How are knives made by hand?

Cutlery, in the Sheffield sense of the word, is the making of knives and bladed implements by hand: forging or cutting the blade, hardening it so it holds an edge, grinding that edge on, and hafting it - fitting the handle. The word covers table knives, pocket knives, and the whole family of edged tools, and for two centuries it was the trade that made Sheffield the cutlery capital of the world. The archive has spent time with the cutlers who keep it going, and the first thing you learn is that "a knife" is not one job but a chain of them, each historically a separate skilled trade.

The key to understanding Sheffield cutlery is that it was rarely one person making a whole knife. The trade was divided among specialists - forgers, grinders, hafters, finishers - and held together by the Little Mester system: self-employed master craftsmen, each working on his own account, often renting a bench or a place at the grinding wheel inside a larger works, taking in piecework and passing it on to the next trade. A pocket knife might pass through several Little Mesters before it was finished.

So cutlery is not knife-making as a single bench craft (though some makers now do hold the whole chain in their own hands); it is, classically, a network of trades. And it is distinct from its near neighbours: a scissor-maker makes two blades that must agree with each other, and a silversmith forms hollowware. The cutler makes the cutting edge and the thing you hold it by.

A Little Mester is the self-employed Sheffield master. Forging shapes the blade hot from bar steel; cheaper work is blanked (stamped) from sheet. Hardening and tempering heat-treat the blade so it is hard enough to hold an edge but not so brittle it snaps. Grinding, done wet on a stone wheel, puts on the edge and the surface; the grinder traditionally worked lying forward over the wheel in a "hull". Hafting fits the handle - the scales (the two side pieces, of horn, bone, wood or other material), the bolsters (the metal shoulders), and on a folding knife the spring and pivot. The maker’s identity is stamped as the mark.

A blade begins as steel - forged to shape under the hammer, or blanked from sheet for plainer work - then hardened and tempered, the two-stage heat treatment that gives it a working edge that lasts. The grinder takes it to the wet wheel and grinds the bevels and the edge, and finishes the faces. Then it is hafted: scales and bolsters fitted and pinned or riveted, and on a folding knife the blade set against its spring so it opens and closes with the right snap and sits closed without standing proud.

Every stage is judged by hand and eye. A well-made knife has an edge ground true, a handle fitted clean and comfortable, and - on a pocket knife - a "walk and talk", the feel and the click of the blade moving against its spring, that a maker will test by ear. None of that survives being rushed, which is exactly what the cheap imported knife does not bother with.

The archive has documented the trade in Sheffield, where it belongs. It met the cutlers Phil Benton and Paul Weatherstone, and the pocket-knife maker Kylie Cocker, who works in the city’s deep knife tradition. These are the people holding skills that an entire industry once employed thousands to practise, now carried by a handful - the living end of the Little Mester line.

Sheffield made cutlery for the world; cheap imported stainless pressings hollowed the industry out in the second half of the twentieth century, and with it went most of the specialist trades. Hand grinding, in particular, is a rare and demanding skill now. What survives is a small population of independent makers and a strong heritage identity - the city’s name on a blade still means something - but the chain of specialist hands is thin, and several of the branches are on the Heritage Crafts at-risk lists.

It is learned at the wheel and the bench, by apprenticeship and practice. The archive’s Learn a Craft directory points to where the trade is taught, and the cutlers’ own subject pages show the work close up.

What is a Little Mester?
A Little Mester is a Sheffield term for a self-employed master craftsman in the cutlery trades, who worked on his own account - often renting bench or wheel space in a larger works - making or finishing knives, blades or tools by the piece. The system organised much of Sheffield’s cutlery industry.

What are the stages of making a knife by hand?
A blade is forged or cut from steel, hardened and tempered so it holds an edge without being brittle, ground and finished to put on the edge and surface, and then hafted - fitted with its handle scales and bolsters. In the old Sheffield system each stage might be a separate specialist trade.

Are knives still made by hand in Sheffield?
Yes, by a small number of makers. The mass industry collapsed under imports, but independent cutlers and pocket-knife makers still work in the city; the archive has documented several, including the pocket-knife maker Kylie Cocker.