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Cutting It Up with Henry Hyde
216 Plays5 months ago
In an interview close to the original thrust of the show, we speak with Baltimore knife artist, Henry Hyde, on the meandering path from making toys out of sticks as a kid to forging and smithing cutting-edge kitchen implements, most especially knives. We talk about imagination, his favorite building in Baltimore (it’s in Sandtown!) Instagram cooking videos, John Prine, importing his dream vehicle, boots, and more!
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Transcript
Introduction to Henry Hart
00:00:00
Speaker
Coming to you live from Shay 312 in Baltimore, Maryland. Our next guest is a cut above the rest. His razor-sharp wit is legendary and certainly never dull. By far the sharpest tool in the shed. He'll bring a knife to a gunfight. Any way you slice it, his tools of the trade earn it A-plus grade.
Weather Talk and Cicadas
00:00:22
Speaker
Please welcome Henry Hart. How's it going?
00:00:25
Speaker
Doing well, man. How are you today? We're doing pretty good. Good, good. Nice sunny day out here in sunny Baltimore. Nice. I feel like that intro kind of reminds me of a shampoo commercial, even though I'm the one that... I don't know why. I've got Tools of the Trade with an A plus grade. That's Fowler writing right there. That is very much Fowler writing. I thought that was so good. So thank you. Nice.
00:00:52
Speaker
Yeah, it's an overcast day here in the wonderful state of Georgia, and the 12-year cicadas have emerged. I don't know if you guys are going to get them, but they make the weirdest sound. I think I've ever heard anything in nature.
00:01:08
Speaker
It kind of sounds like... I thought that they were in Maryland. I haven't heard them at all. They may not be. I think they come out between April and June, depending. We just got them kind of early. I'm sure I've heard the sound before, but it sounds like a fucking campy, sci-fi movie effect. And it's been constantly passing through the days. Yeah, it's not the usual one, but the others.
00:01:34
Speaker
Anyway, uh, Henry, um, knife to you.
Henry's Journey into Knife Making
00:01:39
Speaker
That's another stupid joke. But, uh, yeah, do you, uh, just to start, um, obviously you said your Baltimore, um, so we can skip that, but, uh, can you, can you give us a quick rundown? Uh, a one minute CD, if you will, uh, Henry.
00:01:57
Speaker
Sure. Born and raised in Maryland. I moved down to South Carolina for college and started cooking professionally in the kitchens of Charleston. And yeah, and quickly learned how to sharpen knives, started sharpening knives for the people I was working with. And if you know anything about food and bev workers, they're always trying to get out of food and bev. So
00:02:21
Speaker
I tried to get out of it by finding a craft that was related to knives, which I was really interested in. And I found a local knife maker and I asked him how to get started. He brought me up to his workshop and after the first day of making a knife together, we used like, you know, you want to be my apprentice?
00:02:37
Speaker
Oh, shit. And I apprenticed under him. Yeah, I apprenticed under him for a year, and then moved up here and started my own business. And then COVID happened. So I was locked in my workshop for basically a year and a half, which really helped me grow my business and people were buying stuff. So it was great. And now we're trying to scale the business and make it more successful.
00:03:03
Speaker
Oh, that's cool. So, do you have partners in the business that you work with? Not partners. I've got one employee now. Okay, gotcha. That's cool. Yeah. That's like a milestone, right? Yeah, seriously. Yeah. How long were you in the cooking world? I feel like Charleston is pretty well known for their restaurant season.
00:03:26
Speaker
For sure. Yeah, I worked there. I mean, Charleston is a very food and bev in like tourist town. So as a college job, I picked it up for beer money and walking around money and stuff like that. So I worked in food and bev for three or four years. I started in front of house.
00:03:43
Speaker
And, you know, I was like getting screamed at by both the cooks and the other servers and sometimes the guests. And so I was like, you know, I'd like to get screamed at a little bit less. So, I thought if I worked in the kitchen, I'd only get screamed at by the chefs and not by the front of house people. So, moved over there. Yeah, I enjoyed cooking. It's a really good, you know, skill I can cook like a...
00:04:13
Speaker
I can almost guarantee you will not curse nearly as much as I do. So feel free my friend. They mark us already with their algorithm I think.
00:04:30
Speaker
Yeah, it was a really good learning experience and I knew that I was an international business major in college and did one internship in offices and knew that that was not for me. We were pretty much immediately and so working in kitchens, I always really liked doing it. You're on your feet, you're moving around, it's really interesting.
00:04:51
Speaker
At the end of the night, people come up to you and say, that was a great meal.
Cooking and Communication
00:04:54
Speaker
And you get a little bit more reward out of that. Terrible pay, but terrible hours as well. But it was that kind of that got me into thinking, I should work with my hands for a living.
00:05:06
Speaker
Totally. Here I am. I think it's Anthony Bourdain on the Mark Mirren podcast where he talks about how cooking is kind of a... You get an instant gratification because you hear feedback coming off the floor or whatever, like, I am not a food person. Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned that too. I assume that's a big part of it. Yeah, I mean, feeding people has always been kind of
00:05:35
Speaker
I've always found a lot of connection to feeding people and you really can speak to people, you know, that maybe you don't agree with in your day-to-day life. But if you feed them something that they really like, you know, you connect in that way or stuff like that. I really like that. Language and food are kind of the same thing and we can speak in different ways like that.
00:05:56
Speaker
Well, that's very interesting because we talk about clothing as a language, right? Yeah. Derek Guy, of course, guest of the guest of the show has a thesis of all about that, basically. And I think that that is a pretty good point. Though I guess most things are communicative in some way. Yeah, even like, you know, I, like I said, I'm not really a good person. But you know,
00:06:20
Speaker
I can understand where that's coming from because it really is. It's something that, like clothing, we all need to survive. If you're cooking in a restaurant or you're a head chef or something, you are trying to say something through the recipes and whatnot that you're putting out in the world. It makes sense even though I've never really thought about it that way.
