The cutlery's workshops
With more than 15 cutlers, whom several received awards, the family company Coutellerie de Laguiole is today the first artisanal manufacturer of Laguiole knives in Laguiole.
Arts and Craft prestige
109 operations for a Laguiole knife with blade only and 216 for a Laguiole knife with blade, corkscrew and punch.
Below you can see the alterations made by men to the raw materials. It is in this long process that rests the difference between mass production and handcrafted production, which is the only way to garantee that each knife is unique.
The forging mill: the course of steel and brass
Forging: it's a unit dedicated to working of materials and structuring of metal. Even if mechanization is important at this point, it still requires many stages.
Welding and stretching of the Damascus block.
Plate riveting.
Plate straightening.
Blade forging.
Logo branding.
Plate drilling.
The assembling workshop
Our knives are made from A to Z by the same cutler :
1- He prepares and adjust the knife components (spring, bolsters, blade...)
2- He adjusts the handle manually
3- He assembles the knife in one stage (adjusting the spine, and the blade, nailing and assembling the whole pieces).
4- He rough-hews the handles and the handles materials manually.
5- He carries out the finishing touches : He adds the cross on the handle, he engraves the spine (process called "guillochage"), rough-hews and polishes the handle.
6- He sharpens the blade.
7- He does the wiping.
2
Fitting the spine.
4
Fitting the handle with the plate and the blosters.
6
Handles fitting workpost.
8
Drilling the handle for the cross insertion.
10
Handle riveting.
12
Blade riveting.
14
Handle Rough-hewing on a medium-grained strip.
16
Laguiole knife polishing.
18
Shaping of a Damascus blade.
1
Making the components.
3
Plates and spring riveting.
5
Handles fitting.
7
Handle drilling.
9
Cross insertion.
11
Riveting the lower bolster.
13
Handle rough-hewing on a coarse-grained strip.
15
Final rough-hewing on a fine-grained strip.
17
Completions.
Our motto : one man, one knife.
Our handcraft workmanshift respects the ancestral tradition of original Laguiole knives.
Our knives are manufactured from A to Z by the same cutler. When a set of knife is finished, the foreman controls it quality, erase the imperfections and then the knives are rubbed and labelled.
In mass production men's role is reduced to the lowest degree.
In factories there is division of labour. The knife goes from one unskilled-worker to the other, each of whom does one operation before he passes the knife on to the next worker. Mass-production goes along with outputs and thus the cutler's skill is replaced by numerically controlled machines.
La Coutellerie de Laguiole | shop : 15, Allée
de l'Amicale - 12210 Laguiole - Call +33 (0)5.65.51.50.14
2 workshops-shops : ZA La Poujade, Route d'Aubrac et Espace Les Cayres
- 12210 Laguiole
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An award-winning
savoir-faire.
A unique knack.
A great signature which garanties
a genuine traditional workmanship.
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> Discover the separate parts of the Laguiole knife and the manufacturing process.
