Oregon’s Red Pig Garden Tools are Forged to Last

This small shop turns out thousands of entirely American-made tools a year. But you’ll rarely hear of one breaking.

Seth Pauley knew he loved working with his hands, but he never expected to make a career out of manual labor.

He took his graduate degree from Temple University in Philadelphia and worked at creative writing, teaching and eventually online marketing and sales, all while dabbling in hands-on woodworking, ceramics and just plain making things.

His professional journey took him to Southern California in 2014 for a rendezvous with Bob Denman, a maker of garden tools. Pauley thought he could successfully market the gardening implements through an online network, thereby increasing the sales of Denman’s handmade tools.

It wasn’t long before Denman informed Pauley that he wanted to retire. Pauley had been blacksmithing alongside Denman for two years, slowly learning the trade. In 2017, after Denman’s retirement, Pauley bought the business from his mentor and has watched it grow since.

“I was actually looking for him to make tools that I could sell online because I was trying to get into the marketplace for high-quality, American-made, crafted artisan goods that were specifically geared toward women,” said Pauley. “But I spent two years not only learning blacksmithing but more specifically about the garden industry and garden tool designs from my mentor.”

Today, as owner of Red Pig Garden Tools, Pauley and his two assistants manufacture the sturdy and reliable tools out of a 2,500 square foot workshop in West Linn, Oregon, just south of Portland. Whether it’s trowels, weeders, hoes or rakes, Pauley and his team hand manufacture about 10,000 tools each year.

“We are a small shop. We make every Red Pig tool,” said Pauley. “We make over 200 different tools ourselves right here in my shop.”

The United States gardening industry is a massive and growing sector of the economy, generating more than $120 billion in revenue in 2024. Home Depot leads the way in sales with roughly 32% of the U.S. market, but independent garden stores account for 30% of the sales.

Most of the gardening tools at the big box stores are imported from China and Southeast Asia. Their quality is no match for the well-crafted, sturdy tools manufactured by Red Pig.

“In my business, most of my customers have come to us after having bought big box store tools,” said Pauley. “They say, ‘I break this every time and are you sure your tools are not going to break? I tell them I’ve made about 25,000 tools myself over the last nine years and I think there have been fewer than 20 of them that have come back with damage, and in almost every case it’s somebody misusing the tool rather than the tool itself being the problem.

“There are some decent trade tools out there these days, but it is true that when you are making 100,000 tools at a time, they are looking for the cheapest way to make them with the cheapest materials. One of the advantages we have in being an artisan or small-batch manufacturer is we can maintain that constant quality.”

Pauley sources his materials from across the country. The 836 mild steel bars and plates he forges are a product of U.S. manufacturer Nucor. The handles for the tools are made of hickory and they are all sourced from Arkansas. And the rivets used to attach the handles are sourced from Michigan.

The manufacturing process consists of cutting down the steel bar or plate and shaping it on a CNC plasma cutter. The bar stock is then put into a forge, followed by the blacksmith hammering process, followed by welding the bar onto the blade. The whole thing is then put back into the forge before the final banging and cleanup is done. The tool is finished when the hickory wood handles are riveted to the steel structure and it is coated in a clear enamel.

Gardening is immensely popular these days and Pauley knew he had made the right career choice when the Covid pandemic hit.

“During Covid is when it became clear,” said the 49-year-old Pauley. “Through the first year of Covid I worked all by myself and then the business got too big and I couldn’t do it all on my own so I started hire some assistants but I couldn’t spend time to train people.

“One of my assistants today has been a blacksmith for 10 years, doing mostly architectural blacksmithing. The other one is a guy I trained from the beginning, and he came up through a welding program at a community college.”

To promote Red Pig Garden Tools Pauley attends about five of the biggest gardening trade shows across the U.S. where he speaks to small groups about tools and gardening. He is, indeed, a student of history when it comes to gardening tools.

“I give talks multiple times a year at garden clubs or events telling people the history of tools and specifically gardening tools,” said Pauley. “The more you dig and go down and look, recently with more research that has been done, it’s ten or hundreds of thousands of years of use of recognizable tools.

“I think a lot of people find gardening because you can’t rush it. Things grow when they grow. People tend to be looking for, especially after a lifetime of work, where they don’t have to constantly deal with what is happening in the moment. I use the analogy of baseball: It’s peaceful.”

Pauley finds himself in an unlikely successful place as more people are retiring today and seeking serenity in gardening.

“I love working with my hands, but if you would have asked me in 2015 about making tools, it never would have crossed my mind,” said Pauley. “I love it. I’m sure this will be the last thing that I do. Even if I didn’t need to, I still would do it. I feel very lucky.

“It’s a great time to be making in America, making good quality things and making things that will last people more than their lifetime. I am on the hundred-year plan. I want Red Pig Garden Tools to be around in a hundred years and to be known as the best tool you can buy. They happen to be made in America, and they happen to be made by hand.”

The Alliance for American Manufacturing does not receive a commission from purchases made through the above links, nor was the organization or author paid for favorable coverage.

Labeling Note: This story is intended to highlight companies that support American jobs and that make great products in the United States. We rely on the companies listed to provide accurate information regarding their domestic operations and their products. Each company featured is individually responsible for labeling and advertising their products according to applicable standards, such as the Federal Trade Commission’s “Made in USA” standard or California’s “Made in USA” labeling law. We do not review individual products for compliance or claim that because a company is listed in the guide that their products comply with specific labeling or advertising standards. Our focus is on supporting companies that create American jobs.

For more on the Federal Trade Commission’s standards for “Made in USA” claims and California’s “Made in USA” labeling law, please also read this guest post by Dustin Painter and Kristi Wolff of Kelly Drye & Warren, LLP.