00:06:47
Speaker
Yeah, let me tell you the story of my people through these Tostino's pizza rolls. Nice, yeah. Well, okay, so you brought it up and I'm wondering like, as someone that has done, you know, done cooking and things professionally, like, what is the what's the ratio of like, oh, this is really easy. And it's like, I enjoy it to like, oh, this is kind of complicated, but I really want to make it like, as far as your, you know, kind of day to day life.
The Art of Knife Making
00:07:17
Speaker
Well, I've been making knives now for five years. So I've kind of gotten into the swing of things. I mean, knife making is all tedium. It's all tiny little processes. It's such a huge process that it's all we all we've tried to break it up into the small chunks as we can. Some of them go by really quickly. Some of them you have to punch your butt cheeks and
00:07:38
Speaker
do as best as you can, because you're dealing with machines that could rip your fingers, arms, legs. Right, right. You kind of have to be in the moment. Yeah, you're kind of, you're, you know, three inches away from a piece of sandpaper that's spinning at 1000 rpm. So some of it takes some quite delicate finesse. And some of it's just, you know, rubbing sandpaper on a piece of wood. So it
00:08:04
Speaker
Yeah, like the I've seen it. I mean, I've seen Henry has sharpened my knives before not like my knives are extremely nice, but I use them often and they're important to and seeing that process like I don't know like you go to Ace Hardware they like ruin your shit and you go like you maybe maybe there's someone at the farmers market either way there aren't people really doing this and
00:08:33
Speaker
And you do it really with, as you say, with a lot of finesse.
00:08:37
Speaker
Yeah, well, I mean, it's I think sharpening is the is really nice because it's a really quiet and meditative practice, you're improving something that needs improving and you can make a tool that's old feel like new and a tool that gives meaning to someone or you know, like your grandmother's kitchen knife that she cooked all these meals free, you can bring it back to life with just to sharpen.
00:09:03
Speaker
I think that that's, you know, it and the tools that I'm making, they don't really become the tools that I make until I sharpen them, right? You know, they're kind of just a pretty object until I put an edge on them.
Childhood Memories and Knives
00:09:13
Speaker
The metal were alive, sort of. Yeah, so it's like the crux of my entire craft is sharpening. You said you'd been into knives for a while. Do you remember your first blade? I think I remember taking my dad's kitchen knives and going out in the woods and smacking them around in trees and he'd yell at me.
00:09:37
Speaker
making spears like take a broom handle and you tape the chef knife to the spear. You know, yeah, I grew up in like I grew up in Columbia, Maryland. It's a it was when I was a kid much more rural than it is now. It's like Merriweather post pavilion is and so there wasn't a lot to do out there when I was a kid. So it was a lot of like imagination and
00:10:02
Speaker
making your own games and stuff. And I've got two older sisters who had one who wanted nothing to do with me. So I had to kind of make my own game. I've always been kind of like a kid to make my own like toys and stuff out of sticks and you find the stick that most looks like a sword and you know.
00:10:20
Speaker
Or a gun. I was pro-gun as a child. I was extremely pro-gun until I was about nine. Pro-stick gun. Yeah. And now I'm anti-gun in all of the various avenues. I just think like there's something built in with because of course, I see children all the time, right? And like they pick up whatever and it's a gun.
00:10:50
Speaker
It's a knife, it's a sword, but most often it's a gun. And I just like, you just have to contemplate that, I guess. It's all imagination. Everybody wants to be Rambo or whatever when you're six years old. I think it's that imagination. In high school, my friends and I would have fucking firework wars, which sounds way worse than making them. Yeah, Roman candles.
00:11:17
Speaker
Uh, no bottle rocket usually, but we would make like, you know, guns out of a piece of PVC pipe that you like tape. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. The vacuum cleaner, the vacuum cleaner extension hose. Oh dude, I've never even thought about that. Holy shit. That would have been crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I remember distinctly like burning a fucking like, I don't know, probably second degree burner and right above my lip. And I told my mom, it's like, Oh yeah. Like I ate a really hot
00:11:46
Speaker
No fucking idea, babe. That's a Christian parent. When you're in the middle of nowhere and have to have fun with your derelict friend.
00:11:59
Speaker
And you're in Georgia, see the fireworks down there are much nicer than up here. Yeah, well, they they weren't legal back then. So we would have to like, I grew up. Yeah, I grew up like, so I grew up 20 to 30 minutes or so from the Alabama border. And so we would just go to Alabama. And yeah, packs of Bob Ross.
Knives and Travel
00:12:20
Speaker
There are no laws. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, quarter a quarter stick of dynamite.
00:12:27
Speaker
Right, right. I have to say something. I have to say something about the Firework Wars. I know this character listens to the show sometimes. So Vassey Holloman, if you're listening, he and my former roommate, Eric, were hanging out. They were in middle school. Eric shot a bottle rocket and it went up Vassey's jean leg. Oh, no.
00:12:53
Speaker
Yeah, just very terrible. I'm not fucking with fireworks at all. I remember the burning flesh scent. This is not worth the risk. At 40, I definitely ate fireworks at 1670. You wouldn't have a firework war with me?
00:13:14
Speaker
No, fuck no. They scare my animals. And yeah, like 40-year-old me is definitely not in the same camp as 16, 17-year-old me. So we'll just, we'll leave it there. Henry, do you have any kind of like everyday carry that you're, you know, prone to?
00:13:35
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I made... I've got a pocket knife that I got in my pocket right now that I made at a class in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. It's like a non... It's a friction folder that I made in a class. I also have some other ones. I'm not super big into pocket knives because it's a... I mean, I have them, I carry them around because they're useful, but I'm not like a collector or anybody.
00:13:59
Speaker
I prefer small over, you know, there's some crazy like the Columbia River knife ones that just get huge and huge pocket knives. I don't find her. I like the pen knives the most, the little tiny little ones. Because I can really make whatever knife I want into a pretty effective tool with sharpening. Yeah.
00:14:19
Speaker
Yeah, that's good. I was just going to say it's like you have the knowledge of fishing, right? Like they taught you to fish with the sharpening, so you're at knives forever.
00:14:31
Speaker
Yeah. Um, but no, I'm not really like a, I'm not really like an EDC gear guy. Um, I forget everything. As long as I have my phone or my wallet and I use like, that's, that's a good day for me. Cause I lose that shit all the time. Right. Right.
