Coordinates: 60.154898, 15.186152 (lat, lon)
Time: 2 days in July
History and Future
Since 1988 the event Knivveckan (The Knife Week) has been arranged in the peaceful little town of Ludvika Sweden. As a knife collector I've always heard good things of this knife festival but unfortunately I've never had the chance of visiting. So this year it was about time I got myself there. The passionate project leaders of the event; Mr. Anders and Mrs. Ingegerd Höök have earlier announced that they are stepping down as key persons in the coordination of the Knife Week. Therefore the future of the event is unknown at this moment. Later this evening (2016-07-15) The Svensk Knivförening's (The Swedish Knife Guild) yearly meeting will be held where the subject of them picking up the flag of the knife festival. either way I'm guessing the event will go on, but perhaps in another context and place. A motivated knife festival friend page has been created on Facebook and there are actors in the business that have been shoving their interest in arranging the event in the future. It will be interesting to see what will happen.
A beautiful view of the bay of Ludvika to wake up to
After a peaceful drive up to Ludvika and a good nights sleep on the back of my pick-up truck; I dived into the event area. Exhibitors, knife makers and salesmen of materials like; wood, steel and leather were mingling and networking in a pleasant way. For the fresh knife collector there are a lot of old price worthy knives to find (not the least the old and faithful Moras) and for the more advanced collector there were a big number of amazing piece of work to admire and invest in.
Some of the masterpieces on display in the Nordic Championship in Knife Making.
One of my favorites was Alf Thorsen's knife No.B14 (second knife in the lower row)
Inspiring Meetings
Some of the nice people I got to hang out with during my visit was; Seved Hjelm (also now ready for the Bushcraftfestivalen), Sven Thunberg (Njutånger), Mikael Hansen (Denmark) and Carl Michael (Gävle). Göran Enocksson and GEN-Smide was for me a new acquaintance with some impressive products, not the least his great looking axes.
Seved Hjelm warming up for the Bushcraftfestivalen
Göran Enocksson with his interesting gutters
Göran Enocksson's beautiful axes
I had to hold on to my valet and control myself not to empty it when seeing all the beautiful knives at the festival. I succeeded in staying disciplined; as I only invested in one new knife. My trophy from this years event got to be a nice little neck knife from Pentti Pirttioja (Smedjebacken). A sweet little new friend that I will come back to later on here on the blog.
Pentti Pittioja; knife maker from Smedjebacken Sweden
My new little friend from Pentti Pirttioja
Besides networking, market, exhibition, and the Nordic Championship in Knife Making the Knife Week 2016 offered a number of speakers. I listened to Krister Pettersson from the company Uddeholm Svenska AB manufacturing steel. Krister presented the company's different products and their co operations with a number of well known knife manufacturers such as; Benchmade, Spyderco, Lionsteel, Kershaw and FirstEdge. Especially interesting was to hear about the company's development of the new nitrogen laminated steel Vanax SuperClean. My guess is; we'll be hearing a lot about it in the future.
Thanks for Now
I wish to say thank you to the town of Ludvika and to the event Ludvika Knife Week for a couple of really great days. I'd like to send a special warm thanks to the Höök family for contributing so much to the knife culture of Sweden through the years arranging this event. I'm looking forward to follow and participate in the future of The Knife Week.
På Svenska
