People
The workshop's founders, its designers, and its collaborators.
The workshop
Sergey ShirogorovСергей Широгоров
Russian knifemaker, co-founder and principal designer of the Shirogorov Brothers Workshop in Yaroslavl, who has drawn the workshop's own line from the F95 of 2010 to the Astrum of 2024 and builds his full customs under his own name.
Igor ShirogorovИгорь Широгоров
Co-founder of the Shirogorov Brothers Workshop in Yaroslavl with his older brother Sergey, the machinist and production lead of its first decade, who built the CNC machine park behind the serial lines and died on 14 June 2015.
Collaborators
Dmitry SinkevichДмитрий Синкевич
Belarusian designer from Minsk who has drawn for the Shirogorov Brothers Workshop since 2010, sixteen projects in the workshop's longest partnership with any outside designer, and who had the sub-frame lock on a custom before Zero Tolerance put it on its 2011 Knife of the Year, and before the two had met.
Chris Reeve
Founder of Chris Reeve Knives. Design collaborator on the CRK-branded Shirogorov pieces.
RJ Martin
Custom knifemaker. Design collaborator on the Shirogorov Russian Overkill and the Q-36 model.
Tom Mayo
Hawaiian custom maker whose Dr. Death became the first Western design the Shirogorov Brothers Workshop built, the Russian Dr. Death of 2015, followed by the Dr. Death CF of 2016 and the Arctic Dr. Death of 2019, three runs on one shape that kept his milled hole pattern.
Brad Southard
custom maker whose flipper for Spyderco in 2012 was that company's first, and whose Flippin' Tanto became the Russian Flippin' Tanto of March 2017, the Shirogorov Brothers Workshop's first tanto blade and its second Western joint project.
John Barker
Georgia custom maker whose Hokkaido, a large tanto folder, became the Shirogorov Brothers Workshop's Russian Hokkaido of October 2018, a run of 200, and who came back to the workshop as a finish artist with the Quantum "Dragon" inlays, the one collaborator who stands on both sides of the line niives.com draws between design collaborations and finish editions.
Lee Williams
custom maker who invented the Kickstop, a flipper tab on its own pin that folds into the handle once the blade is open, and the Shirogorov Brothers Workshop put it on a reworked early 110 as the 110 Kickstop of February 2020, its one joint project built around an outside maker's mechanism rather than his shape.
Scott Cook
Idaho custom maker whose Lochsa, an integral folder with the handle from one piece of titanium, became the Shirogorov Brothers Workshop's first integral, the Russian Lochsa, announced in May 2021 and released by lottery in November 2024.
Charles Marlowe
American custom maker whose KMP22 the Shirogorov Brothers Workshop reworked as the RKMP, a joint project that took Knife Collaboration of the Year at Blade Show Atlanta in June 2025, before the first run was released in November 2025, and that has since grown to four models.
Nasgul Workshop
Vadim Shaykhitdinov's shop, an outside shop rather than an outside designer, which customized finished Shirogorov Brothers Workshop Flipper 95s in three numbered projects from 2014, the Golf, the Gorynich and the Flag, made the first beads to carry both names and has sewn leather cases for Shirogorov knives.
Bob Terzuola
American custom maker who coined the term "tactical knife" and whose Starfighter is the basis of the Russian Starfighter, Sergey Shirogorov's custom prototype for a future joint project, shown as three auction customs in 2026.