This week’s interview is by a maker that perhaps needs little introduction. Martin Huber from Austria has a big personality and makes some amazing knives. In addition, he has a great YouTube channel, and he also runs Knifeshow Austria heading into its second year. I have enjoyed getting to know him better, and to share his story with you. Stick to the end for some surprises.
Tell me a bit about yourself, more about your background, before you got into knives.
I grew up in the workshop of my dad, he is a metal fabricator, does blacksmithing stuff. He used to make fences, stuff like that, especially when I was young. I forged for the first time when I was three years old. And for the first time making a knife I was five years old. So, yeah, I started pretty young. So, I would when I had free time starting when I was in kindergarten, I would grab scraps and forge them together to make different things. When I got older, I went into a technical school, I started out at first as an electrician, but I figured out pretty fast that wasn’t the direction I wanted to go in. So, then I started in a different program at the school which combined blacksmithing, goldsmithing, and engraving. My best friend was into the goldsmithing, and she said just try it for a year, so I decided to give a try, and it was in that class where I met Chris my apprentice and Moe my cameraman. We spent the next couple of years in that program. Graduated as a Blacksmith journeyman, after that I completed my mandatory military service where I was a truck driver and machine gunner. After my service I injured my hand and couldn’t lift anything over 10 pounds, so Chris and I started doing small jobs in a little space we had in the back of my grandfather’s garage. We made some knives, and also had a couple jobs with local manufacturers: one was a company that made ball bearings, and then after that I went to BMW, that job wasn’t great and I had been getting so many knife orders, that I started to realize that perhaps I should consider knife making as my job, so I discussed this with my girlfriend, who is now my wife, and she said she was making decent money, that she would help support us, and that I should go for it. My parents were also very supportive so I decided to try and see how it would work out.
After a year and half, it went well enough that I was able to get a power hammer, and a bigger workshop. It was around that time that Simon Krichbaum showed up, he called and said he was interested in knife making and asked if he could come over and take a look. We got along well, and he would come over frequently, after a while he said the real reason, he was there was he was looking for a job and wanted to make knives. At first, I wasn’t sure if I could afford an employee, but we did a trial run for a week. Well, that week led to another and another until it was six weeks, and I thought I should probably pay this guy. So, he came to visit and never left. So, that is how I got my first employee. We worked in that little shop for two years, until we built a bigger shop, we were in the bigger shop for about a year and then we brought Chris on. A little later Simon went his own way. It has been about three years with Chris alone as a full-time employee. Actually, he has been with me about five years now.
I have also appreciated seeing Chris’ builds through the YouTube channel, stylistically it seems very similar to your own work.
Yes, and that is very intentional, I felt it was very important for all of the work made under the brand Martin Huber knives to have a consistent approach to design. But I also have him put his mark on the blade next to mine, to make sure there is credit to the maker.
Do you enjoy the teaching, the apprentice process, or was it something that more or less just happened?
I really enjoy teaching, especially if the person is really interested in learning. Sometimes I will get asked by other makers how I do certain things, and I am open to that. I will show them, or if I have explained it in a video, I’ll send them a link. Sometimes they try it my way and then find that making some changes will fit how they work better, and I think that’s cool. But there are also makers that will ask for advice, I’ll give it to them, and then they come back like a week later saying they are still having problems, I’ll ask them if they tried it the way I suggested, and they will say no….I find that frustrating, because why did you even ask me then?
I also think it is interesting seeing them figure out their own way of accomplishing the same result. Like Chris and I have very similar workflows, but there are some differences. When I was watching Chris recording a build, he started constructing his handle, and I was like, why is he doing it like that? But then when he was done the results were the same. I asked him later, and he was like that is how I have always done it.
You had mentioned that you came back to forging after you left it for a while, would you say you avoided it because your father did it, or did following to a certain extent in your father’s footsteps appeal to you?
At first, I sort of avoided it, but it was something I had done helping my father in his shop from a very young age, so I felt it was something I could fall back on. In the area where I grew up, my family was well known, so I would hear, “Oh you’re the son of….your dad, mother, grandmother”. And I wanted to be known for my good work one day. So, the idea of taking over the family business and carrying on the tradition appealed to me. But after I graduated school, you know parents aren’t that cool anymore, ha-ha. I started to have mixed feelings, so I wanted to find my own way. And to be honest the idea of working that closely with my father would be horrible, because we both have strong opinions on how things should go and be done. Ironically, we do share the workshop and work on some projects together, but we mostly do our own thing. We also can share machines, so we both have access to machines, that neither of need all the time, but are available for us to use if we need them. But I am happy not taking over his metal fabricating work, I don’t like the process of having to go back and forth, taking measurements and then doing work at the shop. I like having everything I need in front of me.
