Our Story
How a pair of rusted Swinglines sparked a quiet revolution in desktop tools.
“We didn’t set out to start a company. We set out to find a stapler that would last. When we couldn’t, we decided to make one.” Lars Engström & Sasha Moreau, Co-founders
Lars and Sasha met in 2016 at a letterpress workshop in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Lars, a mechanical engineer who had spent a decade designing precision instruments for a Swiss watchmaker, was printing wedding invitations on a Heidelberg Windmill. Sasha, a materials scientist who had left a tenure-track position to consult for a Scandinavian furniture maker, was there to learn bookbinding.
They bonded over a shared, oddly specific frustration: both owned 1950s-era Swingline staplers—those dense, chrome-topped machines that once furnished every serious desk in America—and both had watched them succumb to the same fate. Decades of reliable service, followed by rust, seized springs, and the quiet indignity of being replaced by disposable plastic.
“It wasn’t just that they broke,” Lars recalls. “It was that nothing on the market felt worthy of replacing them. Everything was hollow. Everything was temporary.”
Over the next two years, they worked nights and weekends in a shared workshop space in Gowanus. Lars engineered the drive mechanism—a cam-and-lever system that delivers a clean, flat clinch with minimal effort. Sasha sourced and tested materials: zinc alloys that resist corrosion, low-friction coatings that eliminate the need for lubrication, and a hand-applied patina process borrowed from architectural hardware.
In 2019, they produced the first Affixor prototype. It weighed twice as much as any stapler on the market. It stapled 25 sheets without jamming. And it felt, in the hand, like something you would keep for the rest of your life.
Lars Engström and Sasha Moreau meet at a letterpress workshop in Brooklyn. A conversation about rusted Swinglines plants the seed.
Nights and weekends in a shared workshop. 14 prototype iterations. The cam-and-lever drive mechanism is patented. Materials testing begins with Sasha’s former university lab.
The first production Affixor ships to a small group of early believers—architects, editors, and studio owners who understood that tools matter.
Affixor becomes one of the only desktop tool makers to offer a full lifetime mechanical warranty. “Buy it once” becomes more than a tagline.
The drive system is redesigned for even smoother actuation. Friction is reduced by 40%. The stapler is quieter, and somehow even more satisfying.
Our most refined instrument yet. Redesigned from the anvil up, with a new low-profile silhouette and our proprietary silent-clinch system.
What We Believe
We don’t release seasonal colors or limited editions. We make one thing, and we make it to last. If our design changes, it’s because we found a way to make it better—not different.
Every Affixor can be disassembled, serviced, and rebuilt. We stock every part. We train authorized service partners. We believe repair is a form of respect.
No chrome plating over plastic. No painted zinc pretending to be steel. What you see is what it is: solid alloy, machined and finished without disguise.