About Alfredo Kehiayan
I worked for the metallurgical industry until 1980, producing precision parts for aviation, railway, automotive and machinery.
I am the grandson of skilled craftsmen.
My paternal grandfather made carved wooden furniture.
My maternal grandfather made artistic bowls, trays, cups and centerpieces with serving utensils of Krupp cannons, that he called “German bombs”. Shaping with a hammer and chisel, without heat.
I made my first knife, a classic Bowie design, at age 14 or 15 from a 12″ flat Nicholson file. I didn’t know that if I did not decrease the hardness of his blade, there is risk of breakage… and that’s what happened.
Then I learned. Do not know what became of that knife, but I’d like to have it today.
Blade Show in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, 1989.
With Bill Moran in Knoxville, in 1989. A meeting that marked a milestone in my activity.
There is a “before” and “after”.
Like most novice metalworker I made several knives for myself and others, some were lost, others “borrowed” by friends that wanted them. By then I had learned to temper blades (from painful experience).
In April 1983 I joined the Craft Fair of San Isidro (Buenos Aires, Argentina), where I remained until December 1989. On July 14, 1984 (opening day) I joined the Craft Fair of Plaza Alvear (Recoleta, Capital Federal, Argentina), remaining there until December 1999, and holding the position of Guild Officer of the weekly visiting artisans at the fair from 1988 to 1993.
Bill Moran and I at the Blade Show in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, in 1999. Bill holds my Bowie 1 in his hands.
Here I am in the “after”.
Sao Paulo Knife Show 2001
Winners (from left to right): Flavio Ikoma (best folding knife), Jacinto Mello (the best straight blade knife) and Alfredo Kehiayan (best of the show).
Expo Arms 2000 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with my exclusive representative: Teresa Rojas.
I exhibited in the Blade Show in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, in 1989 and the Blade Show in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, in 1999, 2000 and 2001 (exclusive exhibition of knives), Expo Arms 1991, 1992, 2000, 2001 and 2002 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
I was also a noted speaker in this exhibition in 2000, 2001 and 2002, and a participant at the Knife Show in Sao Paulo, Brazil in September 2001.
Yearbook KNIVES 2000 cover and back cover
I have received review, notation and mention on my craft activity in the following magazines:
Air & Sol, Magnum, Weekend, Shooting, Wildlife & Gunpowder & Fierros in Argentina.
Knives (annually since 1988), Blade, La Passion des Couteaux, Guns and Shooting.
The yearbook of knives (USA) “Knives” in 2000 published in its cover and back cover a knife of my authorship.
In “THE COMPLETE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF KNIVES” by A. E. Hartink (published in the Netherlands) are three of my knives (inexplicably with strange colors in their blades).
Cover of ADVENTURE & Co. 1990.
Published by Emilio Urruty, a good friend of mine, who urged me to my first “audacity” of writer and the same time, he dared to publish it.
In May 1985 I joined he Argentine Craft Cener, and was later Secretary and Fiscal, participating in numerous exhibitions organized by this institution.
Participated in the Organization and Control of the Ingeniero Maschwitz Craft Fair, Buenos Aires, Argentina, in May 2001.
I was honored on September 12, 2002 at the National Institute of Anthropology and Latin American Thought, for the “Artistic Trajectory”.
Diploma that certifies the homage of the Secretary of Culture of the Nation, awarded by the National Institute of Anthropology and Latin American Thought.
I start writing about knives in the journal ADVENTURE & Co. in the fall of 1990, then I went became a columnist in the magazine Air & Sol from Argentina from August 1990 until its closure. Since December 2002 I became a columnist of Fishing, Hunting and Adventure Supplement of the Buenos Aires Herald newspaper.
I submitted several notes in the journal Vida Salvaje.
I participated in the cable TV program “Campamento 4 x 4” in 2001 in the knives section.