The Aasmund Voldbakken stitch

What follows is a series of pics taken by our Norwegian friend Sverre Solgård while crafting a knife for his son using a blade by Swedish knifemaker Pär Björkman. I adapted the text from the Norwegian original. – Federico Buldrini

The stitching method Sverre used was developed by Aasmund Voldbakken in the late 1970s and then got a major breakthrough in the 80s: knives with this style of sheath and stitching have been crafted mostly only after 1984, while the paternity of Voldbakken has been since almost forgotten.

This style doesn’t need the sheath to be stitched around the knife or a liner and allows for great personal expression, plus is quite easy to learn and no particularly specialized tools are required. All the wet forming is done after the sheath is completed.

For Norwegian speaker Sverre suggests checking out Per Thoresen book “Kniver og knivmakere” and two Sigrunn Lie Brattekås books “Bjørn Kleppo – Den moderne knivmakars far” and “Knivkunstnaren Gunnar Omdal”.