Bladesmith Scott McGhee In the Bladen County countryside, Scott McGhee is hard at work. The clanking
of a heavy hammer on heated steel can be heard from the road as it mixes in
a soundscape of crowing roosters, clucking hens and the low grunts of guinea
hogs. Warmth radiates from his workspace in a shed behind his home as he fires
up his kiln — the birthplace of his hand-forged knives.
Knife forging has been a love affair for McGhee since he was a young adult. When he
was 17, he lied about his age to enroll in a knife-making class. He turned away from knife
forging to pursue a more stable career as a tree arborist, but his passion was rekindled
later in life when his son expressed an interest in making a knife. It was just a little hunter
knife, but McGhee fell in love with the process again.
“This is a working, functioning piece of art,” McGhee says as he handles a 14-inch knife
he calls The Mamba. “It is something that I know I can make that is better than anything
you can buy at the store and is beautiful.”
A knife forger must be part technician and part artist, McGhee says. A good technician
will make the knife useful, dependable and strong. But the artist gives his soul to a knife
and breathes into it a life of its own.
Before forging a new knife, McGhee considers the shape and pattern.
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WBM june 2012