Luciano Dorneles

Luciano Oliveira Dorneles is a very skilled smith with a good taste for strong and rustic blades. Nonetheless, his blades do not lack craftsmanship or finishing quality. As a hunter and a fisherman himself, he really understands what a camp knife is all about. Luciano currently holds the ABS Journeyman Smith Rank.Here are some words by him:

I make knives professionally since 1997, but I have made my first knife in 1987. I started to make them for my own need, as I have always spent all my free time in the woods, hunting or fishing, and that experience helped me a lot in the custom knife business as it gave me a true understanding of what the "tool knife" really is.

That wilderness lore is what drove my hands when I made camp knives, skinners or hunters. Some of those I used myself, some I gave to friends and others I sold, as I was greatly encouraged to do that. But in order to start selling my blades I decided then I should study the craft carefully and I went to libraries and begun to study metallurgy books. Slowly I begun to understand the secrets of the steel and reconnected myself to the craft.

I started forging from the very beginning and it is my belief that a forger forges himself: developing your technique costs blood, burns and frustrations with your mistakes. In this sense, developing a good pattern welded steel only with you hammer, anvil and hands, is a tough task, but there is a point where you realize the pain and the heat harden your spirit to make a day after the other, until you get the results you want.

I favor the Gaucho and the mediterranean styles and I like classics very much. I greatly favor integral models and working with pattern-welded steel, though I use 52100 and other steels too. I was also greatly influenced by Jerry Fisk while attending his 2001 workshop in Brazil. He taught me the secrets of edge geometry and inspired me to make my first true camp knife. For that we are very grateful.