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Handcrafted in Petworth, West Sussex
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The making of a knife

How an Emberleaf knife is made

By hand, in our workshop in Petworth, West Sussex: from the steel blank to the stitched sheath, in eight stages.

One workshop, one maker’s mark

Emberleaf was founded in 2012 by Dean Boyd and Joel Andreas, two former Royal Engineers, and more than five thousand knives have left the Petworth workshop since. The steel arrives as a cut blank. Everything after that, heat treatment included, is done here.

Knifemaking in England has been a regulated craft since the Cutlers’ Company was established in 1624, and a maker’s mark has always meant that someone answers for the blade. Every Emberleaf blade carries ours, with its own project number. More on the English tradition.

Founded
2012
Knives made
5,000+
Workshop
Petworth, West Sussex

The eight stages

  1. Receiving · profile

    Steel arrives, cut to profile

    We don’t forge the bar. Mill-rolled tool steel and Damascus billets come in pre-cut to the knife’s outline — waterjet through the rough shape, drilled where the pin holes need to land. From here on, every hand on the blade is ours.

    Watch this stage, 0:30
    Black-gloved hands lifting a freshly cut blade blank from a Damascus billet, blue masking tape edges

  2. Belt grinder · PAPR booth

    Grind the bevels

    Heavy stock removal on the belt grinder, in PAPR with full extraction. Bevels, distal taper, the curve of the spine — judged by eye and ground in by hand against the platen, pass after pass.

    Watch this stage, 0:44
    Bladesmith in red jacket and PAPR helmet hand-grinding a taped blade against the belt grinder

  3. Heat-treat · in-house

    Wrap, soak, quench

    The blade goes into a stainless-foil pouch and into the kiln to soak at austenitising temperature. Out of the foil, straight into the oil quench — the flash of flame is the carbon shifting state. Tempered the next day to spec hardness.

    Watch this stage, 1:14
    Quenching a hot blade in a tank of oil, bright orange flame on the surface

  4. Etch tank

    Bring the pattern up

    For Damascus, the pattern is locked in the steel before we start — but you only see it after the etch. Mask everything that isn’t blade, dip in ferric chloride, neutralise, repeat until the contrast is right. The hard layers stand proud; the softer ones recede.

    Watch this stage, 2:57
    Close-up of an etched Damascus blade, dramatic flowing pattern in the steel

  5. Handle bench

    Build the handle

    Handle scales — burl, dichrolam, micarta, mammoth — are drilled to match the tang, then bonded with two-part epoxy and pinned. Bolsters fit flush against the ricasso. Clamped, set, given a day to cure before they go anywhere near a grinder.

    Watch this stage, 3:56
    Black-gloved hands spreading two-part epoxy onto wooden handle scales beside the prepped tang

  6. Belt grinder

    Shape the handle

    Handle blocks come off the bench rectangular. The shape is ground in — palm swell, pommel curve, finger relief — first with coarse grit on the belt grinder, then refined on the slack belt, then by hand. Wood and steel meet flush at the bolster line.

    Watch this stage, 4:41
    Wooden handle being shaped against a belt grinder, dust and shavings flying

  7. Laser bench

    Mark with the laser

    The maker’s mark is laid into the ricasso with a fibre laser — Emberleaf logo, project number, steel call-out. A small, permanent stamp that says this one came out of this workshop, with this serial.

    Watch this stage, 5:55
    Fibre laser engraving the Emberleaf maker’s mark on a finished Damascus blade with wood handle

  8. Leather bench

    Stitch the sheath

    Every fixed-blade leaves with a sheath cut, bevelled, glued and stitched in the same workshop. Veg-tan leather, hand-marked from a pattern, contact-cemented at the seam, then stitched on the heavy machine and burnished at the edge. Made to fit the blade it ships with.

    Watch this stage, 6:09
    Cutting a leather sheath panel with a knife on a green cutting mat, pattern pieces beside

Closer looks

Single jobs from the bench, filmed at length.

  • Making a leather sheath

  • The hybrid sheath

  • Cutting the jimping by hand

  • The linisher, talked through

What leaves the workshop

Every finished knife carries its project number, etched on the blade and logged at the bench: model, steel, handle material and the year it was built. The number ties the knife to its record for as long as it is in use. Owning an Emberleaf.

See the knivesCommission a knife

The rooms themselves are on the workshop tour.