Ruana knives stand the test of time

Rudy Ruana was once quoted as saying, “You pay for the blade and the rest is free.”

While not totally true, the main goal at Ruana Knife Works, has been, and will always remain, to produce a cutting

tool that will be reliable for its owner.

Most people who own an earlier Ruana knife have it tucked away with their shotguns that can’t shoot steel shot and family heirlooms because they have become very valuable.

You won’t find many carried and used in the field as there were 30 to 50 years ago for big game hunters. But the knife factory is still in operation at their original location in Bonner and Mike Hangas is a grandson of founder Rudy Ruana and keeps it humming with his brother, Mark.

“My brother and I were little kids when we’d come over to watch my dad and grandpa make them right over there,” as he points to the manufacturing section that has not changed as much as one would think in the 80 years they’ve been in business.

The Hangas brothers are equal owners of the company today with Mark being the main bladesmith and craftsman due to his great artistic design capabilities and mechanical talent.

He worked shoulder to shoulder with his grandpa from 1976 to 1983. Mike started in 1984 and does some of the knife work but makes all the sheaths for knives, hatchets and axes plus handles the office and administration duties.

The knives are still custom made by hand, one at a time with the craftsmanship that made them world famous. The history behind Rudy Ruana and how he started making knives is fascinating.

“The very first knife blades made by grandpa from 1938 through 1943 were from Vanadium Spring steel. Then from 1944 to 1962 the (knife) blades were made from Studebaker leaf springs and had a certain stamp on them that are highly sought after by collectors. When World War II was going on, steel was all but impossible to come by,” he said.

Today, Hangas uses 1095 high carbon steel that comes from Portland, Oregon, the closest supplier. Each Ruana blade is hammer forged, hollow ground, individually oil quenched, and heat treated using a zone tempering method that makes the spine of the blade a little softer than the cutting edge.

Also known for their elk antler handles they still receive the majority of the antlers at the shop where credit is given on a knife or anything else in exchange for antlers that meet their specific requirements.

For the knife sheaths, they too were cut out by hand, usually in three different sized pieces.

“I convinced my dad to get a pneumatic press where we could have dies made for our most popular sheaths so what took about 15 minutes to cut out now takes a minute at the most.”

However, this produced pieces of leather that were too small for a sheath and not knowing what to do with them resulted in a lot being thrown away.

The presence of dies made him think that they could have one made in the shape of Montana and that was the start of Last Best Custom Creations.

His wife, Kirsten, and son, Jack operate and market this part of the business and their daughter, Kate even jumps in when needed. Since then, they’ve had dies made for other states including Idaho, Washington and Oregon.

“We have South Dakota because my wife is from South Dakota and I gotta keep her happy,” he said with a laugh.

This began about five years ago and now coasters, Christmas ornaments and even specialty items for businesses with their logos are cranked out. The tiny tips of the leftover elk antlers that are too small for knife handles are made into a zipper pull or luggage tags.

Larger antler pieces are packaged for dog chews.

“We had a sweetheart of a yellow Lab named Bob, so we call them Bob’s Bone’s,” Hangas said.

Today, Seamus, who is a friendly scruffy pooch is their greeter when you enter the retail end of the property.

Along with their web site, www.lastbestcc.com, 17 vendors carry their products including outlets in St. Regis, Thompson Falls, Bigfork, Kalispell and Polson with more brick-and-mortar locations set up for next summer.

Ruana has many celebrity customers around the world with most of their orders coming from their web site.

“Right now, we have nothing in stock. We had about nine axes left from our 80th anniversary collection last week that were pretty expensive and had a guy call and said that he’d take the rest of them,” he said. “It’s a good problem to have.”

Yet he understands the supply and demand equation, so the Hangas Brothers are extra busy building up stock.

“When we give an estimate, it’s really just that,” Mike said. “Things come up and sometimes there are delays and for that reason we don’t require any down payment as it’s not fair to tie up people’s money. We can notify folks when their order is ready and if the time frame didn’t meet their needs, there is no obligation to buy it.

"On rare occasions there will be a knife in stock for immediate shipment. Other than that, the time frame for catalog knife orders can take from one to nine months, possibly longer. We actually stopped taking custom-special orders effective July 1, 2021, because we are so far behind.”

One order came from the prop manager of the television

series, "Yellowstone," which began filming in a huge building in Bonner late last year.

“What we were told is that it was featured in a scene. Discussing things with him, scenes get cut, so whether our knife makes the cut in the show, pun intended, we shall see. Regardless, it was humbling to be asked to make something that might show up in such a popular show,” Mike said.

Depending on what exposure it gets this could ignite a flood of orders for a family business that emphasizes quality over quantity, but it’s nothing they will lose sleep over because they stick to their values and character.