I just got back from a 2 day knife making course with Wayne and had an awesome time!
Wayne is very experienced blacksmith and knife maker with plenty of curiosity, creativity and patience for all of my questions!
He let me design a knife at first, and I actually chose to do a meat cleaver style that he hadn’t done before! From the selection of steel, to forging, shaping, grinding, heating, more grinding, heat treating,quenching, tempering and custom handle making; he showed me how to do it all on his own knife first and then allowing me to get hands on and do it myself on my custom knife.
The course was actually a birthday present for me, so as I was given the gift of knowledge, I returned a gift of a custom knife! 🙂
This practical focus was extremely valuable and I’m not sure many other courses offer the same amount of hands on experience. This high focus on practical experience rather than theory which was great, but I had to do my best to remember everything since I couldn’t write anything down. Perhaps a print out summarising the steps would have been a good take away? The one on one teaching style was very effective!
At times there was a little bit of idling, which I think was due to a lack of a structure or schedule. Im not sure you can really make one for such a creative process, but I think if there was more concurrent activities going, making 2 knives in 2 days would have been definitely achievable, and I would have been over the moon to go home with two knives!
Overall, I don’t think you’ll find a better course than this. I thoroughly enjoyed myself the whole time and I feel like I am well equipped with enough knowledge to get myself started into the world of blacksmithing and knife making thanks to Wayne!