SPEAKER_02 0:05

Welcome to the Good Old Blades Podcast. I am your host, Aaron LeVere, and join me as we talk to other knife makers and craftsmen about anything and everything done. Thank you for listening in again to the Good Old Blades Podcast. I am your host, Aaron LeVere, and I am joined by my friend and uh fellow knife colleague Gary Langley. Um I wanted to have Gary on the podcast to uh really just kind of pick apart um what got him into knives and everything to introduce him to the public at large. Um and it's it's really because um you have probably uh seen Gary. You've probably uh experienced him uh doing work inside of the knife community, but he is uh what I would probably consider one of the unsung heroes of our industry in the sense that he is uh he's there, um, he's very knowledgeable, he works in the background with the uh um with a lot of different avenues and knives, and he's the vice president of the knife makers guild, but he also is not um a self-promoter in a lot of ways. Um, you know, he does his thing, and I think that a lot of people would benefit greatly from being able to uh uh get a better idea of who Gary is and uh you know talk through uh some of his knife philosophy. So, Gary, it is uh an extreme pleasure to have you on the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Well, thank you for having me. Um always enjoy visiting with you.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

Yeah. I I was uh uh my my my wife Elizabeth uh loves you. She's like uh uh she said that you remind her of her dad. And um and uh you know you're always you're always upbeat and very um uh very respectful uh but jovial and and uh you know considerate towards everybody. And I do have to say, like what when I was thinking about what I'll name your episode, um it would it would be everyone's dad, right? Or everyone's father. And uh the reason why I'm uh I don't know, you just you have that vibe about you that's just like, I mean, I when I go to you, um, I expect that you're gonna have your own opinion about everything, uh, but I respect that. And you're also going to be considerate about you know the uh context in which I ask you questions or ask like seek advice, and also know that you're gonna be thoughtful about the way that you interpret what I what I need out of it. And so um, you know, my family uh loves you and I hope that the the community at large always uh looks looks at you and appreciates your work. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Well, thank you very much.

SPEAKER_02 2:51

Um so I the first question I really want to ask you is I I know uh more about your knife career um than I do about your life outside of knives. And so I'd really like to start talking more about that. Like what um, you know, uh you I know that you're retired, uh, but what did you do before retirement? Um I want to talk a little bit about your uh photography, uh you and Debbie's uh photography and what what what you do with that, and then we'll get into some more about knives as we go along. So um, you know, how'd you grow up? Uh what got you uh working in the area that you did, uh um and what does retirement look like, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Well, basically, I've just always been lucky. Uh uh me and Deb got married and uh we built our first house, and uh the guy across the street worked with my dad and uh he introduced me to custom knives. Uh name was Don Dahler, and uh he showed me a copy of what used to be the American Blade magazine and the knife makers guild and you know showed me what fit and finish was and uh you know my dad had built a few knives and uh they were real crude. I mean they they were a cross between a knife and an axe, I guess you would say. But uh uh I met Don and uh he got me started on that. And uh you know, it's just prior to that I'd always had knives. I mean, my granddad gave me knives when I was five or six years old. Uh he'd buy those ten for a dollar knives, and every time he'd see me he'd give me another one, and that's about how long it'd be before I lose it. So uh I just grew up with them playing mumbly peg and uh I took my pocket knife and whittled knives out of wood. So it's just uh just always been something I've done.

SPEAKER_02 4:52

Um, so um what so you you and you and Deb uh got married, uh but um talk to me a little bit about like uh what you did for work um pre previous to like retirement and everything.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Well, uh I worked at the refinery. Uh my daddy worked at the refinery for Diamond Shamrock, and then uh I think in 79 he died from asbestos cancer, and uh I got on out there and uh I ended up working in the lab and I did uh a lot of different jobs off and on over the years. Uh basically we made gasoline, and uh if you've ever seen one gallon of gasoline, you've seen them all. They're just it's uh definitely not much craftsmanship or one-on-one. It's just you know, you're making hundred thousand barrels of gasoline at a time. And uh we worked in the lab, and our main job was to uh quality control just to confirm that it it would burn. And uh I've I did everything from run acid uh asphalt to propane and butanes and gasolines and ethanol and you know over over 25 years in the lab, I uh I pretty much covered every every corner of it at one time or another. And uh made knives off and on all those years and uh I have a son and a daughter, and uh you know, I took off quite a few years there fishing and t balling and doing all the things you need to do with your kids. And I think when I retired in uh I retired in 13, 2013, I'd built 200 knives since 77. And uh since 13 when I retired, I built another 450 or so. So uh the bulk of my knife making this have been since I retired.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

So um working in the lab and everything, with was there any type of credentials that you had to have for that or any education, or did you just uh do were you just able to hop into that when uh you decided to work in the refinery?

SPEAKER_01 7:14

You know, uh our particular refinery was a union and uh it's basically was seniority. You had time to bid on a job, and uh you got the job, and then uh once you got inside a department where you had to know this job, and then you could get set up on vacations on a higher paying job, and then you would learn that, and then as bids opened up, you would move on up the ladder, and uh there wasn't any kind of a college diploma or anything like that that you had to have. Uh it was just you know, kind of a get-or-done situation, and uh work shift work, lots of evenings and midnights, and uh that was one of the things that held me back from joining the Knife Makers Guild early on back in the eighties and nineties, was that I only had one weekend a month off and I couldn't attend shows and stuff, so uh it was a good job. Spent thirty thirty-four years at it, but uh never looked back, so glad to be gone.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

I I think that probably most of us agree that day jobs suck, but um not everybody can live in retirement uh you know for their for their entire career. Um it's interesting to me uh the that the concept of vocational work, uh, because I'm really big on that. Like I I I didn't grow up with this concept of, you know, you you go through school, then you get to college or university, you get a degree, and that's when you start working at whatever it is you you know think you want to do. Um I was homeschooled, um, and my parents uh pretty much instilled in me that you know if you can find work, just work. Uh there's no there's no glamour in working because generally you're not doing what you want to do or your your your hobbies or things. So um I've always appreciated uh like vote votech uh type of schools and you know this concept of like mic micro what he's doing with uh you know trades jobs because they're everywhere and they need to be filled and you need to have people who are good at being able to be educated into them. Uh but if you try to tell somebody with a degree that they are gonna sit in a laboratory and uh burn fuel and whatnot, they're gonna say, Well, my my education makes it so I don't have to do that, but then you have a you know a generation or more that have no jobs because they don't do what they think that they want to do based on all this money that they paid.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Yeah. I I was in a situation a lot of times where you know I had 20 years seniority in the lab and had been through a lot of the equipment, and they would hire uh someone in off the street that had a degree and bring them in, and they were actually be my boss, and I would have to train them. Uh, you know, and they had the degree and they knew a lot of things I didn't know, but they did not know the job. And uh so yeah, I did a lot of that.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

Yeah, we encounter that a lot in knives, though, too. Like uh some some of the newer knife makers that come into the industry, like they have some real incredible skills, um, like natural aptitude to learn knives, but there are lots of like fundamentals um and uh and tricks and things that um we learn over time, a lot of trial and error that they don't necessarily have. And so even though they can get the like the you know profiling down and grinding down and everything like that, there are sometimes like nuances to knife making that they don't get. And so it's like it's up to the old guard to you know try to uh tweak that skill set to get them to where they're making, you know, you know, top top notch blades. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Yeah, I mean this is a great time to be uh uh coming into knife making and learning it uh you know when I started uh I think I built my first one in 77, and uh like I said, we had uh American Blade magazine that came out once a month. And uh Bob Scrimsher had a catalog, you sent off two dollars and got a catalog, and then uh you waited on the catalog to come in, and then you would make an order out and go down and get a money order and ship it to him, and uh you know, three weeks later, four weeks later, you'd have your stuff, you know. And uh now, you know, you can just get on there and and order it online and uh have it in two, two, maybe three days. Uh one of the first knife makers I met down in San Antonio, I was showing him one of my knives, and uh he looked at me and he said, Well, how many have you made? And I said, Well, this is my second one. And he said, Well, you should have had it figured out by now, and just turned around and walked away from me. And I thought, Wow, you know, these these guys are tough, you know. And uh I don't know why, but they didn't want to really share knowledge back then. And uh I I went on around that same knife show for a couple of hours, and I met LC Finger, and so I thought, well, I'm gonna ask him. And so I started talking to him about it, and he was like, hey man, come around here and pull up a chair. And he had me come around behind his table, start giving me catalogs, gave me handle material, uh, you know, just everything he could do to help get me get me going. And then uh he used to come to Amarillo to the gun shows and he would remember me. And uh, you know, he was just a big help. But uh, it seems like now the information is so much freer, and uh which is great. It's it's uh I decided way back then I was gonna be like LC, I wasn't gonna be like the other guys, and uh I don't have any secrets, I'm happy to tell anybody anything, and uh yeah. I never trained with anybody. I've been in a couple of other makers' shops, but it was more just a visit, you know, 15-20 minutes here or there. Uh never had anybody show me how to grind a blade or anything like that. I just uh just pretty much self-taught. Uh I listened to anybody that would tell me what to do, but I I don't never had a class or anything like that.

