Meet The Maker

About Nick Anderson (Nanda)

Nick Anderson grew up in Northern California, and started down the path of bladesmithing while living in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where he lived for 5 years. Life in Thailand allowed Nick to spend extra time on his creative pursuits, the perfect environment for delving into a trade as nuanced and demanding as bladesmithing.

Thanks to the help of other makers, and the openly-shared wealth of knowledge in the online bladesmithing community, Nick was able to learn everything needed for building the tools and machinery required to get started, and to learn the many skills required for the craft itself, to learn all of the key components to what makes a good knife, and what the best practices are in creating them.

For his entire life, Nick has pursued the creative arts, starting with illustration and glass art, and later branching out into metal fabrication, bronze sculpture and metal jewelry, with bladesmithing now being his primary pursuit.

Nick has had the opportunity of meeting and learning from talented makers and metalsmiths along the way, including Che Americano, James Austin, Salem Straub, Sean Monaghan, Karen Christians and more who've helped Nick further his knowledge in regards to forging, knife construction, fabrication, casting, and non-ferrous metalsmithing techniques.

Nick now lives in Oakland, California, where he shares a shop with James Austin. In addition to making knives, Nick also teaches bladesmithing classes and works in digital design.