Best Swedish brands?

Hey. I'm usually hanging out at the sharpening station forum, so sorry if this is often discussed. I hear a lot about Swedish steel (also would love a good resource to learn more about it, if anyone has one), but not too much on Swedish smiths/brands. Does anyone know of any reputable brands from Sweden?

Thanks.

Dalman king of blades, blade of kings basically is to Swedish knives what baralo is to italian wine.

I only own a small Kogatana from Robin Dalman, as a demonstration of his heat treatment prowess, and am quite impressed with it... As a Swedish custom maker, he is most definitely one to be aware of. :doublethumbsup:

In terms of culinary knives, Frost/Mora knives and Eka are both Swedish-made, factory brands that I typically find quite good and are fairly affordable. I prefer them for Western knives since Victorinox increased their prices, and the steel is much better; Sandvik 12C27 is really quite nice for an entry-level steel, and fairly carbon-like for SS. Vast step up from anything sold by Wusthof, Victorinox, Messermeister, etc. I like the edge that Frost's/Mora's 12C27 takes; it gets very sharp at surprisingly low grits, and wickedly toothy. Doesn't hold it forever, but it is very easy to sharpen, and still holds a better edge than what most of the Germans are using.

There are many more Swedish knifemakers, but mostly for outdoor knives from what I am aware of... The Japanese also use some Swedish steels, as do custom bladesmiths and cutlers elsewhere. Beyond Sandvik, Bohler Uddeholm also has some production in Sweden, outside of their HQ in Austria. They make Elmax, Sleipner, AEB-L, and some other rather neat steels in Sweden; in terms of carbon, I believe they also produce UHB20C and 15N20 (Both very clean variants thereof.) there. These steels are used in various outdoor knives, custom kitchen cutlery, and in folders around the world.

Hope this helps.

- Steampunk

Is your goal really to try Swedish made knives? Or is it Swedish steel? Because a number of Japanese smiths and makers use Swedish steels in their knives.

Godslayer said:

Dalman king of blades, blade of kings basically is to Swedish knives what baralo is to italian wine.

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So much of this...

Fallkniven make nice knives - mostly outdoor stuff, but a couple of kitchen knives: K1 Blue Whale and K2 White Whale. VG10 clad with 420J2, 59HRC. Swedish brand, but made in Japan, so maybe not Swedish enough for you.

Godslayer said:

Dalman king of blades, blade of kings basically is to Swedish knives what baralo is to italian wine.

Click to expand...

Without being disrespectful to Mr Dalman, whom I'm sure makes very fine blades, it always puzzles me that someone who has been on the customknife trade in the western world for a few years will command the prices they do. I'm sure it's got to do with labour costs (or who high one values an hour of work) while not a representation of the quality of the craftsmanship. I may be wrong though.

If one checks the Japanese makers, most have 40+ years under the forge hammer, are considered masters of the trade and will usually run for half the price of what a western custom knife costs.

Again, no intention to be disrespectful. I presume it's simple supply and demand.

guari said:

Without being disrespectful to Mr Dalman, whom I'm sure makes very fine blades, it always puzzles me that someone who has been on the customknife trade in the western world for a few years will command the prices they do. I'm sure it's got to do with labour costs (or who high one values an hour of work) while not a representation of the quality of the craftsmanship.

If one checks the Japanese makers, most have 40+ years under the forge hammer, are considered masters of the trade and will usually run for half the price of what a western custom knife costs.

Again, no intention to be disrespectful. Simple supply and demand.

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Couple of thoughts:

Have you tried one of his knives and compared it to Japanese knives?

There are Japanese blades that easily cost $800-$10k

Robin - like every other maker - has to make a living. He charges what he can and what he has to to supply for his family. Trust me, he does not just randomly come up with prices. He gave and gives it a lot of thought.

Last but not least, as you said: supply and demand...

richard said:

Is your goal really to try Swedish made knives? Or is it Swedish steel? Because a number of Japanese smiths and makers use Swedish steels in their knives.

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Both, but more so Swedish-made knives, as Swedish-made steel doesn't seem to hard to find.

Thanks for the input so far, everyone!

