Welcome to the Tharwa Valley Forge

We aim to be the best knifemaking school in Australia, offering a wide range of courses and opportunities to learn and share skills. Regular classes are scheduled in a variety of topics. Since we started running classes, hundreds of people have been introduced to the art of custom knife making and successfully made their first knives.

The Tharwa Valley Forge was established in 2003 by bladesmith Karim Haddad to create high quality knives and tools, and to teach the skills necessary to do this. Karim was trained by Australia's first Master Bladesmith, Thomas Gerner, in the early 1990's in Western Australia. The Forge is located in village of Tharwa, just south of Canberra, Australia.

Courses are rated in terms of difficulty to make it easier to pick the right level. See here for more information.

Our website encourages this continual learning through sharing resources, tutorials and articles. We are always interested in feedback on how to make this site better. We hope you learn something from your visit. and come back soon and see us again.

Knifemaking Steel

We stock a range of high carbon steel (1055, 1075 and 15N20) for bladesmithing or stock removal. The steel works well under the hammer and has minimal movement in heat treatment. The steel is annealed ready for filing or grinding. This is not precision ground stock (hence the good price) so they may be slight warpage which is easily hammered or bent out.

Price is quotes per metre, but happy to sell shorter or longer lengths (maximum 1600mm). Cutting to length is no charge. Postage/freight extra so please let us know where you are when you order. This is in limited supply so contact us now to order.

For composition and heat treating information see Properties of Carbon Steel

For full detail of sizes and prices, click the read more below.

List of sizes and prices

Appalachian Power Hammer

I bought the plans years ago from the Appalachian Blacksmith's Association to make my own power hammer. The parts slowly piled up as I found bits and pieces. Finally in July 2010 I stated construction. It was built over 12 days - a month of Sundays plus other days with lots of learning as I went.

I used a "Super Rusty" style, with inspiration from many other hammers on the web, but tried to keep it as simple as possible. Some statistics

The "anvil" weighs 140kg made from four 75 x 75mm solid bars 800mm long
The ram weighs 18kg with the dies, made from a 40 x 40mm solid bar
The initial dies are made from a cut up 10lbs sledge hammer head
Dies are bolt on and interchangeable
The leaf springs were "straightened" in my Hydraulic press
I use a 1hp motor going 1410 RPM
The pulleys are 2" and 14" which provide just over 200 hits per minute

Winter 2010 Workshop Upgrade

We have been busy over the winter class break improving the forge, ready for the spring series of courses. This has been our biggest upgrade since opening the forge. It will allow some exciting new courses to be run, so keep an eye on the site.

Some highlights

18kg Appalachian power hammer
Metal cutting bandsaw
New knifemaking forge
New damascus forge
New compact forge stand with 3m of rack space (full already with hammers and tongs)
Steel racks
Heaps more hammers and tongs
Swage block
Armorer stakes and tools

Anvils

We have found a great new supplier of anvils here in Canberra. Greg Greet from Red Box Products has imported some high quality cast steel anvils and is offering them at very affordable prices. They are compact, well finished and have great bounce back with the hammer. What is most impressive is the size of the deck - its wide and well shaped.