Looking for an activity to do in Foix, Ariège?
Let us tell you the magnificent story of Virginie Boisset’s cutlery. In this world predominantly represented by men, the artisanal know-how and ambition of this extraordinary woman leaves you speechless. For a few hours, immerse yourself in the world of a sometimes forgotten profession where Virginie shows you, and tells you, the art of making a real knife, from the blade to its handle.
In the municipality of Serres-sur-Argetor a 9 kilometers from Foix, Virginie welcomes you to her workshop for a demonstration all afternoons from 14 p.m..
An activity in the surroundings of Foix that will please curious young and old alike. Whether it's sunny in Ariège, or whether it rains.
Once upon a time there was the Boisset cutlery
It is in the hands of the blacksmith Éric Boisset, in 1982. , that cutlery was born. Passionate about the profession even though he was still a teenager, he perpetuates the art and the traditional way of making a knife as taught to him by his grandfather.
First a cutler-blacksmith in Pézenas and Bélasta in the north of the Pyrénées-Orientales, then a volunteer at the Forges de Pyrène, the reputation of Boisset cutlery was soon established, and knife enthusiasts often came from far away to offer his works.
Virginie joins the adventure and trains for almost 7 years alongside Eric, her husband. “ Accelerated training » she confides.
If it's more than anyone else, I had to know how to master all the techniques of making a knife to perfection, I had to know how to use and repair all these old machines
Exceptional works are created at the Serres-sur-Arget workshop
She who still sometimes hides timidly in her studio, Virginie Boisset never ceases to surprise. To mark the 40th anniversary of Boisset cutlery, Virginie has imagined a unique folding knife in the world.. After 4 months of gigantic work, she forged a team knife 1 meter 10, which weighs almost 21 kilos and which has a Damascus blade with no less than 2630 layers. A feat that attracted visitors from all over France.
Here we go for a demonstration…
In the Serres-sur-Arget workshop, a few kilometers from Foix, the atmosphere is intimate, far from the charmless and uneventful factories that we have already visited. The coal forge is lit and the tools perfectly organized. Virginie has put on her leather gloves and protective glasses, the demonstrations seem to be able to begin. Between machines that have gone through more than five generations, she explains to us the stages of making a knife.
At Boisset cutlery, the handles are made of wood or horn. As for the blade, Virginie collects pieces of steel from old cars, stretches them with a sledgehammer then hardens them in her coal forge pushed to more than 850°C. Once the steel is as fragile as porcelain, it regains its flexibility by cooling in an oil bath. But not just any oil, frying oil that Virginie got from friends, because at the Boisset cutlery “we throw nothing away, we reuse everything”.
P'ti Peck, the last cutler dog
At the traditional Boisset cutlery, there is a step that Virginie does not carry out alone. As grinders' dogs have done for more than five centuries, P'ti Peck becomes a “warming dog” during grinding, the manufacturing stage which consists of giving the knife blade its full sharpness.
Flat on your stomach on a bench, your chest in the air and your arms outstretched above the grinder, the grinding stage, as is done in traditional cutlery, can be long and very painful. So when the cold arrives in the workshop, Little Peck puts on his cutler's cap and climbs onto Virginie's legs without moving a bit.
A traditional practice that Virginie is still the only one to practice in France, a tradition not to be missed if you are passing through Foix, in Ariège.
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