SPEAKER_02 13:45

So yeah, well that's something I I've observed over the years of knowing you is that you you uh you're constantly seeking um information on how to do things. Like uh even if it's just um in a particular Facebook group or if we're um at a show or something like that, you know, when we're in a group and we're talking about something, if you have a question, you'll pipe up and say, hey, and you know, ask somebody who's a you know subject matter expert to explain those things to you. And I I've I've always appreciated that because I don't think that there's a stopping point on education, especially self-education. And so like um I think that it benefits everybody to always be seeking um more knowledge and and other ways to do things, and then try to uh figure out the best way to augment your own knife making style and processes uh according to what works best at the time that you you you're able to uh I guess figure things out or to ask people, if all that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

Yeah. Yeah, I I never miss an opportunity to sit and visit with anybody. Uh you know, there's hardly anybody that you can't learn something from. Uh we had that uh I think it was last year at the Texas show when we were doing the inspections, and uh uh Stanley Music was helping us do the inspections, and we had a lull there about 30 minutes where we didn't have anybody. And I just said, Stanley, you know, uh this is what is just kicking my rear. And uh he looked at me and he said, I can tell you exactly what you're doing. And I said, Please, you know, and he sat down and explained to me what I'm doing, and I would just sit there and listen to him, and I mean he must have talked for 15, 20 minutes. And uh, you know, I was writing everything down in my mind, and uh I come home and tried everything he told me, and you know, I called him back later and I said, Man, thanks. I said, You fixed it, you fixed my problem, you know. And uh, so yeah, it and you know, Stanley's great. I mean, he was just free with the information and and and proud to be able to help me, you know. So uh yeah, that's I really admire people like that. That's what I strive to do.

SPEAKER_02 16:11

Yeah, and that's uh I mean I I really agree with that sentiment because that's some of the things that I've encountered um being a knife maker uh after the internet is that there's a lot of information out there and it's really difficult to decide on what is um factual is the wrong word, but what's effective because uh you know everybody has their opinion and everybody has the ability to make a quick video and post it on YouTube or social media in some other way, and uh a lot of like um what you see out there is not always the most efficient way to do things, but if somebody's figured it out, they decide that their knowledge is valuable and they share it, and then you have to be the one to be discerning and sift through it uh to make sure that it's applicable to you. Whereas, you know, if if you're talking one-on-one with a knife maker and you say, I have this specific problem, then a knife maker who's encountered that or who's helpful will either help you think through it, or they they know they know what the derivative of what you're asking is and they know how to solve for that in their specific way. But that's that's something that I've had um a hard time with, is just there's so much information. How do I find what's actually helpful to me based on the way that I think, based on my shop equipment and everything like that? And there's still probably about 25 or 30 percent of knife operations that I have to figure out um wholly by myself, um, you know, even from an equipment and machining and process perspective, because my equipment in my shop is um for as much as it is like uh other knife makers, does have tools that are just specific to me.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

Yeah. Yeah, every maker has his own little uh the way he does stuff. And uh, like me, I mean, I've had people come to my shop and I've showed them how to do something. And then six weeks or a month, two months later, they come back and I'm doing that same thing. And they say, That's not what you showed me. And I said, Well, that's not what I do now. I do this, I figured this out, and uh, it's just a total you know, constant evolution. And uh, I think a lot of makers are that way, and uh sometimes I think that's why uh it's not necessarily bad information, but uh they they tell tell people do it this way, and then six months later they figured out a better way, and uh you know it just keeps it keeps changing. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

Do you think that um anything about your uh photography or your eye for uh symmetry and balance and things like that uh play a role in how you actually make your knives?

SPEAKER_01 19:14

Oh, I think you know, I think a knife ought to have a flow to it, uh nice smooth lines. Uh I I get a lot of comments that my knives are clean, uh there's no rough lines in it and everything. And uh I think maybe that's a little bit of what it is and have the the eyes for photography uh you know, composition-wise. It's kind of like composition of your knife, I guess you could say. Uh and the eye for detail, you know. Uh being able to do that last 10% that makes the knife truly a custom handmade knife.

SPEAKER_02 19:59

Yeah. Um something that I've uh I've tried to talk to other knife makers about is like uh that concept of the last 10%, whether it's whatever percentage it is that gets it to uh the finish line right, it's it's kind of like this. Um the the difference between you and me uh as makers uh when it comes to the knife itself, um, you know, like the the profiling and everything like that is is really only functionally a few hundred thousandths, right? It's not it's not it's not a lot. But that ten percent makes up like ninety percent of what that knife actually turns into. Like um, you know, like what the aesthetic choices that you make on your pin placement and your handle material and your finish and your geometry, um uh you know, everything from the the the cutting edge to the feel to the sheaths, um, how you present it uh to your market and everything, that 10% makes up 90% of what that knife actually is. And uh unlike like we we learn we learn the like the 90% of knife making uh through talking with makers and self-discovery and uh online resources or literature, things like that, but the that last 10% you really can't teach because that's where that's where your soul goes into things and your mind goes into things. So it's always been interesting uh for me to try to delve into the philosophy of the last 10%, because um I mean you you can go down a rabbit hole pretty quickly on how how you f philosophize about knives and what it is that put imparts the maker into that steel.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

Yeah. Well, that was one of the things Don Dollar taught me ear early on. He told me the last 10% is ninety percent of the build. And uh that's something that's always stuck in my head. And uh you know, I've tried to tell people that I have them come up to me and ask me what I think of their knife or something. And you know, I usually tell them as politely as I can, you know, this is very nice, but you need to finish it. Uh you know, you just need to to do that last 10%. And uh that's what sets it apart. Easier said than done, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:26

Yeah. Well, you know, it's a good point because um I uh I had a hard time wrapping my head around that. Um, you know, like when I in I think the first time I really challenged myself to reach out um to other makers and to get real advice um was when I was going through the inspection process for the Texas Guild and then into the Knife Makers Guild. And when everybody was talking about uh you know the last 10% and fit and finish and everything, you know, there were definitely some elements of my knives that I I was already applying that 10% concept to. But there were others that I was lacking on it. Like um, I didn't know my bevels were were geometrically all right, you know, they were where they were within a certain uh tolerance. But um, you know, when I was sharpening my blade, you could tell that the grinds were a little bit off. You could tell on the plunge lines that they were a little bit off, the handle, um, the handle finish uh was a little bit off. And there were all things like I focused on when I was starting to make knives and learn um that I I got really good at, like uh doing bolsters and hiding pins and things because I really liked the the look of bolsters. But um that was something, and it's kind of like advice for people who are listening that um the the fundamentals of a knife, um profile handles, you know, bolsters, whatever um uh embellishments you're putting on things, they all have to be executed to a degree, right? But what you put in from yourself is is well like when you close your eyes eyes, what does that knife look like to you? Like, do you have uh an idea of what that knife is supposed to look like before you start touching it or um after you've ground it, or um, you know, once the handles are on it and you're doing your finishing work, and where like at what stage do you actually start applying yourself and what in your mind's eye um is that knife? And to me, man, that was like it was hard because I was I I didn't I don't think I found myself until I really started focusing on on that last little bit of of what it was that I was looking for. But now, you know, practicing it, when I when I'm in the shop and when I'm making a knife, uh that that 10% overshadows the like the fundamentals of knife making. Now I'm like, okay, well, I I want to have these bolsters look this certain way, or I want the this handle to look a certain way and it's for it to flow a certain way. And so I start from you know soup to nuts now about what it is that I want to accomplish with that piece instead of getting getting down to the last 10% and trying to figure out the knife all over again.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Yeah, it's it's hard to uh sometimes you just want to be done with it, you know, and uh you just have to make yourself say, you know, I put on the optivizer and I walk over in the bright sun and I scrutinize it from top to bottom and I say, Oh, I gotta fix this. And I go back, I fix that. And I go back to the sunlight and I look at it again and I find a place. And I'll be and uh invariably I'll sell the knife and I'll be cleaning it up, fixing to ship it, and I'll say, Oh man, I didn't see that, so I'm going back out to the shop. And uh yeah, I don't know that it ever ends. Uh you just keep keep keep being willing to fix it.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

