I was introduced to knife making through my friendship with the ever talented Fingal Ferguson down at Gubbeen Smokehouse. Fingal and I had been doing food events and cooking together for a while and I was down visiting when he suggested I have a go at making a knife. I really enjoyed the process and over about a year I started playing around with a few ideas. A few more visits down to Gubbeen and picking Fingal's brain and I was really hooked, making knives for friends as presents. I now have a 14 month waiting list of very patient customers and my friends have to wait even longer! |
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My knives are predominantly carbon steel which allows for best ease of use and sharpening by their owner, plus I'm really into the aging and patina that happens over time with the oxidation of a carbon blade. I'm looking forward to some up coming work experience over in the UK with Peckham based knife aficionados Blenheim Forge to learn some steel laminating techniques in the more traditional Japanese style.
For handles I use a range of materials, I'm really lucky with the furniture I make (im one half of Thisiswhatwedo.ie) that I have access to some beautiful irish hardwoods (all wind-felled, so very ecological....and now living on the farm I've started a tree planting scheme to grow timber for future furniture and knife makers - and I get to enjoy having lots of beautiful trees around me!). I also really enjoy beach combing and find some gems to put into the knives now and again - I've found brass boat parts, 5000 year old bog oak, dolphin bones, cow bones, fibreglass from old surfboards, all sorts of little treats.
As each knife is totally individual its a real joy creating each and every one, its so many skills to create one piece; its design, its woodwork, its metalwork, its shaping, its customer interaction, its creativity on so many levels and you make something that's going to last a life time. I was watching a youtube video about US knife maker Bob Kramer recently and he had a beautiful quote (Bob was also a chef before becoming a knife maker, hence the food analogy) - when you make a meal for a group of people you could spend 2-3 days preparing everything to make a feast for 6 people and that meal will be over in an hour and only memories will last, but when you make a knife for someone you enable that whole feeling to happen every single day that they use it in the kitchen, a lifetimes worth of meals and memories. i really like the idea of that!
For handles I use a range of materials, I'm really lucky with the furniture I make (im one half of Thisiswhatwedo.ie) that I have access to some beautiful irish hardwoods (all wind-felled, so very ecological....and now living on the farm I've started a tree planting scheme to grow timber for future furniture and knife makers - and I get to enjoy having lots of beautiful trees around me!). I also really enjoy beach combing and find some gems to put into the knives now and again - I've found brass boat parts, 5000 year old bog oak, dolphin bones, cow bones, fibreglass from old surfboards, all sorts of little treats.
As each knife is totally individual its a real joy creating each and every one, its so many skills to create one piece; its design, its woodwork, its metalwork, its shaping, its customer interaction, its creativity on so many levels and you make something that's going to last a life time. I was watching a youtube video about US knife maker Bob Kramer recently and he had a beautiful quote (Bob was also a chef before becoming a knife maker, hence the food analogy) - when you make a meal for a group of people you could spend 2-3 days preparing everything to make a feast for 6 people and that meal will be over in an hour and only memories will last, but when you make a knife for someone you enable that whole feeling to happen every single day that they use it in the kitchen, a lifetimes worth of meals and memories. i really like the idea of that!