MOULTRIE, Ga. — For Steve Greene, necessity was the mother of invention; a teen-ager at the time, Greene needed a blade that would skin an animal, and the knife he had, well, just wasn’t cutting it.

“I wanted to sink a coon,” he said. “The store-bought one I had from Sears & Roebuck wouldn’t stay sharp.”

So at 16 he made the first of thousands of knives he would produce over the years.

Tuesday at Sunbelt Ag Expo in Moultrie Greene had dozens of examples of his wares on display in the Swisher International Inc. building. He and wife Tess operate Dunn Knives — named for the man under whom he trained and later bought out.

Expo isn’t the best show Greene attends each year — he drives to a 10-day show in Las Vegas, Nevada, every year — but it is one he is fond of and has attended about 14 years.

“These are good folks,” said Greene, who makes the four or five hour drive from his home in Intercession City, Florida, to Moultrie each October. “They’re my kind of people.”

Greene doesn’t keep count, but he estimated he makes between 800 and 1,000 knives each year.

Whatever the actual count, “I can’t make enough,” he said.

All of the steel used for the knives and leather that wife Tess turns into sheathes are produced in the United States, as is much of the material used for the handles.

“I use American-made steel,” Greene said. “The steel comes out of Niagara, New York. I don’t call China to make knives. I make them myself. They’re made one-by-one by hand.”

Resin-impregnated hardwood laminate used in some of the handles comes from Vermont.

“It’s the same they’re putting on rifle and shotgun stocks,” Greene said.

The steel stock used has high carbon, vanadium and chromium content, producing a blade that keeps a sharp edge, he said.

“The carbides from those three alloys, when you heat treat them, they are tough. Once you get it sharp, it stays sharp,” Greene said. “It may be harder to sharpen than a cheap Chinese knife, but once it’s sharp it stays sharp longer.”

The only non-American material Greene uses comes from the antlers of Sambar deer which comes from Southeast Asia.

“I use it because it is the gold standard for stag,” he said.

For more information or to place an order, visit www.dunnknives.com.