Bernard Delor, french knifemaker and blacksmith

Handicrafted cutlery, custom knife making, ancient arms reproduction

The craftsman

For almost ten years, Bernard Delor has ben giving up his time to rediscovery and learning of traditional blacksmith and knifemaking technics, deciding to focus himself on handicraft excellence and artistic expressiveness, paying respect to tradition.

As an apprentice, he learned from Jean-Luc Soubeyras (a blacksmith who was distinguished by the french government as "companies of living heritage" label) the mastership of ancestral address in the domain of fire and blacksmithing. Then he developped his own work, dedicated to custom making of knives and cutting tools, and to historical research and reproduction of ancient oriental arms.

Bernard Delor works with other art craftsmen who make some particular embellishments on some creations of his own (engraving, gilding, scrimshandler).

Bernard Delor participates in several knife shows : Thiers, Villard De Lans, Pierrelatte, Paris, and in some design and decoration trade exhibitions as the INDEX Dubai.

He created two internet sites to exhibit his creations and remain in contact with worlwide customers

Les forges du Jabron : http://forgesdujabron.free.fr

Lames Orientales : http://www.orient-blades.com

The products

Custom knives

Bernard Delor proposes a wide range of original creations : table and kitchen knives, folding knives, hunting knives, desktop items, "crude forge" middle-ages blades, forged tools...

Each item is unique, handcrafted, and can be designed and customised on demand, so that each customer may select steels (damascus, stainless...), matérials (wood, bone, ivory...) and finishes (engraving, gildering...). Toutes sont adaptées à l’usage et ont été conçues afin de posséder les meilleures qualités de coupe pour l’utilisation à laquelle elles sont destinées.

Oriental arms

Bernard Delor undertook the Orient Blade project in 2003. Oriental arms became his main activity in the domain of art knife making, which refers to creations meant to collection, usually not to daily use.

The project is willing to bring back to life the most gorgeous blades of the wide and ancient orient, from Arabia to Ottoman Empire, from Persia to India, from Mongolia to China and Tibet... Based upon the study of arts and traditional crafts of each country, the project involves many highly specialised crafts, gilding, chiseling, damascus making, always paying respect to tradition.

Orient Blades participated in the SICAC knife show in Paris, 2004 and 2005, in the Thiers knife show, each year since 2004, and in the Index Dubai 2007 international trade show.

Damascus steel

Bernard Delor makes his own damascus steel, because the very unique design of each damascus steel is like a kind of signature of the craftsman who made it.

Damascus steel making consists of forge welding and modelling of multiple layers of heterogeneous steels.

A wide range of patterns can be made, depending on the number of layers, on the modelling, and on chemical treatments which are necessary to reveal the patterns.

Pattern welded damascus steel has been known for centuries and appreciated because of its beauty and its strength.

Please visit the Galleries link : Galeries photos, the new creations page : Nouvelles créations , and the Orient Blades project site