Tucked into the lush, green hills of northeast Alabama, in a small college town, a knife manufacturer is turning out an industrial amount of quality, handmade knives. While knife assembly is one of the stations at Bear & Son Cutlery, this is a fully operational factory that transforms raw materials into beautifully crafted, functional, affordable knives.

Earlier this summer, I had a chance to see the factory and watch hard-working Americans build knives from scratch. At Bear & Son, they stamp knife parts from rolls of metal, water-jet blast precision knife blades from sheets of steel, heat treat them in ovens for strength and flexibility, assemble knives, grind out imperfections, polish to a shine and hand inspect every product to ensure that they not only look good, but function to the high standards put in place by Matt Griffey and his father, the owners of Bear & Son Cutlery.

Check out the video above that shows many of the processes that are used to make a knife from start to finish.

For more information on Bear & Son’s wide selection of handmade knives, go to www.bearandsoncutlery.com.