No.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

Yeah, no, I mean I I agree. It is it is a hard life um because we force ourselves to do this thing um and to scrutinize ourselves and to um take public ridicule and judgment and everything over this thing that's like an intimate creation of ours. It's like uh it's like giving birth to a baby and then allowing the like the entire world to tell tell you it's ugly, and you and you know, there's only so much you can do to make it not ugly. You know, it's and we do it 100% to ourselves. It's like it's self-induced stress.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

Yeah, it doesn't uh it doesn't get faster. I mean, you don't get faster uh the longer you build knives and the more knives you build, I think you get slower because uh you get pickier, uh it takes longer to to get that stuff and you become more critical. And uh after I joined the guild, uh I was so scared that I was gonna turn out something that another guild member was gonna see and say, Oh wait, man, this this guy didn't fix it, you know. And uh you can literally drive yourself crazy. Uh you know, you you strive for perfection, but you don't expect it, then uh trying to keep that you know, keep that balance uh can be difficult sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 27:38

Yeah, I would say I have the same the same kind of problem. I mean, you know, it's I I I I think that it's important to recognize as a maker that nothing is ever going to be perfect, um, and that the longer you think about a problem, um, the sometimes the more of a rabbit hole can it can uh get you down. But uh so last episode I was talking with uh Spencer Applin and um it it made me think more about the fact that there is a paradigm shift. Um when when you're making knives, uh you you make them and they just take the time that they take, right? And and once you get to the point where you know that your processes just take that amount of time, you've reached a certain level, right? And if you want to make um if you want to make strides to reduce the time, you have to figure out a way to short circuit that. And it's usually in the the arena of tooling or processes that shave off minutes or hours, right? So, you know, if you if you want to be able to have a certain type of finish, um a perfect example is is uh uh going from the belt when you're do it grinding your bevels and everything to hand sanding. Like anybody I know r pretty much hates hand sanding because of how long it takes, and you know, it's just there sitting and um you know uh uh obsessing over this scratch or that scratch or whatever. But the short circuit is to find a way to handle 90-95% of that on your bevel grinding and that and then make your life easier on the hand sanding by controlling as much of that um reduction in scratches on the belt with the power tool, and then you have to spend less time hand sanding. Um, and I found that very valuable. So, you know, I I might take a I might take a blade up to you know 800 or you know, 800, 1200 grit on the grinder itself, and then I might spend 15 or 20 minutes hand sanding, but at that point I'm really just trying to perfect the the scratch patterns and things more so than worrying so much about uh you know deep um low grit scratches. And so I've been able to save, you know, between 30 minutes and two hours, depending on how how lazy I want to be on the belt grinder, I've been able to save a ton of time you know getting to the same objective as I just couldn't do before because I wasn't thinking about the tools doing the work for me correctly.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

I don't hand sand. I know that's crazy to most knife makers, but I just I don't do it. Uh I don't uh my hand sanding on a knife uh if I've got bolsters on it is zero. Uh the about the only hand sanding I actually do will be like on a fighter where I've got the face of that guard and I've solder it and I have to clean that solder up, and there's just no way to do it, and uh and I'll hand sand that, but I just don't hand sand and I never really have. And uh recently I've started uh doing a 2000 grit hand sand on uh on some slip joints, but I just basically take them to a mirror and then I bring a 2000 grit back home on them. It takes five minutes, but uh yeah, if I had to spend two hours hand sanding on a knife, I'd just quit making them. I can't do it.

SPEAKER_02 31:39

Well, I think uh I think most people would agree. So um, so that's interesting to me because you know I would I would say that your your style of knives pulls from the era in which you um like the the formative uh years of your knife making, right? And so I see a lot of like loveless influence and whatnot. Um and and a lot of those guys would do mirror polishes on their blades, and that can be done on the uh on the grinder pretty effectively, that and the buffer. So do you want to describe a little bit about like kind of what your process is from you know once you the profile is done to like grinding and everything?

SPEAKER_01 32:22

Well, I usually grind my blades up. I'll start, I usually grind uh the pre-grind with a like an 80 grit. After I've heat treated, I'll I'll do uh 120, then I'll do 320 with the Trizac belts, and then I'll do the uh 600 Trizac, and uh then I'll go to the cork belt. I've got uh sometimes I use a 600 grit cork belt with black compound, and uh then I'll go to a thousand grit with a green compound, and then I've recently got a 1200 grit and I use that white compound on it, and uh usually when I come off of that, and then I go back to my buffer, have a buffer. My buffers run 3600 RPM, and uh I use the white, and uh some of those uh pop sell some buffing wheels that are just really stiff, and uh they don't grab. I mean, don't get me wrong, they can grab a knife, but it's not real easy to grab like some of those floppy ones running slow do. And uh you run a high speed and you buff with that green and then you buff with the white, and uh you know, it just keep you know you buff it with the white and then you take it and get some good light and look at it, find some scratches, and decide what you gotta do. Maybe you need to go back to the thousand grid or whatever you need to go do to go back and get them, and uh you just keep going back and forth till you till you get them out.

SPEAKER_02 33:54

And uh yeah, that makes sense. Um and something that I've noticed um uh observationally, when when some knife makers will use the buffer to uh smooth over rough edges, uh for lack of a better term, uh typically you see that sharp lines are then um they're they're not so sharp, like they're they're rounded over and everything. And and something that I've always appreciated about uh the way that you um address your your process for um you know zero hand sanding and doing um mirror polishes and whatnot is that you still have really good definition of lines, like uh especially on your on your fighters, uh, but on all of your knives, like you can tell that there is geometry that that has flats to it. And saying that you don't um you don't hand sand in order to establish those and that you do it all on the grinder and everything, I would say that people should look at your process and and uh you know figure out how to how to do that because there's a lot of really great flat lines, even though uh you know, flat surfaces, even though you're doing that uh primarily all on the grinder and using a buffer and everything.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

Yeah, you know, on the fighters, I think one of the keys on it is uh I use uh on some of the smaller fighters, I use a three-inch wheel, and I cut my hologrinds in with that, and uh that gives you great definition. Uh some of the the bigger fighters I have to use a five-inch because you can get you know paper thin edge if you're not careful, but uh a lot of what what I do on the fighters, uh uh Steve Johnson had the DVD I bought, and I watched his video on that, and uh uh you know it's a whole lot of what I just told you how I finish my knives is what Steve does. And so uh I have a had a few correspondence back and forth with him on the cork belts and stuff. And uh I tried the foam wheels, uh you know, and and they work. The foam wheels work, but uh you know, you have to go out and buy a three-inch foam wheel and a five-inch foam wheel, you know, those things, it's just it gets crazy expensive to do all that. So uh I just went with the cork belts, and uh I think that those wheels give you more of that definition, and uh by using the same wheel, and the the cork belts are the same thickness as a trizac belt, so you're filling your hollow grind, and uh I think that helps keep everything sharp. And uh the buffing I mean you're coming off a thousand grit. It's not like you're using the old brown ale's buffing compound that those sparks, you know, 320 grit or something like that buffing compound. Uh you know. Uh so I I think that's what helps keep the definition, the small wheel, and then the by going to the thousand grit cork and twelve hundred grit cork.

