NEW 215 Ton Press & NEW Patterning Process! TFN

Thank god it’s Friday, eh friends? 

This week was one for the books, with our entire manufacturing staff finally in one place for a

consecutive week, the HQ has been a whirlwind of machines thumping, blanchards grinding and welders flickering since Monday. A week like that has left us all stoked for the Friday maintenance/R&D day. A chance to take a deep breath and get things all geared up to hit it hard again next week! Our spring season has certainly hit its heights with a combination of consistent custom batches, weekend drops, and a strong attempt to hang onto some stock for the upcoming Blade Show Atlanta. These are the times you train for and a stunning opportunity to pitch in and watch the well-oiled machine-of-a-team do what they do best!After a successful couple days on the road in what wound up to be a massive machine-shopping trip, we’re finally catching up with Boss-Man Coy on all of the new pieces he’s purchased from Yoder Machinery. The largest of which is a new

Franklin 215 Ton Press, boasting a 4ft by 3ft bed and weighing an astounding 32,000lbs. We anticipate this BEAST to pull up outside Baker HQ in the next few weeks and BOY will we have some fun media to debut her. 

In addition to the Franklin, a host of other exciting machines are also expected to arrive in the coming weeks to expand our stainless production line. A line we’re gradually putting together before a full-release of our highly-anticipated take on stainless damascus. Stay tuned as things start to kick up around the HQ to round out an already BUSY month!

In other production-related news, the Boss showcased a new die setup that was built to be a proof-of-concept for a new patterning process that we will soon move toward. Next: the die that Coy revealed on his Instagram story will be scaled up to be installed in series on the new press. Refining our patterning process for more consistent and blacksmith-friendly operation.

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Inside the Media

Our Monday Questionnaire flopped like few have ever. At first we wanted to blame the lack of response to the parentless-bastards that make up a loud, but skilled majority of our audience, but then we reflected back on the Father’s Day counterpart to this week’s question and remembered it was host to DOZENS of comments. Most imparting impressively wise advice from fathers. When we ask the same question of the wisdom your mother passed down… NOTHING. We found it especially funny when Mother-Baker jumped into the comments for the first time to drop her quality advice right then and there. All jokes aside, Waylon and I will try to keep the Monday questions as engaging, work-related, and fun as possible going forward.

As part of his recent trip north, Boss-Man Coy also visited the folks at Coal Ironworks where Nathan Brant invited him on their podcast; The Coal Cast. There Coy and Nathan got into a ton of interesting topics including Coy’s first forge, new Baker hires in product development, and all kinds of insider details about our business. Thanks to the incredible video/audio quality of their pod, Nathan and the guys offered us the entire interview to clip out for socials over the next few weeks. A unique chance for Waylon and I to grab diverse content in our constant pursuit to bring you entertaining and exciting new content each day. Stay tuned over the next few weeks as we roll out a small handful of clips featuring the more entertaining moments from their 1 hour and 33 min interview. If you want to take in the entire episode, find it on YouTube here!

A quick pro-tip for those still toiling with Instagram's algorithm in pursuit of some free growth; we tested out the new “Trial Reel” feature recently dropped on Instagram. The new option lets you post a reel to a non-follower audience, testing the waters of engagement and popularity before revealing it to your followers. Given that our posts commonly generate less than 10% non-follower views we saw this as an opportunity to see if IG would finally show some new people our sh*t and it worked like a charm! Overnight the Mokume Twist video accrued more than 16k outside views and when I made it available to our followers it jumped quickly to over 25k. Still nowhere near our most-viewed content, the test was a great example of the ever changing world of social media, but successful nonetheless. If you’re in a similar situation regarding non-follower views, we recommend you give this new feature a shot! 

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Sneak Peek 👀

We’re pulling a gem from the archives this weekend with TigerMai Damascus Core, a layout Coy’s ecstatic to bring back in Raindrop and Chevron patterns. This isn’t just any steel—it’s a tri-alloy masterpiece of copper, bronze, and 1084 cladding layered over a 100-layer damascus core, blending coppery warmth, golden shimmer, and deep black for a look that leaps off the bar. A Baker classic that’s been away too long, we’ve got a hefty batch ready to roll, all flat-ground and annealed. With app early access eating up stock fast, hit the Baker Forge App Friday for prime picks or join the full drop Saturday at 8pm EST.