Before Rick Hinderer was a knife maker, he was a horseman.
He worked with horses while attending a small high school in a small town in Ohio. After graduating, he attended Ohio State University’s Agricultural Technical Institute to study horse training and farriery. “I figured getting a degree would give me a better shot at working with top-tier farms,” he told me.
'I wanted to give a buddy of mine a knife when he retired from the military. Didn’t have money to buy one, so I thought, "I’ll just make it."'
While at ATI, he met his wife, whose family ran a quarter-horse breeding operation. Growing up, he had bounced around Middle America, moving from place to place. But by then, his roots in Ohio had grown deep. He’d moved enough. It was time to stay put.
Then came fire. For over a decade, Rick was a firefighter and an EMT. This added another level of complexity to his knifemaking. Knives needed to meet the demand and pace of emergency rescues.
“When you need a tool in a crisis, it better work,” he said. “I saw firsthand how important reliability is. You don’t want to be second-guessing your gear when the heat is on. That mindset went into every knife I made.”
Horses gradually faded into the background, and he left the firefighter job, but knives remained a constant. Over the years, his craftsmanship became unmistakable — like a painter’s brushwork, impossible to counterfeit.
He has no choice: “If I'm not creating, if I'm not making something, I'm not breathing."
Once a horseman ...
These three components — horses, steel, and fire — form the the DNA of Hinderer Knives. Rick’s logo — a horse’s head with a mane of flames — carries the two great influences of his life. “I wanted my logo to reflect my background,” he said. “Horses were my first love, and the fire represents my years as a firefighter. It just made sense to combine them.”
In recent years, he’s returned to horses, rekindling that early passion. It’s fitting, given that he approaches both disciplines with the same patience and craftsmanship. “People see pictures of me on horseback and go, ‘Oh, now I get the logo,’” he said, laughing in front of the blazing horse graphic that brands the company.
Lately, he’s been thinking about time. About things coming full-circle. He climbed back into the saddle: His tri-point harmony is now thriving.
“I found out three years ago that once a horseman, always a horseman.”
Shortly after he returned to horses, he took a trip to Gettysburg for a guided tour of the battlefield known as the Wheatfield. As they clopped along, the air began to change, a veil sank over the sky, birds chattering nervously.
He hadn’t expected the partial eclipse, let alone on horseback. His wife was inspired by the occasion and named a knife: the Eklipse.
It was poetic, as if God had realigned him.
Renaissance man
I spoke with Rick Hinderer via video from his shop in Northeast Ohio, where Hinderer Knives crafts unique designs that sell out quickly. He’s an easy guy to talk to — quick to smile, full of stories and insights, and deeply respectful of the work of his hands. We spoke for an hour but could have gone much longer.
There’s something refreshing about craftsmen like him — outdoorsmen with an artist’s mind, Middle American in spirit, yet wired for precision and beauty. Hinderer blends rugged practicality with creative finesse.
And it made me wonder — why didn’t I start profiling American artisans sooner? All those years spent interviewing political and cultural heavyweights, big-brained contrarians, the occasional prima donna. The thinkers, the talkers, the debaters, tangled up in their endless opera of ideas.
Meanwhile, men like Hinderer just get to work, turning steel into something that lasts.
'I just did what made sense'
Like many great craftsmen, Rick didn’t come into his trade through formal training but through necessity and curiosity. “I wanted to give a buddy of mine a knife when he retired from the military,” he said. “Didn’t have money to buy one, so I thought, ‘I’ll just make it.’”
At the time, he was already forging horseshoes, so blacksmithing was second nature. He pounded out his first knife from an old plow point, shaping steel with little more than intuition and grit.
“I didn’t even know custom knife making was a thing,” he admitted. “No internet back then, no forums. I just did what made sense.”
That first knife found its way into a collection, but Rick still owns the second one he ever made. “I look at it now and think, ‘Wow, that was rough,’ but given what I had to work with, I’m proud of it.”
Knives became an obsession. He honed his craft, learning everything he could, refining his techniques, and eventually developing the distinctive Hinderer style — rugged and beautiful and a little bit quirky.
"James Hetfield from Metallica once said he doesn’t know where his lyrics come from. That’s how I feel about my designs."
Pride of ownership
People often ask Rick Hinderer why they should buy one of his knives instead of something off the shelf at Walmart. It’s a fair question. “The price is different than some of the knives coming in from overseas,” he said. “So what are you getting? Each one cuts. So what are you really paying for?”
That question isn’t answered in a single sentence. Sometimes, it takes him an hour or more to explain. “There’s so much to it, and that’s before I even get into the historical side of it.”
He loves working with new customers — people who aren’t collectors or knife enthusiasts, who might not know the difference between a production knife and a high-end custom blade.
