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Amoureux, Bill

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Bill Amoureux first started making knives because a good friend of his asked him for some assistance in setting up his own knife shop back in 1972. When it took over three months for Bill’s friend to come up to the shop - leaving Bill staring at this beautiful new set up - it didn’t take long before Bill decided to try his hand at making knives! By 1973 he’d met Gil Hibben, who he credits with his solid grounding in the basics of knifemaking. He sold the first knife he ever made for $35 – then later bought it back for $125 when his wife insisted that he needed to have it for sentimental reasons.

Amoureaux’s introduction to knives came through using them. He remains an avid hunter, fisher and trapper, and until a quadruple bypass operation in 2010, would often spend weeks at a time in the back country. Bill has made over 3,800 knives over the course of his career.  His best selling knife, the small hunter, takes him about 12 hours to complete. Boot knives are also among his favorite knives to make. 

Bill admires the work of D’Alton Holder and S.R Johnson – two makers he thinks are doing some of the best work in the knife community.  His show schedule has included the Boise, Oregon County, Spokane, Missoula, Las Vegas, and Alaska Association knife shows.

Bill loves to make knives as it affords him an opportunity to relax. He finds that making knives means he can lose himself in the making, simply focusing on the doing and letting the rest of the world melt away. He works about 90% of the time with stock removal, and uses a friend’s forge for the remaining 10%. Since the turn of the century, his favorite steels to work with have been 5160, D2 and 440C. He uses some machinery, including a number of different grinders, a wood and metal lathe, a drill press and buffers, but still uses a lot of hand tools such as files. For handle materials, Bill loves to use ivory – elephant, mammoth and walrus.  He has a cache of ivory that he collected over 30 years while living in Alaska, and has been working steadily through that. He also favors stabilized box elder burl and maple.

Bill does his own heat treating when working with tool steel; the rest of his heat treatment is done by Paul Bos, who Bill firmly believes is doing the best heat treatment in the USA right now.

Affiliations

  • Alaska Knifemakers Association
  • Oregon Knife Collectors Association
  • Montana Knifemakers Association
  • Knifemakers Guild (until 1983)
PREVIOUSLY SOLD ITEMS
(NOT CURRENTLY AVAILABLE)
Box Elder Burl Boot Knife
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Box Elder Guide's Hunter
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Box Elder Hunter
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English Bowie
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Fiddleback Hunter
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Fiddleback Hunter
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Fiddleback Hunter
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Gentleman's Hunter
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Ivory and Amber
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Ivory Hunter
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Koa Hunter
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Ziricote Hunter
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