Solingen 2009 review

[Lorien]

Lorien, that is not a well founded remark. The euro is at one of its highest points for the last 5 years as is shown in the attached chart. So I get a lot of dollars for my euros:thumbup:

:foot:

 

[Keith Montgomery]

Thanks for posting this review and photos. Some great looking knives. I hope I get to see what that Wirtz fighter looks like when done. Maybe it will be on his website.

 

[shaldag]

Patrick,
many thanks for the review. I don't hear enough about the European makers. I really hope to start attending one or more shows there per year. I will try and time my European visits to make it possible. Reviews like this only encourage my thoughts in this direction.

 

[Murray White]

Great review Patrick and I, like all the others, enjoyed seeing photos of those great knives.

 

[ddd]

Mouth watering documentation, Patrick!
Thanks for sharing your impressions with pictures
that really give the feeling of being there!

All the best,
David Darom (ddd)

 

[hasebopf]

kjdfsksljgf izgaidufhuishfs uiiudhfgger +
gheg

 

[mischu]

3 new knifemakers were invited to the show. The most interesting was Stefan Mast. He's not a professional maker yet, but his integral straight knives are just flawless.

Karl-Heinz Koob was back, for the second time in Solingen. He had just one knife to sell. If you like the integral thing, he's just the absolute master.

He plans to make his famous subhilt again : he achieved the first one in 1986, and he plans making the second one in 2010.

I stopped by Richard Hehn, of course, who is another german master. Nothing really extraordinary but some good looking straight knives.

On Scorpio Design's table, this amazing folder. Very well executed and a smart concept.

Gerhard Wieland featured 2 semi integral chef knives that I really liked :

If you would have had a look at the knife of Stefan Mast, you would have seen that is wasn't really good work.....

The milling machine has done the most of the work.......


the other two new knifemakers did the better work..... these were the real handmade knives....

Steffen Bender www.messersyndikat.de

and

Uwe Heieck www.messergarage.de

 

[Patrick M.]

If you would have had a look at the knife of Stefan Mast, you would have seen that is wasn't really good work.....

The milling machine has done the most of the work.......


the other two new knifemakers did the better work..... these were the real handmade knives....

Steffen Bender www.messersyndikat.de

and

Uwe Heieck www.messergarage.de

Well... I actually had a look on his work and I carefully inspected the knife. Yes it is not perfect, but it is his first integral knife and I don't know a lot of makers that make knives that way. I'm quite surprised with your post. The 2 others may be gifted knifemakers, this is not the issue here. I focus on integral knives and I didn't notice anything that deserved to be mentionned on my point of view by the 2 others.

You can find a lot of discussion here regarding what is an actual handmade knife or not, and how we should consider milling machine, and how to define a "custom" knife, etc.