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I am an Afrikaans speaking farmer from the Free State and made my first "knife" from a piece of corrugated iron when I was about 4 or 5 years old. After that there followed some made from old files and pieces from the torsion bar of a Volkswagen (none of them correctly heat treated).
The first handmade knife I handled, was while on holiday in Margate, and was made by Robert Beauchop. I made an appointment to visit him and he directed me to Mike Skellem and Fred Burger. Since then I was hooked and decided to try my own hand at this craft. I joined the Bloemfontein Knife Makers Club in 1997, built a belt grinder and started making "real" knives in 1998. I have read everything I could find about knife making and had a lot of advice from a couple of guild members, including Conrad Pienaar, Eddy Scott, Des Horn (exchanged a few letters) and Kevin Harvey.
I have spent my whole life in Zastron in the South Eastern Free State, except for time spent in army service, and university. I started farming in 1977 with sheep and cattle, met my wife at university, and we have 3 boys (24, 21 and 13 years old). |
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