Mike Prater's shop, Painted Pony, works closely with Frost Cutlery, and he said they do customization on Frost knives from time to time. Here, Prater appears on Frost's public television program, "Cutlery Corner," in 2016.Any time something momentous happens, Mike Prater from Painted Pony Knives in Flintstone knows he's going to have some custom orders coming his way soon. Occasions like Clemson's national championship win and Donald Trump's presidential inauguration mean his shop will be busy.
"Everything changes week to week," said Prater. "We may get a call for a rush order of some Coca-Cola knives or on Alabama knives. We've made a lot of Alabama knives in the last couple years," he laughed.
Prater's shop has quietly become a major player in the national cutlery market since he set up shop in 1980. One of the few shops that customizes factory knives from both Buck Knives and Case, Painted Pony's roughly 15 employees work on anywhere between 500 and 1,000 knives each week, inlaying them with custom handles and pearlescent grips.
The manufacturers will ship what Prater calls "skeleton knives" to his shop that are unfinished, and Painted Pony Knives will finish them. That routine work can change in an instant, though, once a call for a rush order comes in.
In addition, Painted Pony has its own line of custom, handcrafted knives, which take much longer to work on than their factory-shipped models. Prater estimates he and his staff can only handle about 10 or 20 of those $800 knives in a week.
"We're using all high-end materials - turquoise, jasper, real pearls," Prater said in regards to his business's personal custom line. "Those materials necessitate more time to mold and sculpt the knife."
Prater got his start in knife-making from friend David North, who showed him his collection of custom knives from the 1950s when Prater first moved to the North Georgia area in 1977. Prater had been a fan of outdoor tools for years, frequently attending knife and gun shows with his wife.
"As he was showing me them, I said that I'd love to learn how to make some," Prater recalled. "He just said, 'Well, I'll show you how,' and we got started."
Prater collaborated with North until North's retirement in 1989, at which point Prater took solo control of the cutlery company. He originally worked out of his home, but settled into his current location at 81 Sanford Lane in Flintstone around 1998.
Painted Pony is rarely content to sit on its laurels, even after nearly 40 years in the business. Prater helped devise a new resin coating for knife handles that he said comes from normal eggshells and functions as imitation pearl, and he's made knife handles out of everything from pecan shells to pine cones for custom orders.
"Really, whatever my imagination lands on, if I can make it work, we'll put it on a knife," Prater said.
He said his company is also looking into diversifying its work by producing more custom pistol grips, license plates and deer calls. Anything to do with the sporting industry, he said, is something they want to get involved with.
It's what he's had to do to grow a small knife business from a home operation into a shop that works with the largest knife manufacturers in the world.
For more information about Painted Pony's products, visit painted-pony-knives.com.