A patenteux is presented as an ingenious maker who fabricates useful things from available materials. Examples include renowned carver Aurelle Collin’s handmade crooked knives made from used razor blades obtained from a neighboring barber shop, birch bark and newspapers used as insulation in the attics of historic houses at Acadian Village in Van Buren, and sculptor-carver Claude “Blackie” Cyr’s custom crooked knives at the Tante Blanche Museum. Norm is called a patenteux because, after watching his grandfather and father work in their blacksmith shop from an early age, he became an innovator, studied welding in Ohio after high school, returned home, and made whatever local farmers and others needed, including farm tools and spiral stairways.