Crafting Custom Knives
00:14:46
Speaker
Yeah. I'm here. Yeah. That's like the story. It's like.
00:14:52
Speaker
The security guard says, like, go hide it in that bush. And then it's gone forever. Yeah. That's what we do at Oriel Park when we forget pocket knives in our pocket. We just hide them in underneath the mulch in those planters out by the ticket offices. Yeah. Yeah. I've thrown away multiple knives at the airport because I've carried a knife pretty much since I graduated high school. And so, you know, it's just one of those things. Like I grab it and then I get to the airport. I'm like, God damn it.
00:15:21
Speaker
Fucking TSA. Fucking TSA. I literally just use this to open boxes and random shit. There's no harm that's going to be done by this. Well, that's the utility of a knife, my friend. I know. They come in handy for random shit. It's the best. So do you want to walk us through the bespoke blade process?
00:15:45
Speaker
like say I wanted a knife. Sure. I usually like talk to people about the knives that they like to use already. Yeah. And it depends on whether they want to get it replaced or something that will complement that piece. And then everything I make is carbon steel just because I like working with it a little bit more than stainless steel. It's easier to work with.
00:16:10
Speaker
What's the difference? Carbon steel is a much older version of steel. Stainless didn't really come around until the 50s because you need a lot more chemical processes to make it. It's got stainless steel starts at 13% chromium by content.
00:16:33
Speaker
And chromium doesn't really like to mix with other alloys so it's taking them a while to make it more readily available but that so the chromium is what makes it stay in last and it's staying last not staying proof you can rush stainless very easily.
00:16:51
Speaker
But I don't really like working with it. It doesn't forge very well, and I forge everything. I mean, it's a lot harder to forge the harder material. And to heat treat it, to harden it, you need cryogenic most of the time, which I don't have. It's very expensive to have.
00:17:09
Speaker
liquid nitrogen or dry ice. And I just think that, you know, people have been having carbon steel knives for over 1000 years. So I think we can keep using it because it's still a very good material to make knives out of. It does stain, it does rust, but I think that that's kind of a beautiful thing about it. It's a lot easier to sharpen. It's a lot easier to work with for me.
00:17:36
Speaker
I can give two people the same night and a year later we can bring those guys back together and look differently because of the way that people cut with them the ingredients they cut how well they taking care of them.
00:17:49
Speaker
how well they sharpen them, if they sharpen them at all. So that's kind of the thing I really like about it. Yeah, because I guess I always thought about carbon steel as sort of a modern invention, I guess. I mean, it's not, I mean, these steels are all made, the steels that I used are all for, they're all like blade steels. They're all like razor blade steels or like edged tool steels that are made specifically to take and hold an edge.
00:18:18
Speaker
I mean carbon steel is the is the basest form of steel there is I mean, it's just iron and Carbon is but there's obviously more stuff in it. But that's the basically what makes steel steals The mixture of those two things the carbon makes the iron or it makes the steel hard interesting and so they've been doing like we've been making steel since I
00:18:40
Speaker
whatever came out the Iron Age, basically when we started making steel, maybe melted down a bunch of iron sand and charcoal and animal bones, because they thought they were putting like the spirits of the animals into the steel. But because when you burn bone, it's just all carbon, that carbon got into the iron. And that's what made that actually did make like this the steel better. Well, they didn't really know why they just thought it was like spirit. I guess I don't know. I'm not I wasn't there. So
00:19:08
Speaker
If you were there, though, you would have been the dude, right? I mean, probably not. Those guys had a lot less tools. So they had to be a lot more skilled in other ways. They would have looked at you like a city slicker. Yeah, they would have looked at me like a young gun and needed everything done for me by a welder and electricity and sandpaper and stuff like that.
00:19:27
Speaker
Just out of curiosity, what is the learning curve for identifying different types of seals and materials and their properties? What has that been? Identifying steals? I mean, you can't really identify just like a steel off of... I can see like carbon steel versus stainless steel but I can't see the alloy unless you do like chemical.
00:19:49
Speaker
Not it. But wood is just like anything else. You look at enough of it and you can see that's cherry, that's walnut, that's oak.
00:19:59
Speaker
The learning process of making them is very steep though. It's a lot of destroyed blades and not very nice looking ones and then building your style is a whole different thing. But it's just all repetition and not getting too frustrated and not quitting a thousand hours or whatever they're saying.
Materials and Techniques
00:20:18
Speaker
Yeah, because you work leather too, right? What's that? You work leather too, right?
00:20:23
Speaker
I do some leather work. I'm trying to get into it more because I'm trying to kind of like diversify product. But it's not my bag. It's my assistant likes doing it more than I do. So I let him do it. Yeah. Yeah. All that stuff is like... Because I've done a little leather working and it's just like, how did they ever figure any of it out? Good. Your guess is as good as mine. It's a cool practice. It's just not for me.
00:20:50
Speaker
Yeah, of course. It's a little more, I guess it's a little more forgiving than I anticipated. I find it less forgiving. I find steel to be quite forgiving because it's so hard and wood to be a little bit less forgiving and then softer the material, the less forgiving it. I find it. Especially because like you got to prep the material just right and then
00:21:13
Speaker
I don't know, finishing leather is always the hardest thing for me, making it look nice. It seems like a fucking, like, how do you even do it? It's amazing though, I mean all of it is part. I've tried to like teach myself how to sew for so many years and like the way my brain works and the way sewing works and I assume that like a bunch of these other things just is not, that's just not how I fucking think. So it'll take me, you know, take me 30 minutes to sew on something like a patch that some
00:21:46
Speaker
It's like, all right. Yeah. That's anything. That's practice. When I have my assistant do stuff, it takes him longer than me. When I was learning, I was watching my mentor.
00:21:58
Speaker
You know grind blades and it just looks like he was pushing it up against the machine and like wiping it right going down the blade and then I tried it and it's just like ugly as hell and like burnt everything burnt my fingers like how is he doing this he just like I don't know I'm just pushing it against it it's all just experience.
