Bird and Trout

Jobin, Jacques

I started making knives in 1985, as a simple project, just for the fun of it and I got hooked to this passion. It started as a hobby because since 1975 I had a full time job for the Quebec Government .I was working as body guard for Government Ministers and making knives in my spare time. Knife making took gradually more space so, I voluntarily quit my job in 1991 to do it full time. During these years, I have shown my work at many world class Knife Shows which exposed me to different techniques and materials. I also met fantastic persons at these shows as well as other Knifemakers from all over the world. In the last 5 years, I have stopped attending Knife Shows to concentrate more on my work in the shop. As long as I can remember, I always had a tendency to play with materials and make things . I have designed and built a few small pleasure boats and many other contraptions to satisfy my urge to make things from scratch. I have previously tampered with jewelry, stone cutting and polishing as well as many other techniques of metal work. But steel in particular has always fascinated me because of the way it's structure and properties can change dramatically following proper heat treatment. This is what attracted me to try to make my first decent knife. I perform all the operations on my knives myself, including heat treatment and I do not use replication machinery. I do not make damascus steel myself, I prefer to buy it from the best in the world like Darryl Meier and Devin Thomas. These damascus steel specialists are the best in the world and their work is flawless. They are committed solely to making intricate pattern damascus steel and they do it very well. On the design side, I like to think that I have my own style and each knife I make is absolutely unique. I design and make a wide range of knives from miniatures to swords as well as folders, some with unique and original mechanisms. They are designed and made according to a general idea or concept and a lot of improvisation takes place on the way to completion. Except for dagger type knives, for symmetry reasons, I do not use templates, even for folders to guarantee they are unique. Most of my knives have a classic look with an original design and I generally try to keep simple flowing lines. But what I particularly like to do is futuristic knives who look like they can fly as much as they can cut . I make less than 50 knives a year from miniatures to swords, including folders and I work in a very inefficient way to make sure they are unique. Working this way, it is evident that I cannot take precise custom orders because I usually do not know exactly what I might design next month.