“Big is always fun, everything that is big is fun,” Claes Blixt told The Local about his 248-centimetre, 28.5 kilogramme butter knife.

The word butter knife either conjures up images of a Downton Abbeyesque silver implement, with a curlicue edge ready to dip into butter pre-sliced by servants. Or the rough-handled French kind, with bone handle and a blade broad as a spatula to scoop up the delightful spread. In Scandinavia, however, butter knives look like an accident from woodwork class. Which is rather apt, as Blixt is a part-time woodworking teacher.

“I just felt I had to let go and dare to make a really big butter knife,” he said. “My students think it’s hilarious that I’m trying to break the world record.”

IN PICTURES: See more images of Claes Blixt’s butter knife

He has muddled through the giant application form to be included in the Guinness Book of Records, with two local officials and one engineer testifying to the butter knife being true to its normal proportions. Furthermore, it has to be usable.

“Of course, ideally I’d have a giant packet of butter and a really big sandwich to prove it with,” Blixt said.

SEE ALSO: A list of The Local’s past Swedes of the Week

Having posed happily with his enormous implement across Swedish newspapers for days, Blixt’s 18-year-old daughter pointed out on Facebook it was a fantastic way to attract women.

“She’s used to my craziness, rather than embarrassed,” said Blixt, who always has a project on the go.

Last year, he invited his students to design their own coffins, while also designing his own, with handles in the shape of kayaks. It is not, however, big enough to accommodate the butter knife if he were to fall dead tomorrow, but he underlined that he wanted the butter knife to go on tour. Its first outing is at a village fete in nearby Tranemo, southern Sweden.

It will take between six and eight weeks to receive word from the record-keepers if the knife makes it into the book, and until then he is putting his faith in the fact that no one outside of Scandinavia would likely start sawing, gluing and sandpapering two huge chunks of oak and white beech tree.

“I’ll have to go in and check so no one in Dubai has woken up and decided to make a butter knife,” he laughs.

Ann Törnkvist

Follow Ann on Twitter here

Editor’s Note: The Local’s Swede of the Week is someone in the news who – for good or ill – has revealed something interesting about the country. Being selected as Swede of the Week is not necessarily an endorsement.