00:22:18
Speaker
experience of repetition.
Apprenticeship and Skill Development
00:22:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. How long had your your mentor been forging? He was a stock removal maker. So there's forging where you take a bar of steel and you heat it and hammer it into shape. Okay. And then there's stock removal, which is you take a bar of steel, that's the thickness that you want it and the height and length and you cut your blade out of that. Okay.
00:22:44
Speaker
So he did, yeah, so he did that rather than foraging. He does a little bit of foraging, but he's mostly a stock removal guy. But he's been making knives for, I think he was making knives for 15 to 20 years by the time that I met him. Oh, that's cool. Are you guys still in touch? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:23:02
Speaker
Yeah, we're gonna, I go down to Charleston every year to help him with the food and wine festival down there. He sets up a table and sells. I go down and I get a little vacation and I get to work with him and help himself. So now I was paying back for helping me get started. And I also get to hang out in Charleston for a weekend.
00:23:22
Speaker
Yeah, totally. Nice little getaway. Yeah. So from basically start to finish, how long does making a custom knife take? It depends on the custom knife. I mean, if you want just something small, mid stock removal style, I can do that in one day for you. And use some five-minute epoxy, which is not great.
00:23:48
Speaker
you know, a lot of the weight, a lot of knife making is waiting for glue to dryer for, you know, you got to let things sit at certain temperatures. So if I was just going to make one knife, I could do it in three or four days if I was doing it all correctly. And that's, you know, seven hours. So it's 24 ish hour. No, sorry. Yeah, you're kind of 21, 28 hours. Yeah. Yeah.
00:24:17
Speaker
intense. Yeah. And truly, yeah, I assume you make them one at a time because they're basically like, if you're making I make them in batches, it's a lot more efficient to make. Yeah, you do. You do a bunch of knives in one step, because each step is, you know, you go from knife making is all kinds of
00:24:38
Speaker
It's multidisciplinary. It's blacksmithing. It's white smithing, which is sand, basically with files and sanding and stuff and shaping stuff like that. Jewelry making, woodworking, a little bit of, not alchemy, but metallurgy, this, that, and the other, sharpening. There's all kinds of stuff that goes into it. Product design, all kinds of stuff. Right.
00:25:04
Speaker
Yeah, I thought about that when we were prepping for this because I talked to a friend that is a jewelry maker a few couple of weeks ago. I've known her for a while and I was just like, you know, like asked him similar questions and she was like, yeah, like I could do, you know, one at a time and it would take so much longer.
00:25:23
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. While I have the materials going in the workshop, I'll do a batch of stuff. Like, oh, I can't think about that. Yeah, to get the forge going, it takes a certain amount of propane you got to burn to get the forge hot. So you might as well just do a couple pieces while you're going.
00:25:46
Speaker
Yeah, if you're going to turn the oven on and get it to 2,000 degrees, you might as well do a bunch of other ones in
Signature Styles and Local Sourcing
00:25:52
Speaker
2000. Well, I mean, 1,500, but who's counting? Right. What's the difference really? I can't imagine anything that hot, and I live in Georgia.
00:26:04
Speaker
I think I know the answer to this question, but like, was there some point where you became kind of confident in the knives you were making? Like, this is not just like a throwaway thing.
00:26:19
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I definitely think that I maybe got started professionally a little too early looking back on it. But yeah, definitely during the during the lockdown, when it was just kind of that was all I could do with my day except for hanging out at home.
00:26:35
Speaker
I definitely think that i got into my i developed my style mainly during that covid time when i figured out that i really wanted to i started the stock removal maker and then started forging more and more as i met my blacksmithing mentor who lives here in baltimore and learning more about blacksmithing.
00:26:56
Speaker
And I knew that that was kind of the direction I wanted to go in already, but kind of exploring that and how to make a forged product that was, you know, more repeatable as I got better at forging and kind of getting a product that I felt more was unique or more unique-ish or recognizable as something that I had done rather than just a reproduction of someone else's work.
00:27:21
Speaker
So, what's the signature? I mean, what's the design like? Sure. Yeah. I do a forged knife that starts from really thick stock. So, at the neck, you'll find that it's a lot thicker right as it comes out the handle. You brought some, right? I did. Yeah, I've got some. Do you want me to hold it? Yeah, why not? Velcro, Velcro.
00:27:46
Speaker
Sorry, I gotta move this over. So, and I like to leave a lot of that forged finish on there because I think it leaves like the hand of the maker on the piece. And then I really like using, you know, local woods, this piece here. It's Damascus steel. I don't know if I can get that in there. It's low layer Damascus. You can see the pattern on the blade.
00:28:12
Speaker
Yeah, dude, that's so fucking crazy because that's like... And so, this is... I don't know if that's ever gonna... But so, it comes out of the handle thicker because I start from thicker stock and then I have a pretty wild tape right down to the tip. I like to have my tips be like somewhat flexible. I don't know if you can actually see that. That's so fucking weird. Just because that's kind of the point where you're going through, especially like an onion, you want
00:28:35
Speaker
kind of as thin so you're not kind of like going through and finding resistance. Because you're working at the tip, you have the least amount of power in that point position because it's as far away from your hand as you can get. But then the heel is a lot heavier for
00:28:54
Speaker
it's closer to the thicker stuff so it's a thicker part of the blades. You can do more, you know, you can get through like ginger or lemongrass or stuff of that nature that needs a little bit more power behind it. And then I like to do... I like the Japanese handles with straight kind of octagonal ones with the two pieces. I like to use a mix of both local and exotic woods. This is Spalted Ash.
00:29:24
Speaker
and Purple Heart. So the ash is local, the Purple Heart is exotic. I just think that it gives a little bit more story. We're mixing things that are... A lot of this wood that I'm getting, I'm getting from Camp Small, which is a Baltimore City program where they take down the trees in Baltimore City and then take them to Camp Small, which is a mill for the city, and they resell all this lumber. They saw it all down in the usable log, in the usable lumber.
