Like any good craftsman, Matt Snyder knows safety comes first.

“It is really important to wear this because chunks are always flying out,” Snyder said as he put on his protective facemask inside his workshop earlier this month. “My grandfather never wears one, never has. I don’t know how he hasn’t lost his eye or got seriously hurt, but he is an old timer.”

Snyder may not be quite as brazen as his grandfather George, but he is following in his path in other ways.

“This is how we hand-turn all of our handles, this is a lathe,” Snyder said as he started a new project.

“This is an ash handle. This is what my grandfather used for many, many years.”

Snyder, who lives in Saratoga Springs, would spend the next hour or so hand carving the handle for a custom broom.

“This is a humbling experience because this machine is very dangerous,” he said.

The handle is the first step in the process of a family tradition that began in 1978 when George purchased a far less modern piece of equipment from an abandoned broom factory in Poland, NY.

“This broom machine is from the 1800s,” Snyder said . “It’s from around 1878. It still works, this is the chuck.”

As he loaded his recently carved handle into the chuck, the younger Snyder admitted he’s still somewhat of a novice on the antique device. Ever since his grandfather started his business, this age-old method is the only way the family has ever assembled brooms.

“Because it’s from the 1800s it’s finicky,” Snyder said. “I’ve broken multiple brooms on this machine and you really have to get it just right.”

Using the machine to attach the straw to the handle and just about every other step along the way were lessons passed down in his grandparents’ shop in New Hartford.

“Just the smell of the broom corn brings back all of my childhood memories with my grandparents and that’s why it’s so special to me,” said Snyder, who grew up in nearby Utica. “Even though it’s really hard it doesn’t feel like work.”

George, along with Matt’s grandmother Ann, are both still around.

“I love my grandparents dearly,” Snyder said. “They’re probably the favorite people in my life.”

Now in their 80s, they’re no longer making or selling brooms at the same capacity.

“My grandparents are getting older and there was nobody else making brooms at the time and for me I knew in my heart this was something I needed to continue,” he said.

In 2019, Matt officially relaunched the business as Snyder’s Handmade Brooms of Saratoga and, yes, he is still using the same old equipment.

“It’s kind of humbling when you think about it,” Snyder said as he leaned on the foot pedal that turns the large apparatus. “This broom machine is going too far outlast my grandfather; it’s going to outlast me.”

Assembling and braiding the broom typically takes Matt about 20 minutes. It then needs a day to dry before it’s onto another antique device.

“This stitcher, if you can see from right here, patent date 1878,” Matt said, before using the stitcher to tightly pinch all of the broom straws together.

Including a few more steps, Snyder is typically able to finish a broom in about four hours’ time. Inside his basement, Matt stores his inventory that will be for sale at this summer’s Spa City Farmers Market in Saratoga Springs.

“We have all different colors and sizes,” Snyder said as he walked through the basement before showing off a replica of Harry Potter’s famed Nimbus 2000.

Hanging alongside his own brooms are a few of his grandfather’s remaining prized creations.

“Sometimes I come down here and I just look at them,” he admitted.

Each one is the continuation of a proud Snyder family legacy.

“Some nights I come down here I think, ‘what did I get myself into? Am I good enough? Can I actually measure up to my grandparents?’” Snyder said. “Then some nights after a good broom day, I come down here and I realize I can do it.”

More information about Snyder’s brooms can be found on his business’s Facebook and Instagram.