SPEAKER_00 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_01 0:21

Thank you for listening in to another episode of the Good Old Blades Podcast. I am your host, Aaron LeVere, and I'm joined by Chris Crawford, my co-host. And I'm also joined by Bruce Bump. Um, for anybody who doesn't know Bruce, shame on you. Um, he is a an ABS mastersmith, a a pioneer of the cut and shoot, and just an all-around great guy. And we have the honor of being able to get to talk to him today. So uh thanks for uh joining us, Bruce.

SPEAKER_04 0:50

Well, you're welcome. Thanks for having me on.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

So um I guess probably the best place to start is at the beginning. And uh, can you give an introduction to everybody who might not know you and uh um to tell a little bit about yourself, your family, hobbies, things like that that may might not necessarily uh be knife related, but just gives a little bit of uh detail into you as a person?

SPEAKER_04 1:14

Yeah, you bet. Um I'm Bruce Bump. Uh I live in Walla Walla, Washington, married to Kay Bump for 47 years. Um we I was born in Kansas in 1951 and moved out here in 64 to Walla Walla, well, Mountain Freewater, Oregon, and ended up in Walla Walla about 40 years ago, and that's really nice out here in the Pacific Northwest. But I've I loved knives ever since I can remember as a Cub Scout. My mom was our dim Den leader, and uh, you know, back then nobody worried about knives. We took them to school, we played with them all day long, cut ourselves, and no one even cared. It was a lot of fun back then. Now they're called a weapon at school, and I have to keep my grandson kind of his locked up a little bit when he's you know school week. So anyway, I've I became a mechanic and um 35 years in the motorcycle industry, Japanese motorcycles, and then in 1996 I had my own shop that failed motorcycle shop, but I was selling knives at that time, so I just went back home and stayed home in my own shop and made knives since 1996. And 1999 I became a master or a journeyman, excuse me, with the American Bladesmith Society, the ABS, and in 2003 went for Master Smith and got that. So uh been making making knives here since then. It's been a good time, good life, good good job for an older guy, you know, that doesn't need to get out and don't need to drive anywhere, can hang out in the shop all day and have fun and still make some money. That worked good for me. It's working good.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Yeah, that's I think that's probably one of the uh most in endearing things um that I notice about you is like you you are you are uh by uh Shackelford's definition uh one of the greatest living knife makers. Um and and everybody should really like observe your work and your artistry because I it's it's compelling, especially if uh new knife makers or even established ones are are looking for a muse to um you know establish their own footprint in the industry. But um what so you you went through this uh process of of going through the ABS and learning knives and everything. But what really uh uh got you to the place where you are at now where you're making art knives and cut and shoots and things like that was like there's was there any uh point in time in your knife making journey that made you decide uh to uh go down this avenue versus I don't know uh making semi-production knives or anything like that? Like what how how did you get from where you started to where you're at now?

SPEAKER_04 4:26

Well, that's kind of a long many years. Um, you know, my first knife I saw it, I cut it out of a saw blade with a with a cutting torch and put an elk antler on it and sold it for 25 bucks. And I think, my gosh, I could do this, you know. The next one was like 35 and I just went up and up from there. And um I used that money because I was a mechanic at the time. I just used all that all that money I made 25 and 50 bucks at a time, and put it in my shop, bought belts and started making tools and buying tools and just equipping my shop so when I got old I could just, you know, hang out and do that. Make knives until I can't make knives no more. And um, you know, the thing is that you can only make so many knives of the same type that you just kind of get tired of it. So, you know, after a few years I was ready to move on to something different. Um, and I looked around to see what everyone else is making, and um, they were all making hunting knives, and I was making hunting knives, and I decided to try something like Wade Coulter did. He had at Blade Show Atlanta one year, he had a buoy knife, this beautiful buoy, but right on the side was a flintlock pistol, and I was thinking, God dang, I like you know, I've made a pistol before, it was just a kit, a flint lock, and it's fun. Black powder shooting is a lot of fun because it's so cheap to do and takes a long time to load, and you only get one shot, so you better be on target and that kind of thing. And uh man, his was so beautiful, and people were looking at it, and I was looking at it, and everybody was grueling over it. I think he won something, an award, so yeah. I asked him if it's okay if I try that. He says, Yeah, please be my guest. So I I put a pistol together with um with a barrel cut off of a Sears 22. You know, you find Sears gun, you find all kinds of scrap guns. There's a lot of them. You can just repurpose those parts, not the parts, but the barrel. You have to make your own part, the trigger and the hammer, and the sear and and the springs, the hammer springs, and the return spring for the trigger, and you know, it's kind of delicate, but it's what I was used to because I was a mechanic, motorcycle mechanic. Japanese motorcycles are really really difficult and mechanical and kind of tricky, you know, the way they do things in Japan. So it's kind of fit right in on the mechanic part of knives. And it worked really good with guns. I made a tomahawk, uh, Brutus. I've made well, I've made one a year for 12 years, and I think I'm up to like 15 now. 15 cut and shoots, or what I call dual threats.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

Bruce, I I I noticed that like one of your last ones that you've been posting is more modern looking. What what inspiration do you have, or what what how do you decide which style of cut and shoot you're you're gonna make or which one you're taking on next? Like, where do you where do you get that inspiration?