00:29:51
Speaker
And then, you know, makers all around the city can use it and it's making the city money from things that just growing in the city that would be, you know, just thrown into a dump somewhere otherwise. Oh, and it gives it so much more of a story. I like to have one of the things that I really wanted was with my maker's mark to have, you know, sometimes you don't know who's making these knives. A lot of makers just have like, um, a little logo there and it doesn't have their name or where it's made.
00:30:17
Speaker
So I have my name and Baltimore, Maryland on all my knives so that you know exactly where and who made it. Repping your city. Yeah, yeah, of course. I mean, I think that one of the reasons why I moved back to Baltimore to start my business other than that it's where I'm from. And I didn't really, we can get that to that later, but, um, I, um, I just want, I knew that people would care that things were made in, in Baltimore.
00:30:43
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. You know, like, oh, it's made in Baltimore rather than like, you know, it's made in somewhere else where they'd be like, I don't know where that is. It's like, specifically, right? It's like, these Japanese style knives made here in Baltimore by me. Yeah, I wouldn't say they're all Japanese style. I mean, it doesn't have some influence. But yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's all made yet. I think like, I guess,
00:31:13
Speaker
diversity, like global, whatever. I think that it's, you know, this is such a this was such an industrial town. And so much stuff used to be made here. When I used to live down in the Fells Point area, I lived next to the first ice cream plant that had boxed pre packaged ice cream. They sold like the first box ice cream used to be you can only buy it like in stores in like,
00:31:41
Speaker
that there's that huge building that I always see pictures of. It's like a huge brick building with like it looks like windows at the top. It looks like it's a castle. It was an ice factory. It was one of the first ice factories in the world. Yeah. And they ship their ice all over the place.
00:31:58
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So it's, you know, Baltimore used to be like that. And now I think that like some of the people that I that follow me, I might be one of the only people that they have a connection to Baltimore City rather than seeing things like, you know, what it always is like the wire or that. Yeah, people see like my work and think that's what their image of Baltimore is.
Baltimore's Influence and Identity
00:32:21
Speaker
Not that that's the only thing that's in Baltimore. But like, if I'm their only connection to Baltimore, I think that's a good thing.
00:32:26
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's art. It's like, whatever. It's a positive example, really, of which we have not that many, unfortunately, there's all so much so many artists when I was when I was super surprised about when I got here was like how how supportive the artist community is in Baltimore and how like,
00:32:48
Speaker
how wide it is, how many people are making all kinds of shit in this town. I mean, it's a super industrious town, even though industry is left, for the most part. Right. Yeah. And land is kind of similar. I think we talked about it a little bit, but Connor and myself love
00:33:05
Speaker
you know where we're from um but yeah like it's if there's something that's like atlanta-based regardless of what it is like there's a there's a pride to that for me like yeah it's just not as you know not as ubiquitous as it once
00:33:22
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say before I when I was down in Charleston, I, I Charleston is nice. I love Charleston. But after living there for six years, I still felt like I was a tourist there kind of because I'm from Maryland, people are like, Oh, you're a northern boy. And I was like, well, how long can I live here until people say, maybe you belong here. And I thought like, yeah, that's not gonna happen.
00:33:44
Speaker
Even though technically, Maryland is southern. Yeah. It's not even technically. It is. I don't believe I think it's its own thing. I think the Mid-Atlantic region is neither northern nor southern. It is below, but I think we are, I think that we have our own kind of culture in the Hispanic area.
00:34:11
Speaker
I wouldn't... It's like a 50-50 split, sort of. I wouldn't consider Philadelphia a typical northern city. No. Philadelphia or Baltimore. I wouldn't consider Philadelphia on the Mid-Atlantic. The Central Atlantic? Yeah, in the Mid-Atlantic. Like an hour and a half north of here. Yeah, yeah. But they're like over there.
00:34:33
Speaker
They're like over there, yeah. I think it's like central Jersey, which some people say doesn't exist. Down to like Richmond is the Mid-Atlantic. Yeah, something like that. Well, and then I mean, and then it pains me to include Virginia in anything that I'm a part of. Oh, I know. Richmond rules.
00:34:57
Speaker
I've been thinking about how Maryland has been getting
00:35:12
Speaker
how much it's changed since I was a kid. And then kind of like, even then like, looking back from there, I think it probably was a lot more Southern in the past. Right. And is now kind of like really becoming its kind of its own region with the Mid-Atlantic. Which is totally similarly Texas, like Texas has changed completely.
00:35:34
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. But it's diversity, right? It's like, yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, I grew up like living on Route 40 where like Koreatown is.
00:35:46
Speaker
And that, I mean, there was like a couple places, but like nowadays, it's just like a mecca of good food and like the best grocery stores. And I love that area. It's the, I mean, you can't argue with the stores. You can't argue with the amount of hot pot you can get down there in Korean barbecue. Right.
00:36:09
Speaker
So, I'm vegan so I cannot partake in most of that, but surely there is a vegan. That's not true. They've got vegan options. They've got tons of vegan options. Yeah, they've got all kinds of vegan options there. That's good to know. I will, yeah, I'll have to check out Beaver Highway and find a good spot, hot pot in vegan barbecue.
00:36:30
Speaker
Yeah, they probably have. I mean, they just all vegetable mostly and then the meat. I mean, you don't have to... It's just like the nice seasoned broth that you cook everything in and you're dipping sauce. So, Henry, what for food, you put a label on it, is the average customer that's buying knives?
00:36:51
Speaker
most of them are home cooks right now. I started with mostly professionals because that's who I knew a lot of. But I think most for the most part, it's home cooks who are, you know, getting into the I think there's a definitely like a shift away from mass produced stuff and single use stuff and buying knives and throwing them out when they're when they're old and cruddy.
00:37:16
Speaker
So, I think, and that's kind of why I started sharpening as well as like, you know, I know that my $400 knives are not in a lot of people, in most people's kind of, you know, what they're gonna buy. I just think it seems low.
