History of the saskatchewan knifemakers guild

History of Saskatchewan Knifemakers Guild 

In 2006, the Saskatchewan Knifemakers Guild celebrates its tenth anniversary. This article  provides a historical review of the significant events in its development. As far back 1989, at a  knifemaking workshop in Regina, interest was expressed in starting a knifemaking club in  Regina. Although everyone thought it was a good idea, no one took the initiative. Undoubtedly,  those interests were repeated at other workshops over the years. But, it wasn’t until 1996, during  a knifemaking workshop in Regina instructed by Bob Robson from Saskatoon, one of the few  instructors teaching knifemaking at the time, that arrangements were made to meet informally at  Ray Fehler’s on March 27 to discuss the possibility of starting a club. Fifteen people attended  and, after discussing the issues involved, they felt that there was sufficient interest to proceed  with plans to establish a club with the goal of promoting knife making, providing assistance and  encouragement to knifemakers, and creating a forum for the social interaction of individuals  interested in knife making. A formal meeting was scheduled for April 22, 1996. Wayne Tetlock  volunteered the coffee room over the shop at Renaissance Tube and Design, a metal fabrication  shop in Regina. Wayne worked for Tim Nicol who was not only the proprietor of the shop but  also the local source of knife making supplies and his shop had regularly been used for knife  making workshops. 

Sixteen people attended the inaugural meeting including: Art Bimson, Brian Drayton, Ray  Fehler, Don Fokler, Phil Haughian, Len Meeres, Jim Quickfall, Carl Sali, Dave Silzer, Dave  Solomon, Don Spasoff, Bob Stewart, John Taylor, Wayne Tetlock, Greg Trelevan, and Dave  Wilkes. The founding members elected Wayne Tetlock - President, Ray Fehler - Vice President  and Don Fokler - Secretary/Treasurer for the first executive. The new executive plunged right  into the business of building the new club. Initially, meetings were held every second Tuesday  but that soon gave way to the second Tuesday of each month over the knifemaking season, from  September through May. At the April 22 meeting, Art Bimson suggested the new club be called  the Saskatchewan Knifemakers Association. After due consideration, his suggestion was  approved.. Membership fees were set at $30.00 single, plus an additional $5.00 for each  dependent family member. Dave Wilkes undertook to design a logo and, at the December 17,  1996 meeting, his design was approved. 

The new club held its first knife show on the 11 & 12 of January 1997, as part of the  Saskatchewan Gun Collectors Association’s annual show, a tradition that we carry on today.  Early on, Brian Drayton had taken on the daunting task of crafting the club’s constitution to meet  the regulations set out in the Corporations Act. On January 15, 1997, he had completed his work  and the club was officially incorporated as a non profit organization. At the December 9, 1997  meeting, concern was expressed over the amount of money accumulating in the bank (it had  doubled over the previous12 months). With no major expenditures in sight, a motion was passed  to reduce the membership fee to $20.00 

Out of necessity, during this early formative period, the meetings were dominated by the business  of providing a sound foundation for the Association. There was always time after the business  portion of the meeting for socializing and an odd presentation but both were limited. For the  most part, the club was an association of disparate knifemakers who were reluctant to share 

information outside their immediate group of close friends. These were tough times for the  association. While membership numbers held in the mid twenties, attendance at the meetings  gradually declined to the point where at one meeting in particular, only six members showed up  and half of them were executive that had to be there. It was over half-an-hour before a late  comer gave us the quorum needed to deal with the business at hand. In the face of dwindling  attendance, I took on the role of program coordinator and set out to develop an ongoing program  for each meeting that would create interest and provide an incentive to attend the meetings. 

Formal programs for each general meeting began at the start of the 1999-2000 knife making  season and has carried on ever since. For the most part, the programs were educational in nature  and in the form of presentations, demonstrations and mini workshops. Out of necessity, it was  necessary to draw from expertise within the club. That was difficult at first because almost  everyone was very protective of their hard won knowledge. Gradually, however, the barriers  came down. More and more makers began freely sharing their information and ideas. The first  swap night was held on December 11th, 2001, after an unsuccessful attempt to find a program for  the evening. Heightened by free pizza and soft drinks, it turned out to be one of the social  highlights of the year and proved to be so popular that it has become an annual event. These  developments together with a reduction in the amount of business that had to be dealt with  brought attendance up to the mid twenty range. Now, members from out of town frequently  drive up to 2 ½ hours to attend the meetings. This renewed enthusiasm has advanced our  development as a club and carried many of our members far beyond where they had ever  envisioned going with their knifemaking. 

