Standing in his cramped backyard workshop in Crozet, Vu Nguyen holds a chunk of metal in his hand. It’s a five-layer sandwich of nickel and steel about the size of a pack of cards. He’ll turn this mixed-metal ingot into one of his trademark handmade knives by applying the proper combination of heat, pressure, and time.
The same combination helped to shape Nguyen over the past 25 years. At 50, he has endured family tragedies, personal hardships, and business failures that ultimately brought him to his calling as the owner and creative force behind his blacksmithing business, The Dustworks.
Why the name?
“Dust is evidence of work,” he says. It’s also a reminder of our mortality — as in, “dust to dust”— hence the company’s skull logo, says the student of Stoic philosophy.
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Nguyen’s handcrafted knives have earned him a following among high-end restaurants — some of them with Michelin stars — in Chicago and New York. In Charlottesville, Chef Todd Grieger at Oakhart Social is a steady client. Grieger is the namesake of The Todd, a knife designed specifically for him. “He keeps me busy,” Nguyen says.
Nguyen’s path to becoming a professional knife maker started in Thailand where he grew up. His parents moved there from their native Vietnam in the early 1970s. Twenty years later, they relocated to Northern Virginia so Nguyen and his older brother, Tuan, could attend college in the U.S.
The brothers attended the University of Virginia, although Nguyen admits that he went reluctantly. “I was interested in hospitality — restaurants and hotels,” he says. “Instead of going to class, I started hosting parties.”
Between parties, he dabbled in everything from coding to architectural history to industrial design. In his fourth year, he began cooking at a local restaurant. After graduation, he moved to Chicago to spend more time in the kitchen before shifting to computer-aided design at an architectural firm closer to home.
Eventually, the kitchen drew him back in, and in 2006 he opened Zinc, a farm-to-table restaurant on West Main Street in Charlottesville — an achievement commemorated by a tattoo of the chemical symbol for zinc on his left forearm. Zinc made Nguyen a well-known figure in Charlottesville’s restaurant scene. “I’m glad I did it,” he says. “It shaped me.”
After operating Zinc for six years, he opened Moto Pho Co., an Asian noodle shop across the street. Before long, however, he found himself overextended both personally and financially, and both restaurants folded.
Nguyen soon found inspiration in “Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work,” a book by philosopher and mechanic Matthew Crawford that reflects on the benefits of working with your hands.
Around the same time, Nguyen crossed paths with Corry Blanc, owner of Blanc Creatives in Waynesboro, a company that makes professional cookware. Nguyen was hooked by the romance of working with metal and signed on with the crew of blacksmiths at Blanc Creatives as their knife maker, despite having no blacksmithing experience.
Nguyen got up to speed quickly with the help of the staff — and a few YouTube tutorials. A stint as a general manager reminded him how much he missed hammering hot steel or, as he puts it, “moving metal.”
The pandemic gave Nguyen the push he needed to go out on his own, producing handmade knives and other kitchen utensils. “I decided I would rather be happy and adjust my expectations for financial security,” he says. By 2021, The Dustworks was up and running in a 10-by-12-foot storage shed behind his modest, mid-century home in Crozet where he lives with Jupiter, his Bluetick hound mix.
The shift fit with Nguyen’s desire to design knives and other kitchen utensils that are as much art as craft. “Vu is an artist, but he wound up in the restaurant world,” Blanc says. “Making things and designing things is really up his alley.”
Nguyen’s dedication to his own vision made that possible, Blanc says. “As a craftsman, you have to have that attention to detail. You’ve got to be a little stubborn, and you’ve got to be a little obsessive,” Blanc says. ”It’s not for everyone.”
The Dustworks’ shop is chockablock with tools of the blacksmithing trade, from the anvil just inside the front door to the boxy propane-powered forge to the two belt sanders that shape both knives and their wooden handles. Long strips of steel and small blocks of oak, cherry, walnut, and Osage orange wood peek out of cubbies along the walls. Rough-cut knife blanks (pre-formed blades) hang on the back wall waiting to be turned into works of art. Jupiter, Nguyen’s constant companion, dozes in the middle of the floor.
All of the tools are on wheels — a feature that is vital for using the forge, which does most of its work outside except in the winter. “It gets really warm in here really fast,” Nguyen says.
He has plans to upgrade his workshop with a new, slightly larger shed that will double his space. In the meantime, he is looking at ways to expand from kitchenware to more creative forms of metal arts. He has a solo exhibition coming to the Welcome Gallery at New City Arts in Charlottesville in June 2027 and has been invited to teach at an artist retreat in North Carolina. He also travels the country exhibiting his work at art shows.
“I value my privacy,” he says. “But I get energy from the community. It’s like being in the sun.”
Whether he’s making one-of-a-kind cutlery or embarking on a new artistic path, Nguyen has found in blacksmithing the creative outlet that fires his soul. “Blacksmithing gave me perspective on how much control I can have over my life,” Nguyen says. “I can authentically say ‘I made it.’ It comes from me.”
