Our Team

Karim began his journey with knifemaking under Master Bladesmith Thomas Gerner in 1995. Thomas was the first Australian Master Bladesmith from the prestigious American Bladesmith Society. Karim has developed his skills in the area of blade forging, heat treating steel, handle construction, sheath making and leatherwork.

He has been teaching knife making since 1998, and created the Tharwa Valley Forge to provide further opportunities for teaching and learning in 2003.  He currently teaches courses in Knifemaking, Forging, Damascus and Sharpening as well as making custom knives to order.

He was the President of the Australian Knifemaking Guild (AKG) for 4 years and the State Representative of the ACT/NSW for the AKG.

Karim was an Outdoor Educator for over 13 years with Outward Bound Australia, designing and running personal development programs for youth. He also ran a prestigious national leadership program with the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation for 5 years. Karim holds a Certificate IV in Workplace Training and Assessment and has used his extensive experience as an educator to develop and refine the courses delivered at Tharwa Valley Forge.

Adam began making knives as a young man, but the demands of family and career meant that he put his hammer down for a few years. Adam went on to spend many years working in a wide range of technical and trade roles, including as a mechanic and metal fabricator.

Some years after he last made a knife, Adam was exploring creativity as an escape from the stresses of day-to-day life when he rediscovered his passion for bladesmithing. His experience in the trades combined with his previous foray into bladesmithing lead him to develop both a formidible skill base and home workshop.

Adam's keen technical mindset and deep well of creativity has seen him create a diverse range of unique knives, including high quality stainless steel fishing knives, Damascus steel art knives, Steampunk inspired barrel knives, and his highly sought after cheese axes. Asides from being an accomplished bladesmith, Adam is an artist that works in metal, wood, leather, and plastic.

Adam is one of a handful of full-time bladesmiths in Australia, and works at Tharwa Valley Forge creating custom knives, production orders, and teaching a variety of Bladesmithing courses. In 2025, Adam became a Journeyman with the American Bladesmith Society.

Baz has been making knives since 2012. In 2018 he joined Tharwa Valley Forge as a full-time cutler and instructor on bladesmithing and knifemaking courses.

Baz's knifemaking journey started with a special project. To raise money for the Starlight Children's Foundation - and to give sick kids in hospital a thrill - Baz made the world's first wearable and complete, all-steel Ironman suit. He received worldwide support, eager to be part of a worthy cause. To say 'thank you' Baz made knives as gifts for those who had helped him out.

Baz served 16 years in the Army and saw active service. In 2018 he took a course with Tharwa Valley Forge as part of our Veterans & Families Maker Program. He's been with us ever since.

You can see his work on his website, buildsbybaz.com including the Ironman suit and current project of an 8.4 metre space fighter, the MkII Colonial Viper from Battlestar Galactica.

Leila has been making knives since she was 6 years old. Having first crawled into her father's workshop as a toddler, she developed a keen interest in hammers and fire. At five, she operated the 30-ton hydraulic power press by standing on a bucket to reach the controls. Now much taller, she uses the press to create her own Damascus steel (and no longer needs to stand on a bucket).

Leila started her bladesmithing career specialising in cooking knives. Because of their unique provenance and high quality these knives were highly sought after by professional chefs and collectors alike.

At age 11, Leila presented a forging demonstration at the 2014 International Cutlers Exhibition in Sydney. Later that year, Leila was one of the guest presenters at Ben Shewry's WAW Gathering in Melbourne. Speaking on the importance of making things, she impressed the 300 delegates from the catering industry with her no-nonsense advice and confident delivery.

In November 2016, Leila spoke at the YMCA National Convention in Adelaide. Speaking to the gathering of young people she stressed the value of a “Do It Yourself” mind-set and the importance of self-reliance, as opposed to relying on modern consumer culture to supply them with the latest and greatest.

Leila has donated a number of knives to raise funds for charitable organisations. In October 2016, a knife Leila donated to the ACT's palliative care facility, Clare Holland House set a new personal record when it was sold at auction for $4,100.  In 2017 anoher one of her knives sold for $4,000 for the same cause.

She is a regular at the knife shows around the country where she sells a diverse range of her own knives.

Leila teaches Japanese Knifemaking and Junior Blacksmithing at the Tharwa Valley Forge.

If you're interested in buying one of Leila's knives, please check out her Instagram as they sell-out very quickly.

Read more: Leila Haddad

When Halcyon set out to buy an anvil in early 2021, she didn't expect it to end up changing the course of her life. The search for a reasonably priced anvil during COVID-era pricing led her to a chance meeting at a coffeeshop with a teacher/bladesmith who was working at TVF, who recognized her skills and suggested she reach out.  No stranger to metalworking, Halcyon has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in bronze casting and sculpture. One interview later, and Halcyon was part of the team. 

