Hall of Fame farrier Randy Luikart has been making homemade hoof-care tools throughout his career. 

Through his mentors in his youth, Luikart developed skills including making hoof nippers, hoof knives, punches, shoes, tongs and fullering tools, to name a few. 

“Learning these skills saved me money while providing me with tools that exceeded the quality of those I could purchase,” writes the Ashland, Ohio, farrier. “That’s still true today as tools become more expensive and of inferior quality than when tool manufacturing was breaking into the market.”

The average farrier career is shorter than a desk job and requires more time daily to make a living. Every time you bend over to purchase a tool that you should have the skills to make, it’s money not put in your pocket.

“For example, I have made every hoof knife blade I have used in my career since I learned to do so from Lester Hollenback,” Luikart writes. “I can only imagine how that skill alone has kept me from bending over to make that amount of money to buy those knives. Transfer that philosophy to the evolution of manufactured shoes and the adaptations the farrier industry has compelled the manufacturers to modify their shoes in a certain way to make them more usable.

“Consider that I have made practically every shoe I have nailed on for these 60 years. Thus affording me the quality of my skills to manufacture shoes to meet those standards for every horse I have shod. I found it unproductive to adapt the philosophy of quantity vs. quality.”

To learn more about Randy Luikart’s tool-making journey, and for in-depth instructions on how to create a great pair of nail nippers, read “Finishing a Great Pair of Nail Nippers” in the May/June 2026 issue of American Farriers Journal.