***A private booking for up to sixteen people***

-Once booked I will email you to arrange a suitable date.

12:30-17:00 pm

What you’ll take home: A small utility high carbon knife with a pre-made wooden handle.

Course length - 5 hours

Experience requirement - none

Equipment needed - Natural legwear (jeans are perfect, no Nylon fabrics etc.) and leather shoes. I will be providing all the protective equipment.

Total of attendees - 16 (8 pairs)

Cost per person - £100 , minimum number of attendees 8.

This short course is ideal as a team building experience.

By the end of the 5 hour session, we will have forged and heat treat two small utility knives for each pair. You may get a little hot around the forge, but working in pairs means you’ll be taking turns doing the heavy work, so you’ll be satisfied, but you won’t be too worn out.

You’ll understand the key pieces of the process of making a knife, see each of the processes in action, and get experience creating your blade.

We’ll start each session with a round bar of high grade steel, called a billet. We’ll then go through an explanation of each stage of creating a knife:

Blade forging - we’ll be heating up the billet in the forge , and using the power hammer and traditional hammer and anvil method to create the right thickness, and length to transform the billet to a knife geometry.

Heat-treating stage

Annealing cycle - this softens the blade a little, and makes it more responsive to the hardening treatment we’ll go through. You’ll get to use the forge again for this.

Profiling- This stage will be performed by us using belt grinders to bring the forged billets to the knife shape we want.

Hardening cycle - You’ll heat the blade up to 820c , then quench it into hot oil. This is incredibly fun to do, and usually includes a little fire. The process makes the steel incredibly hard but very brittle.

Tempering - heating again up to 200c , this process reduces the toughness of the steel, but increases its strength to be able to take and hold an edge for as long as you use your knife respectfully.

Bevels and sharpening - We aim to introduce the primary bevels during the forging process , this will allow me to focus on applying a cutting edge and then teach you how to strop. I will be carrying out the edge grinding for the best possible final edge performance.

Applying the handle - we will use a fast setting epoxy resin to apply a pre made handle. These are made in the workshop prior to you arriving, and use a high quality hard wood such as oak, elm, beech and mahogany. (stock of timber may vary )

Stropping - As a final step I will teach you how to strop on a leather strops to take the blade to a razor sharpness level.

As the workshop comes to an end, we’ll talk about how you can look after your knife through sharpening, cleaning and maintaining.

• Tailored blade designs and handles can be achieved please email before you purchase.

• Please arrive on time. I will wait for attendees up to 15 minutes after the agreed time. Let arrivals will not allowed to participate due to health and safety reasons.