00:37:35
Speaker
Right now, yeah, and I am in a lower I purposely keep myself low for that. I don't want to be I make 700 $800 $900 chef knives and but that's just not the kind of market I want to be in for my business. But I know that people already have knives and they need them sharpened and especially here in Baltimore, there is not
00:37:57
Speaker
a good place to get it sharpened there's none even that ace hardware they made Oh, no, not any hardware AI sharpening machine. Oh, yeah. And it's farmers markets. I fixed a lot of farmers market sharpeners knives.
Work Attire and Practicality
00:38:15
Speaker
Yeah. So
00:38:17
Speaker
Yeah. I forgot what the question. Not like ACE is a small mom and pop operation. No, but that's kind of the problem is that they just put someone in front of the machine and just feed a knife into it. Well, the one, the AI one, it's like, you put the knife in there, close it. And it's like, hmm, it is obvious. Yeah, yeah. Not to vandalize that. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
00:38:44
Speaker
I'll say that I'll do it. You don't have to say. Okay. Yeah. Just to protect my... Well, I'm an LLC. So, if it's a business practice, you know, they can't sue me, they can only sue the business. I gotta get an LLC. Yeah. Apocalypse Dutch LLC. We're doing it. Let's do it.
00:39:03
Speaker
Yeah, do you want to talk about clothes for a moment? Yeah, let's talk about clothes. Just to start the clothing discussion off, what's your usual daily type of wear and rig for what you do?
00:39:20
Speaker
Sure. Well, now it's becoming more the summer, so I need to get a new pair, a new set of work shorts. I really like Canvas. Canvas everything. Yeah. It holds up. Just, you know, fire control and spark control and the odd thing flying at you control. Usually I wear like work pants, some wearing some, I think they're Milwaukee pants.
00:39:50
Speaker
So, yeah, Home Depot really set me up. I'm a skinny leg person, so I'm a skinny pant kind of person as well just because I feel like I'm swimming in a big
00:40:06
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I just you know, I just swim in those kind of pants so And then Usually for shirts I get old shirts just because I know I'm gonna fuck them up right now. I'm wearing a nice shirt I had to wear an apron just for this to keep this shirt nice and clean And then I do a lot of hats just because of the amount of dust it's insane keep it out of my hair keep the metal dust out of my hair and
00:40:30
Speaker
you're a genuine working person. Yeah, which there's a lot of like, work, work where cosplay in there. Yeah, yeah. And yours is all really fucked up stuff, right? Really fucked up stuff. All my old Volo kickball shirts. Yeah, all those and I just burned big holes in them. And what's the apron? What's the apron like?
00:40:54
Speaker
Is that a big weather apron? A big long one because I find that a lot of them aren't long enough. They don't cover your knees if you drop a sharp knife and your knees are out. I like that. You drop a knife that's 2000 degrees. You don't really want that going down your pant leg or your boot.
00:41:16
Speaker
It just sounds it just sounds very scary. Yeah, it can get very scary. And then I'm a I'm a pretty much every shoe I have except for sandals are all either high rise or boots. I've got a little bird ankles. So well, well, for our listeners, what does that mean? A bird ankle. I just have like really thin legs and then tiny little week. Like, right, right, right.
00:41:43
Speaker
Yeah. So I just need as much support as I can get. I used to play rugby in college. We played on a hurricane Hugo dump site. Holes and stuff that we I just rolled my ankle so bad. I tore my ankle tendon. Oh, never really healed. So it's not apparent because you're in the video but you are
00:42:09
Speaker
You could have been back then you could have been like Grunting warrior. So yeah, I'm I'm a bit tall. Yeah, I'm a big boy. Well, it's cool I mean if I was making nice would be like this guy this pipsqueak. Yeah Yeah, now it's all it's all my upper body is all my size and then my my legs are just long and slender That's where my height comes from
00:42:33
Speaker
What's your preferred boots? My preferred boots? Right now I'm wearing some Danner's. Nice, who are they? I've got some... I like Georgia boots. Georgia boots are great. Oh, Georgia boots are great. And thorough goods as well.
00:42:50
Speaker
Yeah. What are the dinners? I mean, I'm not saying like, what is the model number? I have like three pairs. Yeah, I just kind of like the I think they're just like a high rise or high rise. Yeah, I have. Yeah, just work boots, I guess. I don't know. I really like the way they look, though.
00:43:09
Speaker
I'm super into boots. I've always been into boots. I like I want to get more boots, but I've got so many and they're all kind of fucked up. Do you have a wish list of stuff? Do you have like, when I sold 50 knives, I'm gonna buy me a pair of? No, I started working in kitchens and I started in boots and then they made me switch to Crocs. So I do still have a love for Crocs. I love them too. And then
00:43:36
Speaker
I'd really like to get like a pair of handmade boots like necks or I know that there's other names you can just some guy's name and put handmade boots behind that and that's probably a good one. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not really like a sneaker head. I like I wear vans. I wear high top vans because that ankle support is necessary. I usually just have the black ones with the gum sole. Yeah, classic.
Appreciation for Local Architecture
00:44:03
Speaker
Yeah I need a new pair of those because I've worn straight through the bottom so I'm basically just walking on pavement now. Yeah. Don't skate but I just like the high tops. I just need the ankle support. You're better in my view. Yeah.
00:44:19
Speaker
Yeah, I am pretty much all like high top everything or like at least mid like much the boots that I'm wearing now or like, you know, right, run above the ankle, skate highs, high top from the oars. I think the low top wallaby is maybe better than the high top wallaby. But yeah, wallabies, I can't speak anymore.
00:44:41
Speaker
And I feel that the... Is that what those are? They are, I guess, many people know them because of the Wu Tang and it was a big proponent of the Clark's Wallaby Boo.
00:44:56
Speaker
They're hideous, basically. They're, like, inuit sort of looking. Sure. They're definitely ugly, too. Yeah. I'm a Chelsea man. I like the Chelsea mood because the days you go out drinking, you just want to... Or I guess... I don't know if you guys are...
00:45:13
Speaker
on my lazy days like to wear the chalicea but you just take them you can't argue with the slip on no i would when i sit nice when i stop being cheap i will buy another pair of one so since those are like the perfect boots
00:45:31
Speaker
I just got Doc Martens, I got them on sale. I think it was like, I got two boots for the price of one. I think they were doing like a closing sale or something or their end of the year sale or something. I got two pairs of Chelsea's, one for work and one for not work. Steel. Is that a monument brewing hat? Yeah, monument brewing. Yeah, that is a good hat. I'm more of a fan of the building they're in than their beer personally but... Yeah.
