Bouchonville, Claude

Claude Bouchonville is a Belgian knifemaker who has been full time since 2014. Claude began working with metal at the age of 17, when he attended Farrier school. "Graduating at the age of 20, my clients thought I was too young. They didn’t trust me. They thought I didn’t know what I was doing. But I graduated at the top of my class." He ended up at a metal construction company, specializing in doors and counters for banks. He worked there for 18 years, finally becoming a project manager. After leaving that job he became a full time knifemaker. Claude forged his first knife in the early 1990s, and forges his own Damascus.