A day in the forge of Fredrik Spåre

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A while back I got my first Spåre knife and during my looking at his web presence I noticed that he offered courses in knife making for not that much money (considering you also get a knife). After some hesitation and a push by @1315 I finally booked a course and thus this past Thursday I went to his forge which is located just outside of the city of Örebro.

The location is beautiful in an old industrial area which is now repurposed for various smaller businesses, including an artisanal coffee roastery - great first step for starting the day with excellent coffee!

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Once in the workshop and after a safety walkthrough we were given a small piece of metal each - about 80x40x8 mm of steel. This was a sandwich of a 100 layers of two Uddeholm steels, 26c3 and 15n20, that Fredrik previously had welded to these small pieces.

Forge09.jpg


And a plan for action:

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During the process I focused on working and not on photography (Be present in the moment! Safety third!) but basically we continued to first using a hydraulic press to create the tang, and then using the spring hammer to forge the blade, all while heating it up in the propane forge to make it malleable. Using a spring hammer on this soft metal was an amazing feeling and it took a few tries to dare to do it right - but with instructions and a little help from Fredrik with the final details, we finally had the basic shape for the bunka shape I had selected:

Forge01.jpg

Forge02.jpg



After this Fredrik took over for a few minutes and cut the blade to the shape according to the template. After a short lunch in the coffee place, we continued the work. Basically I did most or all of the work with hammers, heat treatment and etching myself, but Fredrik did the grind, the polish and the sharpening - both for quality reasons and for safety reasons, and at the end day I had a knife:

Forge05.jpg

Forge03.jpg

Forge04.jpg



The handle was also premade by Fredrik, to save time.

At the end of it all, a very fun day that I’ll remember for a long time. Fredrik is an excellent teacher! For anyone that thinks about taking a course such as this, I highly recommend it! I’m still in some sort of awe when thinking about the forging of the red-hot metal in the spring hammer.
 
A while back I got my first Spåre knife and during my looking at his web presence I noticed that he offered courses in knife making for not that much money (considering you also get a knife). After some hesitation and a push by @1315 I finally booked a course and thus this past Thursday I went to his forge which is located just outside of the city of Örebro.

The location is beautiful in an old industrial area which is now repurposed for various smaller businesses, including an artisanal coffee roastery - great first step for starting the day with excellent coffee!

View attachment 230627
View attachment 230626
View attachment 230628


Once in the workshop and after a safety walkthrough we were given a small piece of metal each - about 80x40x8 mm of steel. This was a sandwich of a 100 layers of two Uddeholm steels, 26c3 and 15n20, that Fredrik previously had welded to these small pieces.

View attachment 230629

And a plan for action:

View attachment 230630


During the process I focused on working and not on photography (Be present in the moment! Safety third!) but basically we continued to first using a hydraulic press to create the tang, and then using the spring hammer to forge the blade, all while heating it up in the propane forge to make it malleable. Using a spring hammer on this soft metal was an amazing feeling and it took a few tries to dare to do it right - but with instructions and a little help from Fredrik with the final details, we finally had the basic shape for the bunka shape I had selected:

View attachment 230621
View attachment 230622


After this Fredrik took over for a few minutes and cut the blade to the shape according to the template. After a short lunch in the coffee place, we continued the work. Basically I did most or all of the work with hammers, heat treatment and etching myself, but Fredrik did the grind, the polish and the sharpening - both for quality reasons and for safety reasons, and at the end day I had a knife:

View attachment 230625
View attachment 230623
View attachment 230624


The handle was also premade by Fredrik, to save time.

At the end of it all, a very fun day that I’ll remember for a long time. Fredrik is an excellent teacher! For anyone that thinks about taking a course such as this, I highly recommend it! I’m still in some sort of awe when thinking about the forging of the red-hot metal in the spring hammer.
Super cool. Thanks for sharing. I have been meaning for a while to sign up for Mert’s version of this - I really should do just do it!
 
The best part was when I started to get a feeling for the spring hammer and felt like I controlled the forming of the steel. Kind of magic.

This time we were only two persons in the class but that was smaller than normal I think.

Going back... That would be fun. :)
 
Excellent day! Always happy to help others spend their money!🙂
Fredrik Spare knives are top quality and well priced for us, and mine is my favorite knife, but it impresses me that he brings people into his work and life to interact and share his knowledge and craft. Kinda rare these days. Good on both of you for making a day of it! And, you got an heirloom piece too!!
 
Through talking about this in Sweden, I've come to know that Jonas at Isasmedjan also does similar courses. His course is a two day event.

Fredrik told me that he has people coming from abroad for his course which is kind of cool - travelleing internationally for something like this is a bit of a bigger investment in money, time and energy.

On the other hand, I took a night at a hotel closer to the forge the night before the course. That was a way to avoid starting a trip at 6 AM in a potential snow storm. A hotel breakfast buffet before a 15 minute drive is a better way :)
 
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...as a side line there I visited a fantastic Indian restaurant in Örebrö some years ago, next to the Scandic hotel. Some of the best Indian food I have eaten outside India.
Totally by the by.....
 
Through talking about this in Sweden, I've come to know that Jonas at Isasmedjan also does similar courses. His course is a two day event.

Fredrik told me that he has people coming from abroad for his course which is kind of cool - travelleing internationally for something like this is a bit of a bigger investment in money, time and energy.

On the other hand, I took a night at a hotel closer to the forge the night before the course. That was a way to avoid starting a trip at 6 AM in a potential snow storm. A hotel breakfast buffet before a 15 minute drive is a better way :)
Yes, I attended Jonas' February course (23-24th), and had intended to do a write-up similar to this one, but never got around to it :-/
In short: On two days we had the chance of going through all the steps: Forging and heat treatment on day one (forging by hand! I could barely lift my beer at the end of the day :) ), sanding, sharpening and adding handle on day two. Result is in my profile pic. I learned a lot in the course, mostly about the insane skill it takes to forge a good knife, Jonas is exceptionally talented at this. And I really, really suck at it :) But a great experience overall, highly recommended if you get the chance!
 
Yes, I attended Jonas' February course (23-24th), and had intended to do a write-up similar to this one, but never got around to it :-/
In short: On two days we had the chance of going through all the steps: Forging and heat treatment on day one (forging by hand! I could barely lift my beer at the end of the day :) ), sanding, sharpening and adding handle on day two. Result is in my profile pic. I learned a lot in the course, mostly about the insane skill it takes to forge a good knife, Jonas is exceptionally talented at this. And I really, really suck at it :) But a great experience overall, highly recommended if you get the chance!

Forging by hand sounds like hard work. :)

Feel free to post your pics here if you don't do your own thread.
 
I got notified that this write up was available and thought Id chime in.
These classes are an absolute blast for me to host and to see people from all walks of life (9-87 years old so far) come and make their own knife, just scratches an itch I have.
Sure, some parts are necessary for me to do on my own (namely the grinding), but the goal is for the attendees to really get a feel for the whole process and also feel they actually made the knife, not just told me what specs they wanted.
When I worked as a chef I hosted quite alot of cooking events where groups came they made their own dinner under my supervision. Its very popular here in Sweden (at least Örebro) and they were the absolute favorite part of the profession. So to try and transition that into the knifemaking just made sense.

Im glad gaijin enjoyed it. Ill let you know that he is a very chill and pleasant guy to be around and im grateful to have met him. :)
 
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