Nevio Toich, who has worked at Caserma Ederle for two decades, has been making knives longer. His hobby has earned him recognition as one of Italy’s top knife makers. (Kent Harris / Stars and Stripes)
VICENZA, Italy — Some might call Nevio Toich a Renaissance man.
But to a select circle of enthusiasts and experts in Italy, he’s known simply as a coltellinaio (knife maker). And a very good one at that.
The 55-year-old Italian is a supervisor for the directorate of logistics in the 22nd Area Support Group. His section is responsible for maintaining just about all of the equipment that’s movable around Caserma Ederle.
It’s a job that requires more than a touch of patience. So does his hobby.
Toich has been recognized as one of the finest custom knife makers in Italy.
“It’s top notch,” said Capt. Earl Barron of Toich’s knife work. “It’s better than some of the stuff I’ve seen back in the States.”
That’s probably about as fine a compliment as Barron, currently assigned to the 173rd Airborne Brigade’s rear detachment, could give Toich.
“The fathers of modern knife making are Americans,” Toich says, expressing his respect for a handful of men whose work eventually led to a specialized industry with customers around the globe.
“Now, there are at least three different magazines on knife making,” Toich says.
He didn’t learn his skills from a magazine, though.
“I have been making knives, but not intensely, for about the last 40 years,” he said. At one point, he and a partner had their own knife-making business, complete with a series of glossy catalogs featuring not only a variety of knives, but letter openers, corkscrews, bottle openers and nutcrackers. He sold the line off years ago, and now mostly makes knives for friends - and his own enjoyment.
“It is definitely rewarding,” to see the finished product, he said.
And, in a few cases, it’s been awarding as well.
Toich entered a contest in Scarperia four times in the late 1980s. The town near Florence is famous for its knives. The first year, he took third. The second year, he was second. The last two years he entered, he won.
Toich’s winning entries were a Bowie knife and an all-purpose knife that is probably his favorite. He’s made dozens of different kinds of knives with several different purposes. Some are made from designs that originated in the States, while others come from Europe or have Oriental flavors.
Many have handles made of various kinds of wood. Toich shapes those as well and also fashions the leather sheaths the knives come in.
Barron said one of the things that impresses him about the knives Toich makes is their individuality.
“They all have their own personalities,” he said.
And they all have uses. Toich said he’s aware that many people in the military might look at a knife primarily as a weapon. But while his knives are certainly sharp enough for that purpose, that’s not why he makes them.
“To me, a knife is not a weapon, but a tool,” he said.
A tool for hunting. A tool for cooking. A tool for a lot of tasks around a farm.
Toich said he uses knives himself at home routinely when he cooks. His specialties are meat, fish and Oriental dishes, all of which involve some amount of cutting, slicing or chopping.
His other hobbies include archery — although there’s not really much to hunt with a bow and arrow in Italy — and horseback riding, which he did extensively in the States while taking breaks from a previous job with an American-based shipping company.
But it’s the knife-making that’s consumed the most of his attention — and resources. In order to craft a knife, he uses grinders, drills, saws and buffers. He said he probably never made much money making knives, in part because the resources are expensive in Italy. And it’s a time-consuming process.
“It usually requires between 15 and 35 to 40 hours,” per knife, Toich says.
Despite spending decades with sharp and admittedly dangerous objects, Toich says he’s only been cut “maybe a couple of times.”
“A dull knife is a lot more dangerous, because you have to use a lot more force to make it work,” he says. “Any of my knives, when it’s finished, you can shave with it. If you can’t, it’s dull and you need to sharpen it.”
