Family and Community

DogHouse Forge LLC is owned and operated by Jonathan and Emily Porter. There’s no secret army and no, our children don’t work here…yet. We are a true family business, even our helpers and seasonal assistants are a part of the Doghouse family. DHF has been a small custom maker based business and a huge retail sales company. Jp likes the first. So DHF returned to its maker roots and we are now predominantly a custom maker shop. This entire journey started as a hobby. The First ‘‘DogHouse Forge” was really just a shop for friends to forge and develop whatever fired art and design they wanted to play around with. Bladesmithing, was a “one time project” for JP. He never intended to build a business around it. However, the blend of art and science was too strong, and what began as a weekend project, has grown to over 15,000 completed knives and 250+ clinic participants! It’s our customers, the custom orders, and class attendees who have taken us on this journey, and we appreciate the opportunity!

At DogHouse Forge we process and stabilize our own handle materials. Doing this allows us to include the majority of material options in our base pricing. It also gives us the ability to really experiment and get creative with our selection. Each upload brings a fresh batch of materials, and with that a new chance to push the limits!

There is a certain satisfaction when the first step in your operation is making the steel that will later become your product. At DogHouse Forge we make all of the carbon damascus steel that we use and only source our stainless damascus from the incredible stainless forging wizards at Vegas Forge LLC.  This guarantees the quality of the steel we are using is the best that we can get our hands on. Through experimentation and lots of  hours of hard work, we have been able to develop some beautiful patterns that translate beautifully into knives.  

Damascus build can be commissioned via our custom order page. 

In addition to the creation process and the artistic side of it all, bladesmithing must run hand in hand with the metallurgy behind it. The highest priority at DogHouse Forge is the function, and when striving for perfection the science has to be perfect too. Performing our own heat treating and tempering allows us to fine tune custom blade profiles for their intended use. For our more complex stainless steels, we use a professional heat treatment facility to enable us to provide controlled, sub zero liquid nitrogen freezing in between tempering cycles. This added step is what separates regular AEB-L from DHFs AEB-L. We temper down to 61 HRC but can reach hardness as high as 63 HRC by request,

After the tempering process we test the hardness of the blade on the Rockwell C scale hardness tester. This can be the most nerve racking phase of the process. There is no mercy in hardness testing. There is no "almost" or "that should be fine", it is a pass-fail course that is the deciding factor when it comes to the quality of the blade. 

After a blade has been shaped, science-ed, prettied, heat treated, and questioned about its hardness what could be left? Testing its function and performance!  All of our designs, both culinary, Pasta, and outdoor, are run through a series of tests to ensure that they  can hold up to daily use in the most extreme conditions. Whether it's a 12 inch chef knife in a fast paced professional kitchen, or a Rhino Cleaver holding down the lead in a BBQ competition we are confident that our knives will not let you down!