The new found interest also brought an increase in more distant members. This put some  pressure on the Association’s newsletter. Initially it was established to notify members of the  upcoming meeting. In September, 2000 there was a growing concern that the more distant  members, who could not make it into the meetings, were not getting much in return for their  membership. The most practical solution to this problem seemed to be to expand the news letter  to make it more relevant and attractive to all members. 

The expansion began with the January 9, 2001 newsletter. A “Meet the Member” section was  established to introduce each member to the membership at large. It contained a picture and brief  written profile of each participating member (participation is voluntary), including their  knifemaking interests. This feature was an excellent means of getting to know one another more  quickly and thus bring the whole membership closer together. 

The January newsletter also included a “Tips and Hints” section. Two years earlier, an attempt  had been made to include a "tips of the month" feature at our regular meetings. However, as our  programming expanded, there just wasn't sufficient time at the meetings to do it justice.  Consequently, the idea got shelved for the time being. In a further attempt to expand the  newsletter, the “Tips and Hints” feature was revived. An attempt was made to include at least  two pieces of helpful information or tips, along with their sources if available, in each newsletter. 

A month later, February 2001, “Show and Tell” was introduced as a means of displaying some of  the members’ work. It was renamed on January 14, 2002 to the more prestigious sounding “The 

Gallery” to more accurately reflect the quality of the work being displayed each month. 

As the success of the new programming grew, there were more and more requests to include  visits to members’ shops as part of the program. However, it was immediately realised that it  was physically impossible to accommodate twenty odd visitors in most members’ shops, and  again, the out of town members would miss out on the experience. This led Murray Cook to  

suggested a "photo shop tour" as an alternative. The first Photo Shop Tour was of Garth  Hindmarch’s shop in Carlyle, Saskatchewan featured in the November 13, 2001 newsletter. It  was somewhat ironic that the first shop tour emphasised the fact that it would be totally  impractical to actually visit the shops on a meeting night. This feature also proved to be a  popular addition to the newsletter. 

In a short time the newsletter had grown to ten printed pages including colour. The number of  pages were capped at five to keep it within the minimum mailing rate. As the newsletter grew in  size and popularity so did our membership. By August 2001 membership had risen to fourty, by  February 2003 to sixty one and now has settled in at around eighty. The $20.00 membership fee  barely covered the printing and mailing costs. Attempts to reduce costs by converting to  electronic mail were unsuccessful. As a result, at the May 8, 2001 annual meeting and season  wind-up, the membership fee was returned to $30.00, effective April 1, 2002. 

Early in 2001, we had begun to consider a name change from “Association” to “Guild.” We  were in no hurry to move, until rumours began circulating that a group of knife makers in  Saskatoon were planning to start their own club called The Saskatchewan Knifemakers Guild.  Murray Cook recognised the fact that we had grown from an “association” into a “guild” in the  true sense of the word. On February 13 Murray’s motion to change our name was unanimously  passed and on May 4, 2001 we were officially registered as The Saskatchewan Knifemakers  Guild Incorporated. The rumours proved to be totally unfounded, but they served to spur us into  action. 

The September 2001 meeting brought the kick-off for the club's first major project. In June,  Garth Hindmarch, a long time knife maker and renown Bowie maker, sent me a set of his plans  for some twenty odd styles of reproduction bowies for my personal use. I asked if he would  mind, if we used some of the plans for a Guild project. He graciously agreed and a three  installment “Build a Bowie” project was initiated. Jim Quickfall came up with a supply of 5160  spring steel, which was ideal for the project, so there was no cost to each participant for steel. In  all, twenty three bowie blades were differentially heat treated the old fashioned way and to a  large extent by the makers themselves. It was a fun project and, to say the least, it was a new and  interesting learning experience for all concerned. 

The Guild’s next major event was a three day “knifemaking symposium” arranged in  collaboration with the Western Development Museum in Saskatoon. It commenced on March  17, 2002 and was instructed by Al Bakke of Saskatoon, Murray Cook of Humboldt and Ray  Fehler of Regina with a guest appearance by Gene Schreiner of Saskatoon. A week before the  registration deadline, the seminar was in grave danger of being cancelled for insufficient  registrations. In the end, however, twenty nine people from Manitoba through to Alberta 

attended the symposium. There was so much good information presented that almost everyone  was in a state of information overload. Nevertheless, everyone returned home bubbling with  excitement over what they had learned, and they all agreed that it was a great start to knifemaking symposiums. 

