THE ART OF ARMS
Area gunsmith takes skills to Discovery Channel
In one corner of a vast, dark armory, a craftsman hammers glowing-red, heat-softened steel. Nearby, a competitor thrusts a cube of metal into a fiery forge. On the wall, a digital clock counts down to a looming deadline.
This is Master of Arms, a new historical-weapons series on the Discovery Channel.
It is into this arena of scalded metal, sparks and hand-planed wood that Santa Fe County gunsmith Rick Kennedy stepped for a show that will air Friday night.
Kennedy, a 51-year-old Edgewood resident and owner of Moriarty-based Southwest Gunsmith Technologies, is one of 24 craftsmen and craftswomen from across the country to compete in the hourlong show’s first season.
The episode, produced by New York- and Los Angeles-based production company Matador Content, taped in April in a warehouse-turned-studio in Pennsylvania. Kennedy is not allowed to divulge details of the competition, but a teaser released by Discovery shows the episode’s three competitors crafting both a bow and arrow and an arbalest crossbow — a hefty, long-range, steel-bowed medieval armament popular on 12th-century battlefields.
Kennedy, a self-proclaimed modern-gun enthusiast
who specializes in precision pistol building and custom laser work in his 2,000-square-foot home workshop, said he’d never crafted a bow before and was “very surprised” at the challenge. He faced off against two blacksmiths in the episode, he said.
“It was kind of a strange mix,” he said. “… We all felt out of our element in some way.”
In each episode of the show, which premiered
Nov. 2, three contestants stand to win $10,000 and the title “Master of Arms.”
The weapons they build are tested by a decorated military marksman, and three weapons experts judge contestants’ finished products on design, historical accuracy and functionality.
Throughout the show’s first eight-episode season, the weapons range “from the firearms of the frontier to the blades of the Vikings,” according to a Discovery Channel news release. “But these aren’t just quickly fabricated weapons — each tool will be heavily researched and crafted pieces of art.”
Kennedy found out about the show on Facebook through a friend and applied via email.
It seemed a natural fit for the South Valley native: Guns, he said, are in his blood.
Kennedy’s father, a welder and gun enthusiast, started taking him shooting at a young age — first with a BB gun, then with more powerful weapons. His passion for fixing and building guns grew from there.
“I enjoy every aspect of it,” Kennedy said. “It’s just a part of me. I don’t know what I would do without it.”
Kennedy has been gunsmithing since 1993, after receiving an associate degree in gunsmith technology from Lassen Community College in Northern California. He plans to teach a class on gunsmithing at his alma mater next summer.
In his shop, Kennedy fixes and builds guns ranging from precision competition pistols to historical weapons. It’s rare he turns down a new challenge, he said.
Kennedy said he’s owned “thousands and thousands” of guns in his life, but unlike many of the show’s competitors, he’s not drawn by the weapons’ historical significance.
“It’s taking the raw parts and pieces and turning them into a finished product that is super accurate and super reliable,” he said. “It’s that transformation into a finished machine that’s exactly what the customer asked for.”
Though he works long hours, Kennedy said he never feels the strain.
“It’s not really work to me,” he said. “It’s what I do. … I work all the time by some people’s standards, but I don’t work at all by my standards.”