SPEAKER_04 8:06

Well, that's a good question. You know, if you take a gun and a knife and try to marry those two together as a dual threat weapon, one of one or the other is not gonna fit your hand. It's gonna there's a compromise. You have to compromise somewhere, whether it's the gun or it's the knife. The gun, it's generally you have to tilt it way down to to line up the sights, you know, and that's kind of not very modern. Like now we have guns that just fit your hand. You just lay your target down, you don't even need sipes. Your hand is just aims right at that target. So more ergonomic and more modern, like the uh modern is 1911, you know. This one that I'm making now is it's basically a 1911 with the the same angle. I believe it's 175 angle, so it just fits really nice in your hand, and it's it just aims for you, and then trying to get the blade attached to something like that. So, I what I'm doing now is putting it on the side. I made one other one, it's called the side winder that our son Brian engraved. It's really expensive, took us forever to build it, and then we didn't sell it for enough. So um that's uh another thing. The market is pretty narrow on cut and shoots, it seems like. But the people that love them, they love them. So, anyway, that's that's what I do. I'm trying to get one that feels right, that aims right, that that I can be more practical with than just a knife with a gun on the side.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

Yeah, something that I've wondered about is like I I come from the generation of being able to use the internet for uh research, right? And even even in the modern era, it's not like you can just look up um you know, dual threat or cut and shoots or things like that and have all of the um the details with it. Like it's a highly technical, highly specified uh uh subdivision of uh of knife making. Like, how how did you like actually can get the information or knowledge compiled? I mean, other than just by sheer will determination and stubbornness. Like, was there any any materials or or any literature out there to help guide you in that process?

SPEAKER_04 10:43

No, uh uh not really. Um, I got on the internet in 1999, and um I don't remember ever seeing anything on there that's as interesting to me this way, but you know what? God has has designed us with our own our own talents and our own path of thinking, and I I just thought my way through it. I've there was a couple of uh hints in Brownell's magazine or Brownell's catalog, John Brownell. He was actually gonna buy a cut and shoot from me at one of the shows, but it didn't have a couple of things he wanted on it. I told him I'd make him one by the time I got around to it. He'd already switched gears or something, but never did make it for him. But John or Brownell's catalog, it has um heat treating advice and hardness for like the trigger and the hammer and the sear and how to make springs and the tempering, the temperature, and the color, read the color of the steel. You know, you can just figure all that stuff out. If you can heat treat a blade that will chop through a tube four or twice, still cut arb hair and and bend it in a vise to 90 degrees, you ought to be able to heat treat a trigger and a hammer and a spring to operate them. I mean, it's not that much scientific, and it's not very scientific. But you know what? Um I was thinking the other day that uh that we all have um people that we've grown up with that influence us. And I believe that we get a lot of influence from our dad. And my dad always liked guns. We used to go out and shoot a lot, and my grandpa, he was a good shot, my dad was an excellent shot. We did trap shooting, and I just take those guns apart sometimes, not those guns, but junk guns. Like I say, you can find junk guns about anywhere. The pawn shop, or you know, the they give them to you almost because they're no good. Um just buy those things and take them apart, just like a folding knife. I didn't know how folding knives work, but I bought a couple of them, and I just take them apart and look at them and see how they tick. See what makes them work. So that's pretty much how I got going on on guns anyway, and knives too, folding knives, especially like trappers, like single blade trapper. I just still like making those, but a lot of people are making them. I'd like to try to make I like making stuff that not everybody's making.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

Yeah, I think uh that case in point is your Formula One um automatic knife. Um I I've always been uh really impressed with the mechanism and how how it looks and feels and uh um how interesting the the safety is on it. Um can you talk a little bit about how you kind of I don't know, thought through that? Because I mean the the the mechanism is to my knowledge a hundred percent your invention, right? There's no others uh quite like it.

SPEAKER_04 14:12

Yeah, I've never seen another one like it. Uh I've you know, I take knives apart and look at them, and the pivot points are all the same, and the locking are usually behind and below the pivot point, and you know, there's but this one I started as a prototype and just kept building it and building it and throwing parts away and learning from those parts, making more until I got it to work. And I think that's what happens is people just give up and then just try to make one like everybody else is making. But that takes the uh challenge away is to make it like everyone else. That's what got me into pistols in the beginning was I just didn't want to follow the leader and make a folder like everyone else. So this is my own lock, good or bad. I've been playing with my own now for what a couple of years. You've got one.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

Bruce, what was um what was the I was gonna look it up online. I won't I'm not familiar with that knife. He's talking about I'm gonna look it up. What what's the name of it?

SPEAKER_04 15:27

Oh, Formula One. If you go on my website, you'll see it.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

Okay, all right.

SPEAKER_04 15:33

Or F1, Formula One. I named it that because of the carbon fiber is off of real Formula One cars.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 15:45

British made Rick Sherwood, call him Big Rick. He makes he makes carbon fiber, and he sends me some of it. And uh, do you carry it every day?

