(gentle music) (upbeat music) - You are not going to make knives 'cause girls don't make knives.

Their hands will get dirty, their nails will get dirty, and they'll burn themselves, and it's dirty work, and it is, it is.

But my dad's a logger and I grew up logging with my dad.

And so dad took no excuses.

His words were can't never could do nothing.

And the reason was, can't never try.

(soft music) My name is Audra Draper and I am an American Bladesmith Society Master Bladesmith.

(upbeat music) So what drew me to knife making was initially just a job working for a ranch.

I was being a ranch, hand feeding cattle, mending fence, go for work.

And then I went out in the shop one day and saw him working and he had the forge running and I just totally in completely fell in love with the fire.

The flames were intoxicating for me and I told him I wanted to make knives too and I wanted to play in the forge.

And he promptly told me that and I quote, "Girls can't make knives."

So yeah, then it was a lifelong goal that I had to make knives forever now.

I love the fire, the ability to just sit back and create from nothing.

(upbeat music) Even though I may make the knife myself, I got backup here that's ready to fix anything that's not running the way I want it to.

It's really good having a Mike.

- She's my wife and I just try to make her life simpler or easier, that's my job.

(drilling) - So I'm a member of the American Bladesmith Society.

What they do is they promote the forged blade.

They are very much like, I guess you would associate it with like an electrician.

There's an apprenticeship that you have to perform, after that apprenticeship is over, you can apply for your journeyman.

Once you pass your journeyman performance test, you can go before the judges at the Blade show and present your five nines to the judges.

They will review for fit and finish.

But if you pass that, then you can be on your weight going for your masters.

When you present for your masters, you have to make a Damascus 10 inch or greater blade.

It has to be greater than 300 layers of Damascus.

You show them that you can make a sharp knife by shaving the hair off your arm.

When you're done with that, you cut a one inch hemp rope that's free hanging from the ceiling.

You have to cut six inches from the bottom clean cut.

Then you chop through a two by four two times, you have to shave the hair off your arm again to prove that it maintains its edge.

And then from there you put it in a vice and you flex it to 90 degrees.

Once you pass that performance, you take your five knives to the judges.

Only this time of those five knives, you have one that is specific requirements and it's an early European quillian style dagger.

When I had to make that dagger, it was so stressful.

But when I got done with it and the judges looked at it, they just, they really liked it and it was like I poured my heart and soul out into that knife.

I got my Master bladesmith rating in 2000.

I was the first female master bladesmith.

I guess I made a little bit of history there.

Heather got hers in 2010 and the other girls got theirs in like 16.

So there are four female master bladesmiths in the world right now.

Not positive about the entire master bladesmiths, how many there are, but I believe it's in the 160 range.

- When I just started making knives, attractive young lady, early twenties.

And you're breaking into a field where you've got a bunch of crusty old men, for lack of a better term - At the shows, we ran into this problem multiple times.

- [Mike] They thought that I was making the knives and that she was just the pretty face selling the knives.

- They just didn't believe that I was making these knives.

And it was, I was angry, I was frustrated that people weren't really taking me seriously.

So when I saw the masters and met the masters, they were all very distinguished older gentlemen in those days and nobody gave them guff.

Nobody said, who really makes your knives?

They all just took it for granted.

They were a master bladesmith, they made these knives.

And I'm like, that's what I'm gonna have to do because I am sick and tired of people not believing that I made these knives.

So going for my master's gave me the credibility with people when they came to my table or at least those who knew what a master bladesmith was.

It gave me credibility in their eyes.

- She'd almost become a bit of a celebrity, you know?

And that wasn't what she was after, but it was nice to see people accept her, you know?

And all the hard work had paid off.

- All of a sudden it opened up so many different avenues.

And the teaching really, after getting my master's, that's really, it shot us into that direction.

But it wouldn't have happened if it weren't for all the articles and stuff that were written that kind of got my name out there to the whole world instead of just my little town of Riverton, Wyoming where, nothing happens in Riverton, Wyoming.

(laughing) We met a gal from Ohio who was a teacher and she asked me if I would be interested in teaching a course with somewhere between, you know, four and eight students, mostly girls that would come from the college and they'd come to Wyoming.

And I said, "Sure."

We hosted our first real class here at the house and all of these girls were struggling college students.

So we put 'em up here in the house and they got to spend seven days in the shop.

They all left with knives and they loved it.

And from that day forward, we just started getting more and more calls about could you host another class?

And the next thing we know, it seems like classes seemed to be something we're doing like, I don't know, every month or two now.

Perfect, remember, always start in the back, work forward.

- To watch her instruct is really fun.

She just enjoys every aspect of that.