As the first half of the 2002 season wound down, the Guild got some bad news, Tim Nichol was  selling his business. The Guild’s success had been in large part due to Tim’s support over the  past six years. Now we were forced to look for another appropriate location to hold our  meetings. At the season’s windup on May 14, Tim introduced Al and Brian Zerr, owners of A & B Precision Propeller in Regina, who had just purchased the knifemaking division from him. As  a show of appreciation, the Guild arranged to build a presentation bowie etched with the club  logo, complete with a presentation case and a plaque recognizing Tim’s contribution to the  Guild. Irv Brunas, Ray Fehler, Wayne Hamilton, Don Kreuger, Len Meeres, Jim Quickfall,  Curtis Silzer and Dave Wilkes collaborated on the project. The September meeting was our last  at Renaissance Tube and Design. By the time the project was completed and we the opportunity  to honour him, Tim had left Regina and couldn’t be found. After almost a year, it was obvious that we were not going to get hold of him, as a result, a motion was passed to have a draw for the  package amongst the eight collaborators. Don Kreuger was the lucky recipient. 

A& B Precision Propeller did not have space for us to meet at their shop, but they were in the  process of negotiating for a larger space in the same complex, one that would accommodate our  meetings. In the mean time, we spent the summer months searching for a temporary place to  hold our meetings. Just before the September meeting Brian Easton found a place at Jim's  Lighting & Sign Service in Regina. We met there from October 8, 2002 to April 8, 2003. On  September 9, 2003 the meetings moving to A & B, where they are still held today. 

In the spring of 2002, Dave Wilkes was contacted by the Western Development Museum in  Moose Jaw and asked to arrange a knifemaking display for two days in the first part of June.  Dave agreed and conscripted me to help. The display turned out to be so popular with the 1200  school children and their handlers, in large part because it was one of the few "hands on" displays  at the museum, that it has become an annual event. While it is not explicitly a function of the  Guild, we continue to do it on behalf of the Guild. 

The Guild’s first workshop outside of the general meetings was a paring/steak knife workshop  conducted on March 29, 2003. It was instructed by Ray Fehler and Wayne Hamilton at Irv  Brunas’ place in Grand Coulee, a few kilometres west of Regina. The workshop cost $25.00 and  each of the seventeen participants got to make two styles of paring/steak knives with all materials  supplied. Almost thirty four knives were completed between 8:00 am and 5:00 pm with a short  break for a delicious barbecue lunch arranged by Jim Quickfall. It was a very intensive but  successful day of knifemaking and it led the way for two???? more paring knife workshops. 

At the May ‘03 annual meeting, Len Meeres became editor of the newsletter. Although earlier  attempts at reduce printing and mailing costs by using electronic mail had failed, Len was  determined to make it work. By February ‘04 he had resolved all the major problems and  delivered our first electronic newsletter.

In the summer of 2003, the Blacksmiths Guild in Saskatoon approached us to see if we would be  interested in co-sponsoring the Saskatchewan Craft Council’s “Award of Excellence in Metal.”  The Saskatchewan Craft Council is a nonprofit organization devoted to supporting and enhancing  the creative crafts community in Saskatchewan. The Council’s annual juried exhibition,  “Dimensions,” is open to all Saskatchewan residents. A number of awards are presented to  selected entries in recognition of excellence. The Blacksmiths had been asked for support after  the current sponsor had withdrawn. A motion was passed at the September 9th meeting to share  sponsorship of the $300.00 award with the Blacksmiths Guild. At Dimensions 2004, Gary Greer  from Saskatoon, an accomplished knifemaker, a winner on several other occasions and a former  member of our Guild, won the Best of Metal Award. 

On March 5, 6 & 7th, 2004, the Western Development Museum in Saskatoon working with  Murray Cook on our behalf arranged to bring in Ed Cafrey, a well known master blade smith  from Montana, for a another knifemaking symposium. In spite of some unfortunate equipment  problems, it turned out to be another very successful weekend.  

November 25, 26 & 27, 2005 saw the Guild’s first venture into folder making. Irv Brunas  arranged to bring Emil Bucharsky, a member and highly accomplished knifemaker from  Edmonton. to teach the workshop. Again, the class was held in Irv’s shop. It was a great  weekend and the six lucky students proved that making a gentlemans’ liner lock folder is well  within the capability of anyone with basic knife making skills and equipment. 

As you can see, the Guild has come a long way since that April 22, 1996 inaugural meeting.  Many clubs never achieve their10th anniversary, but we are about to. That speaks highly of the  founding members and the solid foundation they laid in those early days. Looking back, I am  certain that not one of them ever anticipated how far we have come. A large core of those early  members have remained active in the organization throughout the ten years and have been vital  in helping the Guild mature and develop into the strong vibrant organization it is today. To  celebrate our Guild’s anniversary and to kick-off the next 10 years, the Guild is bringing in Shane Taylor, another well known master blade smith from Montana, to give a symposium on the finer  points of embellishing knives. The symposium will be held in Regina on the 5,6 & 7 of May  2006. Come join the celebration and help kick-start another exciting decade of knifemaking.