Steigerwald Stefan

The brilliant engineer-knifemaker Stefan Steigerwald

Stefan Steigerwald is an outstanding German knifemaker who specializes in making art folders with mind-blowing mechanics. His knives are real authors' works of art. Steigerwald creates in his favorite Steampunk style with the spirit of Victorian fantasy. The fundamental basis there is the combination of steam-age technologies aesthetic, mysticism, magic, and retrofuturism. A difficult genre cocktail requires engineering skills and imagination from the author. Steigerwald has everything needed and more.

The knifemaker was born in 1968 in Nuremberg. His interest in knives grew from his hunting hobby. His teacher was one of the founding fathers of custom knifemaking in Germany — Wolf Borger. 

Stefan Steigerwald is a bright representative of the old school of knifemaking. And this is not only about the vintage style but about the whole philosophical concept of his art. In the 1980s, masters experimented, learned from their mistakes, independently expanding new horizons of knife architecture for themselves. "Reinventing the wheel" was quite natural. 

In the mid-80s, Stefan Steigerwald met Sigi Rinks and Peter Herbst. The exchange of experience and communication with like-minded people was invaluable. In 1986, the German Knifemaker Guild was founded. The meetings of the masters began to be more organized and regular, in those years Stefan learned a lot and made significant progress in his favorite field. For the first 14 years, Steigerwald combined the production of knives with his main job, until he bought out a company for the production of raw materials for knifemaking. Stefan agreed and devoted his time entirely to the knife business.

The craftsman makes most of the details for his author's folding knives on his own. For Steigerwald, this is a matter of honor. The master notes that such a categorical approach inevitably increases the complexity of the workflow. On average, one knife takes about a hundred hours. Works on a steampunk theme require 200-300 hours for each product.

Among other things, Stefan Steigerwald writes books about knives and knife art, usually in collaboration with Peter Fronttud. His works are published in Germany and Great Britain. Stefan says that the offer to work in the literary field was a great honor for him. In addition, writing helped Steigerwald's knife masterpieces gain well-deserved fame.