877. While the definitive answer may never be known, Sanders had discovered a historical treasure in the stock, one that amazed the gun’s modern-day owner.
That’s probably what the metalsmith enjoys most — working on family keepsakes, guns that belonged to a granddaddy, great-granddaddy or late husband.
“I get guns nobody else will fool with and that need to have special parts made for them,” Sanders says. “I really get a charge out of bringing back old guns, like the old Revolutionary War gun or the Civil War guns. There’s a lot of satisfaction with a job that you take that is almost impossible — and you make it work.”
Jan Swoope is the Lifestyles Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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