Western Hunter Featured Artist – Makers Edition - Will Stelter

WHM: Please give a bit of info about you – where you grew up, where you live now, and how you got started with your work.

Will: I grew up as the youngest of three siblings around the Seattle area, we grew up in suburban neighborhoods and didn’t get to experience much of the wild outdoors in our daily lives. Sad city parks and brief day trips into tame state and national parks were about all I knew until I joined Boy Scouts at 11 years old. I developed a love for the outdoors through my experience in Boy Scouts. I had my first backpacking trip, learned some basic survival skills, got to visit some wild places, and eventually got to the rank of Eagle Scout a few months before I moved to Bozeman Montana in 2017.

I began my journey into knife-making at 13 years old. Having bought a big bowie knife blank on Amazon, I fashioned a handle for it in my school’s woodshop. It took about a year from the completion of that knife to create a whole knife from scratch in my parents' garage. I spent a couple of years fooling about and halfheartedly pursuing knife making, but eventually, I made a knife that not only was able to cut things well but was hardened adequately and was able to hang onto a decent edge (all the other knives up to that point had been too thick or soft to really use). The feeling of having created a usable tool by myself was satisfying and truly addicting, and I’ve been earnestly pursuing it over the 11 years since then.

WHM: How has hunting influenced your work?

Will: It’s hard to say that hunting influenced my work meaningfully before I moved to Montana, as I didn’t have any exposure to it before then. Growing up in Seattle, I don’t believe I knew anyone who hunted big game. I knew a few folks who participated in guided hunts for birds, but nobody like the gnarly backcountry hunters I’m surrounded by in Montana now. I didn’t hunt the first few years I lived in Montana–I didn’t know how to. I didn’t have anyone to mentor me or guide me in the basics of finding and harvesting an animal on public land. I harvested my first buck in 2022, a public land whitetail on opening day of rifle season. The feeling of being able to make a delicious dinner centered around a piece of wild meat was intoxicating.

My hunting knives have been changed since the day I processed my first buck. Before then, a hunting knife was a theoretical object to me, something that someone probably wouldn’t use. If they did, as long as it had a sharp edge, it would probably be fine, right? Well, it turns out that is wrong, and a good hunting knife is hard to build properly. While you can use almost anything to get the guts out of a critter and the hide off the outside, making something that makes processing a nice experience is a different story.

I have done my best to try out many different knives from different makers when I’m taking apart animals. I’ve had the opportunity to help take apart about a dozen elk and deer in the last three years between my own harvests and those of friends. What I’ve found is that edge shape, thickness, grind style, edge length, blade steel, handle shape, and material choice all affect performance. But I believe that the shape of the knife’s tip and the thickness of the edge are the two factors that change the way the knife feels to cut with the most, and good steel means it will stay that way for a long time.

There’s certainly personal preference in how a user wants to employ the knife. I prefer to hold the knife in a pinch grip with my forefinger behind the tip for most animal processing, so I generally prefer smaller knives for taking animals apart. The experiences I’ve had with processing game informed the way I designed the flagship knife offering from Stelter MFG, the Tenderfoot. I made sure it was very comfortable in a choked-up grip, and the blades were ground to have a very thin edge for great cutting performance.

WHM: What makes your work unique?

Will: I believe what makes my work unique is my pursuit of excellent design, clean fit and finish, and proper function. I believe that good design flows well–the eye doesn’t catch anywhere and everything looks correct and proportional–which is something that I think a lot of makers overlook. Design and flash come in second to function, but I think that it’s all too common for someone to assume because something needs to function well, it doesn’t need to look good, and I firmly disagree with that, no matter the purpose of the knife.

My goal has always been to be a renaissance man in the world of knives–to have a firm grasp on how to build anything and everything–folding knives, fighting knives, chef’s knives, and, of course, hunting knives. I have been very fortunate in the last decade to have been able to study with many amazing bladesmiths who are masters of all sorts of disciplines in the world of knife making. I’ve pursued all sorts of different types of knives, and I have been able to implement my own distinct style into each of them. Adapting the lines and shapes that I think look and perform well is one of my favorite aspects of the craft.

WHM: What is your favorite hunting memory?

Will: My favorite hunting memory has to be taking my first bull elk. It was a perfect day of hunting, a 3:30 AM wakeup, a gnarly hike in the dark getting into place before the sun had risen, and catching glimpses of two bulls coming up the hillside below us. Finally, having an opportunity for a 150-yard frontal shot and dropping a nice 5x6 as light snow started to fall.

The snow cleared and the sun came out as we processed the meat, and then, with the help of a friend, we packed out the bull in one shot. My pack full of meat, along with the antlered skull and my rifle, was just shy of 150 pounds. It was a grueling hike out, but the feeling of making it down to the truck with almost 180 pounds of elk was incredible. It’s beyond rewarding to do something challenging and make it home in one piece with a load of meat for the freezer.

WHM: What is your favorite piece you’ve done?

Will: I think my favorite piece that I’ve done is a marshmallow roasting fork. I love building complicated things that derive their value from design and complicated, time-consuming techniques rather than from an expensive mix of materials. The marshmallow fork was an incredibly challenging forging. The grinding and finish work that went into it was also a huge step outside what I was comfortable with. It isn’t easy to make something that looks and feels good with simple lines and only two different materials–fossil mammoth ivory and Damascus steel. It is not only beautiful and completely unique, but it’s whimsical and functional as well–a great example of everything I enjoy about making things wrapped up into one project.

Check Will and his knives out at https://www.steltermfg.com/