About me
I am a part time knife maker based in Cape Town, South Africa. Creating beautiful and functional tools is what brings joy to me and I happened to stumble upon the rabbit hole that is kitchen knives about 4 years ago.
How it started
In my 3rd year of a mechanical engineering degree I wanted to occupy my upcoming holiday with something that would be interesting and make some money; two things that are often mutually exclusive. While procrastinating I came across some knife making videos on YouTube, and after watching a few days worth of videos and trawling the knife forums, I decided: "How hard could it be?". Turns out making a good knife is no walk in the park! I made some custom chef knives which I was very happy with, but I was drawn towards perfecting a design. A design which was as close to perfection as I could get it, whilst keeping the price reasonable.
My Workshop
After graduating, I was fortunate enough to be employed at the Centre for Materials Engineering (CME) at the University of Cape Town on a 3 day a week contract. This left 2 days for knife making and I set to work building my workshop in a rented space. The entire workshop is dedicated to making these knives, and it brings great joy to me to have access to such a space.
Other Work
I spend most of my time as a lab/design engineer at the CME; setting up experiments, designing equipment and running machinery. It's an awesome job and there is a large amount of overlap with knife making. Currently I am completing a Masters degree as well so there is only one day a week for knife making but I should be finishing it up soon which will open up another day a week for the knife passion.