Metalwork in Sheffield
Stan Shaw - Spring Knife Cutler
Q. What is your title/ job role?
A Spring Knife Cutler – a Table Knife Cutler is a lot different to a Spring Cutler. My knives involve springs.
I make everything by hand, all the springs and blades and linings. You do everything all the grinding and forging. You do everything yourself other than the engraving.
Q. How long have you been a Spring Knife Cutler and how did you start?
Well I was 80 last week so I’ve been doing it for 65 years; I started at 14 so it’s going back a bit.
Q. What opportunities are there for newcomers to the trade?
Well there isn’t any really. I mean obviously I haven’t the time to show anybody plus when you’re older you don’t want the hassle of that do you. I should think that when I’ve finished, this sort of work as you see it will come to an end.
I’m no trying to belittle the companies around but they don’t work in the same way that I do. They are limited to so many patterns at a price so they are tooled up to do all this sort of work by using presses, stop stampers and machine grinding and all that sort of business which I do by hand, because I make such a lot of different patterns. I mean to tool up to make what I do, all the different shapes and sizes and whatever it would cost a small fortune. You couldn’t do it, it would be impossible.
Q. What are your views on the metalwork industry in Sheffield now?
Well it’s just going isn’t it and it’s a shame and there’s not much manufacturing going on is there. You’ve got to make things haven’t you really? I mean in this city years ago it was full of people like me, thousands of them and factories everywhere. This street here was full of them but there isn’t now, it’s a real shame isn’t it.
Q. Have you got any words of wisdom for someone starting out in the metalwork industry now?
Well I just feel sorry for them because I don’t think they’ve got a chance. Not to learn it without any skilled bloke to teach them because there are such a lot of jobs involved in making this quality of work. Like me I was taught the proper way with a skilled man. You’ve got to have somebody teach the proper way and there are a lot of people trying to learn themselves but they can’t. They try and make as good a job as they can but they’re limited so there is only one way to learn and that is with skilled people who’ve learnt it from his father and his father before him.
It’s gone back a generation more or less, it grows up with you. There is nothing written down, it’s all in the head you see and you can’t buy experience. You’ve got to do it for years and years on end until you get good enough and you’ve got to have the inclination to do it because some people can’t. And of course when you are dealing with precious materials now and the price of them you can’t afford to teach a younger person because they would smash the pearl and the ivory. You’d lose a lot of money. It wasn’t like that when I started. Stuff cost nothing you see so it didn’t matter if you spoilt a bit but it does now.
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