This Strange Machine Carved Every Knife Handle!

For more than a century, the wooden handles fitted to Solingen's famous knives were made entirely by hand in small family workshops. In this episode, retired craftsman Wilhelm Kirchner returns to the workshop of the late Wilhelm Jacobs to demonstrate a trade that has almost entirely disappeared. Using century-old machinery, hand cut templates, and techniques passed down through generations, he walks through the complete process of turning rough beech logs into finished knife handles, from sawing and drying the wood to milling it into shape on a jig purchased in 1921. The film also traces the history of Solingen's cutlery trade, where bladesmiths, grinders, handle cutters, and hardeners once worked as independent craftsmen supplying the region's steel goods factories before the work was gradually mechanized. Every stage of the process is shown in full, including the closely guarded dye recipe used to stain the handles a deep red, the drying and tumbling methods that gave each piece its polish, and the final fitting of blade to handle. Beyond the craft itself, this is the story of Wilhelm Jacobs, who ran the workshop from 1921 until he was ninety years old. His daughter has since donated the entire workshop to the town of Langenfeld, where it will be rebuilt inside the Freiherr vom Stein Haus museum so that this nearly lost knowledge can be preserved for future generations. Original source material: Solinger Schneidwarenindustrie. Der Heft- und Schalenschneider Published by Alltagskulturen im Rheinland © LVR-Institut für Landeskunde und Regionalgeschichte CC BY 4.0