00:45:57
Speaker
It's a really cool building. It's at the end of the end of Baltimore and the end of Baltimore Street and over in Highland Town and they're in an old gun stock manufacturing plant. Oh, that's good. They used to make veneers for gun stock. Wow. It's really cool as an old wartime factory.
00:46:18
Speaker
There's just so much of that. Yeah, that's my kind of, that's what I look for is just buildings. I really love buildings, especially in this area. Do you have a favorite building in Baltimore? Yeah, that's a large order. If you've ever seen the, I really liked the building that Sandtown Furniture has down by the stadiums. That's where I worked. Yeah, they turned that building
00:46:44
Speaker
Into quite one of the more beautiful workshops that's in this town. They turn like an old huge I think it's like a 40 or 50 foot ceilings and they split it up with a glass pane Between their showroom and their workroom and it's just a gorgeous space I can't imagine that they heat or air-condition the back where everybody's working, but they do air-condition the front which is nice I'm in my first air-condition shop now. So I I really I can't I don't think I could ever do without it again. I
00:47:14
Speaker
Well, man, with the thousands and thousands of degrees, it's like- The summer's not bad. The winter is the worst. Oh. Really? Yeah. When you're standing there freezing, because when you're grinding knives, you have to have your hands in like a bucket of water. Oh. Okay. I didn't even think about it.
00:47:32
Speaker
Yeah, the summers are not nice. It gets very hot, but the winters are worse. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a hot weather guy. I mean, like living down in Charleston and coming back up here, I like the summer. It can be as hot as anything and I don't mind. If it gets cold though, I've lost all my cold resistance.
00:47:54
Speaker
You're in luck actually because I don't know how familiar you are with the scientific community, but there's some thinking that it's going to get a little hotter. Just a sketch. We're breaking that story here. Breaking climate change is real. Climate change is real.
00:48:17
Speaker
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. So I don't know why. My Instagram explore is maybe one of the most unhinged places of all of the internet. And don't know if that's my doing or what. But so for the past, I don't know, six months or so, a lot of these like TikTok videos of people making the most absurd recipe you've ever fucking seen in your life.
00:48:44
Speaker
pop up, and then there's the reaction which is a lot of, you know, a lot of shows.
Viral Content and Cultural Trends
00:48:51
Speaker
Rage. Yeah, rage. And then, you know, people make these videos of them reacting to this recipe, which I find personally hilarious. So I guess... But that's the audience. That's that video's audience. That is that video's audience. Yeah. But it's like, we're gonna piss you off, buddy.
00:49:13
Speaker
All right, right. Just as someone that has worked in and is still connected to the whole food chef community, what have you seen as far as this proliferation goes? What's your take on it?
00:49:31
Speaker
I think it's all just clickbait. I mean, it's just it's just to make you mad. It's not there. I think that none of these like shitty recipes where they're putting a pound of cream cheese and a thing of tater tots and an entire bag of Mexican shredded cheese together to make like old grandma's recipe. It's just piss you off.
00:49:53
Speaker
Yeah, it's all like bullshit. Or mixing with your hands or something like that and like... Yeah, yeah. Things like that that piss people off like a no glove mixing of the hands or like cross-contamination with the chicken or just the guys that just eat raw chicken breasts. Oh god, yeah. Yeah. Like it's all just to make you mad and it worked. I mean, yeah. Unless you don't give a shit about it or consume it.
00:50:19
Speaker
It's just like the tattoo, just like the shitty tattoo trend of like people just taking videos of them in their like kitchen with no gloves and drawing like stick shit, stick figures and what is it called? The ignorant style tattoos? Yeah, it's exactly the same thing. It's like being, it's not that being good is no longer fashionable, but they find that being bad and overtly bad also draws the same attention as being good or more.
00:50:47
Speaker
Yeah, I've been doing my whole life. Yeah, I kind of wondered with it. Like, you know, you see, you see the people that seem somewhat earnest and no offense to anyone, but mostly white people. Yeah. And I'm like,
00:51:04
Speaker
Guys, what people are the fail vid people? Yeah, they truly are. It just makes you wonder, like, how much of this is, you know, just like, oh, Grandmama showed me this recipe, and how much of this is, like, what's the, what is the ratio of like, oh, I think this is actually good, versus like, I want to make you mad. And if, you know, I don't know, it's just, it's one of those funny ass things. It's all shitty.
00:51:33
Speaker
Yeah, it's just like, it's funny how big that whole community, and I guess you could spot this broadly across all viral videos. There can't be that many people that are like, oh yeah, I'm just gonna piss people off with this.
00:51:50
Speaker
I feel like some of it doesn't have to be that many people. It just has to be like five people. Yeah. It's also not a new thing. It's like Duchamp and his urinal right in the day with that piece. But yeah, like it's the same exact phenomenon of pissing people off to get attention. A good policy is to is to consume nothing. Sure.
00:52:13
Speaker
No media, no food. And then it's like, get mad at what? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, John Prine said blow up your TV, throw away your papers. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. Good John Prine. Move to the country, build you a home. I think so. Yeah. We talked about John on this program. We have one of the best songwriters or American songwriters. My mom is going to be pleased.
00:52:40
Speaker
Yes, just kidding. My mom doesn't listen to the show anymore. Yeah, I curse too much. I ran. That's where's too much. Yeah. For her delicate years.
Punk Rock Ethos in Knife Making
00:52:51
Speaker
Right. Yeah, this has been fun. Um, so not not to throw a wrench into things. But Hunter had mentioned this morning, something about you wanting or you might bring up
00:53:07
Speaker
punk rock and what punk means during our interview, which I'm very curious about. No, I might do that. Yeah. Well, then you were wondering about the parameters of punk ideology. Yeah, yeah. I'd never really considered myself to be punk rock, but Connor seems to be convinced that I am punk rock.
