SPEAKER_01 0:05

Welcome to the Good Old Blades Podcast. I am your host, Aaron LeVere, and I'm joined with my co-host, Chris Crawford.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

Thank you for joining another episode with Chris and I. I am your host, Aaron LeVere, and I have with me Chris Crawford. We wanted again in these this effort to introduce ourselves and to eat our own dog food as interviewers for Chris this time to interview me. So the objective of this episode is for Chris to ask me a bunch of questions and for me to fumble for answers. So we'll see how everything goes. This is episode two where Chris interviews me. Take it away, Chris.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

All right, Aaron. So uh for people that may not know you, uh tell us a little bit about yourself outside of knives. And you know, not talking about knife stuff at this point, but just who you are, what your career is, and just a little about yourself.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

My name is Aaron LeVere, obviously. Um I live in a little town called Arlington, Texas, which is actually not really little one compared to my birthplace, but uh it's it's out just a little bit outside of DFW. Uh and I am married, well, divorced, married, uh remarried, and uh have one biological child and uh three stepchildren. And uh I work in cybersecurity. So I've worked in cybersecurity in one way or another since I was about 16. So um I really don't know. I mean, that's that's about it. I just you know I like hunting, fishing. We have a bunch of dogs and some reptiles and fish and things like that, and I like spending time with family, enjoying good company, and reading and discovering a lot. So those are kind of like my core tenets, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

You mentioned that you live in Arlington. Uh have you ever met Hank Hill?

SPEAKER_02 2:18

Hank Hill.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

No. Do you know who that is? King of the Hill, the cartoon.

SPEAKER_02 2:25

Yeah, you heckler.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Man, that's so anytime I hear Arlen, Arlington, first thing I think of is Hank Hill. All right.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

But I will tell you, I I I I I I do grill with propane, so well, there you go.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

I was I was wondering who you got your propane and propane accessories from. So uh that's pretty funny. Well, you know, I think you maybe mentioned this a little bit on our our last one, just talk about when we started talking, you'd asked me some questions, stuff, and that was over Instagram. And you're very active on Instagram, and I noticed I was looking at your Instagram page today, and your your knife business you is is called Levere and Sons Knife Company.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

So, do you want to talk a little bit about how you came to name it that sure um well I guess a little backstory with uh me and how it relates to knives is uh I started making knives I think somewhere around 2016-ish. Uh and that that blossomed into me buying the shop, uh the knife shop for my mentor who had uh got cancer. And we can kind of go into that a little bit uh more in depth if you want a uh chronology of my knife making experience. But um it was pretty it was pretty low-key. I was just making knives to entertain myself and as a um a way to push myself a little bit. And in 20, I guess it was 2018, my my biological child had uh had uh she was born with a congenital heart defect called uh hypoplastic left heart syndrome where the uh the left side of her heart didn't grow out in utero. And so she was born with a defect, and she had to go through a lot of surgeries, uh, especially open heart surgeries, in order to um reroute this her circulation. So on her third birthday, uh right after that, she went in for a surgery to replace her or to uh fix a tricuspic valve regurgitation. And it was going to be an open heart surgery, it was gonna be a few hours long. Well, that surgery turned into like 12 hours, and uh, she ended up bleeding uh a lot, and uh through a series of very unfortunate events, uh, she ended up going to heart failure. So we were in the hospital, uh so well, two hospitals. First uh the children's hospital in Fort Worth, and then to Dallas Children's Hospital uh for her to receive a heart transplant. And during this time, but right before she was in the hospital, um, I was talking to my uh mentor John Weaver about buying a shop and we were kind of tossing it around. I said, you know, I don't know what's gonna happen with this surgery, so I'm gonna put it off for now. And uh Christian, my stepson, um, who was 20 at the time, um, was excited about potentially opening up a knife business and learning the trade and everything. Because at that point I was starting to make uh, you know, all right looking knives. And so we we talked about it. He was gonna save money, I was gonna save money, we're gonna, we were gonna buy this thing. Well, when Evelyn went in for her heart transplant, I uh I still was like, I I just can't do it. I can't foresee spending uh tens of thousands of dollars in knife equipment and everything uh when I really don't know what tomorrow's gonna bring. So a few days before Evelyn was discharged after she got her heart transplant and she was doing better, uh, Christian, who had just gotten a motorcycle um maybe like a month or two before, had tragically been hit and killed in a collision with a uh SUV. And uh, you know, it almost losing uh our child to all of the surgery stuff and then losing Christian was pretty devastating. Um he, you know, I didn't I didn't know Christian his entire life. I married in, uh, but I loved him a lot. And for him to want to invest in this dream of making knives and maybe having a go at it as a business, I just, you know, I thought about it and I said, I I I gotta do it. I gotta continue this trajectory of buying the shop and trying to make knives and make something of it because that's no longer a dream that he and I can carry. It's the only something that I can. So originally I had uh the the name of my business was Lau Knife Co., uh, which was a combination of LeVere and Lau. Uh that was my wife's family name. And I decided after everything that happened with Christian to rename it LeVir and Son Knife Co and honor him and to carry him with me and with the knives that I make because he's not here. So that's kind of a little bit about the name.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Yeah, that man, that's that's really special. And that that's a neat tribute. Um you know, that you're doing to carry his carry his memory forward. That's that's really special. Thank you for sharing that. Some of my questions that um that I have written down to ask you about may be negated based on you know how some of these other answers go, because I I I didn't know your story and and uh but we'll we'll just see how it goes. But you you're telling you mentioned last time on the last podcast that you went you got into knives, you know, when you were kind of getting out of jewelry. So tell us a little bit about jewelry making. Like how did you get into that? What what was your interest? And then you can share like how you know why you got out of that, I guess. But tell us a little bit about your your time in jewelry making.

SPEAKER_02 8:29

Some would say about me that I'm a jack of all trades, master of none. And maybe that's because when I learn a certain uh a certain amount of something, if it satisfies my curiosity, then sometimes I'll move on from it. And uh I knew a fella in our church Sunday school school group that had been a master drooler for like 35 years. And I asked him one time if I could come and and just see how he makes things and kind of observe, and he invited me into a shop to just you know see how the back end of the business runs. And at the time I was in community college classes and I was not I was working full time, but I was working uh four four days a week. And so I had I had uh quite a bit of time after classes or between classes that I would uh I would go into the jewelry shop and just kind of you know look around and figure things out. Well, that that progressed into you know actually making jewelry, uh doing investments in casting, a lot of polishing, solder jobs, things like that, where you're you know, resizing rings, uh, some stone setting, um, and never really got into engraving or anything like that. But uh the problem was is that around you know the 20 2010, 2011 uh timeframe, we were still in a pretty uh pretty deep recession, as it were. And uh the the price of gold because of these investment strategies and everything were was skyrocketing, uh, you know, several thousand dollars an ounce. Um you know, platinum was high, rhodium was high, uh, gold was high. And the problem is that silver silver jewelry was not in vogue at the time. Uh, you know, if you want white gold or yellow gold, that was uh that was where it was at because you can rhodium plate them and make them look like platinum or platinum was in. Uh and so I would do silver jewelry to try to uh keep the passion alive and everything, but it just got very cost prohibitive. Like I made a ring one time that you know I had several several hundred dollars of material in and it didn't sell for you know for I mean it just didn't sell. And there's not a lot you can do other than melt down your materials, pop your stones out, and rework things if they don't work out. And that was kind of frustrating. And then my my school schedule changed, my work schedule changed, and I got out of it. So, you know, it's cost prohibitive. There's a lot that goes into it, and uh my the timing just wasn't right anymore. So I kind of I skipped out of that uh after a while, then moved on to another job where I was working full-time in a you know a heavy cybersecurity company, and then eventually got a divorce after Evelyn was born and everything. Uh the the divorce was not related to the fact that Evelyn had any type of congenital uh heart defect or anything. It was just a uh a difference of opinion, what they consider unreconcilable differences on paper. So um, but I I love my daughter, I would do absolutely anything uh for her. And I I think that uh some some people might argue about the sanctity of marriage, but honestly, in this case, a divorce was the best thing that ever happened to me because it turned me into a different type of person uh for the sake of my daughter. So I really feel that she her life has benefited a lot from it. But yeah, so so that's kind of the journey through jewelry, as it were.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