Do you remember the first knife you made, tell me about it?
It was a made of mild steel, a kind of blacksmith knife, full forge with a bent handle. Then I filed it down, and put on a handle, it was really, really rough. The first damascus knife I made was a hunting knife for my dad, mild steel and bandsaw damascus. Incredibly it holds an edge. I really folded the heck out of it, something like 400 layers. It still cuts. The first time I made a knife with proper steel, I made a kitchen knife for my mom 02 and 16n20, I was still in school at the time. She still has it, she doesn’t use it too much anymore, but I was so proud. And it also makes me happy to know that my first two damascus knives are still alive, still family possessions. So, I can take a look at them and see how different they were from what I make now.
Do you have a favorite knife you have made?
All time favorite? Not really…I have a few that I would put into the top category, that I am proud of. But there isn’t one knife, because I can always see something that I could’ve done better.
You’ve been making knives for a long time now, at what point do you think you had a style that you felt was your own? Was there a handle design, or some other element, that when you made it, you were like, ‘this is the direction I want to go in.”?
Actually, it was pretty recent. I have had the company for around ten years now. I would say it was back in 2018-2019. When I started working with Peter at Modern Cooking. He was always pushing me. He would tell me he thought my knives were good, but maybe I could try pushing further in a certain direction. So, I kept pushing myself more and more to get the profiles I wanted and to make them even cooler. Back then Simon and I would have like “Cool Knife Wars”, so we’d get all our orders for the month done the first three weeks, and then in the last we would battle each other, trying to one up each other we pushed each other to get better and better. And by 2020 that is when I think the real Martin Huber style really started to develop. Around this time, I also started getting more and more international orders, and their custom orders really pushed me to do things I had never done before. To really push the limits. At the same time, I was constantly making tweaks. I personally think that if I ever get to the point when I am completely satisfied with everything, and not see how I can improve, that the work will end up becoming worse so I should probably just stop. Because that drive to improve is so important to me.
photo credit Modern Cooking
What do you think is the most important aspect of a well-made knife?
The choice of steel, the geometry, and the heat treat are all really important. It should also be very comfortable in hand.
What would you say your biggest motivator when it comes to making knives?
As a hard core capitalist, I would have to say money….ha-ha. But seriously, it is making something extremely cool, making something that I can be proud of, making my customers happy. There is nothing better, than getting a message from a customer saying they have knives from all of these great makers(not going to mention any names), makers I look up to, and then they say , “and yours is one of my absolute favorites”.
It seems like you get a lot of inspiration from your customers.
Absolutely, and one of the benefits of having an employee is that I can have them do tasks that would occupy a lot of my time, and I can focus on the elements that I love doing. But there certainly are many times where you still have to work on something that just helps to pay the bills. I have made hundreds of damascus full tang santokus, and don’t get me wrong they are cool knives. But they can get monotonous, so when Chris said he wanted to make them I was like, yes, here go right ahead. But he also wants to make exciting things, I know his work, he is one of the most talented knife makers there is. But ultimately, we need to make knives that pay the bills so that we can afford to make the really exciting ones too.
I am a big fan of your YouTube videos, what got you into that?
A gun to my head…ha-ha…. but seriously back when my business was quite small, I had a little Facebook group, where I would show some behind the scenes stuff. So, one time I put up two short videos and asked some questions, and I started getting all of this interaction, and I was able to sell the knives that were in videos. The following week, I didn’t post anything, and I started getting messaged, “where is this week’s video?” So, there was something there, a bit later I made a video to announce a small knife series, showing Simon and me making the knives. Then I started making some for YouTube like a 200mm santoku, or a machete I made for my dad. That was about 5-6 years ago, but after that I didn’t make any videos for a while. Then around two years ago I was at Atlanta Bladeshow, I was there with my wife, and Trollsky came to my table, he said man you are stupid, you need to be making videos, you have the face for it, you look the way people imagine a bladesmith should look, sort of a Viking look. My wife looked at me and said she had told me the same thing many times before. I was concerned about all the time for filming, editing, etc so I didn’t think I was going to do it.