00:53:29
Speaker
I think the knife making thing is, right? It's DIY. And it's about beautification. Sure. Yeah, I mean, it is very anti consumerism, I guess. No big producer and establishment shop small. Yeah, like there weirdly is a
00:53:47
Speaker
kind of consumer angle to it, I guess, like go to the thrift store, buy stuff that is used. Yeah, yeah. Well, I reclaim a lot. Yeah. Like, you know, punk rock. You're talking about making like, you're getting into sharpening, and kind of like saving some older stuff, because
00:54:11
Speaker
just bring it back to life. Like, that's fucking post. Like, that's, that's, you know, like, no. Now I'm fighting against big auto with my recent car purchase. Just bought a 99K truck. Ooh! Gotta talk about the truck, gotta talk about the truck, cause Hank is a little truck guy.
00:54:31
Speaker
I'm a yeah, Hank's a k truck guy. I just I drove my k truck all the way over to here. I live just up in Baltimore County. So I'm just driving up and down Falls Road, just on like one of the most scenic motorcycle roads. I live right up it. So I just drive straight down it in my little k truck. It's been great. Fantastic. That's awesome. I definitely have to check it
DIY and Home Projects
00:54:53
Speaker
out. Let's hop out at what like 55.
00:54:56
Speaker
or so. Yeah, 55. Yeah. Yeah. So not not amazing. Not not a highway not a highway vehicle. But I mean, it's I've got the same bed size as most American trucks. It's a right hand stick shift. I wanted a stick shift truck for so long. But the like the nearest one is it like a Tacoma or a Jeep for like $45,000? I paid $6,000 for this truck. Yeah, yeah. It's 40,000.
00:55:22
Speaker
I know for a while they were hard to import. Yeah, I just imported mine. The hardest part was the port because I imported it and then it was like two weeks away from being delivered and the Key Bridge collapsed.
00:55:40
Speaker
And so, um, it got diverted to Newark and it was a bit of a trouble getting it out of the port of Newark. But other than that, it was a really easy process. It took a little bit of paperwork and like patients, but I've got, I built my own workshop. So I've got the patients for long processes like this. So it's like... You've done it all yourself it sounds like.
00:56:01
Speaker
Yeah, I do like to do. I mean, I've, I've recently maybe in the last pretty much five years, yeah, when I started my business, have really gotten into just kind of figuring stuff out. DIY has been one of the things that somebody told me in a class I was in was like, you know, the less you have, the less the more you know, the less you have to rely on other people. And I think it's also a lot of like confidence, just try and do it. And if it blows up in your face, then you know not to do that next time.
00:56:30
Speaker
We talked about that on this show before, like, I don't know, basically how to get things done. We were talking about it just now, just last episode. And it's amazing to hear like how people do, how people get their stuff done. And basically, it's amazing. They don't do it. Someone else got to do it. So. Right. Right. Right. And usually you have to pay those to do it for you. So. Yeah, usually.
00:56:56
Speaker
Yeah, if you can figure it out for yourself, all the better. Yeah, yeah. We've been redesigning. I just bought a house that's a 1870s farmhouse up in the county. And so it's been a lot of a process fixing it up. And a lot of it's been doing it and figuring it out. And it's been a great process. I really like I just painted and wallpapered my dining room and did it all myself. With what kind of wallpaper?
00:57:22
Speaker
Uh, it's a white, golden, black, like crane, maximalist print. It's very like, um, yeah, it's kind of like, um, it gives me a little bit of gilded age. It gives a little bit of like, you know,
00:57:36
Speaker
great of Jay Gatsby. And but I also like we'll put the picture up. Sure. Yeah, the way the way that I the way that I the plan for it was to kind of be like a room where you do like a deal with the devil, I guess. And that was kind of my inspiration for doing it. And it's like gilded and a little bit dark and black. And then all the wall where all the art we're having on the wall is tattoo like flash art.
00:58:01
Speaker
And we just finished it and it looks really good and it feels really good to do it yourself and probably would have been a pretty expensive job to have someone because I wallpapered the ceiling so it's like not a very easy probably one of the harder ways to wallpaper.
00:58:24
Speaker
It was really fun. I really enjoy wallpaper. People said that wallpapering was going to be hard. It's not easy, but people said it would suck, but I had a lot of fun doing it. Fuck yeah. Might open up a wallpaper business
Podcast Wrap-Up
00:58:36
Speaker
myself. There you go. Yeah. We support it. We support all the endeavors. We support, yeah, all the endeavors. Henry, dude, this has been great. Thank you for coming on. And we didn't say this, but Henry and Connor are in the same house.
00:58:53
Speaker
Yeah, we all get to do a lot of these. My friend Sam did one last fall where she came over to my friend Eleanor's house that I was house living for. But yeah, been highly enjoyable. And I think I've learned more about making knives than I ever actually thought. So thank you. We always give our guests a chance to plug whatever they want to plug. So have that.
00:59:23
Speaker
um my instagram is hide handmade uh you can just look up hide handmade knives or hide baltimore um yeah i make knives and uh related kitchen items um cutting boards chopsticks i want to start making spoons and spatulas and stuff like that um but yeah you're looking into
00:59:50
Speaker
supporting a local business to get some cooler stuff in your kitchen or getting your stuff in your kitchen fixed, give me a shout. And it's also hidehandmadeknives.com for my website. And hide being H-Y-D, I don't know why.
01:00:08
Speaker
I feel like that should be a distinction. Anyway, Henry, one more time. Thank you so much, everyone. Thank you for listening. Please rate, like, subscribe, review, et cetera, et cetera, on your platform choice. I am Matt Smith at Rebels Robes.
01:00:28
Speaker
And I'm Connor Fowler, which my handle is still different. So, real Connor Nunez, but we'll see. Yeah. We are, uh, we're at apocalypse studs on Instagram, apocalypse studs h.com. Like to send us fucking anything we still owe back to the couple.
01:00:47
Speaker
past two years. Send us an emoji. Tell us we suck. We don't really give a shit. Just send us a fucking email, please. Anyway, once again, thank you for listening and we will see you next week. A new episode.