|  Michel AuriouHi, I'm Michel Auriou, and first I would like to tell you a little history of our tool production.
A Mr Duneau set up the original factory in 1856 near Paris (in Châtenay-Malabry).
Mr Duneau manufactured tools for Artists (Maillol, Rodin, Camille Claudel, Belmondo…). He sent riffler blanks to Saint-Juéry. The rifflers were hand "stitched" by Mr Caussé, my grandfather's brother in law. Without a child to continue the factory, Mr Duneau made a proposition to Paulin Caussé to come to Paris. Paulin Caussé accepted and bought the Duneau factory in 1921.
Louis, my grandfather went to Paris to help Paulin. He came back to Saint-Juéry in 1933. He worked alone up until 1960 when my grandfather and Bernard, my father bought the company. The building where we now work was built in 1967 and extended in 1975.
We are still the only toolmakers that use the same forging techniques that earned Auriou a deserved reputation for quality which has been appreciated by artists and craftsmen and women throughout the world.
Let me introduce the highly skilled team of toolmakers that now work here at the Forge de Saint Juery.
|  Bernard - BlacksmithBernard is our blacksmith, he has been making tools for over 31 years, he was originally taught by my Grandfather. He has been making tools even longer than I have! He is able to make free-form tools by hand; those are the ones that are not produced using a die. He works with the raw materials taking them through the annealing process and produces the un-ground and un-polished blanks that are passed to Thierry for the critical process of straightening the orientation of the grain of the steel. |  Thierry - Grinding & StraighteningThierry has 6 years experience of working with hand forged steel tools. He is responsible for the straightening and grinding process. Thierry "straightens" the tools to "correct" the shape (a little bit "twisted" and given "not straight" by forging. That helps also to respect the good steel fibre orientation and organisation. This is very important because if the steel is not straightened at this point, when the rasp is quenched at the end of its manufacture, the rasp will twist and follow the grain of the steel, producing a twist in the final rasp. After straightening the blank rasp can be ground flat with the grain of the steel parallel to its edges. Thierry is also learning how to stitch rasps. |  Dennis - StitcherDennis is our stitcher he has worked in the Auriou factory since 1976. Stitching is the process of creating each tooth on a rasp or riffler by hand. This must be done consistently along the length of the rasp, and also on the sides if required. He is another one that started work in the factory before me. He has been stitching since 2001, it takes a year to become proficient as a stitcher and he now stiches all of the rasps that we currently produce. Dennis is teaching Thierry how to stitch. |
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