So there was um, I guess there was a gap of time between jewelry making and knife making.

SPEAKER_02 12:17

Yeah, that's right, several years. Um I yeah, I'd been, you know, I'd been talking to a buddy of mine that I ended up working with, uh, two separate jobs. And in the second job, uh he was watching Walter Sorrel's videos and Aaron Gaw or Gal. And uh he was like, you know, it'd be really cool to make knives. And we kind of talked about it. He kind of put the idea in my ear, but he never looked we never really got to do that together. Um, so I ended up starting out with some basic materials, doing a lot of research, and I started making them. And I found out that this in this company that I was working in inside of the solution architecture team, that one of the guys that I talked to regularly, his dad was a knife maker of like 35 plus years. And his name is uh his name's uh John Weaver, two E's. And he was best friends and meant and mentored by uh Clay Galt and Martin Poland. And if anybody's familiar with the old-timey Texas knife makers or some of the early guild members, uh Martin and Martin and Clay were both members and have some still pretty um you know high standard works, uh, if you consider today, from pocket knives from Poland and a bunch of fixed plates from uh from Gaul. And John was also a guild member, so I kind of got introduced a little bit to the guild uh through their legacy. So that's kind of that's kind of how things got started there. But I I uh John John, the reason why he wasn't doing knives regularly is because he found out he had pancreatic cancer and he was going through uh treatment for that. He had a whhipple procedure, and you know, pancreatic cancer, the survival rate's not great. And he managed to tough it out, uh, get the whiple. And I think if I remember correctly, he was in the hospital for like 18 months or something like that, off and on or whatever, uh, going through all these treatments, and the surgery was pretty devastating to his uh physical health. And uh when he got out, I started talking to him because most of he went through a move while he was sick, and and most of his stuff was in storage, and he was rebuilding his shop with uh another buddy that he had mentored. Uh and I through through some conversations was able to talk to him more and get mentored in knives. But it's just it's uh kind of serendipitous how I got into knives. It started out with like this kind of transition from expensive jewelry making, like working metal with jewelry, uh, to trying to find something to occupy myself and get you know my hands dirty again um with knives, into talking to uh John's son and getting introduced to him, which I think kind of springboarded me into like this this can be a lot larger deal than just a hobby. And you know, John was a a full-time knife maker for quite a while after he retired out of insurance. So, you know, it's uh that was kind of an inspiration.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

We may get back to get back to that in a little bit, but you'd mentioned, and I I forget if it's in private conversations or if it was in last week's podcast or or even if you mentioned it today, but um you know you grew up hunting hunting and fishing. What experience did you have with knives growing up? Like did you did you like knives? Did you you know go out and get knives? I mean, I remember not to hijack the question, but I remember as a kid us riding our bicycles up to the pawn shop and buying Pakistan knives, you know, stuff like that. But what what is your experience with knives growing up?

SPEAKER_02 16:06

My ear earliest recollection of knives uh probably has to center around my my grandmother was bequeathed some property along with her two siblings. And my great uncle and great aunt and grandmother all had this what we called the cabin, which is you know, maybe 35 minutes down the road. I think it was like 100 some acres, and it was all dirt roads there in the Appalachians and Pennsylvania. And uh one time my grandparents were down at the at the cabin and they found a two-bladed muskrat trapper uh on the on the road. So like when you went in and out of the cabin, there was a gate, and they would stop outside by the road to uh close the gate behind them. They found this trapper, uh, this m muskrat trapper, and brought it home. And it sat in a shotgun or a shot glass on their shelf. And for whatever reason, my grandmother was like, That this is your knife, Aaron. Uh, when you get old enough to open it, you can have it. It was a nail breaker. It was it was it was you know, it was a a trial of will. So I don't know what I was doing, like strengthening my fingers. You know, I was trying to do finger push-ups and everything. I'm like, I'm gonna get this knife sooner than later. Well, uh, I I I got the knife and I'm pretty sure I cut myself for the first few times I opened it, and I carried it around until maybe maybe I was like six or something like that when I first got it. And it was my prized possession. I probably carried it for four years and then I lost it. I had no idea where it went. And uh, you know, I had other other knives around that time too, like Swiss Army knives, like the small ones, uh, mostly knockoffs that you could get at the dollar store uh because the Swiss Army uh brand was a little bit expensive in the in the 90s, but the uh especially for a poor Appalachian boy. But I my grandfathers uh were World War II vets. They both carried mostly slip joints uh around, uh, some lockbacks, not many fixed blades, except uh, you know, I mean they kind of just dabbled. I'm like my one grandfather had bayonets from World War II. My other grandfather was a uh a pig farmer in addition with some other things and would have some fixed blades around, especially like uh, you know, K-bar-style uh hunters and whatnot. Um my dad had some knives, uh, not not not anything impressionable to me, but it was mostly my grandfather's that that shaped my early uh knife impressions because their their collections at times were pretty big. My one grandfather, who was a bomber in World War II, had this large craftsman uh uh red tool toolcase in his in his uh shop. And he had several drawers dedicated to his slip joints and lockbacks, uh, anything from uh you know gentlemen's knives to uh uh Barlows to you know several buck lockbacks and things like that. So I mean I it would be difficult for me to tell exactly what the brands were. Um, you know, Camelus, Buck, uh you name it probably Schrade. Uh but uh he was born in the early 20s, so I mean he you know he had a lot of knives, especially from when he was a kid. So that's that's kind of it. You know, I might it's it was born out of a an early childhood desire to be a Boy Scout, even though I never was. And whether it was hatchets or saws or uh pocket knives or uh buoy knives, we in the north they called them bowie knives at the time, but I was quickly re- re- retrained on that when I moved down to Texas. Um that's kind of where it all started.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Did you ever get into Chinese ninja throwing stars?