SPEAKER_02 37:14

Yeah. Well, and something I forget who told it to be, but you know, like uh like satin finishes, like high satin finishes seem to be a lot of uh a lot of the trend uh today. You know, like the high gloss is definitely like the you know the old guard of making knives, and it seems like some of these uh I think it has a lot to do with the the brute to forge or forge to finish knife type of look, but they want to see some type of patterning or some type of texture of swords. And so um on stock removal knives, especially, uh, when you're doing a really clean hand pulled finish, um that's that's where a lot of people like want it. If if they talk about satin, it's a hand pulled finish and every like all the lines are straight. Uh but what I I learned is that a a really well-structured hand-rubbed finish starts with at the very least a poorly executed um high polish finish, right? Because the the base, the base of your of your satin uh should be the gloss or the uh the the high polish. And then when you're establishing those lines, they're cutting in to that high gloss and establishing the the line geometry that you need to really make a very well well-defined satin.

SPEAKER_01 38:47

Yeah, the satin, I yeah, I think that's exactly right. I mean, if you can do mirror polish and then come back and run that 2000 grit over it, yeah, I think it looks great. Uh and 2000 grit's not gonna destroy your lines. Yeah, I mean you're not rubbing it that much. But uh yeah, it's always interesting to me. I've had people tell me that you know the mirror finish uh scratches easier. And uh I said how how does that happen? And well it just it scratches easier. I said, Well, you know, they're both rockful 60 and I I don't understand how they could scratch easier, and uh I've never had anybody fully explain to me that it that it does, but I think uh you know uh Loveless said that the mirror polish was your best corrosion resistance, and uh that's the main reason I think they did the mirror polish was because it was uh you know those scratches just lend themselves to a place to collect moisture and stuff, and so I do a few, I do a few, uh and I started doing it on the slip joints simply because it seems like that's what the slip joint crowd expects is the the hand rub finish. And they look great. I mean, if you've ever looked at Edmund Davidson's hand rub finishes, oh my gosh, those things are just it's just incredible. And uh but Edmund likes to hand sand.

SPEAKER_02 40:23

He spends a lot of time doing it, so yeah, yeah, and uh I think it is a difference because you know, I mean, stainless uh material uh being readily available now is not the same way it was when you know the majority was you know poorly alloyed stainless or high carbon, like those are your options like high high carbon or tool steel or poorly formulated stainless. Um and and what I mean by poorly formulated is just that they're they were not as corrosion-resistant stainless um alloys as they are today. It's been it's it's gotten bananas on the metallurgy component of just how uh refined that that stainless uh is and the elements that they can put in in order to uh make them still uh viable options for for knife makers, um, you know, with the edge retention and toughness and everything like that, but still have that high rate of uh corrosion resistance. Because, you know, like in a in a hand rubbed or hand pulled finish, um you all you're doing in in you know creating that lines, the line structure and everything is creating more surface area for moisture, which you're you're exactly correct. Um so a high a high gloss um would reduce those scratches down to um maybe where some uh water droplets could actually penetrate in there, but uh you know it protects it more, especially if you're you know doing maintenance and waxing it and things like that and creating a protective layer on top of that already fine finish. So um, but you know, I uh it's interesting uh to me at least that kind of the the context at which um people think about um how the art form has progressed to where it's at is predicated on the lack of technology or the lack of uh uh materials that earlier knife makers had. And now that now that we have you know high stainless steels and you know complex uh heat treating processes and kilns and everything to achieve that stuff, the paradigm changes a little bit where you're like, meh, I don't really need high gloss anymore because I can have a lower grit finish and still achieve the same kind of corrosion resistance using a stainless.

SPEAKER_01 42:48

Yeah, I don't know. I just I've always been drawn to the mirror finish. It's just what I started out doing and and still do. But I mean, I think a a a well-done hand rub finish is a work of art too. So my wife recently at the Atlanta gun show, she came up to the table and she was carrying a six-foot piece of some kind of carbon steel, I don't remember now what it was, that she bought from Pops, and she said, I want kitchen knives. And they told me this was the best steel for kitchen knives. And I said, Well, you know, this'll rust. And she said, That's all right, I'll take care of it. I said, Ha ha, yeah, okay. So anyway, I built these knives for her, and uh have these carbon blades and have stainless 416 stainless bolsters and beautiful handles on them, and uh some of the most rusted up stuff you've ever seen in your life. And uh I just think you know, there's a lot of work I put into those knives, and I I could have used stainless, and uh the pieces I've made for with stainless stay just as sharp in the kitchen as what what these things are doing. So uh yeah. It's it's just hard for me not to use stainless steel and uh and mirror finish.

SPEAKER_02 44:06

Yeah. Yeah. I mean uh I it's one of those things where I I think that there's a a a confirmation bias uh that people have with certain types of materials like you know there's there's a more intrinsic value to a hand forged blade than a stock removed blade, or there's a there's something that is better about this steel than that steel. And when I was talking with Laren uh Thomas about like the metallurgy side of things, he's kind of like at a certain point, it's really is splitting hairs and it's really kind of getting um uh a little bit prisnickety about details. I mean this is coming from a guy who's all about the details. He's like, you know, at the end of the day, it really is kind of personal preference. There's some steels that are, you know, mid-carbons, there's other high carbons, there's cladding, there's you know, super stainlesses, you know, all those things. And it's all about kind of what you what you find to be the easiest and getting the results that you want. And there's a plethora of steels out there for you to accomplish all those things. So I never really get too hung up if somebody comes to me and says they want something out of S90V or um you know some some specific steel. Um I'm like, uh, you know, magn MagnaCut is a perfect example. Like I like Magnet Cut, but it is a bear to try to get a finish on. And if you're doing hand sanding and stuff, like you can spend a long time uh trying to achieve that same result that maybe with uh CPM 154 um was not as hard. Um and uh that's one of those things where you know the buzzword of the steel or whatever, uh even though like I'll argue that there's like differences in some of these uh super steels and what they can achieve, it really is not so much different than uh like a well-formulated, you know, um more readily available steel. It's it's you know, at some point in time, it really is just uh a personal preference more than it is uh uh you know a fundamental flaw in some alloy that you're choosing.

SPEAKER_01 46:17

Yeah, I have one of the filet knives that I made early on when I was using 440C, and uh my wife ended up with it in the kitchen, and I think it's by far uh the most used knife in there, and uh it holds up great. I mean it's it holds up every bit as good as any of the other steels in there, and uh, you know, it's really had a bad rep for a long time, but uh it you know if it's ground right, heat treated right, I think it's gonna make you a good blade. And you know, people want to take care of things, but stuff happens, you know, and that other steel just it looks really bad in a hurry, so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:00

Um I've tried to like uh I don't I don't have a lot of blades in the kitchen, and uh I have some handle material that my wife has talked about me making some knives out of. Um but you know, something that I think about is how easy is it to make a blade that can like withstand the dishwasher and everything, um, and you know, just normal kitchen use versus uh a really complex blade that you know you have to baby and apply oil to and sharpen with the whetstone and all those things, right? Like uh, you know, if if people want to spend that time doing it, I think it's therapeutic and it's uh you know, it's like it's like um dusting and polishing the lint or the uh the the china or whatever, you know. There's some people that like that ritual of taking care of things, but for me, if I find a blade that's like uh in like in the sink or in the dishwasher or whatever, I have to question um the functionality of that thing, and I would prefer making a knife that can withstand those things. So um, you know, it's I I don't know that I'd spend all this time uh priming and and you know taking care of a blade. I would prefer just to be able to do my normal thing and spend as little time having to worry about its up upkeep as possible so that way I can get to the things that I need it for, like you know, fixing food and cutting packages and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 48:27

Yeah. There's a lot of acid in a lot of those foods that just attack it. Uh well I had one blade there that I had cleaned up for and brought back in the house, and she started slicing strawberries with it and it just started turning black. I don't I don't know how you prevent something like that. I won't be using any more of it, I don't believe.

SPEAKER_02 48:54

Yeah, what steel was it?

SPEAKER_01 48:56

I think it was 5160 or something like that. I don't know. Uh I don't remember now. It's been it's been a while and it was a real simple, you know, steel. It wasn't anything real complex. I think she paid nine dollars for six feet of it, so it couldn't have been too expensive of stuff, but uh yeah, I don't think we'll do any more of it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:25

So I I want to talk a little bit, um, kind of pivoting from knives uh specifically, but you know, we talked about um photography, and I kind of I kind of want to delve into that a little bit. Like what got you into photography? When did you start? And kind of like what are your your primary focuses in in doing it?

