Raymond Bowie

Henn, Richard B.

Hello, my name is Richard B. Henn I was born in a very small town in South Florida called Florida City. My grandfather had been the village blacksmith and there were a lot of his old tools around the shop. I found that by grinding down his old files, I could make spear points and rough knives to use in my childhood world of cowboys and Indians. I moved to Key Largo when I was about 12 and my interests quickly turned to fishing and diving. I ground down old carbon steel butcher knives, added new scales and made them into ""fillet"" knives. I also started making ""Hawaiian slings"" for my friends and myself to spear fish with. When I was 14, Hurricane ""Donna"" destroyed our home. My Father, an old German carpenter and I, built a replacement home and my career as a carpenter and woodworker was born. The ""Keys"" has a very topical climate and I found the wooded area of North Key Largo full of hardwood trees. I searched the woodlands for lignum vitae, mahogany and various species of ironwood, that had long ago died and were resting on the forest floor just waiting to be found. These hardwoods were perfect for use as scales on my knives. It was not until about 10 years ago that I started to get serious about making knives and that is when (RBH) Custom Knives was born. Some of my designs are entirely my own, while other designs are my interpretation of knives that have proven to be winners. Some of my knives are similar to Randall knives. Being from Florida and because of the widespread popularity of their knives, I have made a lot of my knives to resemble the Randall?s. My latest work of love was inspired by the movie ""The Book of Eli"". After watching the movie, I started searching for replicas of this sword and I found that nobody was making any realistic copies, so I set out to make my own. The resulting swords have been a big hit and I have sold quite a few to other knife collectors. These swords are available in carbon steel, stainless steel and of course Damascus.