And she's an awesome teacher.

She has the patience, she enjoys sharing her knowledge.

I think people enjoy the experience with her.

She makes friends real easily with people and she's laughing and joking with them and it's a good experience for everybody.

(thudding) - Don't manhandle the steel so much that you fold it over top of itself.

(thudding) When they come in, a lot of them have never even been near a forge.

So it's a pretty big learning experience for some of them.

But I love watching the expression on their face and the pride they take in creating their own custom knife.

The way the handle they want, the shape they want.

- In my opinion, she's the best 'cause she'll take the time to show you what to do from start to finish and doesn't just give you, say you need to make this knife, we're gonna do that.

Gives you your the freedom to go do what you wanna do.

- When they take it outta the etching, the look on their face, it's like, oh my God, look at what I made.

- I try to stay out of the way and help where I need to.

She'll be in the house and they'll be eating breakfast or visiting or something like that.

And when she comes out in the class, the forge is lit, the billet's ready to go, the press is running, everything is set, you know, and I've come out and all prepared all that stuff ahead of time.

And so I just try to keep the classes moving as smoothly as possible.

- Anything that goes wrong, Mike's right there and he's got it fixed for me.

As a matter of fact, pretty much everything in my shop, he's fixed for me.

He's built me grinders.

He's built the press, he's built the forges.

So we work pretty well as a team.

And that's made probably my success right there, is that I have a pretty good team going.

- She's driving the bus and I just try to keep the wheels on the bus.

So that's kind of where the wheels on the bus thing comes on.

So that's what I do is I keep stuff moving and it can be a challenge some days.

(upbeat music) - [Audra] Every knife that goes out my door, I want it to be the best that I can possibly make, the best quality, best function.

I want the cutting edge to be able to hold an edge but I don't want the spine to be so hard that it's going to break the minute they get in there and try and wedge those ivory out of their elk.

I want it to be beautiful because there's no reason why it can't be beautiful.

It can have beauty and function.

- Audra has developed her own unique style.

You know, she likes curves, she likes flowing lines, she likes to use natural materials.

She tries to keep it as smooth and functional as possible.

So her style and her design kind of follow along those lines.

- There's not one place in that blade show I could be that I would ever feel alienated because I have so many people there that are like family and that's the whole ABS, it really is like a family for me.

They have welcomed me in.

It took a while to break through it but I am just the little sister of the bladesmith community.

- There's a lot of women making knives now that are enjoying the acceptance that she worked so hard for, you know, I mean, she kind of paved the way.

(upbeat music) - It's, people are like, so what are you gonna do when you're retiring?

I'm like, I make knives.

Plan on making knives until I can't swing a hammer anymore.

And then I got a trip hammer, so.

- Rawhide work, you just have to get in it and get your feet wet.

And of course the more you work with it, the more you learn.

And like myself, I've been doing it since 1953 and I still don't know everything about it.

I mean, you just never learn it all.

(soft music) I started braiding in 1953.

At that time I was working on a ranch in Nevada and met an older cowboy that was into braiding.

And I liked the process and I always liked to do things with my hands.

So I began braiding and tried a book called "How to Make Cowboy Horse Gear" by Bruce Grant.

And that was my only teacher.

I never had to anybody else, at that time, there was very few braiders.

Everything that I learned was from that book.

Rawhide braiding has been traced back to the Moors which is over 5,000 years ago.

The Moors brought it into Spain.

During the Moor war, the Spanish brought into the Americas, South America and North America.

It came into the United States own ships, but did actually, come inland on horses.

The actual braiding came into the Old Mexico and up into the Californians and so forth.

Rawhide is stronger than leather all things being equal, let's say you cut a string at a given size out of each material and the rawhide will be stronger and rawhide is at its strongest when it's actually dry.

Rawhide held Texas together in the early pioneer days when they first started selling in Texas and they repaired everything that broke with rawhide.

If you broke a chair leg, they'd repair it with rawhide.

You broke your rifle stock, you wrap it with rawhide, break a wagon tongue, they'd wrap it with rawhide and it would work, even the tops of their tables and beds was made with rawhide.

It was just a staple of Texas I guess you might say.

And of course then it come on into other states later - [Narrator] Jack organized a reunion of some of his past students and a demonstration of some of the processes a hide goes through to be prepared for braiding.

- A number of ways to prepare a hide for actual braiding.

Let's say that we get it from the butcher or we skin an animal ourselves.

The first thing is flesh the hide.

You do want to get all the old fat and flesh off of the hide because it will rot and cause an odor to your hide.

(upbeat music) - And we're gonna flesh a hide.

This is a hide that's been butchered two weeks ago and it was in salt.

