Such an interesting and fun knifemaker to talk to from Cork Ireland. Sam Dunn's skills can be recognized all over Instagram and certainly have been by the Irish chef community. He is so passionate about the design, form and function of his knives, and cares about the end users experience, and is considering it, when he is working on his knife designs.

What we spoke about

• Like most knife makers he sold to friends and family first.
• Sells to 1 of 2 markets in the last 12 months, Irish chefs and international Instagram sales.
• If you can get in with one or two of the chefs, they start to sell for you to an extent.
• Your knife roll is your toolbox, no different to a bricklayer with a trowel and plumb bob etc.
• If you start off with a bad design, how is it ever going to be a good looking knife?
• 5 min - Before you start hacking and grinding, spend your time with a pencil paper and a ruler.
• 11 min - If it looks crap on paper, how's it going to look good in steel?
• Your first 50 knives will be of a certain standard but the next 50 will be better.
• He only uses a pencil, ruler and paper and that other tools for design have too much say in the final design.
• We talk about options like Knifeprint to design blades.
• Uses A4 paper in the diagonal to draw on instead of A3.
• Can fit an 8" chef knife on an angle on A4.
• Describes his process for designing and drawing his knives.
• Designing a knife with an even flow.
• Talks about designing K tips, Japanese or western knives.
• The processes of designing a knife when a customer is involved.
• Often gets potential customers to look back through his Instagram portfolio to take ideas from his style.
• Talks about the honesty of the 'giving credit where it is due' to other makers.
• Talks about how grateful makers are when you ask to use their IP.
• Borrowing Don Wynn's handle styles.
• How I shape my contoured handles
• 34 mins link to contour handle video below.
• The importance of giving back to the community by helping newer people online like others did for you in the beginning.
• Favorite type of knife is a K tip
• Signature blade is an 8" k tip
• His design process involves him knowing the materials and colors etc.
• 53 mins - You get nice boots, a nice coat comfortable car but you by a crap $8 knife, why?
• There's a direct proportionality between the cooking process and a quality knife that you don't get with crap knives.
• 55 mins - The effect on people with great quality knives.
• How the knife laws in the UK seem to not affect Ireland.
• How it affected the EDC community in the UK.
• Has some absolute gold advice on designing knives and where to get inspiration from.

Company mentions

Knifeprint

Creative Man

Reaper knives

People mentions

Cris Anderson Insta crisanderson27

Don Nguyen Insta donnguyenknives

Chris Meade Insta cmcustomblades

Steve Schwarzer Insta steveschwarzer

Paudie Ryan Insta prickbladesmith

Fingal Ferguson Insta fingalferguson

Rory Conner Insta roryconner_knives

Sam Gleeson Insta thisiswhatwedoo

Links

https://www.instagram.com/dunn_bladeworks/

Find us at

https://www.instagram.com/tobyfireandsteel/

https://www.facebook.com/MurrillandSon/

Products and site

www.tobyfireandsteel.com

Email [email protected]

TFS Knifemaker Challenge Group

https://www.facebook.com/groups/711126822742169/

Handle contour video

https://youtu.be/GhurYaJwBQU

Knifeprint Toby Fire and steel affiliate link

Knifetalk Podcast

https://knifetalk.net/index.html