Tim Rowland:

I started customizing production kitchen knives around 2005 to make them fit my hand better. I liked to smooth out the spine or choil so they were easier for a long prep day or regrind/thin the blade for better cutting performance. After years of that I started to make traditional style Japanese Wa Handles and after re-handling all of my personal knives my co-workers and chef buddies all wanted me to make them some and it rolled into a small business. While working as the specialty restaurant chef at the Atlanta Renaissance Waverly hotel from 2011 to 2015 I got to attend Blade Show “the worlds largest knife show” and meet tons of amazing custom knifemakers from around the world. During one of the Blade Shows a custom knifemaker saw one of my handles on a carving knife and paid me a compliment on the woodwork. He then handed me a piece of carbon steel and challenged me to make a complete knife for him to see the following year at the show. Well I have never been one to back down from a challenge so shortly after I decided to take up the hobby of custom knife making and have been doing the stock removal method ever since. I was juried into the Georgia Custom Knifemakers Guild in 2018.

I mainly use carbon steels but on occasion will use stainless for my knives. As for my semi custom Wa handles for Japanese knives I use select exotic woods from around the globe…..the exotic woods have become an obsession, bad enough that I started a secondary company (Dawsonville Exotic Woods) where I produce handle materials and knife elixir for other knifemakers.

I have been in the food service industry since the age of 15 (1997). I spent a total of 24 years cooking, 21 of those years in high end hotels/resorts and held the position of Resort Chef de Cuisine (Executive Chef) of Chateau Elan the southeast largest winery and resort when I retired in 2022 to pursue being a full time knifemaker.

When People ask me why Japanese style over Western Style Kitchen knives:

Well my love affair with Japanese kitchen knives and Japanese style knives started early in my culinary career when a co-worker let me use his Takeda gyuto for a prep session and I just couldn’t wrap my head around how a knife could glide through ingredients so effortlessly, how anything could be so sharp. I mean I can’t overstate it, Luke Skywalker didn’t have shit on this thing! It was then and there that I started to learn all that I could about traditional style Japanese blades, their shapes, their proper use, and their mythical samurai powers.

On my bucket list is to be able to smelt and forge my own billet of tamahagane (bloomery steel) into a personal heirloom gyuto.