Who am I and what do I do?
I am a knife maker, working from my own workshop nessled in the drumlins and rolling hills of County Armagh in Northern Ireland. It began, like in many cases in childhood where I remember older relatives always having a small pocket knife handy for cutting twine, being given a present of a small fixed blade before going camping for the first time. I grew up in the country side and went shooting, hunting and fishing with my father all of which ment that I was familure with knives of all types as tools in the field, stream and home. For a number of years my relationship with knives was limited to collecting whether it was examples of local design while on holiday or examples of fine design and craftsmanship. The move to making my own blades occured after waching a demonstration of bladesmithing in 2012 which lead me to taking part in a bladesmithing course under Owen Bush at his forge in London in 2013. Since that time it has been a gradual process of gathering the tools and materials as well as proficiency in the skills required to make a knife. The skills involved in making a knife are far more numerous than I thought when I first set out. The processes include but are not limited to the shaping of steel by forging using hammer and anvil, the shaping of the blade by grinding, hardening the steel to the correct hardness by heat treatment before polishing the blade and attaching and sculpting the handle by hand. After the completion of the blade a whole other set of skills then are used in forming the sheath from leather where a hide is cut, shaped, dyed, handstitched and treated with wax to make a durable cover not only to carry and protect the blade safely what ever the environment and terrain, but also be beautiful in itself.
My work is most influenced by my philosophy of crafting a functional and practiacal tool that is also as finely made that it is of heirloom quality. If making a knife for a client my first question is the intended function of the tool and then the knife is designed accordingly.
I am a knife maker, working from my own workshop nessled in the drumlins and rolling hills of County Armagh in Northern Ireland. It began, like in many cases in childhood where I remember older relatives always having a small pocket knife handy for cutting twine, being given a present of a small fixed blade before going camping for the first time. I grew up in the country side and went shooting, hunting and fishing with my father all of which ment that I was familure with knives of all types as tools in the field, stream and home. For a number of years my relationship with knives was limited to collecting whether it was examples of local design while on holiday or examples of fine design and craftsmanship. The move to making my own blades occured after waching a demonstration of bladesmithing in 2012 which lead me to taking part in a bladesmithing course under Owen Bush at his forge in London in 2013. Since that time it has been a gradual process of gathering the tools and materials as well as proficiency in the skills required to make a knife. The skills involved in making a knife are far more numerous than I thought when I first set out. The processes include but are not limited to the shaping of steel by forging using hammer and anvil, the shaping of the blade by grinding, hardening the steel to the correct hardness by heat treatment before polishing the blade and attaching and sculpting the handle by hand. After the completion of the blade a whole other set of skills then are used in forming the sheath from leather where a hide is cut, shaped, dyed, handstitched and treated with wax to make a durable cover not only to carry and protect the blade safely what ever the environment and terrain, but also be beautiful in itself.
My work is most influenced by my philosophy of crafting a functional and practiacal tool that is also as finely made that it is of heirloom quality. If making a knife for a client my first question is the intended function of the tool and then the knife is designed accordingly.