Fredrik Spåre
Knife maker in Örebro, Sweden. Former professional chef.
From the kitchen to knife making
It started in a garage
Fredrik cooked professionally before he made knives. The first blades were a hobby, made in a garage in the evenings, and for a while that is all they were. Then the hobby took over.
The kitchen years are still the reason the knives look the way they do. A cook knows what happens to a blade after four hours of service, where a handle starts to rub, and how thin an edge can be taken before it stops being an advantage. That is a different starting point from designing a knife to look right in a photograph.
He works by feel rather than by specification. Every knife is made in small numbers, by hand, from start to finish.
The workshop
Lindbacka Bruk
Spåre Knives is based at Lindbacka Bruk, outside Örebro. The buildings have industrial roots dating back to the late 18th century, and the walls look it.
It is a working workshop, not a showroom. Steel, coal dust, a forge that has to be lit before anything happens.
How Fredrik works
Five things that decide how a knife turns out
- Design
- Shape follows the job the knife is meant to do, not a style. Length, height and balance are decided first.
- Steel
- Mostly simple carbon steels, chosen for how they take and hold an edge rather than for how they read on a spec sheet.
- Geometry
- The part that most decides how a knife feels. Thin behind the edge, with a distal taper that keeps the tip alive.
- Heat treatment
- Done in the workshop, not sent away. It is where a blade either becomes good or stays ordinary.
- Handles and finishing
- Shaped by hand and fitted to the tang. Wood is chosen per knife, so no two are alike.
Selected knives
Explore all knives
Custom work
