Gustavo Vilar - Featured Bladesmith

Gustavo Vilar

Gustavo Colodetti Vilar is one of a kind. He is a hard working man that learns fast and has been showing constant development on his craft. Maybe that is because he takes what he does in a very artistic perspective. Some words from him:

People told me that making knives was something for elderly people, that a Young man like me, usually, would spend all day in front of a computer.

It is not really that strange that in times of globalization people would say something like that, where cultural and human values are frequently forgotten.

The taste for the art of making knives, I must confess, did not happen for a necessity to rescue the trades of the knifemaker nor the blacksmith, but for the pleasure and will to crate something with my bare hands, and above all, for the inexplicable fascination I have for this object since childhood.

This is intimately linked to the activities developed by my father, who is an forged iron sculptor. Since early age I used to attend his atelier where I had the first contact with the tools and even tried my hand on making some “things”, always under the vigilant eye of my master.

Time went by and I started working with my father on the production of his sculptures. The fact that we were almost daily dealing with forged iron, making the tools needed for the sculptures has also influenced me a lot. So my first knife was born.

Gustavo during his JS performance test

From that on everything happened very fast; I bought specific literature on the subject and made a few courses in the custom blademaking area. In Brazil this activity is very rare and fairly unknown, being the number of artisans producing fine cutlery very restricted.

That came to be by the difficulties that the steel working present, not counting the slow creation process and the ergonomics and functional aspects associated to it, without being careless for aesthetics.

Every piece to be created presents a new challenge. After being carefully created, satisfaction comes up and the dialog and harmony between the several materials used becomes visible, prevailing the limits of each one of them.

I favor high quality materials for handles, such as hard woods, stablized wood and, horns. I make my own damascus and forge 52100 and 5160.

Gustavo Colodetti Vilar: Rua 25, No. 34 - Vila Velha /ES - Brazil - Cep.: 29150-160
Phone: (+55) 27 3349-7079 or 3327-4429- E-mail: facasvulcano@gmail.com

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