SPEAKER_01 49:49

You know, my dad used to do a little bit of photography, uh, mostly, you know, portrait stuff and family stuff, but I just always have had this longing for the outdoors and uh the mountains, the mountain men, and that kind of stuff, you know. And I I used to think when I was younger I was a hunter and I wanted to hunt all the time. And I don't know, somewhere back in the late 70s, early 80s, uh me and a buddy shingles houses uh and make enough money to buy ourselves a camera, we were gonna photograph wildlife, and so we bought a camera and bought a lens and uh started realizing right quick that it's cheaper to hunt than it is to photograph uh buying a rifle and a scope, and as opposed to buying a camera and a telephoto lens and a tripod. Uh you know, it's just it's not it's not cheaper. But uh I really got interested in it and uh we shot film for a long time and uh kind of kind of got discouraged, you know, trying to trying to sell a little bit of it. And uh then digital came along and uh it's just like it's fun again, you know, and uh the new technology they just keep coming up every year. They come out with just better and better. And uh you know, my main focus has always been wildlife and it's been uh mostly uh you know big game. Uh I love going to Colorado to photograph elk uh during the fall when the when the rut's going on and they're bugling. And uh you know, uh I think when I was working for like 15 years in a row, we spent the last week of September, first week of October in the Tetons and then Yellowstone. And then uh since I've retired, we've been twice, I think. And uh just it hadn't worked out to to get back up there like when we were working. But uh we've went to Alaska and photographed grizzly bears and uh you know went up into Washington State photographing bald eagles and uh have a fifth wheel travel trailer and we like to pull the trailer and go. And uh I think we're scheduled like the 29th of this month, we're gonna go up the the moose are to be starting to uh lose the velvet up in Colorado, and I think we're gonna go spend a few days up there and try to photograph them. Yeah, it's just it's been great. I mean it's not very profitable. I sell a few photos along, but uh I very rarely make any serious money at it, but uh I just love it.

SPEAKER_02 52:39

Yeah, I've uh I've actually on when you go to your website, I've looked at on quite a few of your uh photographs and I mean some of them are just incredible. Um I I'm I really like uh bighorn sheep and mountain goats, um, you know, bears and everything like that are interesting to me too. But some of these um these images that you've captured, um, I I can't help but think about what it was like to actually be there and take them. Um is a lot of the stuff done with telephoto or would you do you get pretty close to um your subject matter, or kind of like what does that look like when you're you're photographing?

SPEAKER_01 53:23

I have a a telephoto that's a 500 millimeter, which is roughly like about looking through a 10 pair or 10 power pair of binoculars. So, you know, I don't have to be real close. Uh you know, some of it I've shot from the cab of the truck, you know, uh, and some of it we get out and walk, but uh uh yeah, that's the neatest thing. Uh I was talking to a guy that was doing paintings and everything, you know, and I said, Well, I said uh that's really beautiful, but I I got to be there. I got to stand there and see this with my own eyes. And uh that's that's one of the neat things about it. And then if you get a good photo and you get to share it and someone gets to see it that's never experienced anything like that, well it it really it's really neat. Uh I enjoy it when people enjoy it.

SPEAKER_02 54:18

Yeah, and that's one thing I I I wouldn't I wouldn't say the photography is like a a dying art, you know, people have uh people have access to pretty good cameras on their phone um regularly, right? But there's like the subject matter that you're covering covering, like the Uedad sheep, um like I I can tell that the context at which you're seeing all these um you know game animals and and things is pretty extraordinary. Like there's a pronghorn, it's a uh uh field of flowers and all you know, I mean some some incredible examples of of you know trophy animals in the hunting context. And in a lot of ways, you know, I mean I've been hunting for quite a many years now, and I've never seen uh a bunch of these animals in the wild like that, mostly because as a hunter, the context at which I can see those is limited by whether I have tags for them or whether they're in season or things like that. And so I might I might go, you know, many years without actually ever being able to experience these animals, whereas with photography, you're able to actually seek them out and wait and you know capture them in a way that uh you know most of life just doesn't really allow you to.

SPEAKER_01 55:38

Yeah, the the trick to a lot of that stuff is you have to go someplace where the animals aren't hunted. Uh you go up to Estes Park, there's no hunting on the elk. They'll come out in the meadows and uh they'll bugle and they'll carry on, and and there may be a thousand people out there on the road uh watching them and they don't care. Uh you can go over to southern Colorado in areas where they are hunted and uh see a herd of elk out there a hundred yards and pull over and stop and and you'll see a stampede for the timber. They will not tolerate it. And uh so a a lot of the photography is uh they're wild but they're habituated, I guess is the word. And uh the pronghorn around here are hunted like one week a year or two weeks a year, and so usually in the spring and stuff they're pretty relaxed, but uh late September it's real hard to photograph them because they're they're actually hunted for a few weeks, but uh yeah, that's the trick, is knowing where to go.

SPEAKER_02 56:46

Yeah, what has it been like to uh photograph antelope um before and after the hemorrhagic fever uh came through?

SPEAKER_01 56:58

You know, I don't know exactly when that happened. Uh we had a bad drought up here and it got really tough to photograph them, and uh they're just now really coming back, and uh I haven't spent as much time trying to photograph antelope in the last few years just because it it got pretty hard to find them.

SPEAKER_02 57:20

Yeah, I can't I can't remember exactly what year um it started hitting, uh, but you know, you used to be able to out in West Texas area, especially and into you know lower New Mexico, uh find antelope all the time in humongous herds of like you know, the thousand antelope. But uh since the fever hit, it like I can't remember what the the uh herd reduction was across the entire antelope uh uh species. It was like, I don't know, like 70% or something. Uh it was like it was pretty devastating. Um because I I've been antelope hunting before up in Wyoming, and the the numbers are starting to come back, but from other hunters that I've talked to who uh you know used to hunt them, you could pretty much find them anywhere. And now you still you still have to search. And there's a lot of areas where uh you can't hunt either because of you know landlocked uh BML land or whatever up there, or um other you know political reasons, uh, but uh it's uh apparently not not anything like it was in the heyday where you can you know you just go anywhere and pretty much um you know get your bag limit.

SPEAKER_01 58:35

Yeah, Deb's family uh lives up in Washington State, so we used to drive up there and we would go through Colorado, Wyoming, and up that way. And uh I've seen it where you just get sick of seeing them. There's just everywhere you look, there's antelope all the way up into Idaho. And then I've been up there on years when you could see them and they were so poor that they, you know, try to drop a bobwire fence and couldn't get over it. Uh hang up on the fences and stuff, and uh just skin and bones because there was no no grass that year, no rain. Uh yeah, they have a tough life, and uh I think that's what it is. I think it's just the evolution of it, you know. They uh good years, bad years. And I think we're just kind of in a downturn right now.

SPEAKER_02 59:27

Yeah, they are they are some hardy creatures too. I mean, not only do you have to uh work really hard to um hunt them, uh, but they are just they're rugged. Um what yeah one time uh you know the only time I've uh I've gotten a ticket uh for speeding uh in a differ in another state was when I was uh driving up to I guess it was Montana for a buddy's wedding. When I was driving back, I was trying to get into Casper um and a Reza uh police officer stopped me because I was like uh 20 some miles over the speed limit or something like that. And uh and he was like uh he looked at me, he just shook his head. He's like, you can't do that here. And I was like, Well, I like I I understand that it's like against the law, but our our conversation was basically that there's so many fatalities from people hitting uh pronghorn because they just like run across the road that that that far and it exceeds any normal traffic accident. And he's like, You can't do that here, like you have to slow down. I think he gave me a little bit of a uh of a pass because we were uh wearing seatbelts and everything, but um it was it was the antelopes that it was kind of like the red flag. It wasn't just me speeding, but the likelihood that I would die if I hit one.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:52

I've had them dart across the road on me up there in Wyoming, and uh I I couldn't believe I didn't hit them. I don't know how how in the world I missed them. Uh yeah. Especially in September when they start chasing the does. Uh it gets crazy up there.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:07

