The Divine Knives of Walter Brend
By Christopher Tighe
As a child in Davenport, Florida, Walter Brend made toy knives and swords out of wood and was encouraged by the compliments of adults who saw that he had an eye for graceful curving lines that are now a hallmark of his knives. As an early teen, while hiking with friends in the woods, Walter used a large stag-handled hunting knife with a hidden tang as a pry bar to rescue a friend pinned under a log. In freeing his friend, Walter bent the knife’s handle 90 degrees to the blade. That near failure made Walter realize that a knife should be capable of extraordinary duty, so the first custom hunting knives Walter bought were his own designs built in Tampa to his specifications, one each by Cutlery Hall of Famers Mel Pardue and Frank Centofante.
After high school, Walter joined the Army and was stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. As an armorer in the weapons room, he had the opportunity to work on the first batch of M14 rifles issued. Walter admired the 8.5-pound rifle but was less impressed with the service-issue knives. That dissatisfaction led him to design his Model 2 Combat Knife.
Walter was doing well in the Army but when his mother became very ill he left the Army and returned home, completing his military service in the local Army National Guard. Walter found employment at a local Winn-Dixie supermarket as a meat cutter. Breaking down full sides of beef and seeing which knives worked best broadened his understanding of the tools.
A workplace accident in early 1979 and what Walter is sure was divine intervention turned him into a full-time knifemaker. His knife slipped and cut his left wrist, severely damaging the main nerve and tendons. Walter’s surgeon estimated that he could go back to work in about six weeks, but by the end of the year, he still couldn’t use his hand and a large knot had formed on his wrist. Following a second surgery, the doctor told him that he might never have the use of that hand again. After months of physical therapy, Walter was able to regain some feeling and movement in that hand, but had no grip strength. He began to search for another line of work.
Walter and his cousin, Dick, frequented a local gun shop where Walter often talked about his dream of making a knife. One day, the knife store owner challenged him, “Go home and make me a custom hunting knife or else don’t say nothing more about it.” Walter recalls telling his cousin, “I’ve got no money to buy a grinder, so how can I make a knife?” Dick said, “Do it the old-fashioned way by hand filing the blade, then you can use my drill press and a makeshift buffer before sending it off to be heat treated.” Walter reminded Dick that he hadn’t had the use of this hand and arm for a year and a half but Dick pushed back, telling him to close his hand on the piece, then tie a rag tight around it using his teeth and get to work. Walter continued, “He built a bench for me, and I started working on that knife in November 1980. I had it just about all filed down by December when on one particularly hot day while I was draw-filing on it, I started to feel faint, so I untied the rag, set down the knife and went to get some water. But I tripped on the corner leg of the bench and started to fall onto my left side toward the door. I reached out and grabbed the doorknob with my hand and it held! God had touched me that morning and put all the strength back in my hand and arm.” Walter finished up the knife for the gun store owner who soon after gave Walter orders he had taken for five more. Walter hand filed the first three and then bought a small grinder to use on the last two.
Walter resumed meat cutting and continued making knives for about a year. He took six wood-handled hunting knives to a Florida knife show to sell where they were examined by Mel Pardue and Frank Centofante. Both were so impressed with Walter’s work that they had him complete an application to the Knifemakers’ Guild and they approved it on the spot, admitting Walter to the Guild in his first year of knifemaking. Walter had no training on design or techniques of knifemaking and credits God not only with healing his arm but also giving him the skills. He says he just sees the knife in his mind and then God shows him how to push the file or move the metal against the grinder, and how to shape and attach handles.
Walter progressed from making hunters to making 4” daggers with pearl handles that would sell as fast as he could make them, several at the Zephyrhills SkyDiving School. Walter is particularly proud of a perfectly matched pair of mother-of-pearl-handled 5” daggers that he made for a family in St. Petersburg. Another of Walter’s early knives was one he named the Mediterranean Bowie, that was fully flat ground, distinct from his now-signature hollow grinds, and he only made nine of them.
In 1982, Walter moved from Florida to Walterboro, South Carolina where he worked as a butcher at a local steakhouse. After about a year, demand for Walter’s knives had grown to the point he quit the steakhouse and became a full time knifemaker. Walter would take 15-20 knives to sell at the Pops knife shows and while there would also demonstrate his freehand grinding of complex curved blades.
After 22 years in South Carolina, Walter moved to Cullman, Alabama in 2004 hoping a change in climate might reduce recent and severe pain, swelling and stiffness in his hands that his doctor had diagnosed as arthritis. The move only brought slight relief to Walter’s hands but less than a year after the move, he was introduced to a doctor who, after examination, didn’t think it was arthritis. Lab tests confirmed the doctor’s diagnosis that Walter was suffering from lead poisoning. Walter suspects the lead came from contaminated well water at their home in Walterboro. After 15 chelation treatments over two months, Walter’s hands were cured.
Walter and his wife, Kay, spent about six and a half years in Alabama, until concerns over the health of Kay’s mother took them to Aiken, South Carolina to care for her for a few years. They had frequently been visiting several of Kay’s family that lived in Southeast Tennessee and always wanted to move there one day. Finally, after many house hunting trips, much persistence and, steadfast faith, they were able to locate and purchase their current home in Etowah, Tennessee.
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