10am – 4pm
£150 Lunch included
Material Charges : included

Forge and temper your own hand made knife & set into a wooden handle, with Mark Constable FWCB  

This knife-making course is more akin to silversmithing than black smithing, using light hammers and finesse rather than brute force. During the day you will design, hand forge, heat treat (harden and temper), make and rivet on a wooden handle before honing the knife to razor sharpness.

Whether you chose to make a fruit knife, small kitchen prep knife or a replica Saxon eating knife the choice is yours, what you will take home is totally unique hand made with a personality all of its own, a rustic and almost historic looking piece.

An important aspect of the course will be using the very simple bucket forge, improvised anvils and some basic tooling allowing you to replicate this simple, cheap and compact set up if you decide that knife making might be a new hobby for you.

 Other dates for this course - see the table below to book:

We are sorry to confirm that Mark is unable to take any courses in 2019. We hope he will return the following year.

Kindly note : materials are included on this course. Typically it runs with 4 students.

Please bring:  For the blacksmithing day please wear old clothes and strong shoes – try to avoid plastic ones as they can melt if hot embers land on them . The tutor will supply  safety glasses, however if you already wear spectacles you may need to bring some overfitting safety wear. Please bring good fitting good grip gloves – during the safety briefing they will both explain that sometimes wearing gloves is more dangerous than not- and so you may not end up using them!  Therefore please try to borrow rather than buy!  The lightweight close fitting gardening ones with a slight stretch are ideal. All equipment and tools will be provided,.

About the Artist

I first trained as a silversmith at Sheffield College of Art and in the last few months at college I discovered the Japanese technique of fusing non-ferrous metals - mokume gane, would become my passion and ultimately lead me down a totally different career path.I joined the British Artists Blacksmiths Association and some years later found myself greatly honored to be awarded the status of "Master Blacksmith" by the Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths, becoming the first ever non-apprentice trained blacksmith to be awarded a Bronze medal and become a fellow of the company, (FWCB). By being one of the few blacksmiths specializing in these slightly obscure techniques (mokume and damascus steel)  I have become known for these skills within the profession. I have regularly been asked to demonstrate in a far more informal way at various blacksmithing events throughout the UK. Europe and the USA.

In October 2002 I demonstrated the mokume technique in France, during the event I was approached by some of the members of a small arts group based in Marseille, and asked if I would like to join them. I was delighted to find that this group has been formed with a mixture of blacksmiths and bronze casters to collaborate and work together to further each other’s disciplines and hopefully develop new and inventive approaches towards metalwork. This adventure to Marseille was one of the turning points in my approach towards metalworking and the way I wanted to work. I talked at length with a fellow blacksmith from near Nice , Frank Rougeaud , he explained a dream he had of being able to work using just one tool and we weighed up the pros and cons of each tool in our tool box to see which one we thought it would be , naturally we decided that it would be virtually impossible to achieve this dream but the notion stuck and to this day I am constantly re-evaluating my tool kit and the way I work, moving ever closer to this dream.