Halcyon started her tenure by teaching our sculpture/welding courses, as well as doing machine maintenence and other workshop tasks. As time went on, she began to develop a passion for knifemaking. Specifically, she says that "Once I learned what damascus steel was, I was hooked". Within a year, she'd learned enough to begin teaching bladesmithing courses to students. 

These days, Halcyon continues to teach all manner of courses. Most recently, she's started teaching our new framelock flipper knife course. However, she says she doesn't actually have a favorite course to teach. "For me, it's not so much about what we're making, but more about the engagement with the students. Being able to make them see something about themselves that they might not have been able to see before is really rewarding". 

What advice would you have for new knifemakers?

"Start basic, and do repetitive work until you're confident with the basic stuff. There's no point in jumping into high specialty steels when you've only made two knives and can barely forge three. The biggest downfall of beginner knifemakers I've seen is them spending thousands of dollars on equipment and materials while not being able to forge a knife straight. Start basic, and stay basic until you've mastered the basics of knifemaking."

All the way back in 2009, Tim Baker would do his first knife course at Tharwa Valley Forge, with immediate results. "I got the bug, and started making knives". Tim had already been an experienced woodworker, making furniture and all sorts of stuff for his home. With his father being into classic car restoration, Tim had plenty of access to the tools he needed to get started. 13 years of bladesmithing later, Tim would find his way back to where he'd started his blademaking journey, now as an instructor.

Within 3 weeks of starting at TVF, Tim learned sculpture as his first course to teach. Soon afterwards, he set himself a tough personal challenge - learn to teach ALL of the courses at TVF within 12 months. While his optimisitc goals didn't work out as fast as he'd like, Tim remained undeterred and now teaches nearly all of our blademaking/blacksmithing courses on the regular.

Though he might teach tons of different courses, he's pretty confident about which one is his favorite. "It's gotta be Asado BBQ, I like cooking and I like knives" he says, "It's something different, and it attracts people who like the same stuff as me". Knives and BBQ are pretty great, but Tim says above that, his favorite part of teaching is the sense of accomplishment that students feel. "People walk away with something and go 'Wow, I can't believe I made that!', like I did when I first did my class". Tim says that he ends up seeing quite a lot of return students coming back to learn more/further their own skills.

 What advice would you offer to new knifemakers?

 "Do a course. You can't learn everything through watching youtube, you've gotta get some hands on experience too." 

As a small team, many of the staff at Tharwa Valley Forge end up wearing many hats, or in this case, making them. Amanda Pollok was originally brought on as our business manager. Her primary focus was to keep the buisness running smoothly, handling most of the admin work at TVF, staying well away from all things blacksmithing. But when circumstances changed and our previous leatherwork instructor departed, Amanda stepped up to fill the role. Despite not having done any leatherworking herself, she rapidly learned and was teaching the apron making course within 2 weeks. She says that "I got all the basic instruction that our students got from the team here, and then taught myself the rest". 

Though originally intending to only be a substitute teacher, Amanda would end up getting more involved. Her enthusiasm led her to picking up leatherwork as a hobby at home. Soon after, she began to teach nearly all of our leatherworking courses. Not satisftied with just that, Amanda went on to expand the number and types of courses with leather that we offer, and reworked existing courses for the better. When asked what her favorite part of teaching is, Amanda says that "It's great to watch people who've never worked with leather before go from being apprehensive to super excited and confident". Many of Amanda's students have gone onto pick up leatherwork at home as a hobby, or come back for more courses at TVF. "It's great to have that sense of community where they feel encouraged" she says, and that she always loves to see it when her students try crazy new things. 

Dave has been coaxing bows from saplings, trees and lumber since he was 14. Starting with simple branches and small saplings strung with baling twine, Dave soon yearned for a more authentic savage's experience.

Dave sought out the writings of bowyers past and present, such as Adrian Elliot Hodgkins and the modern champions - Tim Baker, Jim Hamm and the like. With this newfound knowledge, Dave was able to make much more efficient bows for the target butts and for the hunt.

After moving from the bush to the city, Dave began using milled timber in place of standing trees. At about the same time, Dave discovered that with the application of clever and complex formulae and technical drawings, bow design and performance could be enhanced to a much higher standard.

Dave has worked as a semi-professional bowyer at times, and still takes commissions on occasion. His bows have been sent as far as Townsville to Hobart, and Perth to Sydney. Dave has started teaching the art of bowyery so as to share the skills, experience and joy of crafting primal wooden bows able to compete with modern fibreglass productions with pride and authority.

