Long-time knifemaker Ron Frazier passed away on his birthday, Nov. 15. He was 71.
“Ron was one of only a few knifemakers that was a true artist,” noted his friend, scrimshander Rick Bowles.
The long, tall Frazier was a huge fan of 19th-century knifemaker Michael Price and made a number of dress bowies in the Price style. Well-liked and easy going, Frazier crafted artistic knives in a variety of styles, most if not all one of a kind.
He sold his first knife in 1976, the same year he joined the Knifemakers’ Guild. His sponsors for Guild membership were legendary knifemaker Corbet Sigman and Blade Magazine Cutlery Hall-Of-Fame© members George Herron and Bill Moran.
“Each of Ron Frazier’s blades are individual expressions of art,” wrote Cutlery Hall-Of-Famer Butch Winter in his profile of Frazier in the September 1999 BLADE®. “He does not make knives, he creates them. His pieces are bursts of inspiration carried out in metal, ivory, horn, wood or bone. They are all one-of-a-kinds since, as Ron says, ‘I don’t like to make the same knife twice.'”
Among the many awards Frazier won for his knives were the 1997 BLADEhandmade Best In Show and Best Art Knife awards. At the Southeastern Custom Knife Show in Winston, North Carolina, he won Best In Show for three years running and Best Art-Best Bowie Overall four years straight.
Frazier lived in Powhatan, Virginia, with his wife, Susie. For more on Frazier knives visit www.rehobothcustomknives.com/dp_ron_frazier.htm, http://www.rehobothcustomknives.com/KRFZ005.htm and http://www.engraver.net/knife6.html
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