Open Writing

Heavin Forge lies at the end of a shady avenue of pin oaks. Consisting of a white cottage and several outbuildings, it is situated in the quiet town of Belfast in Mpumalanga Province, South Africa.

Heavin Forge is owned and run by Heather and Kevin Harvey; the only husband and wife Masters of the American Bladesmiths Society and the only Master Bladesmiths in Africa. Kevin and Heather have received prestigious international awards for their creations, together and as individuals. They are also members of the Knifemakers’ Guild of Southern Africa and Founder Members of the Southern African Bladesmiths Association, which now boasts 50 members.

Kevin trained as a mechanical engineer but has made knives since he was twelve. He has worked as a full-time bladesmith since 1996. Heather trained in America and is the first female farrier and blacksmith in South Africa. She is also only the second Lady Master Bladesmith in the world.

They put their talents to work at Heavin Forge, creating ‘edged investments’ and running training courses for people who want to learn the art of making knives. Kevin gave Leon and me a fascinating, two-hour tour of the workshops.

This husband and wife team often collaborate on projects, leading to products marked with the ‘Heavin’ (Heather & Kevin) stamp. They also work separately, producing items marked either ‘Kevin Harvey’ or ‘Heather Harvey’. The blades they create are works of art. Damascus steel is forged using a combination of tool-steel, spring steel and occasionally other metals such as nickel for particular effects. Using a process of folding, twisting and laminating the steel, their exquisite blades display intricate patterns such as spirals and four-sided stars; one very special folding knife has a continuous design of trout and fly-hooks running through the blade. Kevin spoke with pride of the Persian Dagger he and Heather forged through the night of the Millennium, created with 2000 layers. Each item is a work of art, with a deadly cutting edge.

One of the techniques Kevin and Heather perfected, commonly used by gunsmiths, is ‘blueing’ the steel. By immersing the steel in various chemicals at a controlled temperature, they’ve produced blades of red, gold, yellow, blue and purple, which glow like jewels.

Drawers lining one wall are filled with a collection of materials for use as handles and decoration for the blades: whale and hippopotamus ivory; the horns of buffalo and antelope; and the teeth of warthog and wild pig. Among the teeth was, incredibly, the molar of a woolly mammoth, said to be about sixty thousand years old. Brown and brittle with antiquity, it was about twelve centimetres long and six wide, with a rough chewing surface. Kevin showed us a section that had been sliced from the back of the tooth with a diamond saw, then injected with a mixture of dyes and polyurethane to strengthen and colour the material. This will one day adorn one of the Master’s exquisite blades.

The sources of these materials vary: some are anonymous donations from game farmers, where such items are available through the natural death of animals; others are purchased at conventions all over the world.

Kevin was commissioned to create an Arabic “Janbiyya” dagger for the ritual slaughter of lambs and goats. Its handle and sheath are made of giraffe shin bone, decorated with a technique called scrimshaw. This is the art of tattooing into the surface of ivory, originally practiced by sailors using lamp-black as a dye. Adornments on the dagger’s handle and sheath show delicate golden flowers. Kevin carefully researches the traditions of those who commission a blade before beginning each project. He discovered that no Muslim work of art, be it dagger or carpet, is ever decorated with pictures of animals, birds, fish or humans. It is believed that any article bearing an illustration ‘containing eyes’ acquires a soul. Rugs made for western tourists may contain pictures of deer and other animals, but those used by members of the Muslim faith are decorated with plants and flowers, or geometric patterns.

The machines Kevin and Heather use vary from a tiny router for carving delicate patterns in ivory and wood, to grinders, mills, lathes and drills. There are four furnaces, one fired by coal and three by gas, producing varying temperatures to heat steel from red to yellow-white. In the centre of the blacksmithing floor there are two anvils, each over a hundred years old. There are two hammers, one mechanical and one pneumatic. The first is a thirty kilogram machine which according to Kevin, “shakes the earth” when in operation. It was named ‘The Iron Maiden’ by its maker, who then built two others of similar design, christened ‘The Twisted Sisters’, all named after ‘heavy metal’ rock bands. The other is a hundred kilogram pneumatic hammer, not yet commissioned. It was rescued from a paper mill in Swaziland where it was standing idle. To accommodate this monster, the workshop roof was raised by a metre, the walls extended by two, and a special concrete foundation laid. This monster machine was made in the old East Germany by a company called Hartmann. Kevin is going to name it ‘Hit-ler’.

While Leon and I examined some exquisite ‘edged investments’, feeling the intricate texture of the folded and laminated Damascus steel under our fingers, we were shown photos of a ‘mediaeval sword’. Created to become a family heirloom, it incorporates the family crest in an engraved shield on the blade and in eagle’s talons fashioned into the hilt. Space has been made on the hilt to engrave the names of each recipient for thirteen generations. It was commissioned as a twenty-first birthday gift, one of the most expensive and exquisite coming-of-age tokens I have ever seen. Heather and Kevin worked on this project together.

Kevin is not only a master bladesmith, he has become an expert at working with wood and bone; he has learnt to engrave delicate patterns, inlay and overlay; he has set semi-precious and precious stones into the hilts of their daggers and knives.

Lying on a counter were the blade and haft of a mediaeval battle axe, still being crafted: a beautiful, brutal weapon designed to hack through armour and bone or to open a suit of armour like a can-opener. The wooden handle will be stained, sanded and polished to a deep red gleam, with golden striations.

When asked if Kevin found it hard to part with his creations, he pondered, holding the mammoth’s tooth in one work-grimed hand. “Only for a few moments,” he said, “then I move on to the next project. I’m grateful that there are people who can afford to commission these works from us – it’s such a privilege to work on them. The fun is in the creating, not in owning the end-product. When I finish a project like the sword, I know that something of me, my creative side perhaps, will live on for thirteen or more generations after I’m gone. That’s special.”

“And do you ever run out of ideas for designs, the way writers suffer from writer’s block?”

“No. We’re usually busy on several projects at once, so if we come to a point where we’re not moving forward on one, we leave that and move to another piece while the mind works in the background to find the solution.” He paused, then laughed. “Heather and I often have ‘knife-mares’ at night. The brain is a marvellous thing, while we’re sleeping, we’re creating! We wake up with wonderful ideas for blades.”

Heavin Forge is a treasure-trove of creativity, a place of fascination and learning. It is well worth a visit.

Until next week… ‘here comes Treble!”

For further information, see Heavin Forge’s online brochure at www.africut.co.za.

By Isabel Bradley
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