Alistair was introduced to knives when he was a young man in Scouts. Many years ago, a chance conversation with his local butcher lead him to discover that the butcher made custom knives. Alistair’s butcher was kind enough to teach him a few things about knifemaking and gave him some steel to make his first knife.

Unfortunately, before Alistair could finish his first knife his family moved. That knife blank remained in a desk drawer, unfinished, through eight more house moves but was never forgotten. Fifteen years later Alistair got back into knife making with a course at Tharwa Valley Forge. After completing his course, and 15 years after it was started, Alistair finished the knife he had begun making with the butcher.

In 2005 Alistair made his first slipjoint folding knife – gaining him admission to the Australian Knifemaker Guild as a Probationary Member. In 2007, he was accepted as a Full Member of the Australian Knifemaker Guild, and in 2012 he won the "Best Folder" Prize at the Australian Knifemaker Guild Melbourne Show. Since then, Alistair has risen to become one of the best folding knife makers in Australia.

As a knifemaker and a perfectionist, Alistair loves the mechanisms involved with making folding knives. Whether it is getting the spring to fit flat on a slipjoint or the perfecting the lockup of a linerlock, getting everything to fit together is a very rewarding process.

In addition to teaching Folding Knife courses at Tharwa Valley Forge he makes and sells his own knives, including knives that are sold by Spyderco.

Alistair's website can be seen here

Charlie joined our team in early 2021 and brings a wealth of teaching experience with him having taught visual arts in Australia, New Zealand, America and Germany before turning his hand to teaching sculpture and blacksmithing here at Tharwa Valley Forge.

He is a sculpture artist, with a Masters Degree in sculpture, who’s practice encompasses glass, stone and metal - though he still dables in other art forms. Working at Tharwa Valley Forge has given Charlie the opportunity to learn from the rest of the team and expand his creativity into knives and other blacksmithing projects with the goal to expand his teaching to these other areas.

Charlie adds a wealth of other skills and experiences to the team including renovation, hospitality and landscaping.

Maeve was first introduced to TVF as a 13 year old, doing one of our teen blacksmithing courses. From then on, she was hooked, and ended up getting into all sorts of creative hobbies. Maeve has a plethora of experience in working/creating with her hands, having extensively done 3D printing, metal farication, and even forging at home. So when a job opportunity became available at TVF, Maeve was a great fit. 

Maeve is one of our workshop support technicians. That means she's constantly servicing the many machines and tools necessary to keep TVF running smoothly. As well as that, she's exprienced with CAD and trained in operating our high-power laser cutter. Although not originally why she signed up, Maeve is eager to teach and is actively learning how to run some of our courses. Maeve says that she's most looking forward to teaching the outdoor stainless steel knife course.

What advice would you offer to people new to knifemaking?

"Don't skip hand sanding. It sucks, but don't skip it." 

It's always great when someone who's taken a course at TVF ends up working here. Having done a number of courses at TVF over the years, it was fitting when Ben joined us as a member of staff in 2026. Ben has done plenty of handcrafts, ranging from quilting to making basic knives in his backyard.

As of our workshop support techs, Ben performs maintence and cleaning on our plethora of machines, as well as keeping track of workshop logistics to ensure our stockpiles of material remains filled and organized. With how many machines we've got, this is a pretty hefty task and it's key to keeping TVF operating safely. Ontop of his normal duties, Ben is also learning to teach some of our courses. Starting with our firepit sculpture course as many others have, he's eventually looking to get into more blademaking, as well as traveling with our big black truck across the country. 

It's not every day you get to turn a hobby into a profession. A father's day gift of a course back in 2021 at Tharwa Valley Forge would put Paul Gloyne on a path to something he never would have imagined doing as a job. When recalling his experience on the course, Paul said "I couldn't believe what we managed to achieve in two days, I was pretty hooked from there". He'd go on to spend the next year setting up a forge at home, doing some of our other courses in the meantime. When a job became available at TVF, Paul got the chance to turn his hobby into a career. 

Paul's started his time at TVF by working on our production cutlery and knives for our virtual shop, while also training up his teaching skills for courses. While there's a lot of work and a lot of hand sanding, Paul says "It's been great to get paid to do the thing I most enjoy". When asked what course he's looking forward to teaching the most, he says that it's hard to choose. While he can't wait to teach the 1-day/1-knife course, or go on adventure in our big black truck, he says "The Japanese forged kitchen knife course is the one I really want to try and work towards".