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In 2019, a 19-year-old Colin Stevens found himself bored with his day job. Selling hats at the Portland Saturday Market just didn’t have the same mechanical tactility Stevens came to love in his childhood of picking apart radios and dissecting free junk he found on the curb.
After some job searching, Stevens, now 24, has become an expert in the realm of antique lock repair for his job at Hippo Hardware & Trading Co. (1040 E Burnside St., 503-231-1444, hippohardware.com). Stevens regularly finds himself repairing 60 to 80 locks a month, as well as creating new skeleton keys for the locks. “Honestly, I get a good kick out of resurrecting things left for dead,” Stevens says. “It beats working in a cubicle any day.”
While cutting a bronze skeleton key purely by eyeballing it, Stevens explains the satisfaction that comes with keeping locks that are often 50 to 100 years old in working condition, and the joy it brings him to educate people on the ability to repair their property. “If I get to help people learn about this stuff and defy planned obsolescence in a way they never thought possible—that’s pretty cool, honestly.”
Stevens hopes to branch off from Hippo Hardware and establish a shop at his home once Hippo’s owner retires, something he has more than enough experience to pursue.
Antique lock repair demands patience, research and passion from anyone involved. In the shop, Stevens can often be seen spending time chiseling steel skeleton keys, pouring over 1920s lock repair books, and parting out old locks to make repairs for customers. While his workspace may “look like a bomb went off,” Stevens exudes the patience, interest and passion needed for such a unique job.
See the rest of Willamette Week’s Best of Portland 2024 here!