“It reminds me of when I was sitting at a gun show in Medina, Ohio, back in 1991,” he said. “The internet was around, but it wasn’t like today. People didn’t have easy access to custom knife makers. So they’d walk by my table, see the knives, check the price, and go, ‘Oh my gosh.’ And that gave me the opportunity to explain.”
As they held the knife in their hands, something changed. “You’d see that enlightenment come over their face. Then they’d buy the knife, come back two months later, and tell me how they’d dressed out ten deer, or a bear, or processed game for all their buddies — and never even had to touch the edge. That’s when they understood. That’s what they paid for.”
But beyond performance, there’s something else. Something unseen but just as real. “Pride of ownership,” he said. “It’s that feeling when you hold the knife and think, ‘Yeah, I got this. This was made by someone.’”
Each knife comes with an assembly card, signed by the craftsman who put it together. “You know who built it,” he said. “Maybe it was Amanda, or Kim, or Lane. Maybe Mike milled the blade, or Zach did the water jetting. Every step, every detail, was done by someone who cares.”
That’s the difference. “This isn’t a gas-station knife that came from China,” he said. “This is a Hinderer.”
Designing for the real world
Rick’s creations are first and foremost tools. “A knife is a knife,” he told me. “If it’s just art, then it’s sculpture. A knife needs to function, to be used. I design for that first.”
That philosophy is evident in everything from his steel choices to the ergonomics of his designs.
“A knife should work for you, not against you,” he explained. “It should feel natural in your hand, be balanced, and not create hot spots during extended use. Weight is a big factor — if a pocketknife is too heavy, you won’t carry it. If a fixed blade is too bulky, it becomes a burden instead of a tool.”
One of Hinderer’s most significant innovations is the Tri-Way Pivot System, allowing users to switch between bearings, phosphor-bronze washers, and teflon washers depending on their needs. “Some guys want ultra-smooth action, so they go with bearings,” he said. “But if you’re in a gritty, muddy environment, you want the reliability of washers. With the Tri-Way system, you get to pick what works for you.”
American craftsmanship
Like Dawson Knives, Hinderer Knives insists on making every part of its products in-house. “You’re not just buying a knife,” he told me. “You’re supporting innovation, American craftsmanship, and the best materials available.”
He doesn’t just mean that in a patriotic sense — though that’s part of it. The U.S. has long been at the forefront of knife-making technology, and Rick believes that supporting domestic makers is about preserving that legacy.
“Most of the knife designs and innovations you see today started here,” he said. “If you want that level of quality, you need to foster it.”
That commitment extends to every step of the process. “We don’t order parts from overseas. We don’t cut corners. When you buy one of our knives, you’re getting something designed, engineered, and built by American hands.”
The mind of a maker
Despite Rick Hinderer’s insistence that function comes first, there’s no denying that his knives have a distinct aesthetic appeal. “It’s funny,” he said. “I started out making simple, rugged tools. But then I got into forging, Damascus, gold inlays — real art knives. I learned from guys like Hugh Bartrug, one of the best in the industry. Even now, my designs carry that influence. The lines aren’t just functional — they’re beautiful.”
Hinderer Knives become an extension of the person using them. That’s why Rick encourages his customers to put them to work. “Knives aren’t meant to sit in a display case,” he said. “You don’t appreciate everything that goes into them until you use them.”
“That’s something that’s really hard to explain to somebody,” Hinderer told me. “Some people just get it. You hear about writer’s block — it’s the same kind of thing. If you try to force it, it doesn’t come. It just has to come. And sometimes, it hits you at two or three in the morning.”
He usually rushes to write it down.
“I’m afraid it’ll go away,” he told me. “Later, I’ll look at it and think, ‘My gosh, I think this will work.’”
His wife knows the look by now. “She calls it my ‘thousand-yard stare,’” he said, laughing. “She’ll ask me what’s wrong, then she’ll remember — ‘Oh, you’re thinking about a knife.’”
But before pen ever meets paper, the design takes shape in his mind. “A lot of times, I won’t even sketch anything until I’ve worked through it mentally,” he said. “I think about the lines, the mechanisms — how I can improve something, what adjustments I can make. I’ll go over it again and again in my mind before I ever put it down. Because until I see it clearly up here,” tapping his temple, “I don’t know what’s worth writing down.”
That’s the mind of a maker — always turning, always searching for the next step, the next refinement.
“Looking back, I can see how every piece of my life led me here,” he told me. “The horses, the fire department, the blacksmithing — it all came together. That’s God’s hand at work.
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The post <a href=https://www.theblaze.com/align/knife-maker-rick-hinderer-how-a-gift-for-a-friend-led-to-an-obsession-with-craft target=_blank >Knife maker Rick Hinderer: How a gift for a friend led to an obsession with craft</a> appeared first on Conservative Angle | Conservative Angle - Conservative News Clearing House
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