José Luis Bermúdez Revordela (Riodelouro, 1961) comes from a line of blacksmiths who were already working in the manufacture of knives more than 100 years ago. His grandfather, Constantino Bermúdez, made them at the end of the 19th century in Valín, and his father, Manuel Bermúdez Lastra (1910-1996), with whom he learned the trade, and who became highly valued during the second half of the last century for the quality of his blades and the finish of his knives, were his direct ancestors. José Luis has worked since he was a child in the forge built by his father in 1934 and has maintained the production and techniques he inherited, being practically the only navalleiro in Taramundi who still exclusively uses carbon steel to forge the blades, reproducing the same design of his ancestors with high levels of quality, for which he carries out the entire process manually and with the collaboration of his mother, Raquel, who has been in charge of varnishing the handle for many years.
He mainly makes decorated and burnt knives, with a turned-point blade, a bolster with dots with diamonds punched one by one, a briar handle decorated with a cross-hatching bordered by two strips painted with red aniline and a burnt butt, where a dry seal is stamped with the name of Manuel Bermúdez, in memory of his father, who had begun to make this same type when the demand for the burnt knives he produced until then fell. Its brand, die-stamped sheet by sheet, is an A surrounded by fifteen dots that form an oval around it.