Yeah. Well that's uh, you know, back for where where I'm from in Pennsylvania, um, I don't know a whole lot of people who have not had uh some accident uh as it relates to whitetailed deer. Um I think my mama's totaled two cars. I have a sister that totaled a car. Um, you know, everybody's hit them. I I I don't think I had, but you know, I I moved down here when I was uh 18. Uh so uh you know I didn't have enough uh driving time uh to to hit any, but I there was some close calls. And because of all the the you know mountains and everything around there, uh they'll they'll jump off uh the mountainside um or they'll jump up from it and you'll never see them coming. Like it's just you know, you'll be going through all these little switchbacks and everything in the in the hollers and whatnot, and you'll never see them before you hit them.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:58

Yeah, you have to be careful up in Wyoming uh there's things bigger than antelope up there like buffalo, and they will get you.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:07

Well, that's something that's interesting. I mean, all these I watch all these videos uh of people who like to try to pet the bison and uh and then end up getting tossed or whatever. And uh, you know, there was uh one of the most humbling experiences, not hunting um up there, but being in Yellowstone and camping, is that uh in some of the campsites uh that you can go to in the Yellowstone area, um, you know, the buffalo uh come real close to all the campsites and whatnot, looking for food and things. And um uh I had a tent out and you could hear them brush by the tent at night. And I woke up several times. I was like, I don't know about this, because you know, it's like the difference. Like, I mean, I we could have got trampled uh real easily if they decided that they wanted to, but um all these people that like to try to uh go and touch mama bears cubs and pet bison and stuff like that to me, it seems a little bit uh well disrespectful of the violence that they can uh they can put down on somebody.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:16

Oh, I've got some pictures of uh a bull moose that came into Grovan campground there on the Grovaunt River there outside of uh Jackson Hole and uh tore a tent up. Just I don't know what the tent did to make him mad, but he just got it, it got it hooked up in his antlers and he just shredded that tent. And uh this was real early, like first light, and we were scared, you know, the people were in it, and so everybody was trying to figure out what to do, and they said, Well, don't worry, he said those people said it got too cold, they were gonna go into town and stay in a motel that night. So there was no one in the tent, but he he trashed that tent. Yeah, well, and uh duly noted so they were just lucky that that uh that they got cold and uh and decided to go get a motel room. But yeah uh a lot of that wildlife will come into the campgrounds because the wolves won't. Uh they don't want to be around the people and those those big bull moose and cow moose and stuff, they've learned that. And uh so they'll come stay in the campground. And uh sometimes the hardest thing about photographing them is not getting a picnic table or a travel trailer in the background of the picture. Uh I've seen some great big huge moose just come in and lay down and by a picnic table in a campground.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:34

Yeah, have you ever uh I I see that in some uh pictures that you have that there's like uh you know brown bears. Uh have you ever been up when uh the salmon has been running or whatever and fish for them actively?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:48

We went up to Alaska one year and uh flew into Silver Salmon Creek, and uh it's just strictly a bear photography place, and uh photographed them catching the the salmon, and uh I got photos of them come running out and uh they were just they almost looked at you like oh no, not another photographer, you know. They didn't care and uh just paid us absolutely no attention whatsoever. And uh we had them one come within twenty I think the metadata on my camera showed he came within twenty-six feet and uh just you know they couldn't care less about us. It was really a unique place. Uh and they warned us when we got there, they said, Now you're gonna do things here that if you go into interior Alaska and try to do this, you're gonna get hurt. But she said, Here we can do it. And uh we had a little guy that didn't weigh 90 pounds soaking wet, and uh she chased one off with a lawn chair. So it's it's a a unique place up there.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:55

Um you know it's it's just a matter of uh, you know, we get to see part. Of the country and uh flora and fauna and things like that that you just wouldn't be able to see if you just went on um you know Route 20 um everywhere, you know, east uh east to west. Um and if you just went went the highway route. Um I I really like that. And it's it's something that uh whether it's hunting or fishing or uh road tripping, those elements of nature and you know things that are tangible, like that you can see and you can experience um yourself, that just to me means a lot more than like living in a digital or um you know uh virtual reality type of world where everything that you get fed to you is from social media or whatever. And um and and then that's something that I think about a lot when I'm making knives is like I get to make this thing that I get to feel, that I get to, you know, to touch and to and to uh develop the a pattern out and everything, and I get to become very familiar with each one of the tools that goes into it. And that's a little bit different than you know, like when when I'm selling it to somebody, um, I I'm really that knife has a story because every single one um followed a similar path to being made, but you know, maybe I cut myself on one, or maybe like a belt exploded on one or something like that, or maybe I was going through this, you know, particular time in my life while I was making it. But that's something that you don't really get with production blades, is you know, they they got stamped out in the thousands or you know, hundreds of thousands in a in a factory, and they were put together by somebody who you'll never know who their name was, and uh it loses that the provenance and the the you know the spirit behind it because you know it's just cranked out versus you know hand touched all all the way through the process.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:00

Yeah, that's what Todd was telling me. He said people like to know the story of the knife, you know, and they really like the story of the knife that almost killed you.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:12

You know, one that you really suffered for. So yeah. Yeah, I mean, I I have I don't know. There's not hardly days go by that I don't have another cut or scratch or something on my hands. So when we take off on vacation and stuff, you know, I like I get to heal up a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:33

Yeah, so um talk to me a little bit about your uh experience in the knife making knifemakers guild. So you're the the vice president currently um for the next two years, right? Um and this is this the is this the second term that you've filled with the guild?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:54

This will be my second term, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:57

Yeah, that was quite a surprise. I was uh voted in as a a voting member, and then 15 minutes later I was voted in as vice president. And uh so uh Wayne Hensley had been vice president for years and he was suffering, had health issues and stuff, and so he he had stepped down. And uh yeah, we were sitting there in a meeting and they were asking for nominations, and Bubba leaned over to me and said, He says, Is it gonna piss you off if I nominate you? And I said, What? He said, I nominate Gary Lakely. And I went, What? The next thing I knew, I had a second and a vote, and I was the best president.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:37

I'm like, wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:40

So, you know, and uh I I didn't know what to think, you know. Uh the guild was such a big deal to me, uh, and the history of it from back in the late 70s and 80s and stuff. I just I just ate all that up, you know. And uh to be getting to be a member was just super great, and then suddenly being vice president, it it scared me. And I thought, wow, you know, I I don't know if if I can do this, you know. And I thought about it for the the night and the next day I thought, you know, let's just embrace this thing and and uh you know try to try to make a difference. And uh it's been difficult in some ways trying to understand what the membership wants, you know. Uh we thought, you know, they they want this and we try to give it to them and and we get crickets, you know, we don't hear nothing, and we're like, wow, I thought this is what they wanted, you know. Uh everybody's got an opinion and everybody's opinion's a little bit different. And it's just it's really kind of like herding chickens sometimes. It's like what you know, I don't know what they want me to do. And uh I think knife makers as a whole are kind of a solitary bunch, you know, they like to stay in their shop by themselves and and do their work and everything, and so it's hard to get stuff out of them, you know, what you know, what their expectation is and everything. And uh I mean you get a group of fifteen knife makers together and you can't shut them up, but just you know uh very limited well, you know, we did the website, we had very limited participation. Uh I don't know why. And uh we thought we were really doing something great for them. And uh and that's that's the battle that we fight right now, is trying to trying to get people involved. But uh and to me it was just a great honor to uh I mean I knew D. Holder when he was vice president and uh visit with him just on a rare occasion, but you know, I just thought, man, it's just to be there with those guys and be in the holding the title that they held it's just really been something.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:01

Yeah, and that's uh you just mentioned uh Wayne Wayne Hensley and D. Holder uh recently passed both of them. Um what is um what's your sentiment been on these uh knife makers who um are you know hold these positions and everything, uh getting up there in age and then passing away? I mean, do you like you you're now taking on that mantle of the you know positions that they've held? Um does it does it get lonely at all um being like the the next senior person that's uh taking over those positions?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:38

No, not really. I mean, I uh for the most part, I just I thoroughly enjoy it. I mean, uh, you know, I I've got relationships with a lot of super talented makers, and and sometimes they call and suggest things, sometimes they just call and visit, you know, and and if I hadn't been vice president, I I think I would have never had that. And uh I just you know, I just dearly love it when other makers call and we visit and you know talk like friends, you know. And uh the scariest part for me is that you know uh not living up to the standards that the old guys set, you know, and uh the whole thing is is I think basically because the world has changed. I mean, you know, in 1980 there was a knife makers guild show, and if you were a guild member, you were in the show and you had a great show because of that, and now you've got you know Blade Show Atlanta, Blade Show Texas, Blade Show West. Uh there's a knife show once a month somewhere, everywhere. And so it's kind of the world's just changed, and I don't know how we can adjust to it yet. Uh that's that's the only pressure I feel is is to try to uh try to figure out how to in some ways make us great again, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:03

