Laguiole en Aubrac Knifesmith Workshop
Knife manufacturing process
The Laguiole en Aubrac® factory is one of the main manufacturers that has relaunched the production of cutlery in Aveyron, and there has been no alteration of the manufacturing processes: research, quality and manual work of perfection are the keys words within the workshop.
In an artisanal manufacture, all the assembly steps are carried out by one and the same person, with manual guillochage on a forged spring and visual adjustment. Thus, each piece passes through the hands of the same craftsman.
Nearly 109 operations are necessary for a one-piece model (
blade only), 166 for the two-piece (
blade and corkscrew) and 216 for the three-piece (with punch). This is the course that the hands of the cutlery craftsman take to the raw materials.
It is in this long itinerary that lies the difference between industrial production and artisanal production which alone guarantees that each Laguiole knife is a unique work.
Laguiole knife in detail
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The stages of making a Laguiole knife
The eye of the cutler is very important in all stages of production. This involves checking the centerpiece of the spring when adjusting the blade so that it is in the same alignment as the handle, as well as the perfect adjustment of the material of the handle to the plates, by the placement of the spring, or the fixing of the blade definitively.
So many steps before arriving in your hands!
Thanks to the help of the cutler and the many passages under the grains of abrasive belts the shape of the knife will take shape. Then it begins to shine under the flannel disc encrusted with polishing paste.
The main stages in photos
With between 100 and more than two hundred steps, it is almost impossible to repeat each of them. We have chosen to select a few and illustrate them in photos.
additional information pages
Marquetry work
Some Laguioles knife handles require many additional steps before assembly compared to wood or horn. Discover the types of marquetry created by Thierry Valat
Knifesmiths workshop
Under the direction of the workshop manager: Thierry Valat, Laguiole en Aubrac in addition to his carpentry workshop and his forge, obviously has his Knifesmiths workshop. In which each knife is assembled by the same craftsman cutler.
Blacksmith’s Workshop
The work done at the forge of Laguiole en Aubrac produces the metal elements that make up the knife before arriving in the hands of the cutlers who will undertake polishing and the finishing stage.
