Our Team

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".