Uh yeah, well yeah, I mean you know the I think the one thing that I think about uh in the formative years of the guild is the the objective was pretty clear um for for leadership, right? It's because you had no avenue for selling knives, and and you know, you had to try to figure out a way to sell knives. So like what what are you gonna do for all the members? Like, you know, um piggyback off of gun shows for a little while, um, try to you know build some literature and some paths for marketing, um, try to build up the numbers so that way it makes sense to um have a show of your own and then you know share the um prestige with those uh those knife makers and um you know boot boost everybody up. But in a world where uh that can be like a knife maker never has to even know who uh Loveless was or who's who Steve Johnson is, or that the guild still exists, or you know, um they they can go like entirely online um and don't have to worry about marketing so much in that way. Um you know, it's it's it's hard to decide on like what what does the guild do for the the maker now um and and why does it why is it important for us to be part of a guild? Uh that that those are all like big question marks because uh you know it's it there's no information that's really not available um anymore. Uh you don't you don't have the uh exclusivity of a show. There's not an exceptional amount of marketing that uh an organization can do to make their members more prominent. So um, you know, what it what is it as like intrinsic to the guild that makes it um the like the go-to? You know, like one one thing that I was uh reading in the guild history that was actually uh very important and talking to some of these older knife collectors was uh the arbitration process. Like, you know, you used to you have these cats that were not really um very uh honest about their business dealings, and so they you know it collect their money and then they would disappear for a while and you never uh get your knife out of it. And the being a part of the guild automatically um made the the board arbitrators in making sure that that a customer could um could leverage a uh a complaint against a maker if they weren't following business practices. So some level of insurance against a purchase and sometimes you know quite a bit at the time. Uh but anymore, it's like you know, you just get the credit card company to um to charge back on somebody or whatever, the arbitration has largely become a function of payment processing instead of it being directly maker-to-maker.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:10

So yeah, that's that's what we face. We is in a lot of ways is just re redefining ourselves. Uh you know, and for me personally, the history of it was enough for me to stay in. Uh, I just I just loved all that. Uh a lot of people don't see it that way. Uh, you know, social media, the internet's changed everything. Uh people can get online, they can follow a maker, they can see the knives, they can send him an instant message and say, Yeah, I want that. I can send him a PayPal and he'll ship it to me. And they don't have to buy a plane ticket and fly to a show or pay an entry fee to get in the door or uh motel rooms or expenses, none of that stuff, you know. And uh they get they get the same quality knife. And if they do get burned by the maker, well, they can pretty much burn him right back on social media. Uh so you know, you can get a real bad rep in a hurry and people find out about it. So yeah, in a lot of ways, uh a lot of the things that the original guild did for makers that you know we can't do anymore. I mean, it's just doesn't exist. I mean, we still have the grievance process and everything the same as we always had, but uh fortunately I haven't since I've been a member we haven't had to use it. And uh I don't know, it's just the world changed.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:35

Yeah, well, I mean that's what that's one of the things that I think uh for me it's been valuable to understand the history of knives because you know, even in the last hundred years of knife making, uh there's there's not a lot of things that like from a knife making perspective that haven't been like rethought of or redone. Um I wouldn't say that there's no original thought, um, because you know, I mean look at I mean look at all of us in some ways, but like the shining stars of knife making, like uh Buster Werensky, um, like some of the stuff that that he did, like uh we're gonna argue like all of it, but uh it's just incredible. It's like to take to take his mind and to apply it to the vocation of knives, and then to see what his output was is like incredible. Um, you know, um and and there's lots of knife makers like that where I don't know what got uh some of these people in making knives from the like the rudiments of knife making to where they're where where they they ended up, like that evolution of personal aesthetic and artistry and everything uh to where we know them. Like even Steve Johnson, um he pushed the envelope on fit and finish in a way that nobody else was in the Loveless style. Um, and a lot of the techniques and things that we use today are because he helped to proliferate them and to inspire other people. And um, you know, as much as as much as like the selling portion of knives has changed because the the uh economy and technology has changed, the philosophy of knives uh is still as um deeply ingrained in the human condition as I think it ever was. You know, yeah, we're talking about man one of man's oldest tools, and where do you go uh from the very beginning of using tools to where we're at now where you know you can you can effectively pick a knife up um a lot of different places, but I I want to understand that path. You know, I want to understand um you know talking to you, like where where do you come from when you when you make your knives and um you know what what are you putting behind the blade uh to make it what it is? Because, you know, the business of things, I mean, we could talk about whether we sell knives or whether we don't sell knives or you know, steel types or uses or whatever, but um uh those are things that they that they change so much. I mean, knife to show to knife show year to year, economic uh situation and strife to to so on and so forth. It's like um what what are each one of us and what are we trying to do? And that's kind of the focus that I have. Like I I've kind of gotten past the idea of talking business so much and mostly just talking about motivators, because like I mean, what what uh reason do you have to create something and then why did you choose knives? Which I think is um, you know, was was it you know, you seem to have uh a creative mind, like whether you're talking about um how you're testing things in a laboratory for um fuel, or whether you're a photographer or whether you're a knives, it seems to be that you just have a deep desire for expression through uh expression through physical means, right? Um and and enjoying the experience of life. Um and to me that's uh that's highly valuable for all of us to understand is that uh your personal passion and your um focus towards creating things instead of destroying them is kind of like what gets you to the place where you can make knives.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:43

Yeah, I just I don't know. They've just always been part of my life, you know. Uh and the wildlife's part of my life, and yeah, just kind of do what I enjoy doing, really, I guess is what it boils down to.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:00

Yeah, I mean, I couldn't say it any better. I mean, follow, follow what interests you and see where it goes, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:23:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:08

So kind of on that note, you know, like as we wind down uh the interview process and everything, um I'm interested to know because you're a steward of learning um and you've been in the the knife uh game so long, are there specific things that that you would tell to a like a newer intermediate knife maker that you think might help them? Like is there anything um that you wish you would have known early on in in making knives?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:40

Well, there's just so much. There's so much I wished I'd have known. Uh you know, I've told a lot of people, you know, just just just do it, you know. Uh not nothing to be afraid of. Uh you know, if you're afraid that you're gonna fail, uh maybe you don't need to start it. Uh you know, and if if you the way to become a millionaire building knives is to start out a billionaire. And uh so it's not a real profitable deal. Uh I know there's some people making a living at it, but it's never been that way for me and it's never been about the money. Uh but mostly I just tell people just try it, you know. I mean uh you're gonna make mistakes and you're gonna learn from them and then uh you go back and do it better next time and and uh just you know just keep getting better at it. Uh one thing I tell a lot of the new guys is you know, don't sell yourself short. Uh I've had some some pretty talented makers, you know, and they were sitting there at the table and they had you know $250 on their knife and it wasn't selling and they were like, oh should should I make it mark it down to $150, you know, and all this? And like you know, it's I'm about 90% sure it's not about the money, it's about the right person hasn't walked up to the table yet. And uh so just don't sell yourself short, don't panic.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:13

Uh well I think uh those are very valuable. I mean, I I struggle with knife pricing too because you know you have lots of different camps of thought on pricing. Um and it it's like if if I made a knife at the same dollar uh figure that I made in my day job, I would outprice myself in the market. Um but when I'm making a knife, I I really do value my time because you know I have a a young a young girl that has a you know uh you know heart transplant and everything, and I'm uh you know, I I'm considerate of the time that I can invest with her. You know, we um I have you know a stepdaughter that you know she just turned 18, so she kind of doesn't like any uh authority figures or anything like that, but we we still try to you know spend time with her and and everything. I I I enjoy spending time with my wife. I like doing um things outside of make trying to make money to pay the bills and trying to make a a little bit of money in recoup for knives. But like my my time is valuable, um, so it's really difficult, I think, to uh balance the selling yourself short with uh being able to make knives just for the sake of paying the paying your way through it. Um I I know that there's lots of makers that have a bucket of funds that go into knives and then they have their bucket of funds that they um that they use for paying the bills and everything, and those don't those don't commingle, right? So some sometimes if you can't sell a knife, then you can't continue on uh expressing yourself through the knife medium because you don't want to double dip um in your finance and everything. But um it's a it's really interesting. Uh I don't I don't know that there's a single answer for you know pricing one's knives that really makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:21

There used to be a uh knife maker named Jack Crane out of Weatherford. Uh he used to come to the Emrod of Gunshill. I used to visit with him quite a bit. And uh he told me one time, he said, yeah, he said when I started full time, he said uh there was some uh a place down the street. I guess he lived on the edge of town. There's a place down the road there that had some berry bushes out on the you know the side of the road, and said his wife would go down in in the fall and pick all the berries that she could pick, and then she would go down and buy sugar and she would make jelly, and then she would go to the day old bread store and buy the bread that they were throwing away, and they Would have jelly sandwiches. And they ate jelly sandwiches until he finally got established enough as a maker to start making money. And uh he was telling me that at a time where I was young and still wondering if maybe I could do this instead of working at the refinery and all that. You know, I I couldn't do that. I I couldn't go there and uh just it just wasn't gonna happen. And so uh I guess it just depends on how bad you want to sacrifice for it and have your family sacrifice for it. But I think he did become fairly successful doing it. But big price to pay if you ask me.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:43

Yeah, I know if I went out tomorrow and told my wife uh that I was quitting my day job and trying to make it as a full-time knife maker. I mean she's very supportive, but she's also um she's also like smart enough to know that like I have a lot of passion. Um and sometimes sometimes I can get distracted. She's like, you know, maybe maybe just be a little bit more passionate about the thing that actually makes us money because we don't all want to be out in the street or eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches all the time.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:14

Yeah. Well, you saying that about you know valuing your time in your shop and the time you could be spending with your kids, you know, but but that time that you spend in the shop for yourself makes you better when you go in with them, I think. Um I I think there's just a certain amount of that that a guy needs, you know, to be out there creating something or to be out there watching an elk or a moose or whatever. And uh just you know, I I think a guy needs that to be better with his family. And uh so I don't think you should uh begrudge yourself that time, you know. I think that's it's important for you too.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:56

Oh yeah, I mean it kind of gets a bad rap uh because in the newer generation everybody talks about mental health, right? Um, but but being able to balance your life and to have an appropriate amount of sleep, to have an appropriate amount of uh um alone time to reflect and to build yourself up, and an appropriate amount of time for your family and work and everything are all like tenets that um that if you can if you can find those things uh and balance them out that you become more effective in each one of the areas uh you know of your life. Like, I mean when you when you have everything sorted out with your family and you're not like fighting all the time and everything, you tend to sleep better. And you know, and when you and when you don't have your um spouse nagging at you because something's not done, and when you're not like sleep deprived, then your work is better. And you know, if all things are fair and equal, um, you know, your kids get to see the best side of you because the rest of you is not disheveled. Um and you get to focus on the things that matter. So I mean to me there shouldn't be an aspect of knives that is so stressful that you start becoming dysfunctional dysfunctional in one of the other areas of your life that are more important. So it's all it's all about finding out what that balance is for you. And I think that that's actually a good uh a good point for knife makers is like it's it's very easy to throw yourself in and be obsessed. Um, but the obsession uh quickly turns into dysfunction. And then if you're right size yourself and and like course correct, then sometimes knives is not like no longer the thing. And so you don't have a knife career and people don't collect your stuff because you're here today and gone tomorrow. Um something that's important to to be able to balance out is knowing what your limitations are and what you can or cannot accomplish, not overcommitting to people, um, not uh not trying to win a quick buck and then um you know be searching for the next um adrenaline high or whatever, that the that the state stability of the of of of knives is really in pushing your own art form instead of just looking um you know first at what what it can do for you monetarily, uh because you know, again, uh we were I think it we were talking before um we decided to do the show and everything. Um you mentioned about uh Bruce Bump saying that it's like in this industry it's either feast or famine. And I think that that's true about uh any type of R form uh because you know you you're you're you're you're either in a trend or you're not. Uh but it it is really that way. Like if uh if you're not if you're not in a uh state of famine, then you're usually not creating. And if you don't take that opportunity when you're creating things to try to figure it all out, you're not gonna see the feast or the opportunity for people to kind of pick up on what you're throwing down. Um and I do think that that there needs to be an appropriate amount of focus um with anybody on just you know taking time to yourself, self figuring things out and then being able to apply it. I mean, it doesn't matter whether it's photography or you know, painting or pottery or you know, woodworking or knives or whatever. Um you know, you gotta be able to just sit and let things be and express themselves to you.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:43

Yeah, balance is an important thing in all phases of life, really.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:48

Yeah, I totally agree. Well, I'm sure that you uh have other things to do, and I really appreciate you uh being able to spend time with us and uh share a little bit about yourself. It's been enlightening to me and empowering. And um, you know, uh a parting parting words is uh at Blade Show, Texas, um, I brought Evelyn there and she got to meet a bunch of people that she like I talk about or that she's seen um uh online or whatever that I you know I'll expose her to. And sh it tickled her pink that when we stopped by and uh said hi to you, that you had stickers and you gave those stickers to her. Um she uh it like it I I she was so excited uh uh show showing me those stickers that you collected and you gave to her.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:38

Well, uh she's a dandy.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:40

Yeah, well, I mean, but that's the thing, is like uh that's the kind of person you are. Like that moment um that you shared with her and encouraged her and and shared those stickers with her uh is such an impression. Uh and it's what keeps her involved in knives and being interested in what I'm doing. And then also like she like I get Blade magazine and I get um like some publications and whatnot, and she will uh swoop in and try and grab my magazines uh so that way she can look at pictures and whatnot. And I I I don't know what her life will be in knives, but her passion is is already ignited in that um somewhat because I've uh I've exposed her and kind of indoctrinated her to that. But people like you feed that flame of interest and and meeting her at her level. Um, Spencer Aplin um, you know, was talking to her about knives uh Texas, and she gets to see all these people that want to include her. And um, you know, I I want everybody to know that that's the kind of person that you are. I mean, I I know that they they get that through osmosis with the way that you live your life, but um you mean a lot to our family.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:58

I appreciate that. I enjoy y'all. Uh I enjoy her and enjoy uh the visits we have, so it means a lot to me too.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:08

Yeah, well, I mean, everybody's dad. Um, I think that's an appropriate title to the uh to the podcast because you are you are I think what uh uh everybody would hope to have in uh uh parental figure. And I just uh it means a lot to me. Hey, listen, like I like I it's my my kids don't always love me, and in fact I think maybe 50-50 split. Um but you know the thing is is like as parents, our job when we're raising our kids is to provide an environment for them to act up so that they know that there's a a safe zone for them to experience life, but then also get the course correction that they need. So that way when they go out into the world, they don't act like little jerks. Yeah. And then um, so what you see out of Evelyn is her not acting like a jerk because I did a good job raising her. And if your kids are that same way, it's because you got to be a little tough and kind of course correct with them.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:05

Yeah. Well, my kids, I didn't I didn't know how it was gonna be, you know, they didn't come with an instruction manual. I spent my time decided that I was gonna be their parent and uh I'd be their friend later, and uh so that's kind of the way it was. And I I wasn't always sure I was right. And uh then now, you know, my youngest is 41 or two, and uh my son's the oldest, and uh, you know, we have a great relationship now. Uh he comes up and goes photographing with me, and and uh I mean it's just great. We're friends now, and so I guess you know I got lucky on that too, but yeah, you don't always know. Just do what you think's right.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:48

So yeah, well, maybe it's uh it's the same in life as it is in knives, and uh uh you don't always know. Yeah, you just can do you just focus on what you think is right and then let the uh I guess the environment uh and people and everything tell you whether that's something that they're picking up on. But um again, uh Gary, it's uh it's a pleasure always, and you're more than welcome to be on the show anytime you want to.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:12

I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:13

All right, well, thank you again for uh coming and talking with us.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:16

You bet. Thank you. Thanks.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:21

Thank you for listening to another episode of the Good Old Blades podcast. Remember that you are loved and God blessed.