I am François-Louis Toussaint, a knife maker and founder of FL Toussaint. My workshop is located in Courpière, in the Thiers basin, in Auvergne. There I design and make folding knives, kitchen and table knives, as well as reinterpretations of French regional shapes. Knives made to be used: for cooking, for the table, to accompany a snack, durable enough to be passed down.
No vocation recounted afterward. A craft chosen, learned, practiced, and deepened. This page presents the person and the path, in order, with what each stage has left in the knives I make today.
Metal before the knife
It all begins in Nantes, in my father's workshop, an organ builder. There, I developed a taste for manual work and the discipline required for transforming materials: in an organ, every piece must be precise, otherwise the whole sounds off. My initial studies, however, steered me toward commerce — a background that serves me every day in managing my business — but the need to create eventually asserted itself.
The spark came from a report on a movie weapons craftsman. To check that the project was viable, I did a first internship with the cutler Mathieu Callejon. My first knives were born there — and the question stopped being one.
Learn the cutler's trade
I then began a tour of France to learn. First the Jura, at the Ferdinand Fillod high school, for artistic ironwork and the basics of forging: heating, bending, striking, retouching. Metal has rules, and the forge is the best place to learn them. I obtained my CAP in Artistic Ironwork there.
Then Aveyron, in Laguiole, at Benoît the Artisan, alternating with the cutlery school in Thiers. This dual placement put me in contact with the two major French cutlery centers, with their own methods and cultures. I acquired the basics of the trade there, validated by a CAP in Cutlery: preparation of pieces, sharpening, assembly, fitting, mechanisms, finishing, sharpening. A lot of repetition — we repeat the same gesture until it becomes reliable, then we move on to the next one.
My first blades from this period bore my initials inscribed in Ogham, an ancient Celtic alphabet. A youthful detail, but it already foreshadowed the hallmark I use today.
Ten years at Atelier Perceval
After my training, I spent ten years at Atelier Perceval, a cutlery workshop in the Thiers area. This experience, now completed, is the one that most shaped my way of working.
I started there as a worker. Making knives every day, with a level of finish that could not tolerate sloppiness, teaches one thing that nothing else can replace: producing parts consistently at the same level, not just succeeding in making a nice piece from time to time. I climbed the ranks there until I became a project manager, developing several models, including Le Thiers®, Le Sommelier, and Le Vendredi. Designing a knife intended to be produced in a workshop requires thinking differently: a shape must be beautiful in the hand, but it must also be able to be manufactured, adjusted, and finished in a reasonable time, piece by piece.
I kept the management of quality, the design, the industrial reality of a knife — and a finishing standard that I apply today to my own models.
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Nantes, the paternal workshop
Discovery of manual work with a father who was an organ maker, then business studies.
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First knives
Foundational internship with cutler Mathieu Callejon, after the trigger of a report on a cinema weapons craftsman.
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Tour de France of apprenticeship
Artistic ironwork and forging at Ferdinand Fillod High School in the Jura, then cutlery in Laguiole with Benoît l'Artisan, alternating with the cutlery school in Thiers.
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Ten years at the Perceval Workshop
From worker to project manager. Development of several models, including Le Thiers®, Le Sommelier, and Le Vendredi.
- 2022
Creation of the Legoff Workshop
Starting his own business, under a name that honors his Breton origins: Le Goff, the blacksmith.
- 2026
Transition to FL Toussaint
The activity takes the craftsman's name. Legoff Workshop becomes a historical designation.
From the Legoff Workshop to FL Toussaint
In 2022, I left salaried work to become self-employed and created Atelier Legoff. The name was a nod to my Breton origins: Le Goff, the blacksmith. In 2026, the business returned to my own name, FL Toussaint. Atelier Legoff remains the name of the early days, and nothing more: this change directly connects the artisan, their name, and their work — the simplest way to say who makes what.
Each finished piece bears my master stamp, following the tradition of jeweler's stamps: a diamond surrounding my initials with a carnyx, a Celtic war horn, at the center. It replaced the ogham on my first blades — the Celtic reference remained, the form matured.
My workshop is located in Courpière, in the Thiers basin, a region that has been making knives for several centuries and where people talk about beveling and fitting without needing translation. The place, its equipment, and the distribution of work between the workshop and its partners are presented on the page dedicated to the FL Toussaint workshop in Courpière.
What this journey changes in my knives
A knife is above all a tool. I am wary of worn-out artisanal marketing words and prefer to talk about a craft. A craft that requires integrity: a knife must be ergonomic, cut well, and rely on a mastered and controlled heat treatment.
My work is mainly dictated by culinary and gastronomic use: preparing a meal, sitting down at the table, opening a snack. I also allow myself more whimsical digressions — my geek culture resurfaces in certain atypical drawings, where I indulge myself. Cutlery is a global language: I enjoy exploring its mechanisms and lines, whether they are traditional or futuristic.
The choice of materials is selective. I have a deep affection for wood: the variety of its types, the richness of their patterns, their grain under the hand. I limit composites, often toxic to work with, and I deliberately avoid ivory—beyond the uncertain supply chains, its monochrome finish seems poor to me compared to a wood burl or a local species.
I use the technologies of my time to serve this work: I draw and digitize each component, and I carry out my own laser cutting to start from bases that are rigorously true to the drawing. One-off pieces are entirely made in the workshop; for certain production models, the hardening or grinding can be entrusted to professional partners in the area, while the design, adjustment, assembly, finishing, and final inspection remain in my hands. I prefer to say it simply rather than leave a blur — the detail is explained on the page that describes the manufacturing steps of a FL Toussaint knife.
Finally, my knives are designed to be maintained and repaired. A knife that is used wears out; it must be able to be re-sharpened, adjusted, restored. This is the logical consequence of an entire career spent considering the knife as a working tool.
Models with a clean silhouette
My work covers several families: folding knives, cooking knives, table knives, regional forms, in accessible series as well as in unique pieces.
Some models structure this production. The Hack N Slash, forced-notch folding on the broken back, with hardened stop and stainless steel spring: my most identifiable design, made in series. TheAsmo D, friction folding knife whose pivot screw allows adjustment of the blade tension: the oldest mechanism in pocket cutlery, supported by a contemporary design. Le Dimanche, table knife designed for meals that last. And the regionals, where I draw on historical silhouettes while acknowledging that these are reinterpretations, not relics.
Author of the website content
I sign the technical and historical articles published on this site: mechanisms, steels, handle materials, manufacturing, maintenance, regional knives, cutlery history. I do not write as an academic historian. I write as a professional who makes these objects, takes apart these mechanisms, works these materials — and who compares the accounts with the sources.
French cutlery carries a lot of commercial legends. Claimed dates of invention, reconstructed lineages, traditions more recent than announced. When I write about a regional knife, I distinguish what is established, what is debated, and what is marketing. It is slower, less marketable, more solid.
Publications and appearances in specialized press are listed on the page press and publications. This path is better verified than told: the simplest is to discover the knives of the workshop, and for any questions, to contact me directly.