76 BLADE SEPTEMBER 2019PAST MASTERS^ |^
MASTER ARTISAN
Buster took great pride in sole authorship,
painstakingly craft ing every component
of every knife he made.
“He was inspiring to a lot of
knifemakers, and a lot of them are out
there now. But there aren’t many who can
do all the aspects of it—from daggers to
swords to jewelry and goldsmithing. He
could do it all,” Julie pointed out. “I have
never known anybody as humble as he
was. He never acted like ‘I’m so proud of
this knife!’ but he had that grin when hebelieved he had pulled it off —although
he never bragged about how it looked.”
When Buster let his knives do the
talking, they literally spoke volumes.
Th ey stand today as the War and Peace,
Beethoven’s Fift h Symphony or the
“Mona Lisa” of custom art knifemaking.
“I’ve been fortunate to sell many of
Buster’s knives over the past 40 years,”
related Dave Harvey of Nordic Knives.
“I still get excited when we come across
more today. Th e demand for Buster’s
work remains quite strong. And, as forquality, you simply will have a hard time
fi nding better. Julie is rightfully biased in
saying that Buster could do any thing, and
she is also correct. When it comes to the
basics of knifemaking—grind and polish,
fi t and fi nish—Buster excelled. Of course,
he went beyond this with a design fl air,
especially on daggers, that put him right
there among the world’s best makers.”
Dave met Buster in 1979 at Wallace
Beinfeld’s knife show in the fabled
Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas and knew
him for a quarter-century. “He was a
true gentleman and a humble man.
His personality was low key, but he
obviously enjoyed challenging himself
and expanding his talents,” Dave stated.
Steve Johnson recalls visiting the
Warenskis at their home in Richfi eld,
Utah.
“Buster’s talent was, and still is, as
his knives prove, above the crowd;
sometimes, at the very top of the crowd.
When I’d go to Richfi eld, I’d come home
very impressed—and a bit depressed
also—knowing that I’d never reach his
level of talent and skill. He’d never look
down on me or say anything negative
about me or my work,” Johnson noted.
“It was just that I was standing in the
presence of a master artisan.”
For Steve, being associated with
Buster was an honor indeed.
“Just hearing my name in conjunction
with Buster’s, no matter the context, was
a huge boost for me,” he related. “Being
his friend was, and is, a beautiful thing.”
In the case of Buster Warenski,
beauty, sometimes a f leeting
commodity, lives on. His legacy in
steel, gold, silver and jewels remains.
However, it transcends the knives,
forever linking them to their creator—a
man who sought perfection and more
than once brushed it very closely.Editor’s note: Julie Warenski’s engraving
is featured on Pro-Tech’s Warenski/Brend
Masterpiece, the BLADE Magazine 2019
Investor/Collector Knife Of Th e Year®. See
page 71.For the latest knives, knife news, trends
and more visit blademag.com, BLADE®’s
popular Instagram page at @blade_
magazine, and on Facebook and Tw i t t e r.Rick Royster was a regular customer of Buster’s for 28 years. In the mid-to-late 1970s, he
had Buster make this set of matched daggers called the Tiger Claws. (image courtesy of
Rick Royster)