Guild Knife Camp - improve your knives in 2 days!

• Want to improve your knife making?
• Want to spend 2 days at Tharwa Valley Forge with hands-on lessons?
• Want some time with high-level makers talking through your knives with tailored help for your knives on what to focus on next?

Then read on..

What is Knife Camp?

The Australian Knifemakers Guild again this year held a very succesful Guild Knife Camp at Tharwa Valley Forge the first weekend of December.

Knife Camp is one of the main ways the Guild work to help makers improve their knifemaking. The camp is a 2.5 day event held at Tharwa Valley Forge, focusing on getting new and intermediary makers up towards the level needed for full Guild membership.

The focus is on breaking down knife making into elements - then working through how to succesfully achieve this element of a knife by discussion and practical, hands-on sessions. 

Each hands-on session is long enough (3 hours) that you really get time to work through the subject. Ask questions, mess it up (or at least I did) and try again. 

Cost: $400 for accommodation, all food, materials, instructions and workshops - talk about good value!

Schedule:

• Thursday Night - Arrive, Meet and Greet, Show and Tell 
• Friday– Morning: group lectures/presentation/demos. Afternoon: small practical sessions. Evening: hammer-in style work on your own project. 
• Saturday - small group practical sessions with the instructors of their choice in the morning and a different one in the afternoon to consolidate the skill. 
• Sunday– (Optional) Canberra knife show

Bonus Friday night: Russell Toovey did a test run of his ABS Journeyman test knife. Cutting a 1" hanging rope, chopping twice through a 2 x 4" beam before shaving hair and then bending his knife 90 degrees. WOW - well done, Russell!

Breaking it down

Knife making is for most of us a hobby and possibly something you take a little bit of pride from. Putting in effort to making the best knives you can, and challenge yourself to try improving your skill level is part of the fun for many makers. If wanting to expand your skills as well as network of makers you know, then the Guild Knife Camp is an excellent way to do that. 

There is nothing wrong with being content at whatever level you are making at - this is for those wanting to push themselves up the ladder of technical skill and execution, something that can be hard on your own without personalised guidance and advice. 

Applying for Guild membership involves submitting 3 knives for assessment. 

Of the 20 points possible, you need 10 points on average for Probationary membership, and 18 for Full Guild membership. (Link to file: LINK)

The first big session on Friday was breaking these "points" down into what needs to be done right to succesfully "score the point" during assessement.

For instance - Spine and ricasso clean and well executed:

So for each of the 20 criteria or sections, the panel talked through what this means for different styles of knives. As well as key things to focus on and some things to avoid.

Hands-on workshops

Each session after this was hands-on, practical sessions with an expert instructor (or two).

There were lots to choose from, each participant could choose 3 to attend over Friday and Saturday:

Kevin Room, President of the Guild and the others involved did an amazing job putting together such a great event with the help of Tharwa Valley Forge. A big thank you from all of us who attended is well deserved.

There are no short-cuts - really?

There may not be any shortcuts to improving your knifemaking skills - but you can certainly fast track it!

We are all busy and have lots on, but if able to find the time to come along to Knife Camp, you will probably learn quite a bit - and hopefully have fun while doing it.

Spending a few days with other makers is in itself worth it. Discussing tools, process, what works and does not work for you and others is a great way to learn. And that is outside of the actual hands-on workshops with some very skilled makers there giving their time to help you improve!

Tharwa Valley Forge

Finally a massive thank you to Karim Haddad and the team at Tharwa Valley Forge. Karim spends a lot of time and effort setting this up on his end, volunteering both time and resources at what is without a doubt the best knife making school in Australia to make this weekend come together.

Hanging out at TVF for a few days is always such a pleasant experience. It is a beautiful location with friendly people and an amazing setup with forges, grinders and all kinds of tools. The team at Tharwa take their craft seriously in a technical sense, pushing to make the best knives they can. While having fun with it and experimenting with the process. Every time I leave Tharwa I am feeling very lucky to have been allowed to spend some time there. 

Should you want to join us next year - join the Guild and get ready!