Reclaimed wood is frequently touted as a resourceful way to reduce waste by reusing existing materials. What’s often missing from that conversation is how the reuse of these materials can also reclaim a piece of history, salvaging remnants of what came before and offering them a new meaning. That was the intention of Brooklyn’s Horse Brand Co. with its new Coney Island Boardwalk Knife, which uses shards of the famous boardwalk blasted apart by Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

“A lot of the boardwalk doesn’t exist anymore, so it’s a really nice way to stay connected with the people who have a relationship with that area,” says Thomas Callahan, founder of Horse Brand Co., which specializes in handmade, custom bike frames. Their online store includes a range of other utilitarian goods as well, from handmade copper flasks to embossed riding gloves. Many of the products are collaborations with friends and other small shops. The knife is one such item, made  with the Long Island City–based design and fabrication studio Surname Goods.

Enter a caption (optional)

Enter a caption (optional)

“The idea for making knives came from an obsession I had with wanting to create a tool that I could use out when I’m in the wilderness,” Callahan says. “I wanted it to also act as special object that added value to that extended task, something that I could have and I could know someone’s hands were on it, know how it was made.” The idea for using wood from the Coney Island Boardwalk came from his friend Steven Bukowski, one of the founders of Surname Goods, who had stumbled upon wood salvaged in the aftermath of Sandy (he was using it to create a set of Boardwalk Coasters).

Horse Brand Co. founder Thomas Callahan. Portrait by Michael Cooper

Callahan thought the wood would be perfect for adding a layer of meaning to the knife he wanted to make. Horse was already producing two variations of a standard camping knife, but none with a wooden handle. He sent over the specs, and once Surname confirmed that they had enough stock, the two studios began designing the knife last summer.

“We kind of developed the handle together,” Callahan says, noting that the teams went back and forth with ideas to give the handle a bit more detail and further elevate the design. The final embellishment was a maple inlay in the reclaimed ipê wood, suggested by Surname Goods. Surname built a laser-cutting jig to quickly cut a large quantity of pieces, which were then inlaid and glued up into blocks of wood that are wrapped and shipped to Horse for manufacturing the final knives.

At the Horse workshop, Callahan cuts the blades from 3/32 sheets of high-carbon steel specifically made for steel tooling. The profile of the blade is cut and put in a jig, and the initial bevel is ground into each side. Then they are placed on an anvil and stamped with “Horse” on one side and “USA” on the other. The blades are placed into a heat-treating oven up to 1550 degrees Fahrenheit and left there for 15 minutes before being rapidly dipped in oil. “When it’s up at that temperature, the molecules kind of relax and then you shock it in oil and the molecules tighten up into a really tight crystalline structure on a molecular level, and what that does is make the material very, very hard,” Callahan explains. “The reason why we want it to be hard is because we want it to be able to cut through hard materials, and having that hardness in a material is going to allow you to maintain a sharper edge, so you can cut through other steels and softer steels.”

Inside the Horse workshop. Photos by Michael Cooper

Enter a caption (optional)

Next, the blade is placed back in the oven at 450 degrees for two hours to heat-treat it, relaxing the molecules just enough to make it super durable, but not so hard that it’s brittle. Then it’s taken out of the oven and cooled to room temperature before being faced on a grinder. The actual grind of the knife is a Scandinavian grind, a specific style consisting of a flat surface that goes all the way down to the cutting edge—making it easier to sharpen in the field. The final edges are ground on another jig, then honed on a stone, before finally being tested by stroking the blade with leather to ensure that it’s shaving-sharp.

Once he’s received the glued-up blocks of inlaid wood from Surname Goods, Callahan prepares them to become handles by riveting them to the blade using brass and nickel pins. The handles are then shaped down to fit comfortably in the hand and oiled with a Danish oil that acts as a protectant for the material. After two coats of that, Callahan and his team add three coats of wax that is then buffed out to give each knife nice finish, also using the metal protectant T3, developed by Boeing, to prevent oxidation of the steel and protect the blade.

Using reclaimed wood has another unexpected benefit for the design shop. “The ipê wood is really great for the same reason why it was chosen for the boardwalk,” Callahan says. “It’s very weather-resistant and very stable—not susceptible to rot and mold, because of the chemical makeup of the wood.”

Horse and Surname Goods already have another knife using the reclaimed wood launching soon, sans inlay. Callahan says that this version will provide a sleeker option to its more ornate counterpart, and hopes that both products will extend the life of the Coney Island Boardwalk as it is rebuilt. “You can carry that with you and it’s meaningful,” he says.