Tharwa Valley Forge

Welcome to the Tharwa Valley Forge

We aim to be the best knifemaking school in Australia, offering a wide range of courses and opportunities to learn and share skills. Regular classes are scheduled in a variety of topics. Since we started running classes, hundreds of people have been introduced to the art of custom knife making and successfully made their first knives.

The Tharwa Valley Forge was established in 2003 by bladesmith Karim Haddad to create high quality knives and tools, and to teach the skills necessary to do this. Karim was trained by Australia's first Master Bladesmith, Thomas Gerner, in the early 1990's in Western Australia. The Forge is located in village of Tharwa, just south of Canberra, Australia.

Courses are rated in terms of difficulty to make it easier to pick the right level. See here for more information.

Our website encourages this continual learning through sharing resources, tutorials and articles. We are always interested in feedback on how to make this site better. We hope you learn something from your visit. and come back soon and see us again.

Anvils

We have found a great new supplier of anvils here in Canberra. Greg Greet from Red Box Products has imported some high quality cast steel anvils and is offering them at very affordable prices. They are compact, well finished and have great bounce back with the hammer. What is most impressive is the size of the deck - its wide and well shaped.

Knifemaking Steel

We stock a range of high carbon steel (1055, 1075 and 15N20) for bladesmithing or stock removal. The steel works well under the hammer and has minimal movement in heat treatment. The steel is annealed ready for filing or grinding. This is not precision ground stock (hence the good price) so they may be slight warpage which is easily hammered or bent out.

Price is quotes per metre, but happy to sell shorter or longer lengths (maximum 1600mm). Cutting to length is no charge. Postage/freight extra so please let us know where you are when you order. This is in limited supply so contact us now to order.

For composition and heat treating information see Properties of Carbon Steel

For full detail of sizes and prices, click the read more below.

List of sizes and prices

Knife Vice MKII tutorial

Mark II of our knife vice is much stronger and easier to adjust, thanks to some nice knurls with M10 threads. Simple to make - a strong piece of angle iron, a scrap of 10mm flat bar, 200mm of rectangular section, an M10 nut (or what ever suits your bolt), a washer, some scrap 3mm MDF and two M10 bolts with a knurled end. Drill a 10mm hole in the back of the angle iron and in the front of the rectangular section. Drill an 8.5mm hole in the scrap of 10mm and tap an M10 thread, weld the nut onto the rectangular section and then the 10mm piece on the back. Clean up, paint and assemble.

Unscrew the back to move, and do up to lock. Simple.

More photos below

From the Shop

Handle Screws Two part handle screws. They come as a pair of screws - two male and two female parts. Either 306 Yellow Brass or 303 Stainless Steel Price is $6 per pair (includes postage).