From Navy Seal to Elite Blade Smith!
Andrew Arrabito: Half Face Blades
Over the past few weeks, my theme has been: How do you persist when you go Against the Grain, and it seems like you aren't making any progress?
This week, I highlight Andrew Arrabito, who went from Navy SEAL to starting his own knife-making company, Half Face Blades.
Andrew was born and raised in the mountains of Northern California. Backpacking, rock climbing, and wilderness survival were big parts of his childhood. He admits to sleeping outside for at least three months of every year during his youth.
Andrew and his brothers would always skin the animals their neighbor killed while protecting his chickens, and they would grind down old leaf springs for cars into knives.
Andrew wanted to be a Navy SEAL from a young age. After high school, he joined the Navy and was selected for Seal training in 2002. He passed BUDS and spent the next 10 years with the Teams operating in Iraq, southeast Asia, and Afghanistan.
Andrew left the Teams on his tenth anniversary with a 100% disability due to a serious hand injury. During rehab from multiple surgeries, he took some distilling courses and started a brewery and distillery in San Diego with some other SEALS. He soon found out how dishonest the partners he had gotten into business with were. Andrew stepped away and lost all of his money and time invested.
He also worked in the movie industry, advising and doing stunts. He worked with the Transformer movies, 13 Hours of Benghazi, Logan, and the Avatar films to help make ends meet.
But Andrew wanted more personal Freedom. He wanted to own his own business and have the time to travel and hunt when he wanted to. He finally wanted to live on his schedule, not someone else's.
In 2015, he started learning the process of blade smithing. As mentioned above, Andrew used to grind blades with his brothers for personal use, which led to his next purpose: getting the right knives for his brothers within the Seal Teams and other SOF groups.
Being an end-user of knives his entire life, he knew there was a need for purpose-driven tools for those on a mission—something different from your everyday knife or tool, something genuinely built for you and your everyday life.
In Andrew’s words, “I wanted each person to have a usable tool, embodied with a warrior’s spirit, that will perform to their needs during their walk in life.”
Andrew started making blades for fun because he wanted to make perfect blades for his SEAL buddies and personalize them.
Half Face Blades started under the awning in his backyard with a single grinder. He started with $3,500 bucks, kept his head down, and learned everything he could. He purchased the steel to make his first 50 knives and sold them for $300 to his friends and family. Some of those original batches of knives now sell for $20,000-$40,000!
Andrew admits how lucky he was not to have a wife or kids during this transition. He didn’t make a dime of profit for the first entire year of Half Face Blades, but he knew he was on to something—every new batch of knives sold out within a week.
He has made blades for guys such as Joe Rogan and Ozzy Osborne. He has inlaid human ashes, dog ashes, and birthstones. Customers have used their knives to cut their new babies' umbilical cords.
His knives and hatchets are truly works of art. Look at the quality and detail of these blades.
What started as a single-man operation has grown to a company of 38 and a new warehouse location in Corona, CA.
Initially, there wasn't any profit; there was just enough revenue to cover the expenses and invest in better equipment. Andrew was brilliant at building his audience on social media.
He took pictures and videos daily, explaining what he was doing and the materials he used. For two years, there was no website, and the only way to get a blade or tools made by Arrabito was to email him and get on a waitlist.
Half Face Blades continues to have a 1.5-year waitlist to this day.
Please listen to the passion in Andrew’s voice when he explains the different faces he put on his original blades.
Half Face Blades was a work born out of love.
Love for the product he was creating and love for the customers (his brothers) he was shipping them to.
What advice does Andrew give to those who want to start their own businesses?
“If it’s easy to do, tons of people will be trying to do it. Pick something you love, but make it different and better. Find a niche, and realize it will take much longer than you think to become successful.”
What keeps those of us on the path I call Against the Grain?
The love of what you are doing! It’s the only way you’ll stay on the path.
I wrote Against the Grain: Ditch the American Dream and Build Your Own! to show you how to plot an alternate route to Society's Path and provide instructions for breaking out of Society's Box.
You can purchase my book by clicking on the link below:
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Until next week, remember the function of Freedom is to free someone else!