*Skip to "About the Artist"

Learn more about me and what I do during this hour long Podcast Interview I recorded with Matt and James at DCE Pirate Radio.

To understand my swords please know that I specialise in taking creative designs and interpreting them as functional swords; trying to impart hostorical principles of sword design, performance, and engineering as much as possible while also respecting the creative vision. I'm very please when I can make a sword feel and handle and perform as well as I possibly can from putting into practice my extensive study of antique swords.

To help build a picture of me: I am a fellow working from my home workshop, I'm my own boss :). I custom make my swords one at a time, and by myself for the most part. I do all the work by hand and pay very close attention to detail to ensure my pieces are crafted with excellence. I make only 10 to 15 swords each year, among other oddments. I work slow and steady, sure the work is done to my best standard, working only when I'm in the right creative head space.

Hours of grinding, shaping, filing, and sanding with sandpaper on a cork block go into each piece. Spray from my angle grinder cements the walls of my grinding & forging shed though I try to keep it pretty orderly. There's often blunted files and torn up sheets of sandpaper kicking around the floor. I am blessed to have a great workshop on a great property and a nice set of machines to help me out with some of the fiddly jobs. In my Machinery Shed I have a hand operated Milling Machine and Lathe - alowing me to machine straight slots in hilt furniture, and fullers in blades, and the lathe for shaping some pommel forms.

All of the swords I make are REAL swords. Fully functional. Built for durability, and to perform as a live sword for performance cutting. They are not toys, wallhangers, or stage props. They are built to perform to their purpose, with excellent heat treatment qualities and excellent blade and edge geometries. All blade steel stock used is brand new 9260 high carbon spring steel cut from the length. The blade and edge geometries are finely hand crafted to historical principles. I heat treat my blades in an electric kiln I built for my needs.

All swords are hand sculpted individual pieces - earning all of my attention. Being handmade they rely on a steady hand, a keen eye, and a feel for how the metal is taking shape. As such they have a smoother, more organic look and feel about them, compared to machine finished items. I do spend a long time fussing, trying to get little details just right.The pieces are NOT computer cut, but sculpted with painstaking attention - by a loving human hand. I think I am my toughest critic - perfection is in the eye of the beholder.

Each piece has endured many hours at my hands, being crafted into it's final form. Through these hours at my hands I feel the result is true meeting of imagination, the human body, and the form that lives within the wood and steel. Each piece is a true one of a kind.

My blades don't have a mirror polish, but rather a hand sanded satin finish. The satin finish is beneficial to maintenence throughthe sword's active life.

All blades are sculpted from new flat-bar stock. I do not forge my blades. We are blessed with space-age steel which requires no further forging, only shaping.

Pommels and guards are sculpted by hand from solid blocks of mild steel or bronze, never cast en-masse. Grips have a wood core, crafted from Poplar or Beech, before they are leather covered; though I love featuring hand carved exotic wood grips from Australia and around the world too.

All swords have broad full tangs with radiussed shoulders for strength; built to be a fully useable tool. The temper of the tang and shoulder is drawn back with a torch to low 40s Rockwell hardness; made softer than the blade proper to enhance durability, and reamining annealed (unhardened) back at the pommel mounting; for maximum shock resilience.

I control the heat treatment in a purpose built electric kiln, which I made myself to suit my needs. This provides uniform heat to the whole blade, and precise digital readings for me to accurately control the temperatures. Heat treatment of blades includes normalisation cycles, quenching in oil to harden, and multiple tempering cycles giving a resilient edge hardness of approximately 50-54Rc. depending on the design requirements of the sword.

If you have any questions or need more information or detail on sword construction, please don't hesitate to ask. :)

I see myself as more than a swordmaker; I'm a 'bringer into form'. I bring ideas to physical form. I can make the things you see on this website, and all sorts of other things. I work with my hands.
I guess I am someone who chooses not to 'grow up' as Peter Pan would have it - at least not to grow up into the world as it is presented by society. Instead I've chosen to embrace a world of unlimited creativity and imagination. And I am here to put your imaginations in your hands, to help you manifest your internal world into your world of form. I feel very blessed to have a role which is very rare in this world - to help capture peoples' inspired dreams and give them birth into this world of form. I give people a rare avenue of creative power in a world permeated by cheap mass produced form.

My formal education and early professional career were focussed on academic study, business and sales. As such I've had negligible formal training in manual arts. However a life long love of motorcycles and the mechanical work involved with them trained my hands thoroughly. My mum tought me general drawing and artistic skills - her father was an expert field mechanic (from farm and battlefield) from whom I was exposed to the marvel of practical and creative mechanical work. My dad taught me to dismantle and fix things rather than replacing them, and that many tools could be made - essential knowledge coming from a poor immigrant family. It was at age 30 (2006) that I discovered I could buy 'real swords' online. My new found fascination distracted me from my work in professional sales, and I obsessively started spending endless hours in my workshop 'improving' my new production swords.

It wasn't long before I was being asked to make blades by commission. And with my new found home-based lifestyle and freedom to work at my own pace, my creative expression bounded. I undertook my new role as custom craftsperson with solemn commitment. I now enjoy my days working from my beautiful home, a peaceful rural property in the south west of Australia.
Working full time for someone else sucks. I am SO grateful for my path.

I guess my love affair with swords, and the fantasy realms, started like most peoples', through exposure to the popular culture. For me it was He-Man as a child in the 80s, and the Conan movies and books, and then Braveheart. I've enjoyed the film recreations of some very cool book series', such as the 'Chronicles of Narnia', 'Harry Potter', and the sagas of 'A Song of Ice and Fire' and 'Lord of the Rings'. As well as some more Historically inspired fictional film; like Arn - The Knight Templar, and Ironclad.

Film and Fiction present a romance of fighting through opression to bring freedom to those who wish nothing more than peace.
In contrast I've found the study of historical swords to at times be a grim study in cultural insanity. Though wrought with amazing engineering, fine art and higher academics.
I've always borne a sorrow, an empathy, a horror for the suffering people bring upon each other. In truth I have no respect nor romance for conflict and fighting. My wish would be that no weapon should ever be raised to another person again. My pain leads my efforts to transgress the sword from a thing of beautiful horror into a relic of spiritual expression and peace for a new earth.

Upon my early collection of lower level production blades I found questionable quality standards, and the distorted interpretation of historic design which required my to make major modicifations to my pieces. After only a handful of purchases and with my wife encouraging me to "just make your own", I started making swords from scratch in 2007; and I have not looked back. In truth, since embracing this craft I have had so many gifts from the universe to facilitate my journey. And so many fantastic customers who've supported me in developing my craft. I've also really enjoy helping my Pagan clients create their ritual tools as well. While I do not practice myself, I have long followed a very spiritual path.

Among my creations have been many Wands, Custom Athames, Pipes, and I even made an Oak Longbow for myself to shoot.

I enjoy playing my guitars though I'm rather an amateur. I ride my Motocross and Touring Bikes as often as I can. I enjoy a low key, nature-first and vegetarian Lifestyle. I live on 23 acres of rural pasture land at beautiful dairy and orchard country in the Harvey Region of South Western Australia. I have a beautiful wife, Bec, who's an inspirational person. Our property is shared with lots and lots of Animals of myriad species :-). We're also passionately populating our land with beautiful trees and gardens. Trying to provide a sancturary and rehabilitation for nature where it was once stripped and reshaped. As often as not I'm propagating plants and gardening hard, planting trees, working in the vegie patch or orchard when I should probably be working on my swords. :-)