Bismarck Metalcraft

In Deloraine, in Tasmania's north, Ken Bradford has been forging armour, helmets, knives and swords since the early 1990s, when he set up the business — first as Bismarck Armoury in Hobart, later relocating to Deloraine — after discovering swordsmithing through a historical re-enactment group. He works modern steel into recreations from medieval Europe and feudal Japan alongside dirks, hunting knives and kitchen cutlery, finishing handles in deer antler, Tasmanian timber or buffalo horn sourced from the Northern Territory, and hand-engraving each piece in Old English lettering. A gallery at his Grigg Street workshop displays finished work for the public, in a town that already draws craft-minded visitors as home to the Tasmanian Craft Fair, the largest working craft event in the Southern Hemisphere. The business has been documented by university researchers studying medievalism in Australian culture and profiled in the regional press for its swordsmithing. It's a rare trade to find still practised firsthand, let alone in a town of Deloraine's size.