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 George Beechey"Knives have been my daily companion for as long as I can remember, a small town and farm boy always had his slingshot and Joseph Rodgers at hand, that was the norm those days. Over the years the slingshot evolved thru different calibers of side arms and rifles, but the Joseph Rodgers endures to this day.
Completion of an apprenticeship in the early sixties as a millwright in the steel smelter developed my skills. Availability of high carbon rope wire and tool steels was the catalyst for me to start forging my first knives in 1963. These were given to friends and family.
In 1969 after ten years in the steel works and in a city environment, our passion for contact with nature drove my wife Lorraine, our two young daughters and myself to relocateto the wilderness of the Zululand East Coast. Here we joined a small group of pioneers on construction of the Alusaf Alumimium Smelter in the swampland of uMhlatuze. This put a hold on my knife making for many years, until in the eighties a paradigm shift occured in the approach to wildlife utilisation, and a new industry was born in Zululand.
I now seriously applied my hand to knifemaking and with the aid of the book ‘How to make knives’ taught myself the stock removal method, which is better suited to our hot humid climate. In 1997 I joined the SA Knifemakers Guild, and in 1998 took early retirement to become a full time knifemaker.
My knife preference is for stainless steel medium size working hunters, working field type liner lock folders and a range of titanium linerlock gents folders. Local natural materials are selected for handles, with giraffe bone as my favourite.
My workshop is attached to our home and is rather small by comparison to other makers and that demands I do a lot of the work with my hands and basic tools, a choice I have made and method I prefer. This means that each knife is individualy crafted to my satisfaction."
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