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G’day, I’m Paul-Emmanuel Arestan, a knife maker from Queensland Australia and for as far as I can remember, I’ve always been passionate about sharp objects.I think I would have been 6 years old when my grand dad gave me my first Opinel pocket knife. As I grew older the passion turned into a hobby, a part-time, and finally a full-time occupation. If I don’t make knives, I teach people how to make them, assess knives presented to the QLD branch of the Australian Knifemaker’s Guild, or write about …

Derek W shared some photos with us this week of his last completed project.Nessmuk was the pen name of George W Sears who in the 1880 was writing articles about travelling light, enjoying the outdoors and being a solo "tourist" while the norm was to go in bigger groups with guides and heavy equipment in his area of the USA. His book is loved by bushcrafters and others who enjoy sleeping out and has a wood carving of his pen knife, his custom made belt knife (that we today call the Nessmuk knife) …

How to design better looking blades?focus on one area to improve on at a timestudy profiles / templates you likebreak down the design to understand why you like itblade length and heightratio of blade:handlericasso height vs widthstraight spine vs curvedtip profilehandle height and lengthflowing lines or strong, aggressive turnsuse a templatesave your work (templates)Focus on one area at the time:A good technique for improving skills in an area is to try simplifying other areas of the process, t …

This month's meet the maker subject is Kevin Slattery of Kev’s Forge.Kev said of knife making, I did a knife making course out of curiosity. I’d been into modifying cars for years and had become predictable in what I wanted for birthdays etc so I surprised my wife with a request to do a course as a present instead of getting car parts. I enjoyed the experience so much that I started to get some gear and have a go at it myself. The rest is history really.I’m pretty sure that first course was …

Brayden Spencer works with the Aussie Outback Supplies, we meet up a couple of times a year at knife shows.If you have not checked out their site, we recommend it: https://aussieoutbacksupplies.com/store/index.php Brayden got the Sensei Tanto Kit and made it up before Christmas.When we were at the Perth Knife show last weekend, he showed us a few pics and I wanted to share them here.Brayden decided to go with stabilised Black Palm handle scales and red spacers, swapping the 1/8" pins f …