Gough Cutlery

21/03/2026

"If a hammer has your favour, give er the graver"
My favorite hammer, 1.5kg straight peen, used for engraving practice (hammer and chisel), hard en9(1055) steel engraves really nicely.

20/03/2026

Steel and bronze, rondel dagger.
This was a curiosity project for me as well as a break from a longer ongoing project, for which I needed to practice my flush setting.

The blade is an equilateral triangle, with deep fullers on each face, the Intent being to give great stiffness in all directions, while having an extremely efficient point. The fullers also allow the edges to meet at a much shallower angle, while this is a terrible cutter it is alarmingly sharp at the edge.

Each of the bronze rondel plates has a slightly different punched and pierced design, as well as three garnets set into the pomel plate.

The spiral grip is narrow and slightly larger than a hand to accommodate an armored gauntlet.

-Personal update-
Im back?
I have been away from social media for quite a while now, I decided to step away a while ago, I was no longer enjoying the work of running a business, and I've always hated feeling like I'm just advertising, I want to always share things that I'm genuinely excited about.
A couple of years ago I rebalanced my life and started doing fabrication work, as well as continuing to make knives and forged art on the side and keeping up teaching courses for avalon forge . I've been doing plenty of good work, that I have documented and do intend to share in the near future.

I have certainly not been idle in my absence from the Internet, I have made around 600 tools in the last two years, with a pretty wide range of uses, from woodworking tools like chisels, gouges, draw knives, axes ect. To setting up a forging shop and doing R&D for a small factory.
I have also slowly but consistently worked on my decorative technique carving, engraving, soldering and jewelry work, and most importantly illustration.

Thanks for looking

20/03/2026

25/03/2024

A full chefs kit. With handles in English Leburnum, and a waxed canvas roll by .atelier

8" stainless chefs knife, classic flat, thin convex grind with a long distal taper

6" stainless chef, "workhorse" grind with a fatter, more pronounced convex

4" stainless petit flat grind, strong distal taper for a very fine tip

2" tool steel scalpel, these are mega sharp, 2mm thick blades tapering to 1 behind the tip and with a nearly full flat grind, they are of course fragile, but unbelievably effective for a paring knife or a fine craft knife. They are many times "sharper" than a disposable scalpel blade.

* When I say "sharper" than a scalpel I am referring to both the shape of the edge and the level of polishing at the edge. I will point out though that the edge on a medical scalpel is left intentionally "rough" because a cut with more surface area heals faster due to having more places for platelets to build up.

09/02/2024

I made a video going into detail on forging and filing an integral bolstered knife, its pretty long and detailed, mostly intended for education, but it should be accessible and entertaining for someone who doesn't have any forging knowledge, Id depreciate it if you could check it out and give me some feedback.

Harry Gough of Gough Cutlery takes on 48 hour integral challenge. in this video I go in detail on the forging and pre-heat treat grinding an...

12/12/2023

I have a 10% discount on everything on my website until boxing day

I've just wrapped up my last custom orders for the year, so keep an eye on the post if you are expecting anything.

The 18th is my last day for guaranteed Christmas postage.

I have "Introduction to bladesmithing" and "advanced bladesmithing" course vouchers available as gifts, with courses available in late February and weekly throughout the rest of the year.
Please get in contact if you would like to get a fantastic experience yourselves or a loved one.

08/07/2023

Some process shots on the wall braces I made.

1. Material prep. Cutting out all the bars/plates and removing a triangle on each end to help form the scrolls.

2/3/. Show the pressing setup for putting the bends in the bars that go on top.

4. After bending the scrolls, this was a tricky job, mostly I didn't want to create more work for myself. The ends of the bars fit in my gas forge, but they don't as soon as I start spreading them so I basically just had to make sure these were a one heat operation.

I put the corner of the anvil in the notch, and gave 5 good blows, an inch beyond where the notch ends, flip and repeat, then make both curves smooth on the horn.
Plenty of time to get it done in one heat but my arm was fairly sore after doing 12 sets of scrolls .

5/6/7. Holes drilled, the braces are pretty much done at this point and I move on to the plates that go inside the wall. I wanted to make sure they were solidly overbuilt, as they seem to be the most likely failure point. The welds on this plate are the only parts without some mechanical fastening and the bearing plate that is being fastened against is going to be holding pressure equal to the entire outside brace.

I made sure to use appropriately thick stock in a small length to deny leverage against it, and add some generous gussets (the triangles at the sides) they distribute pressure diagonally down into the base plate as well as substantially increase the area of weld holding the whole thing together.

8/9 last up is painting, I suck at painting, I'm good enough for some stuff but if you care about blobs and brush marks in the finish, I'll send it to a professional.

06/07/2023

I Recently made these three wall braces for a local restoration firm. I really enjoyed this project, it basically ticks every box for me. Problems to solve, learning and improving skills, decent pay, and best of all working with genuinely lovely people.

One part I particularly enjoyed was working 'big' stock. I've been involved with some architectural blacksmithing and fabrication but it's mostly been small detailed items like hinges and door latches occasionally gates and fences, this is my first project where individual parts are on the upper end of what I can manipulate safely. The main bars are 1090x75x12.5mm or 36"x3"x1/2" so not completely unmanageable, but also not a barrel of laughs when a quarter of it is around 1000°c

I will share some progress pics in my next post. Thanks for looking.

07/06/2023

I will be at the Green scythe fair at Thorney Lakes this Sunday. If you are in the area I would highly recommend the event for anyone who has an interest in hand tools, heritage crafts or rural life.
I will be selling a wide range of hand tools and craft knifes as well as my regular chefs knives and pocket knives.

Adult Tickets are £15, but the only £5 if you arrive by bus bike or other non driving methods, which is pretty cool in my opinion.
The address is Thorney Lakes Caravan and Camping Park, Thorney, Langport, UK

TA10 0DW Somerset
United Kingdom

Hope to see you there.

01/09/2022

Dagger update, Finished with 6 minutes to spare. 80crv2 steel, red deer antler and mild steel fittings. My internet went down yesterday so I didn't manage to get the last few updates out on schedule.

There are numerous things wrong with it but I'm moderately pleased with the results, overall I really like it, and I'm proud to call it my first dagger, but, the back bolster pins are quite bad, serious seams, there's a couple of forge marks on the ricasso and the apex of the blade because I forged the bevels slightly too close to final shape to achieve a clean finish. Thirdly I didn't have time to get the fuller on the handle very clean, it varies in thickness along the length.

It's not all doom and gloom, I'm really happy with the grinds and the symmetry (it is a little off around the guard but very slight)
And I'm really happy with the fit on the handle, it's my first double dovetail handle, and I had to fit it up the harder way (if you attach the back bolster last it pretty much removes all the brain work)

I had a lot of fun and I will try to get my plan together before the challenge starts next year.

Thanks for all the inspiration and a push to try something new.