And then I uncovered it about Wednesday and then I put it in a pond to let it re-moisten back up.

And this process will usually take 45 minutes or something like that.

Now I'm not trying to go to any certain thickness.

All I'm trying to do is get the fat and the muscle, the meat off of it.

You flush the flesh side and then you want the hair off.

And there's several ways to do that.

- [Narrator] Jack's preferred method for dehairing the hide is by using wooden sticks with sharp edges to scrape the hair complimented by ashes sprinkled on the hide to get some traction with the sticks - And the argentines claim this is the very best method of dehairing a hide.

And argentines are the best braiders in the world.

- [Narrator] After the hair is off the hide usually Jack will cut a large portion of the hide into one long continuous strip and stretch it out to partially dry.

The strip is then shaved down to the correct thickness based on the project.

- After you get it thin, the next raw test would be cutting a string.

And there again, there's various laser machines for cutting strings and so forth.

But once you get your strings cut, everybody recommends beveling the top edge, the hair side for rawhide.

If you're using leather, you bevel the flesh side.

The Argentine braiders told me that the most of the Americans do not put in enough time preparing their strings.

Basically if you start with junk, you wind up with junk.

So string preparation is one of the most important aspects of your braid work.

- [Narrator] Once the strings are prepared, they're ready to braid.

- I braided basically just what I needed and what friends would talk me out of for years.

But in the early two thousands I had people requesting me to teach 'em to braid, so I started schooling people and I think I have had over 70 students to date.

- [Narrator] Students under jack start by learning how to hold the string to create the right tension while braiding, he teaches them the four string round braid.

- The four string round braid is the most difficult thing for a new student to catch on to.

Once they learn the four string braid, then I graduate 'em in an eight string, 12 string or whatever.

And that is relatively easy after they learn the the muscle memory of braiding four strings.

I would start teaching 'em different knots.

And to me there's about four knots that will cover about anything you wanna do.

I would normally start 'em out making reins till they get very adept at braiding and then go into bosal or head stall or whatever they desire to make.

- Jack is wonderful, Jack, he never let you settle for less.

I made a set of reins and I took 'em in to Jack.

I was so proud of him, said, "You satisfied with them?"

I says, "Yeah, I guess I'm satisfied."

He said, "No you're not.

You're never satisfied."

He always pushes us to do the very best we can.

(soft music) - [Narrator] In 2006, Jack was encouraged to seek a grant through Wyoming Arts Council to work with an apprentice to teach rawhide braiding more in depth.

Now he's working with an apprentice on his sixth such grant.

- I wanted to learn how to make my own gear for my horses, for my saddles and be able to fix my gear.

- Soleiana is very enthused about it.

She told me once that she could just live in here doing that type of work and the process not teaching her the multiple string knot.

And once she learns that, she'll have a enough knots to do most any type of work that she needs to do.

She's really doing a good job and is really dedicated.

- He's super patient, let's you figure it out but also guides you if you can't figure it out.

(upbeat music) - If I've had a rough day, I can go out into my shop and cut rawhide and next thing you know, all your problems are gone.

- I really like braiding, it's very meditative.

You have to single-handedly focus on it.

If you get a little distracted, you can tell in the braid that you didn't maintain the same tension, the same pull.

So I like the focus that it takes.

- I have found that if I'm kind of keyed up and so forth and television's not worth watching, I'll come out to the shop and sit down and do a little braid work hour or two and I'm more relaxed when I get through it and I can just kind of just feel better all over.

Especially if you accomplish something that you've been trying to do.

Like you finish a nice knot or something.

You really have a feeling of gratification on that.

- [Narrator] Jack has spent a lifetime creating beautiful and functional rawhide horse gear, by passing on his knowledge, he's preserving an invaluable skill for the next generation.

(soft music) - My first experience with Neon was calling a guy at a sign shop in Livingston, Montana.

I called him, told him who I was, what I was interested in, and asked him if he would be interested in having an apprentice.

And he said, "Women can't bend glass."

And he hung up and I was like, whoa, challenge accepted.

It's always been a man's world.

It's just up to women I think to just let 'em know we're here and we're not going anywhere.

For the few that have done stuff like that, you know, there's been more people who are accepting and could care less if I'm a man or a woman or an alien, they don't care.

They just want somebody to keep neon alive too.

So it's been more accepting than it has anything else.

(buzzing) My name's Connie Morgan, I'm a human.

I am a woman, I'm a mom and I'm a tube bender and I live in Casper, Wyoming.

So when I first moved to Casper, I got a job at a sign shop and was so grateful that they had a neon plant already in place and set up and ready to go.

The owner of the sign company stated, he's like, you know, we probably won't do a lot of neon.

