In judging a knifemaker’s standing one might consider sales or social media metrics, but these can be fickle indicators, subject to the changing fads and potentially distorted by commercial production volume. Industry accreditations and awards are perhaps a more stable metric, and many makers have received such recognition for their work. But perhaps the highest honor for knifemakers is the praise and respect of their peers and, in the words of his peers, Michael Vagnino is seen as a master to the other Mastersmiths of the American Bladesmith Society. From my discussions with numerous knifemakers about Michael for this article, I realized I was late to a very large party of Michael Vagnino fans. During my 2018 trip to Blade Show in Atlanta, I struck up a conversation with a stranger, Michael, and his wife, Marcie, and since then I have enjoyed following Michael’s work and sharing his company and conversation.
Prior to making knives, Michael was farming stone-fruit in his family’s business. But in 1994, Marcie’s brother, Fred Ott, from Durango, Colorado, who also became a knifemaker, showed Michael a hand-made hunting knife he had just bought and suggested they should start making knives too.
They decided to take a forging class together from Karl Schroen in Sebastopol, California, but when the date of the class arrived, Fred was unable to attend, so Michael went alone. Over the course of three days, Karl showed Michael the ropes and taught him to forge a blade out of A2 steel. “That was the most fun I’ve ever had doing physical work” recounted Michael, “but this was all new to me and by the time I left, my head was just spinning.” Karl taught Michael how to make a coal-fired forge and even gave him an old air blower, a hand-crank Champion, he remembered with a smile, “I still have it. It’s so smooth. You can just give it one hard crank and get your fire going.” Before Michael left, Karl told him to purchase the book Step by Step Knifemaking by David Boye, which proved to be an excellent reference for Michael’s learning, and would turn out to provide the kernel for a key business venture later in Michael’s career.
The first knife show Michael went to, not as a table holder, but as a visitor, was the Solvang show where he met his future mentor, Tim Hancock. Tim offered to teach him at his shop in Scottsdale, Arizona. Months later, after reading about damascus steels, and while still learning to hammer forge, Michael tried to make some damascus and it was, in his words, “…a train wreck” so he decided to take Tim’s class. During the 3-day course, Michael felt that he had information overload and that he was missing more than he was capturing.
Michael had absorbed more of what Tim had taught than he realized. Michael said that for two or three years after that first class, he would be working on something, run into a new problem and then Tim’s words would resurface. “I then realized what Tim had been trying to tell me because now I could see it and I had the necessary foundation to apply it and work my way past that problem.” Michael returned to Tim’s shop many times in the following years. He credits Tim with mentoring and coaching his development all through his Journeyman’s and Master’s tests. It was about the time Michael earned his Master Smith rating in 2003 that he decided to become a full-time knifemaker.
Michael had begun exhibiting and selling his kitchen and hunting knives at Bay Area knife shows. There he met Derek (D.B.) Fraley who had learned how to make folders from Stan Fujisaka.
Michael looked at Derek’s folders and told him of his love of mechanical things, learning how they worked, and said he would love to learn to make folding knives. Derek offered to help him and soon sent Michael a checklist of how to build a folding knife along with screws, a pivot, and other hardware he would need. Michael successfully built that first folder which he says “kind of worked.” The blade wobbled and wouldn’t center, but he was hooked. From then on, whenever he went to knife shows, Michael would pick the brain of every folder maker he could and most of them would answer every question he posed.
Folders are now Michael’s primary focus, including linerlocks, slip joints, lockbacks, and automatics. In fact, he only made one fixed blade knife in 2025 which was the first in four years.
Yet his love of forging persists, and he still enjoys making his own damascus steel for use in his folders.
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