Markku Parkkinen

I was recently introduced to the work of Markku Parkkinen by Theo Eichorn who met Markku at Fiskars  Puukkopäivät (or knife day).  Markku is from Oulu  in the region of Northern Ostrobothnia and some of his puukko show the influence of the Lapland style.  Please visit his web page at http://markkuparkkinen.blogspot.fi

Thank you for posting here Markku, it’s a pleasure to meet you!

Markku Parkkinen:

“I’m 51-year old knife-maker from Northern Finland.
The zest for making knives started when my former co-worker persuaded me to make my very first knife. I started knife making in 2007. I started to forge blades in 2010. My skills have developed over the years through multiple ways: I have been learning with the professionals of the knife industry, something from the books and a little bit from the internet.

As an essential profession I am a carpenter, but I haven’t been doing carpenter’s work for years. I have been doing woodwork and other types of handcrafting for my whole life. My main hobbies are fly fishing and trolling. I have tied my own flies for fishing from early age and I finished my first fly tying courses in 1974. I have also been making wooden lures from 1978. I have been teaching woodwork, running fly fish lure tying and wooden lure courses for several years now.

I get the inspiration for my knives mainly from Scandinavian and Lapland styles.Sometimes I am inspired by more international knife designs, but I always give my own unique touch to my knife designs.

In Oulu,  the place where I live in, the tradition of knife making is relatively weak. A lot of people in our family are gifted in handcrafting, but as far as I know, I am the only one in our family who does blacksmithing.”

Markku’s favorite knife, his salmon trout knife.

 

Markku’s user puukko.

Markku Parkkinen at work…