The Craftsmanship of Morgan Keenan
In a small workshop just outside of Bozeman, the sharp rhythm of a metal grinder echoes as several knifemakers concentrate on the task at hand. “It can seem monotonous, but there’s so much attention to detail required. It really keeps you on your toes, and you can easily make a mistake if you aren’t paying attention.”
Morgan Keenan is describing the painstaking process of grinding down hard steel for his production line of handmade chef’s knives. He opened Cudaway Knives in Bozeman two years ago, but his history of quality craftsmanship goes back much further.
Keenan began making ceramics while completing a bachelor’s degree in business and studio art at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. Though he made a few knives in college, he didn’t pursue the craft seriously until moving to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in 2017. What began as a solo project has since expanded to a team of nine knifemakers who match Keenan’s dedication to creating the highest-quality knives. In the last five years, Keenan has made thousands of knives, and his ability to balance efficiency with durability comes from his level of intimacy with the production process. “It takes months of training and building up that muscle memory,” he says.
As the owner of a small and relatively new business, Keenan feels that Cudaway’s reputation hinges on every knife made. “Pride of the maker is crucial to the process,” he says. If someone is indifferent to the quality of the final product, he or she likely won’t have the patience or discipline to create a knife that is both handmade and part of a production line (meaning each product has to look and function identically to one another).
Here, Keenan’s background in production ceramics comes in. The repetition at a pottery wheel primed him to react to minor differences across products and Cudaway’s designs are imbued with this diligence. Hand grinding and treating the steel with heat, then liquid nitrogen, creates a blade that is simultaneously harder and thinner than most of the competition. The handle, made up of G-10 fiberglass laminate, is bolted to the blade and rounds out what Keenan describes as a “bulletproof ” knife, backed by a lifetime warranty.
Keenan is effusive about the overwhelming support he and his team have received, which he hopes to reciprocate in a meaningful way. As they look to hire and train more knifemakers, they are also reinvesting in the local area: Throughout the summer, Cudaway donated 10 percent of online sales to flood relief in the Gardiner area.
Looking to the future, Keenan says that he and his team can feel the excitement around their company increasing. Even better, he says, are the relationships they are building at the workshop. No matter how much Cudaway grows, Keenan says he can always be found in their shop, making another really good knife.