SPEAKER_02 19:58

Uh not re not really. Um not really. Um mostly mostly uh I I had I had taken karate for a while. And it's funny that you say ninja stars because I really I didn't gravitate as much towards ninja stars or kunais or things like that as I did samurai swords and uh cat kendo sticks and things like that. So I I stayed, I had some like a knockoff samurai sword and some kendo sticks, and my brother and I would uh you know beat the tar out of each other with those, pretending we were samurai. Uh so yeah, no, but you know, ninja stars are pretty interesting. I just could never throw a knife worth anything, so I kind of stuck to what I was good at was just long slices.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

Well, what made me think that is when you said about hatchets and stuff, and it just kind of came to my mind. But when I was in middle school, we would go to the mall. We we would go to Memphis because there wasn't a mall in baseball or anything. But if we went to Memphis sometime, like with youth trip or something, and they had one of those stores there that sold knives and ninja stars and stuff, and we'd buy those ninja stars. I'd go out in the backyard and try to throw them against the fence, and it would never fail that there'd be a little bitty crack in the fence, and that thing would fly through that crack never to be seen again. But uh those were pretty fun at the time. Um so uh a couple of questions with that. Did you did you have a favorite kind of knife and were you able to you said that was your granddad that had that large collection, I believe. Did you when he passed away, were you did you get any uh were you able to get a knife or anything from that collection?

SPEAKER_02 21:37

No, you know, um well I I I had lots of several uh favorite knives. Like that double blade trapper uh like to me is just quintessential. I was actually able to find uh find what I believe is the uh the exact same model. It's a it's a shred. Uh no, it's a camelist version uh with some uh bakelite uh you know faux. Stag handles. And I think I posted it up on my Instagram at some point in time. But when my grandfather passed, um, he he only had uh daughters from his first marriage. And when he married my grandmother uh before I was born, um, her son, my uncle, was the only male heir that he had. And for whatever reason, he decided that he was going to give uh all the uh all the things that a male heir should have, like his guns and his knives and his tools to my uncle. And my grandmother very, very clearly said, you can have some hats or ties or things like that, but you cannot have his knives because they're your uncles. And I was like, man, I was like, I just want one. Yeah, but I I mean I'd always admired him from the time from the time I can remember, you know, four like five, five maybe. Uh and he didn't pass until I was 2020 or 21.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

No, okay.

SPEAKER_02 22:55

Uh, but yeah, no, didn't did didn't get any of them.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

Did you get a nice hat?

SPEAKER_02 23:02

I did. I uh funny thing. I I'm we we could talk about this if you really want to.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Um I used to I was kind of joking, but if it's a good story, tell it.

SPEAKER_02 23:11

No, no, it it is because it's one it's one of spite, and I'm all about that at times. But um my my sister, and uh well, uh let me back up. Um I used to play uh classical violin and I played it for quite a while.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

And in I thought in the Appalachians I call that a fiddle.

SPEAKER_02 23:32

Yeah, whatever. I mean you can call it what you want, but I I it's classical violin or Scottish fiddle and uh an Appalachian fiddle. So it's a like when I say fiddle, I mean like the style that I'm playing. I don't I don't know if uh when anybody's playing Mozart, you consider it fiddle playing Mozart, but uh unless you're unless you're jazzer sizing it or whatever. But um I I played in the Scottish Highland games out in Ligonier, Pennsylvania, so near Pittsburgh, and Frank Lloyd writes Falling Water. Um and uh while we were there, we bought a a hat, like a trucker cap for my grandfather that said Scotland on it. And we brought that back, and I think my little sister had picked it out for him, uh, but it was it was at an event that you know I brought the family to because I was competing. And so by happenstance, it was one of the hats that was in the mesa hats that my grandfather had when he passed, and I I nabbed it. So my sister probably would have gotten it if she would have thought enough about it, but I was and like ended up able to keep it. So that and a few like commemorative World War II hats that were, you know, like caps from like the USS something or other. Um uh I got to keep and some of his ties that I remember us uh him wearing when we go to church and things, and or he'd go to my concerts. Yeah. So I mean, as much as it's not a pocket knife and as much as it's not the things I strictly remember him by, um, it's still it's still something that I think about him with. And yeah, mostly for me, my grandfather, yeah, mostly for me, my grandfather represented um like a parental ideals. He was a a life mentor for me. And so it I might not have gotten anything really material out of that inheritance, but he's he taught me a lot of life lessons that I carry today, and I teach my kids. So as far as I'm concerned, I made out a lot better than just getting a few trinkets from him.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

Yeah, that that that's really nice. That's that that is far better. So those the different knives that you grew up and grew around, had did they have any influence on the ones that you make today? I mean, I I remember I think I talked about this a little last week, is that for me, um me and my dad always had slip joints, and that's kind of made me gravitate to slip joints, you know. And I don't think I talked about it, but I was fascinated very early on with automatics, and that kind of led me to want to do that. So what knives growing up, being around, having how how has that influenced what you make today, or or was some or was something that you have a desire to make?

SPEAKER_02 26:15

Yeah, that's a really good question. Um I am a big fan of slip joints. I I like lockbacks um as well, and I also like automatics, mostly Italian-style stiletto um automatics. But um mostly what got me into this uh the the slip joint realm is that early throwback to uh muskrats and barlows and trappers uh and and gentlemen's knives. And what I'm trying to do today is follow more in this the uh footsteps of Tony Bose in making traditional patterns. And uh Tim Robertson has been mentoring me on slip joints, and he's a you know makes traditional pocket knives as well. And so, you know, I I would say like third iteration of traditional pocket knife maker. Um, so that's that the the traditional pocket knife and antique pocket knives is really kind of what I gravitate towards, even though I'm I'm not really opposed to making modern patterns. I really do have a special place in my heart for traditional patterns.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

Have you had any interest in like tactical style folded knives, um liner locks or frame locks or anything like that? Have you have you done any of that or have you just mainly steered toward the more traditional uh patterns?

SPEAKER_02 27:49

Um I've only done traditional patterns and uh the Dino or Dino from Kurt Romano um so far. Um I've I have all the tooling for liner locks, and I will probably at some point in time get into that. But um something that you have to understand about the my my knife shop that I purchased is I I inherited uh quite a bit of Martin Pollen's liner lock patterns, and you might you might see some of those reminiscent in Johnny Stout's work, uh, because I believe that they had some type of relationship uh when Johnny was uh starting to make knives and everything. But uh, but you will see that that the liner lock style from Martin Pollen is something that um I I actually have been studying quite a bit. So I will eventually try to revive uh the specific pattern that I have that's uh from Martin, that's a a mixture of a kind of like a standard liner, uh, liner lock with I believe it has a uh like a Tonto edge to it, uh that I think is pretty cool because some of his uh some of his influences was in Japanese style um like Quakens and uh and uh Tonto style blades that he had put out. So I'd like to actually try to replicate some of his his past work as well in liner lock form. Maybe not so much tactical, but I I there's a kind of fusion there with liner locks and what Martin was doing.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

Yeah, that's a good point. I think when I asked the question, maybe in my mind, maybe tactical wasn't the right word. Uh um, because not all liner locks are tactical, right? Most most tactical knives folders are liner locks. Maybe that's a true statement or a true-ish statement, but not all like I wouldn't consider Johnny's stuff. You bring up Johnny, I wouldn't consider his stuff tactical, you know. I mean gentlemen, um, you know, almost I don't know if you'd call it jewelry, but fancy, you know, like that. And so, yeah, that's a good distinction. Not all liner locks are tactical, but I I guess I guess my maybe my question was really more have you have you tried anything like in a I would maybe consider liner locks being a more modern development than the slip joint because the slip joint's been around for so long. But you but you answer that question, so that's good. Now talk about I want to get back to shop and equipment stuff here in a little bit, but talk about you the knives that you make now and talk about the knives. I guess start with the ones that when you first started making knives, what were you making? I mean, I know you've made, I think I've seen some kitchen knives, you were doing some bird knives for a while, uh, of course, folding knives, uh, hunting knives, but kind of talk about when you got started, what knives did you start off making, and then how you've progressed through maybe different patterns to what you're doing now.

SPEAKER_02 30:50

The first knives that I made were knife-shaped objects, more achen to prison shanks, which I I mean, I think I think most of us it would be remiss to share too much of our first knives. I I really don't care. I it was a you know early learning experience. I think my first knives were pairing knives, uh, just because like cooking and and food prep uh were things that I was just very familiar with. And I've kind of uh stayed within that line uh early on because most of my my work was cutlery. Then I progressed on after I bought John's shop uh to doing more hunting knives because I had a lot of patterns that were from Clay, Martin, and John that were knife-oriented. And what you'll see today in my knives is uh several of them are actually either patterns that John or Clay made. And one of them, like that bird and trout knife that you uh have probably seen, is it originally came from a surgical set in, I believe, the turn of the century is what uh is what Clay took it off of. And they were scalpels uh that they used in surgery. And he would sell it in like a set of three or five for caping. And caping, uh, for everybody who doesn't know is when you when you remove the flesh from the shoulders up typically on uh uh game kills, so that way the uh the the hide can be taxidermied on uh later on by a taxidermist. So in the in the field, you would cape a uh you would cape a kill and then you would send it off to the taxidermist, and hopefully you didn't mess with the pelt too much, uh, so that way you didn't have to uh repair a bunch of holes and things. So old-time game hunters would cape their own uh their own kills out. Now, if you go on a an expensive hunt or you're hunting uh with a guide, most guides will cape it for you. So the the days of your and the safari club experience are uh a little bit less popular. And so what I saw that one blade, and I was like, you know, that reminds me a lot about what was useful in in knives when I was trout fishing a lot. And so I'm just going to rename it a bird and trout because it's exactly this kind of knife that I would use for game birds and trout fishing. So that's that's where kind of the progression has come. I've renamed some of the the old patterns that you know were just like Skinner 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or things like that. You know, the old old timers would just name it for the function, and then it would be the function plus a number, and that was the name of the knife versus these uh convoluted uh names like bird and trout and whatnot now. But it's it's a little bit more palatable. Like some people are like, oh yeah, I can see that it's a perfect bird and trout knife. I'm like, well, if you knew where it came from, it was really to cut open people originally, but you know, it went from cutting open people to caping game to bird and trout and EDC. I mean, you can carry it as an everyday carry as well. It's pretty you know, small, dainty, but very, very sharp.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

So let me let me butt in real quick before you move on. So, and this just shows my ignorance, but when you talk about a bird and trout knife, is that is that literally for I guess skinning a bird or dressing a trout?

SPEAKER_02 34:17

Well, I I guess it depends on how you're how you're dressing or or uh preparing a trout. I preferred instead of scaling them to uh just gutting them and taking their their gills out and then cooking them whole. Uh, you know, fit uh filling them with like I don't know, rosemary or sage or something like that, and and all oil or butter and cooking them that way whole. So for me, like the gutting process is a lot easier on a on a thin uh or slender blade that could just you know get in there and cut them out. Now you can also fillet on it, but it doesn't have any flexibility, so it's maybe a little bit more difficult depending on who you are. Um I I can fillet or gut uh fish with it. The same can be said for birds. Functionally, it's just thin, slender. You don't have to worry about puncturing things or cutting things that you really don't want to. So it makes it really easy because it just fits it uh in the thumb and index finger with just a little bit of blade protruding and it allows you to cut very efficiently.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

I gotcha. So it's it's just for a different style of dressing, uh, game or or fish. Okay, so picking up from there, you were making those style knives, and then pick your story up from there.

SPEAKER_02 35:36

That's where I started. I I was self-taught largely in knives because with John having cancer, he was too weak to actually get out there and grind. So most all of my experience in knife making was related to John looking at my work, telling me that it was shoddy or things that I did well, and then say, you know, round over the handles more, or you know, you're you have facets or things like that. And uh I would send a picture of sometimes, and he's like, that's not really good enough, you're gonna have to bring them to me. And so I'd drive an an hour down south uh to bring them to him so he could look at him once in a while. And we went back and forth like that for quite a while. And I don't think that there was a really a time that I took myself too seriously in knives. But I decided, I decided in 20, I think it was 20, maybe 2021, if I remember correctly, to present my knives to the Texas Knifemakers Guild and have them inspected. And the the standards for ins uh inspecting knives are a little bit different for the Texas Guild than they are for I would say, I don't know what you call the the Guild Guild, like the the Knifemakers Guild. Uh that's you know the international uh version, uh even though it's uh located in the United States, right? But the the old like your your grandfather's guild uh type of thing. And the I I never thought I could get into the guild. Everything that uh everybody had said about the uh selection process and the time that it takes is the you know uh fairly commensurate with the the uh the ABS, and I was like, I just I'm not there. So I took uh I took my blades to the Texas uh guild, had them inspected and passed, and I decided to take them over to uh the guild table and have them just look at them and tell me what they thought. And they're there's a process or a bylaw in the in the guild where you can be fast tracked if the guild decides that your knives are of quality, where you you really considered uh your work is considered passable uh during uh of normal inspection or whatever. Uh so they looked at my knives and said, hey, you know, you're you you do a few things here and we think that you'll uh you'll pass. So um I got fast tracked, which means that I didn't have to be guarantored by four other guild members uh because of the the board member decided that my knives were of of good enough quality where I could go through the probationary period.

SPEAKER_00 38:13

These are still fixed blades, right? This is before you move to move to okay, all right. Just yeah, trying to follow along there.

SPEAKER_02 38:21

Yeah, sorry, ADD. Uh, but what you have to understand is that I I've had a mind for pocket knives for a while before I went to the uh I guess validating my work through the guild and through uh peer review. And so when I started talking to you, it was like 2019, right after I bought the shop. And I was cons I was really considering getting into slip joints because that was something that I wanted to do uh next after doing cutlery and doing some you know hunting and fishing knives. And then I picked back up uh when I started getting into slip joints, uh when you and I were talking more because I, you know, was looking for a panograph and you uh turned me on to Tim Robertson, who was able to source me out one. But um, at that same time uh that I was talking with Tim, I was also going to some to some Texas shows and I uh at ICCE before Blade had officially uh taken over everything. I went and got my knives inspected and the I went down the path of the guild. So I I kind of stepped back a little bit and said, I'm going to do what I know the best, which is fixed blades, while I was going through the inspection process. So probationary and then on the voting member status and doing all these shows because I was taking feedback for fixed blades. I wasn't taking feedback for um for slip joints. And so I I kind of held off on making anything other than prototypes um while I was going through the inspection process with the guild. And once once I was nearing the end of getting my voting member status, uh started picking up slip joints again. And now what I'm looking at is not necessarily pivoting away entirely from fixed blades, but uh but doing kind of both. I want to do I want to do fixed blades that are really intriguing to me. And I don't really know what else to say about that. I haven't really figured out uh what envelope I want to push with fixed blades. Uh, but this the mechanisms for slip joints really interest me, and I'd like to spend maybe about 70% of my time working on slip joints and uh you know 30 on fixed blades of my interest. So I don't know if that'll always end up being hunting hunting fixed blades or things like that, but um I I'd like to eventually incorporate hunting uh into slip joints, so like making hunting size uh slip joints and lockbacks that kind of have that intended purpose, so they're they're kind of uh built for uh certain tasks inside of hunting.

SPEAKER_00 41:00

You should make you one of those old William Skagel style big fixed blades with the slip joint in the back end. Have you have you ever seen that knife?

SPEAKER_02 41:10

Um I you know, I actually think I have. I think I know what you're talking about, but uh probably not. It's in I I I don't I don't know if I want to muddy the waters doing fixed blades with uh with slip joints on them, but it is funny to me the kind of quirkiness of knife making because uh you know I was listening to the catchbit show um with uh uh Jason, uh Richie, and Mike Moran, and they were talking about Stanhope knives. So do you know what a stanho knife is?

SPEAKER_00 41:40

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_02 41:41

So they have this little like filament or yeah, it's a little picture where if you look through this little pinhole, uh you can see an image, and these things are like put everywhere, but they they showed up in some pocket knives. And I guess uh I can't remember if it's an Anheuser Busch had uh made a bunch of knives or had had knives made with a stanho in them. And so you can find them every once in a while, but if you look through this little peephole or whatever inside the scales, I believe it is, you can see a little image in it. And it it's it's quirky, but it's fun. It's like there's just these little things like somebody decide, oh hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna take this technology and I'm gonna incorporate it in knives, and then somebody else thought that was kitschy and then popularized it, and nobody remembers it anymore unless you're a knife historian or a collector. So uh I guess there is a place for fixed blades with slip joint, uh, slip joints on them, but I uh I I could see myself going down a rabbit hole if I decided to reproduce old like obscure, obscure blade designs or things like that. So it interests me, but not to the point where I'd actually make it, I don't think.

SPEAKER_00 42:48

Yeah. I was just kind of teasing about it anyway. I mean, that thing's you know, for you to you mentioned, I think last week that you know we're kind of in this different era with knives and and what's expected. You look at some of the old stuff, like some of that Skagel stuff, you know, which I'm sure was revolutionary at the time, but my word. Of course, what he had to work with is so much different than what we have to work with, but anyway. So did John make slip joint knives?

SPEAKER_02 43:19

Yes, yeah, he uh he made both slip joints and liner locks. Uh I don't know to uh uh like uh that he made a large volume of them. Uh his his uh forte was definitely fixed blades, but I know that he dabbled in both of them. So maybe he made like 50 or less. I can't really remember what the number was, but there was you know there were some uh slip joints and lockbacks and some liner locks. And I I don't have any reference to any of them because they're most most of his uh work is in private collection.

SPEAKER_00 43:48

So how did you make the jump or what was it you know from fixed blades to slip joints? Your your first I guess transition, did you did you have a pattern and you just Kind of did it on your own, or or how did you make that original jump?

SPEAKER_02 44:07

I bought a few books, I watched a bunch of stuff online. Um, I ended up taking an old trapper case pattern and uh that was already a part, and I traced everything out and kind of made my first example there. So I don't I don't think I ground the blade on it. Um, but it had pretty good walk-in talk, and I kind of stopped there because I was like, you know, this is at a perfect stopping point for me to give to my six-year-old at the time, so that way she can carry, she can carry. I rounded over the tip, and so she can carry it around and she can strengthen her fingers to get used to opening up slip joints, but she doesn't have to really worry about the hazards of you know cutting herself badly uh like I did. So yeah, she has it in her little collection. She has like knife stuff that I'll give her every once in a while. Like she'll come out and say, Hey Dad, can I have this? And I'm like, no, that's an expensive set of stack stag handles. You cannot have that. But she has some like Rocky Mountain sheephorns, some camel bone, she has an old uh uh whale vertebrae disc, she has some USIC, she has a bunch of uh box elderburl scales. So she's she's slowly pilfering just about every piece of uh handle material that I have. But uh one day.

SPEAKER_00 45:17

She'll sell it back to you.

SPEAKER_02 45:18

Yeah, maybe. Or she'll say, hey, like I have I have this nice set of uh this nice set of stag that I finally got for me. Will you make me a knife out of it?

SPEAKER_00 45:27

Well, she's she's uh she's gonna get her fingers good and strong, and if y'all ever come back across that Barlow, she'll pass the test.

SPEAKER_02 45:35

Yeah, muskrat, but who's who's counting?

SPEAKER_00 45:37

Oh muskrat, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 45:39

Yeah, yeah, actually I I have it I have this uh this one that I bought. It's a you know Cameless one that I found on eBay. I I found it, and it's uh man, I if memory serves, it's the it's the same kind of kind of one that I I had. And that it is a nail breaker. Like I'm I'm telling you, I don't they did not make those for the weeks of fingers back then. I think it was like a 1970s uh version of this uh two-blade trapper, but actually the uh there's a a two-blade, like a double double blade trapper, I think it's a trapper in a warncle that was a Tony Bowes pattern that Tim has uh reproduced uh as well. And I really like that. So what what I'm planning on doing is I'm getting to a point where I'm going to move on to multi-blades, and I'm gonna start with a two-blade trapper, with the uh trapper blade and spay blade. And then once I get uh comfortable with being able to flush up and get the timing right on that knife, then I think I'm going to move to the Tony Bowes uh muskrat knife, which if I if memory serves me correctly, uh that uses catch bits in it for the uh the the spring mechanism and everything. So it'll be a learning curve, but it's easier to do a two-blade trapper than it is a muskrat based on the fit up and everything, just because of the spring, uh spring geometry and the catch bits that need to go in there. So though that'll be kind of maybe maybe I'll get there at the end of the year this year.

SPEAKER_00 47:08

Yeah, that'll be neat. That's a that's a good goal there. Going back to you bought the shop. Well, let me ask you this. John still had his shop, if I'm following your story correctly, when you started making knives, correct? Like you you didn't buy it from him because he was still he was still making knives when you started. Is that right?

SPEAKER_02 47:31

Um Yeah, he when I started, he was still making knives, uh, be but I didn't know him. And then he got he got cancer and packed everything up when he was moving. And then when I got to know him, he had his shop set back up, but he was too weak really to make knives. Okay. So so yeah, so yeah, I he he wasn't making knives anymore, really, when when he and I got together. And he I I guess you know, he he finds some times of strength where he'd go out and grind some things or work in Ron's shop, who was the other uh uh knife maker that he had mentored uh that lived down in Glenrose area. Uh, but I I never saw him grind a blade or really do any of that type of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 48:15

So well, what kind of equipment then did you have? What what kind did you start off with?

SPEAKER_02 48:23

I started off with a one by thirty Harbor Freight special. And I think I had maybe a a disc sander from them. And other than that, I built I built a file, uh, one of those file jigs that you can do the bevels on and everything early on. And then I've realized that you know it's a little bit more elbow grease than I wanted to put into it. So I got the one by one by 30 grinder. That lasted a little while. Uh and I was doing all my heat treating in an old smoker firebox. I was mostly doing 01 at the time, which uh honestly it was pretty easy to heat treat. Um, I was actually using canola wall. There's a lot of things that I would do differently if I if I knew that I could buy a little bit better wall and uh a little bit better equipment, then I would have probably done that. But I just didn't I didn't really know any better. I just kind of went cheap just to see if I liked it. And then the very next thing I bought uh when I was starting to talk to John is he said, you know, I have this extra two by 72 grinder. It was an old uh Burking. And he said, it's just been sitting there. He said, if you if you want it, I'll sell it to you cheap. And I was like, okay. I was like, what is cheap? And uh and he sold it to me, I think, for $1,800, which that that was a big purchase for me uh at the time. Uh $1,800 for a grinder when the most I had spent was maybe about $150 or $200 on equipment. But I saved up and I bought it and I still have it um through a weird set of uh horse trading. I I traded it back to John for a surface grinder that uh it's old Boyard Schultz one. And then when John was consolidating his worldly possessions and stuff and started to give things away to his kid, he gave the Bird King that I had uh I had purchased originally and then traded back to him. Uh I outfitted it with a flat platin and everything, but he gave it to his son, uh an uh another son, not the one I worked with, and then he gifted it to me. He said, you know, I'm not going to use this. Uh you'll get a lot better mileage out of it and you'll appreciate it, especially considering I had I put a lot of money into upgrading the flat platin and everything. And so I still have that uh that old Burr King that I started learning on. Like the equipment has slowly increased. Like I have a NEMIL and uh two two by 72s, technically three if you want to uh consider the AMK horizontal. I mean it is two by 72, but it's a horizontal grinder and things like that. But um I still I I haven't I haven't really bought a lot of extra equipment in the last few years. So I've pretty pretty well established on what I have.

SPEAKER_00 51:08

So as you're adding equipment to your shop and stuff, what was there any one piece of equipment that you felt like allowed you to make a leap forward in production? You know, we we talked about before that you you don't really need surface grinders, you don't need horizontal grinders and all that stuff to make a good knife, but it does make it easier to do precision work. What have you found that is like a tool that you just you would not want to go back to not having that's really helped you move forward in making the kinds of knives you're that you are making and want to make going forward?

SPEAKER_02 51:49

Well, that's a really difficult question because I'm conflicted on my answer. Um what tool tools?

SPEAKER_00 51:57

Three tools, okay.

SPEAKER_02 52:00

Favorite tools, yeah. I will say the two by 72 in like uh increased the consistency of my my bevels, and it made it a lot easier on the cleanup process. And I, you know, you could spend forever trying to hand sand or you can try to grind it out correctly, and it's just a two by 72, a good one, uh, makes that transition to doing really great bevels um a lot easier. Uh the second would be a disc, a disc grinder, which helps me with uh flattening out scales and and making some some grinds that I just can't really get as easily on a two by 72. And the third would be my surface grinder. And you know, you don't you don't have to have any of them. You mean you can make a knife mostly from files and everything. That's that's true. But if if I had to break it all down, I probably would not replace a two by 72. I think that's almost an essential tool to me.

SPEAKER_00 53:00

Yeah, thinking about the you know, making slip joints and autos. I I didn't really consider my 2x72 just because it just seems so standard, but you know, having a a good variable speed disc disc sander is really nice for making slip joints for getting that um you know that lock area. Or not lock, I guess, but the I don't even know what that area is called. We we talked about this before, you know, knife nomenclature and what do you call these things? The the um the spring, spring notch, some people call it, whatever that, you know, the the back back there, but getting that nice and square, you know, that for me, so it's the dis sander and the horizontal belt grinder. I was up at up at Jay Nelson's when we were working on his videos, and he had one. And I guess that maybe that's well actually I saw one in Chad Nichols shop, but didn't see him running it or really using it. But Jay was using it for doing some profiling on around his knife and everything. And I was like, man, to get those back square like that, it's like I've got to so that was that was the next tool that Big Tool purchased that I made after after coming back and seeing that. But um, yeah, for for folders and for autos, I'd have to say the dis sander and the horizontal belt grinder, you know, in addition to the you know vertical grinder for me, but yeah, kind of the same same answers.

SPEAKER_02 54:31

I guess the uh anatomy you're talking about is the uh back square and run-up. I think that's uh that's what Tony Bose established.

SPEAKER_00 54:38

That's a pretty good technical uh name, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:41

Yeah, the back square and run-up. Uh so uh I I would agree. Uh so I I do I do work on the back square and run up uh with my disc sander, uh, but I don't I don't have a variable speed, it's just a uh uh 110 volt uh single speed, which I'd have to replace the motor on it. So I just kind of am very particular about it. But I actually have a modified grinder, like tool grinder, um, that has each each uh abrasive disc is kind of like a uh a surface grinder disc. And they're they're cut at a 45. And I learned this trick from Tim Robertson. So I can do quite a bit of the back square and run-up work and cutting in my cholels in on that grinder versus having to use my disc sander. But the the horizontal, you there, there are some tools that instantaneously make you a better knife maker. And it's not because you uh you actually become a better knife maker, it's because the the tool is a fit-for-purpose type of tool. And the horizontal grinder is definitely one of those. Like you can fight with facets and you can fight with not having square, square spines or square material and hand sand everything or file it or whatever. Uh, but if you have a horizontal grinder, uh, you can definitely make it a lot easier on yourself intuitively. Um, the one thing I will say about horizontal grinders is I was kind of spoiled in some ways because when I bought John's uh knife shop, he had uh he had bought a Wilmot grinder. And the Wilmont grinder, I think it's a tag 101 uh version is what I have, uh, actually goes horizontal. But the problem was is I was timing each one of my operations to get through a knife, and I realized that anytime I'm trying to flip a uh my 2x72 horizontally, I was I was taking about 30 minutes of time and setup because if you have a if you have a work rest, you have to flip it around to the horizontal position, you got to square it to your flat platen or to your wheel, and the setup time just took a lot of time. And so I I have my my burking set up with a flat platen, and everything is square, and that never gets touched. And then my Wilmont, I sometimes will switch between a flat platen if I'm slack belting or if I'm using my 14-inch contact wheel. And then I just recently bought the AMK horizontal grinder, and that is for all of my flats in that in you know the horizontal position. So I can I can grind and polish to specification on slip joints, whereas I would I would have a hard time going back and forth uh on machines uh when I was doing it before, and then doing a lot of hand sanding and polishing by hand. So, you know, they're all efficiency tools. I mean, the at the end of the day, I'd say the horizontal grinder instantaneously made my knives look better, though.

SPEAKER_00 57:43

My grinder, my one by two by seventy two, as I told you before, was a eight-inch bench grinder with a multi-tool attachment. And then I took the top wheel off the multi-tool attachment and uh put some angle iron so I'd extend it. I could extend it to run instead of running two by 36 inch belts, it could run two by 72 inch belts. And then so I ran it that way for a long time, and then I decided I wanted a variable speed grinder, so I cut a hole in my bench and put a treadmill motor with a speed controller under the bench, ran me a pulley up to the other side of the bench grinder, and then then I had variable speed. So it was a it was a janky setup. I should, I should find an old picture of it and post it to my Instagram. But when I was finally able to purchase a legitimate 2x72, I was I was looking at a combo, you know, one that I could do both operations. I could run it upright or I could run it horizontal. And got on some of the knife forms and was asking around, and and for the exact reason that you mentioned, I ended up going with one that was not convertible. Because with slip joints, there are times where you just need to go back and forth from one to the other. And to think about having to reset and reline up that you know, the grinder every time. Someone advised me to save my money and buy one of each. And uh, that's what I ended up doing. I mean, it took me a while to get the horizontal after I purchased the vertical, but I have no regrets and and really felt like it was it was the best option. So what you mentioned there is is so true uh about that. So let's talk a little bit about people who've been influential in your knife making journey. Now you mentioned John Weaver. Uh was he the first knife maker that you really came across that that offered you help? And you mentioned Tim Robertson as as being a mentor. Who who are some of the people along your journey that's helped you get to where you are today?

SPEAKER_02 59:57

Oh man.

SPEAKER_00 59:58

Um I you don't have to name them all.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:01

Yeah, I I really rest on the shoulders of giants, right? Uh, there's been a lot of people that have just accepted and fielded a lot of stupid questions from me because I asked copious amounts of stupid questions. And, you know, John John volunteered a lot of information because I I think that he felt compelled because he was selling me his the legacy in his shop to make sure I didn't botch anything. Um, so I I learned a lot about the old way of making knives uh from him. Uh Tim Robertson, obviously, he is he has single-handedly contributed the most to my my knife making knowledge when it comes to uh not only slip joints, but then but also just good knife aesthetic, right? Um Don Hansen's giving uh given me some pointers. Um there's man, there's a lot. I you know, I I really appreciate uh Bill Rupel and the guys in the slip joint cartel because of the Texas style of knives that they make, but I've always gravitated more towards the the Tony Bose uh camp of knife making. And so I would say I I followed Tony Bose uh for quite a while and I never actually got to talk to him. I think I was too scared um in some ways or apprehensive because I was like, you know, this guy's fielding questions from everybody, and he has a lot of a lot of people coming to him all the time, and I'm just not gonna contribute to that. And I when he passed, I I felt like that was a missed opportunity. Um I did the same thing with A. G. Russell because I was like, you know, this this guy knows so much. I I used to work in Springfield, uh, Missouri, and I would drive up there maybe once a month, and I always uh always rode by uh AG Russell's shop, and I just never stopped because I was like, I I'm just a nobody. You know, I don't know why I would want like why he'd want to uh waste his time with me and I miss that opportunity as well. So anymore I've lost that uh the lack of nerve. Uh I'll just ask people and try to ingratiate myself to talking to them just for the sake of you know just getting a little bit of their time and understanding their personality and things and you know, gaining some perspective, uh, but respectfully, so I'm not just wasting their time. Um, so uh, you know, there's lots of artists, there's lots of people that I look at their work and I admire it. I'm like, if if I could be a knife maker of repute, um uh reputation or whatever you call it, I don't know if there's a negative connotation with repute, but of uh of of some ill repute. Yeah, yeah, ill repute, of of repute, right? Uh if if if I want to be that kind of knife maker, there are a lot of really good examples out there. Uh, and not just old-time knife makers or really well-experienced knife makers. Uh, there's a lot of guys that are coming up that man, they just have a touch to them. They they know the aesthetic, they know finish, and and those things are if they're not intuitive to them, they make it look really intuitive. And so I just I kind of just absorb everybody's work and admire them and just use that as a as something to spur me on to kind of uh ideate on my own ideas of what I think a knife should look like, and that's really what I'm focused on.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:19

Yeah, that's good. Yeah, that was that was going to be one of my follow-up questions was you know, whose work do you find inspiration from? And I'm I'm I'm thinking like I guess asking the question more from who who's out there now doing work that you and you mentioned Tony Bowes, um, you know, but he's passed away. Uh, you mentioned Tim with aesthetics and stuff and Don. Um, are there is there anybody else that you kind of look at look to their work as inspiration for the direction that you may want to go?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:52

Well, I'm I'm going to go back to Tim Robertson for a minute and kind of just explain what what interests me or intrigues me about his work because I even though Tim has been a really good knife maker for a while, I think that he is uh going full-time has just reached a different uh a different echelon of making. In in knives, everybody's interpretation of a pattern might be different. Um, and some of it's regional, uh, some of it's uh who taught you. And I I feel at least that when when Tony was uh reviving old patterns, that his eye was for making it making it resemble as closely as he could the old way, uh so that the old patterns that were established way back when. But then making that pattern repeatable and and making it mod more modern, right? So if you look at uh some of his trapper styles or uh what he did with the Zulu, uh the Zulu spear, I mean spear points have been around for a long time, but the Zulu spear is a pattern that's uh uniquely Tony. And uh Tim is raising the bar on the way that he looks at knife aesthetic and and finish because if you look at his blades, they represent the way that a pattern should look. Like the the fit and finish, the blade attitude, the action, everything about that is so well thought out. And and he's establishing what I call um pattern provenance, all right, in in his knives. Uh Tony did that with his. Like if you look, if you look at something that comes out of a certain maker, we we collectively think about that being the standard for the pattern. And you might see somebody else, like my first few uh Zulu spears did not really look like Tony, uh uh Tony Bow's patterns. They looked a little jank. And I'm not saying that they were bad, but they were just, you know, it was my interpretation of it until. I could actually make it uh as true to that uh pattern provenance as Tony made it. And and Tim has really kind of helped help me re reaffirm that I I am interested in making traditional patterns, but traditional patterns that follow the same um pattern and the same line structure and everything like that, and doing that uh operationally, figuring out how to do that in my shop where I can do the same thing every time. So it from Zulu spear to Zulu spear, you're not looking at a different take on a Zulu spear, you're looking at as close to that pattern as I can possibly get. And um, and then you know, working on other things like the blade action and and whatnot uh additionally. So I have to say, like I'm really every time I see uh Tim do something a little bit different, like these Zulu, uh Zulu spear midlocks that he's been putting out, I'm constantly reminded of just how much depth as a maker he has. And that's the kind of maker that I want to be, where I can always reinvent myself and I can always increase my own bar. And there's people that I look at in the industry who are doing that same thing. And those are the kind of people I I try to uh maybe not associate with, but take uh inspiration from. And I there's too many to name because there's just a bunch of people, especially in slip joints, that are doing things like that, that they're they're really establishing uh pattern provenance, and that's that's something I'm excited about.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:37

All right, man. That's so we've got I've got one more question, and uh then we'll call it a night. So, what advice would you give a knife maker just starting out? Somebody that uh maybe they've not started knife making or maybe they've only been doing it for a very short period of time, knowing what you know now, um, what what advice would you give somebody wanting to make knives or who's who's just started making knives?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:03

Sure. Um I'm going to answer this in uh not a roundabout way, but a long way, because I think that you're asking a pretty a pretty profound question uh that comes comes from me in it from a deep place, all right. If I'm giving somebody advice, I wanted to be clear what the context is. Um there's a a cinematographer whose name is Brad Rushing, and he's made movies and he's made music videos, and he's he's pretty prolific, all right. And uh on a video that you can probably look up on on YouTube or whatever, there was a a specific uh uh there's a specific uh quote that he gave and it was just a uh it was just in regard to his own work. And it was that you just have to be uh prolific, basically. You have to put the time in in order to achieve things, right? Like there's there is no there's no accolade for just making a knife. There's there's no award that's going to validate you. There's no um, it doesn't matter matter whether you're part of the ABS or the guild or whether you have a ton of followers on Instagram. There, there's nothing that is going to validate you more than your own self-esteem. And I'm not talking about overinflating your own ego or your own work, but that you look at something and you find it good and you're proud of it, right? And that changes over time. Like as you get good at at something, as you start to master it, um, you get to this point where it doesn't matter, uh, you know, it's splitting hairs as to how uh flat your your spring is or um how good your hand rub finishes or things like that. Like you got all the mechanics down. Uh the the next step really is in um if you're looking for if you're looking to leave an impression on the world, then you have to be prolific. You got to put the time in, you got to do the work. And it's not, it's not working um one knife a year, it's not work in a thousand production knives. It really is just in consistent work where you show improvement and you're constantly trying to reinvent yourself and push your own um your own envelope. And that is something that I've had to learn the hard way because going through the guild process, I was really looking for validation um from all the people who were inspecting my knives. And I kind of lost sight of why I was doing um knife making, what I was trying to achieve. And so I've really, over the last few years, have been getting back to that where um I'm doing it for my own reasons. That's my inspiration. And the the natural progression of that is that people look at my work and they like what I'm doing, not trying to emulate somebody else so much. So if I can give uh you know a piece of advice to a new knife maker is you know, expensive equipment, cheap ex uh cheap equipment, validation from you know the interwebs or not. Um, if you are not finding satisfaction and challenge in your own um endeavor in knives, then I don't think that you're going to go as far. Um, you know, that that self-drive and self-determination is really what will take you the farthest.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:38

Yeah, I think I think that's some good advice. And you know, it it makes me think, as you were saying that, made me think about social media for all that it's worth, I mean, for all that it's for all of its benefits as a marketing tool. And you know, if you've looked at my Instagram or you looked at my Facebook, I I primarily use social media as a as a marketing tool. But it's very easy to get caught up in what one might consider validation in social media. So, you know, you you you build something new, you post it out there, and it's you know, it's not I think it's natural to want people to like you or want or want you know for people to like your work. And uh and I I think it's a it's a trap that is easy to fall into where you can get to the point of thinking that you're real, that that that's where real validation comes from. You know, and if you put something out there and you don't get a bunch of likes or whatever, well, it's you know, it's it's not good or something like that. And along the lines of what you're saying, as far as advice to a new maker, or as far as advice to anyone, is that we don't we don't get it. That's not that's not where our true worth, our true validation comes from. And I think that's why I know I'm getting off on another tangent, but I think that's why so many we see so many people today doing things on social media that you think, why in the world are they doing that? I'm thinking about younger people doing crazy stuff because of the the rush of of this false validation. And instead of people finding their own worth in themselves and their worth in their creator and and their worth in in what they do. And so, yeah, it's it's a I'm glad you said that because it it does raise the point that we should not look to others for our worth or for our validation. And maybe that's not what you were saying, but maybe that's just what came to my mind is that you know that we we we should do our best, and it kind of goes back to maybe a little bit about what I was talking, what we were talking about last week, and about how we we have this, you know, we're made in the image of God and we have this ability to create. And when we create for the purpose of creating, then we find satisfaction, we find joy in it, and we should find joy in it regardless of what others may think, regardless if we get a bunch of likes on it or or not. And um I think that I think that's some good advice.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:17

Yeah, well, I mean, I I agree. It it's it's that idea that the internet really is a facade. What you see is what it's a conflagration of what you put out there and what people perceive. All right, but that's not who you are. Like who you are is the sum total of your experiences and your uh you know your ability to know who you like what you're worth. And I will tell you this. I know Instagram, uh like Instagram accounts that have 15,000 plus followers, and the only thing that they get is a bunch of makers asking for their secrets. I know I know people who barely have a social media footprint that sell everything single knife they s they make and they have backlogs of people wanting their work. I know people who you would think that every single knife that they make sells really quickly, and it doesn't. And I guess it depends on what your your motivation is. But if the sum total of the reason why you're doing something is to be popular, I don't know. Knives is not it. I mean, our art in general is not it. I mean, look at look at all the great artists. There's there's a reason why they call them starving artists. Uh Bruce Bump told me one time it's either feast or famine, and there's an awful lot of famine in there. And and coming from a maker who's made some of the most extraordinary, um, like mind-boggling mechanisms and beautiful works of art in in history, right? He might he'll he'll never admit to that. Like he doesn't, he he's a very humble, honest man. Uh, but but he has experienced the famine and the lack of sellability and you know, falling out of of the attention of some people. Uh, and I I I just think that there's more to knife making than social media right now. And it's more than selling knives at shows, and it's more than uh selling in general. It really is about pushing your own art form and expressing yourself. And if if you focus on those things, the money will come, maybe sporadically. But I mean, there there are definitely ways that you can make a business out of it, but you should first be learning to love yourself and love your creation. And when you do those things, you really will get to the heart of what makes a knife maker uh truly good and passionate and produce really good work. I think that if you if we talk to uh other people and ask those same type of questions, I think you'll find the common thread is that they just really love what they're doing.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:58

Well, Aaron, I've enjoyed our conversation. Uh I actually feel like I know you better now than I did an hour and a half ago when we got started. And so uh I appreciate you taking the time to let me interview you, and I'm gonna turn it back over to you and we'll go from there.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:16

Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you very much. It's uh a lot of probative questions. I felt like maybe, maybe I was a little bit lazier on your interview because I just shot from the cuff, but um, that's just kind of my style. But whatever the case may be, listeners, we really appreciate you tuning in and investing your time with us. You know, it's a it's a blessing in a lot of ways for Chris and I to be able to take the time to uh talk and to have you listen. And we want to uh just make sure that you know that you are loved and uh God bless you, and we'll talk to you next time.