Jacco Van de Bruinhorst – Canadian Bladesmith
By Del Corsi
The knives and work of Jacco Van de Bruinhorst have been on my radar for some time , through social media. I began following his Instagram site and became more and more interested seeing the scope of and variety of knives being posted. What really caught my eye was seeing that much of the intricate embellishment featured on the knives and guards was done by the maker. Sole authorship is always an attractive feature to collectors and knife aficionados alike.
A call to this talented knifemaker piqued my interest even more. “You are how old?,” I asked Jacco. His answer was in the twenties. I went back and looked at the knives and was somewhat puzzled, thinking I heard his age wrong. I checked out the photos on his website; the work I saw mostly showcased art knives, all exceptionally well made – many featured intricate guards and pommels. A sword with highly patterned damascus steel was highlighted, confirming my need to find out more about this artisan. The age and skillset kind of reminded me of makers like Josh Smith, who dazzled the knife community at a very young age.
Jacco Van de Bruinhorst was just an infant when he moved to Canada from the Netherlands with his family in 2000. His parents had a welding shop, and both worked as ornamental iron fence fabricators before the move. Once in Canada, they worked on a pig farm. Home schooling was the choice and once Jacco was old enough he worked on the dairy farm in addition to continuing his studies. A strong work ethic evolved. He also inherited some skills from his mom and dad, fueling his desire to work with steel.
The attraction to knives came at a young age; his mother had some European hunting knives and also some fantasy knives. The first Van de Bruinhorst knife was made in 2013. A wood stove served as the forge and the head of a sledgehammer as an anvil. A railroad spike was pounded into the shape of a knife. I really wanted a picture of this first creation, but sadly Jacco lost it some years ago.
This talented artisan was only 13 years old when he built his own coal forge, a necessary part of his shop to further expand his work. An interest in forging damascus was strong even then, so he sourced out a book by Jim Hrisoulas on the subject and made his first damascus billet, which he still has.
Being home schooled really helped Jacco learn on his own, he developed keen problem-solving skills along with a tremendous aptitude for bladesmithing. The first items he forged were specialized tools, a fire rake and fire poker. I wanted to suggest it was a big deal that he still uses these today, but heck – this young man only created the tools a few years ago!
Having said that, it should come as no surprise that at 16 years of age this gifted young man was already honing his entrepreneurial talents. He had noticed a trend for people wanting repurposed items, this realization resulted in taking those railroad spikes and turning them into cheese knives. He made about 40 a week, selling them for $20.00 each. Jacco estimates that from 2016 to 2019, about 5000 of those cheese knives were produced and sold. It was about that time a power-hammer was purchased.
At 19 years old Jacco married his wife Martina. At the time of this writing they have three children. For the first two years after getting married, he worked at the farm for seven hours, then worked at home in the knife shop for about the same number of hours. Jacco pointed out, “I liked the farm work, it was great, but I loved making knives! It felt like it wasn’t work.”
So it was that in March of 2021 the decision was made to become a full-time knifemaker. Jacco quit the farm job, got a business number and never looked back. He had a steady market for working knives, selling everything he could make at the local farmer’s market. This was where he did all of his sales and marketing.
Talking with Jacco I quickly got the sense that making the same product over and over was not fueling his desire to make knives. There was an internal pull to do more and a strong desire to address this need. The answer, and spark he had been looking for, came six months into making knives full time. It was then that he made the first bar of mosaic damascus.
This article appeared in the May 2024 issue of KNIFE Magazine.
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