I think it also depends if you are looking for custom makers or large brands....

Another Swedish maker is Lars Kallgren, check knivesbylars on Instagram.

As for the steel, like mentioned above, Sandvik is the or one of the big Swedish steel companies (apart from cutting tools, construction equipment, mining equipment, 3D printing powder etc) .... I think Uddeholm is often considered a "Swedish" company, but is technically Austrian since 1991.

Sandvik is VERY Swedish. Trust me. I work for them ... LOL

alterwisser said:

Couple of thoughts:

Have you tried one of his knives and compared it to Japanese knives?

There are Japanese blades that easily cost $800-$10k

Robin - like every other maker - has to make a living. He charges what he can and what he has to to supply for his family. Trust me, he does not just randomly come up with prices. He gave and gives it a lot of thought.

Last but not least, as you said: supply and demand...

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Never tried such high end, so I do concede, as I originally said, that I may be missing something.

I think it also has to do with the western business being a one man band. I fully understand and emphatize with living costs, and I wouldn't expect that they price below what they need to make a decent living.

That said, as much as I like them aesthetically (Harburn, I think those are gorgeous), no, I can't rationalize the cost for the goods one is receiving. But then, most buys are hardly rational.

I guess it's a little bit like paying for a car vs a custom crafted one.

Again, no disrespect to the knifemaker intended.

At the end of the day its simply supply and demand.
And you should not be mixing custom made and a "line" of knives.

Ruso said:

At the end of the day its simply supply and demand.
And you should not be mixing custom made and a "line" of knives.

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I agree that custom and line shouldn't be mixed, but then again, most western makers don't have line productions. They just don't.

The point I was originally trying to make was that I'd rather have a knife made by a Japanese tradesman who has 40y+ hammering steel than one made by a western who has 5-15y at most. Even if the 40+ knife is a "line" product.

In my eyes, "experience" will always be of higher relevance than "custom".

Possibly, it is because of the "custom" aspect that western knifemakers can make a profit out of their work. It would be interesting to see who much the price point would drop if a custom western maker started pipping out "line knives". Same quality, no aesthetic up sell.

In the end, this is simply a hypothetical excercise. Supply and demand will define prices.

One thing that is often not mentioned here .... and maybe sacrilegious ....

Some Japanese makers (maybe a lot even) rely a lot on that experience. On old techniques, tried and true, on eyeballing elements of the knifemaking process.

Some Western makers (not all of course) take a much more scientific and metallurgical approach to knifemaking and are much more willing to experiment with state of the art materials, methods etc.

At the end of the day, I also appreciate the history and narrative of Japanese makers. But I don't believe for one second that they make a better product because of their experience.

With the proper approach I'm convinced you can be an equally good or even better knifemaker with 10 years of experience vs 40 years...

Just my personal opinion

@alterwisser maybe the difference is that there is still a lot of good quality mainstream in Japan etc. using these old techniques, while anything scientifically more advanced than X50CrMov15/1.4116/... seems to be far less mainstream in the west than a good carbon kurouchi in Japan

alterwisser said:

One thing that is often not mentioned here .... and maybe sacrilegious ....

Some Japanese makers (maybe a lot even) rely a lot on that experience. On old techniques, tried and true, on eyeballing elements of the knifemaking process.

Some Western makers (not all of course) take a much more scientific and metallurgical approach to knifemaking and are much more willing to experiment with state of the art materials, methods etc.

At the end of the day, I also appreciate the history and narrative of Japanese makers. But I don't believe for one second that they make a better product because of their experience.

With the proper approach I'm convinced you can be an equally good or even better knifemaker with 10 years of experience vs 40 years...

Just my personal opinion

Click to expand...

I hadn't considered that and you may be onto something.

It's true that while Japanese may have more experience under their belts, their approach is highly traditionalist and unlikely to change / innovate.

Again, much Kudos to Mr Dalman and all western knifemakers who in no doubt, make great blades.

I think there's room for both extremely good traditional techniques that have been used for centuries as well as newer ones that can also produce extremely good results. And I wouldn't expect either to inherently be cheaper than the other.