Knifemaker: Jeff Durber

Jeff Durber was formerly part of a professional knife making partnership (Featherstone & Durber), producing very high quality folding knives that were sold through events such as Chelsea Craft Fair and through galleries. He had ceased knife making in 2001 for personal reasons and currently teaches Metalwork & Jewellery at Sheffield Hallam University.

Jeff and his knives:

Work with the traditional Sheffield knife makers only allowed interpretation to be developed for constructing a knife from given parts, which was a useful part of the learning process but lacked any significant creative input which the learners desired. In response to this, further interviews and observations were carried out with Jeff. He took the expert learner (Grace Horne) through the process he used to design knives from first principles; from sketching to making prototypes to finishing the knife.

Some of the video from the project: