!!!Stahlschnitt

Steel Cutting (Iron Cutting): The art of arms and armour making, 
which, along with coining-die cutting, was responsible for the 
development of steel cutting, was already fully developed in the 
course of the Middle Ages, but came to its full flowering during the 
Renaissance period. Armour, weapons, standard poles, sword and dagger 
handles, and door locks etc. were heavily ornamented. This was done by 
working the (cold) iron with hardened tools (chisels, punches, graving 
tools, burins). Die-sinkers and medallists worked at Hall in Tirol and 
Wiener Neustadt, while cutlers and sword-makers were mainly 
concentrated at Steyr from the Middle Ages onwards. From about 1660 
Steyr craftsmen dedicated themselves to artistic ornamentation of 
their products by etching, engraving and enchasing.

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The art of iron cutting declined in the second half of the 18th 
century, to be revived as steel cutting towards the end of the 19th 
century by G. Ritzinger, L. Zimpel and above all M.  Bluemelhuber. A 
craft school for the iron industry was founded at Steyr in 1874. New 
artistic applications of steel cutting were developed by H. Gerstmayr 
in the field of jewelry-making. On the initiative of M. Bluemelhuber 
the Upper Austrian Craft School for Steel Cutting was founded in 1910; 
under the name of School of Creative Metal Working it is now part of 
the Hoehere technische Bundeslehranstalt at Steyr. The VOEST company 
also runs a school of steel-cutting, which forms part of the Art 
School of the City of Linz.

!Literature
F. X. Lugmayer, Kunst in Stahl geschnitten: der 
Eisenschnitt von der Antike bis zum Verfall des 18. Jahrhunderts 
und der Wiederbelebung der Stahlschnitt-Kunst in unserer Zeit, 1991.


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