Bladesmithing and Knifemaking

Difficulty:

Always wanted to make a knife but didn't know where to begin? This extensive weekend workshop will give you the opportunity not only to learn these skills, but to put them into practice making two hand forged knives of your own. We will show you techniques, tools and hints on how to get started making your own knives.

The course goes from Friday night until Sunday Afternoon, a very packed 20 hours.

Friday night focus on getting an overview of the process of making a knife, looking at design and material selection and a shop tour.

Saturday starts early in the forge with a demonstration on how to forge a blade. Then it's your turn to hammer out two blades. The blades are normalised (de-stressed) before being annealed (softened). Next the firescale is removed and the blade starts to take shape. After various grits on the linisher, the blades are ready for hand sanding to get all the scratches out. By the end of the day, both blades are edge hardened and put in the oven overnight to temper.

Sunday begins with the softening of the tangs and blade backs, before a final polish. Guards are made handles prepared then glued before lunch. After lunch the handles are shaped to comfortably fit your hand then finally sharpened. Sounds easy huh!

You make two blades so you reinforce the lessons as we go. Or have an insurance policy if it all goes very wrong. Our job is to guide, instruct and help you recover from any mistakes.

You will enjoy it and have two amazing knives to show off.

Cost - $600 (incl GST)

Cost includes: Tuition, insurance, materials, use of tools, workshop consumables, safety gear, morning and afternoon tea, photo disk.

Need to bring: Lunch, appropriate clothing and covered footwear

Booking in advance is essential

For starting dates see the upcoming courses list on the side panel. Or if you have 2 or 3 buddies wanting to do it with you, contact us to arrange a weekend that suits.

Here is some photos from the courses to give you an idea of what happens.