Windmühlenmesser Manufactur

„Good knives are made by hand“. According to this motto, handmade high-quality knives with exquisite wooden handles, solid wooden boards and accessories for kitchen and table have been manufactured in our company in Solingen since 1872.

Then as now, talent, attention to detail and a positive attitude to craftsmanship were and still are very important in our manufactory. Only time and our understanding of what makes a good knife have changed. Function and style, past and future, masculine and feminine craftsmanship come together in each of our knives today.

As the only knife manufactory in Germany we still produce our “Windmühlenmesser” according to the principle of the “Solinger Dünnschliff”. This traditional, very thin grinding becomes apparent in the special sharpness and durability of the knives.

The handles of our knives are made of local woods, such as beech, cherry or plum, which come from PEFC-certified cultivation. The wooden handles are sealed with a paste of natural ingredients, so that the wood can still breathe, remains handy and one has a good feeling in every respect.

The material and the special workmanship make our products durable and sustainable – products which are often used and passed on over several generations.

During the manufacturing process, we take care to use as few pollutants as possible. For example, we use natural materials like pumice, rapeseed oil and nitrite-free grinding coolants. Furthermore, raw material waste is recycled and the water required for production is reused and cleaned in an in-house filter system.

In knife manufacturing, human labour is indispensable for many processes, because hardly any "tool" is more flexible, more capable of learning and more sensitive than the human hand, especially when it comes to fine and unusual knives. Thanks to our efforts, the specialist profession of “knife grinder”, which was abolished in 1969, was reintroduced as a qualified job in Solingen. Several young men have already learned with us and graduated. They are now able to grind knives thinly and polish them blue themselves.