It's mostly just repairs.

People aren't buying anything like that anymore.

It's just, you know, it's dead.

And I kind of adopted that 'cause I was busy raising a family and as my kids got a little bit older, I needed a side hustle and I was like, oh you know, I can utilize this neon plant that's here.

And I had to talk to myself and say, it's not dying.

I can do something to help bring it back.

Even if it's just occasionally making a sign here or there, repairing one.

I just told myself, you don't need to believe what other people tell you about it.

Even in Wyoming it can be done where you can make people see the value of it.

So tube bending is basically you get long sticks of glass and they're four feet to five feet long.

They're hollow tubes and that's where the term tube bender came from 'cause you're bending it in a hot flame, you bend the tube.

I use a ribbon burner, a knife fire and a hand torch and I heat the glass up, just 'til it, I don't know, you get a feel for it.

It's not easy, it's a lot of hand eye coordination.

Goal of the tube bender is to keep the integrity of the glass.

So you're wanting to keep the wall thickness the same.

You're try not to stretch out the glass as you heat it up in a fire.

You kind of, I was taught that you use a technique called gathering and it's where you're just gently as it's heating, you're just gently rolling it and kind of pushing it together.

As gravity takes over, it makes it sink so it starts to stretch.

So that's why, you know, you see me roll it in the fire like it's, it looks all wobbly and I'm trying to keep it together and get it hot enough all at the same time so that when you come to the table with your glass, it's hot enough that it lays flat.

So you use the different fires for different types of bending.

Smaller bins like double backs and rises and turns.

You can do in your knife fire.

These big long sections are done in the ribbon burner.

When I first started doing it, gravity would completely take over and my glass would just sink and stretch out and you know, you're just trying to, you're going through a lot of glass just trying to get the feel for it 'cause you don't wanna bend glass if it's too cold, it'll be stressed, it'll break.

I blow into the tube to keep the integrity of the glass the same.

If I don't blow into the tube, the glass will collapse on itself.

As soon as it cools down, it'll break.

You need to keep the hollowness of the tube the same all the way around no matter what kind of bend you're trying to do.

Like some bends will get narrower and stuff like that but your whole object is to keep the integrity of the tube the same.

So there's lots of different things going on when you're bending glass, it's a lot to think about.

The bombarding process is to clean out the tube, to get all the impurities out of it, suck all of the air out of it, put it under a complete vacuum and then you put the gas into it and that's how you get the light.

You get it through argon gas, neon gas.

I think some people use helium, xenon, krypton to achieve different looks and effects with the gas.

As much as I love the brightness and the, I love to light up my signs, for me, the best part is bending it and that it's really hard.

It's not an easy craft, an easy trade to learn.

The school is only 14 weeks long and you're like 14 weeks is not enough.

And that's when you hope to get a job with somebody who will continue to teach you.

I'm, as far as I know, the only person that makes neon signs in Wyoming.

Wyoming's not the most populated state in the country but you know, to be the only person doing it, it's just shows you how it's dying art, it's dying because of technology.

There's more advancements and LED signs can get things made cheaper and that's all fine and good.

And we all know that technological advancements happen in every generation and things die out because of that.

The neon art form craft has not changed a lot since it was invented.

I mean there's advancements in neon as well but it's pretty much kind of made the same way as it was when it was first invented.

And I think that's a cool part of it that it hasn't changed a lot 'cause you can buy, you know, there's LED signs you can buy now that look like neon.

They make it look like neon, they advertise it as neon.

It's not neon.

There's no craft went into making any of that.

It's aggravating when they tout it as neon and it's not.

When I see an old sign that's, you know, in ruins or the paint's missing or the neon's all broken, it's just this like, part of me that just wants to fix it up and make it shine again.

I like the old signs because I think it reminds me and other people of a different time, a heyday of neon.

I just, I guess I just want to keep that alive and redoing those old signs kind of does that for me.

It's what I'm trained to do, it's what I know how to do.

There was many years where it was the main income for my family and I, I made a living at it.

I was able to make a living out of it.

What motivates me to keep going is my kids, their dad left almost four years ago.

And I realize that, okay, everything's up to me now.

My kids motivate me and the desire to not work for anyone else.

I don't wanna be a cog in someone else's wheel.

I wanna be my own wheel.

If something calls to you and you have a passion for it, you're gonna find a way to make a living at it.

And if it never feels like a job, neon never feels like a job to me.

Especially now working for myself, even though it is and there's more pressure now, it doesn't feel like a job.

I feel blessed to come in here every day and be able to do what I do.

If someone out there has a passion for it, then go for it.

Don't let anybody tell you no.

(upbeat music)