I had also promised my Instagram followers a really awesome give away once I hit 10,000 followers, and when I hit that 10k, I decided I wanted to make a Wakizashi, a small Japanese sword. I didn’t just want to give it away, I thought if I am making this, I need to film it. I put up the first video, it was done on my phone, it wasn’t very good, and it only got a couple hundred views. Things got busy and it had been almost a month since part one was posted, and I thought I am going to give this my all and I decided at that time I would give it two years. Every week a video of something cool, and if it works out, it works out. And I just passed two years. I decided to keep going, because I hit many of the goals, I set for myself. But I needed to change my approach. So, I will no longer be pushing myself to have a new video come out every week. If one does it does, but I am not going to burn myself out, trying to make content for content’s sake just to get a video out.
I know you had the video where you had the issue with the hard drive, it must have been stressful.
It was, fortunately it all worked out, but I still want to show things like that. I want it to be real so when there is a problem I will show it, and when I make a mistake, I make a mistake, I’m going to leave that in, because that is life, right? But there have also been some great things to come out of the channel. I have gotten to meet a lot of my YouTube idols, and we’ve built friendships, it has honestly been amazing.
Do you have any makers that you took inspiration from?
A lot to be honest. Greg Cimms, I always loved his handles designs, and I love that he manages to get really great handles paired with really cool looking blades, as most knife makers tend to keep one of the two more neutral. I have since met him, which was great, but yeah, he’s a big inspiration, especially design wise. Benjamin Kamon as well, he’s such a terrible person…ha-ha it is funny because we like to leave each other mean comments so many people think we don’t like each other, but we are actually really good friends. I would say those two are the biggest. But I have certainly seen a lot of stuff from a lot of makers where I will see something and think, I would like to do something like that in my own way. You can’t reinvent the knife, so I think it is interesting to see how other makers are approaching the same thing.
But there are definitely some makers who pair too loud of blades with too loud of handles
Yes, for sure, but that is where balance comes in. I like to put all the bells and whistles and push it right to the limit, but I want there to be balance. So, you need to know when is too much. Let’s say I have a crazy mosaic damascus blade, I will let the handle (using some great looking materials of course) be a bit softer on the eyes. I really spend a lot of thought on handles. I think for a lot of makers the handles are almost an afterthought, I would say I am almost the opposite, I will give more thought on the handle than the blade. If the blade is like a simple sanmai then I want to put extra details, inlays into the handle. But for me every knife should have an element that makes people say “this is freaking amazing”. But it shouldn’t be everything, because that will be too much and the overall blade will not look as good.
How do you approach design, or modifications, do you sketch first or just have a general concept and try to work it out in the shop?
When it is a new model, I usually do a sketch first. But for existing knives like for example our gyutos, which we have probably modified more than ten times over the years, I will have a goal of wanting it flatter, more curve, etc. I will take a template and scribe it, and then just do a little modification on the lines right on the steel. Then I will finish it and test it, as I have found sometimes the drawing and how it will actually look finished are not quite the same. It might not look as good as the drawing suggested, it might not be as comfortable, or it might not perform quite the way I wanted. Then I will take it back to the grinder and modify it until I am happy where it is at. Once I am at the sweet spot, I will then turn that into the new template.
Do you have a favorite steel?
I love sanmai, in general, I know that isn’t core steel, but I like my steels to be in sanmai. Many times, for the core I prefer 1.2419 as it is readily available it etches and performs well, my previous favorite was 1.2519 but sadly it was discontinued so the supply is running out.
And then there is Apex Ultra. It can be challenging to work with, especially when you try to combine it with other metals, which is one of the reasons for the higher failure rate. But we keep working with it, because we love Apex Ultra, you just can’t argue with the results when you hit the heat right.
I was fortunate to be able to use it before it was even released, as I am very close with Tobias Hangler. I made the first stainless clad Apex Ultra blade.
Any exciting recent projects you’d like to talk about?
Not too long ago I participated in David Tyrell’s military challenge. I made a bayonet that combined German and Austrian styles and went all the way with that. Full tang, bolster, guard. It was a lot of work, but I am very happy how it turned out.
To see more of Martin’s work and see what he is up to check out his website https://www.messerschmied-huber.at/ follow him on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/martinhuber_knives/ and subscribe to his YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@MartinHuber_Knives
And here are some bonus photos. His first post and the first knife he posted on Instagram.
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