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Yeah, I I carry it uh very often. Like I have I have a few knives that are in my rotation for everyday carry. And and yours is one of them. Um, so I carry it about around quite a bit, but I I do have to make some modifications to uh the uh the pocket clip I have on it because I find sometimes that it slips out on me. And I mean it's 100% uh like my my pocket clip because it's just the uh the L um L bracket, like a slip clip that we talked about.

SPEAKER_04 16:28

Yeah. Yeah, this well, that's one thing I like about my F1 or Forbula One knife is it's it's um able to you can take it apart and hot rod it. You can change the spring tension, you can change the spring the the clip on it from right to left. Uh there's a lot of things you can do. You can lubricate the bearings, service them, replace them, the parts in it. You can buy off the shelf, um, the internet shelf anyway. And like the scales, you can replace those, they screw on. You want to make your own scales, and it's titanium frame, so you can even anodize it if you like, or carve on it, engrave it, anodize it, do about anything you need to do. The blades are stainless steel, or you could copy that blade in with a Damascus blade. It's the the tricky part is the catch on it. The lock itself is just a little hook, looks like a fish hook. And if you cut that fish hook too short, it won't work, and if it's too long, it won't work. So that's the trickiest part of the whole knife is that sliding lock that hooks that blade when it's closed. It's got a nice click to it and it works good, but you have to pull the blade in to pull the lock back, so it takes a thumb and a forefinger to open it.

SPEAKER_02 18:02

I'm looking at a picture of the knife. So is that how you deploy it? I'm I'm just by looking at the picture. I'm guessing you put like a forefinger on that top part and push it down or maybe slide it back. How does how does that work?

SPEAKER_04 18:16

Slide it back.

SPEAKER_02 18:17

Slide it back. Okay, all right.

SPEAKER_04 18:19

If you look at it real close, it looks like a 1911 pistol slide, only miniature. It slides. It's all made from CNC, my design, and we've tweaked it and tweaked it until it works. Uh take it took me a couple years to probably to get it to work right.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

That's really cool.

SPEAKER_04 18:41

Yeah, it's a really neat knife. But they don't they sell for you know a thousand bucks or less, and not everybody wants to spend a thousand bucks on one knife. They can buy a lot of knives for that. So the sales, you know, they're pretty far between. But I think it's a cool knife, and you know, it's gonna be a classic someday because there is not very many produced.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Right. So, Bruce, what I think is uh um um compelling and interesting um about you is that you really take a lot of uh time and invest a lot of yourself in educating other makers in in things, right? So if they have questions, you're always there to answer and just uh be a good mentor. Um what yeah, I I know that you I mean your work takes an exceptional amount of time, and where do you get the extra time and uh to focus on you know uh carrying on the knowledge and everything when people ask you about it? And um, can you talk a little bit uh maybe about the the newer generation of knife makers and maybe observations or things that you have on them?

SPEAKER_04 19:53

Yeah, you know, Forged in Fire has really spawned a lot of new knife makers. Of course, they're still heating and beating them. I I don't beat anything anymore. My wrist went out on me several years ago. So I built a hydraulic press, so I don't have to hammer them anymore. I can just make dies that do what I want to do, and mostly just make Damascus and stock removal, but I can still make make tapers and distal tapers, and you know, I can make um first uh primary bevels with my press and that kind of thing. Anything you can do with the hand hammer, I can do with my hydraulic press. So I've I've taught people online how to make their own press, and um, you know, several of them have done it. It's not hard, it's just like a log splitter, basically, with with interchangeable dies. I've you know, I've told a lot of people how to do it, and I think I think it's caught on. I learned it from the old Montana guys. Uh it's called the Imagination Express. That's what mine is patterned after. But yeah, you're right. I've taught a lot of on online, mostly knifedogs.com. There's a forum on there that they gave me free, so I took advantage of it, and I've got about 6,000 pictures on there and shows how to do a lot of patterns. And you know, Ws from Walla Walla is probably one of the best ones that shows feather pattern, how to make a feather pattern that's become real popular. I certainly wasn't the first to to do it, but um I got good at it. I've kind of gotten tired of it though, after seeing so many now. So I like the mosaics. I've with the press, you can make a lot of mosaic patterns, and they're all different depending on what you do with them, and you know. There's a million different designs.

SPEAKER_02 22:05

Bruce, talk about um, you know, with your knives and your your guns and stuff that you make, um and you having a mechanical background. Do you do you have a lot of machines like um you know CNC milling, or you doing all that by hand, or or kind of talk about your progression of machines and what you found to be very helpful for for the particular and you already mentioned your press, but for the particular type of work that you do, you know what what's invaluable and and talk a little bit maybe about how you got by before you got that machine.

SPEAKER_04 22:41

Yeah, that's a good question. Um, my machine started out very rudimentary. I had a shopsmith. I used to do woodworking before metal working, so I used my shopsmith, and it had a bandsaw and drill press and boring machine and you know, everything that works good on wood, and a disc grinder, even. And I used that until it started getting worn, and got rid of that and bought a disc grinder and a drill press, and a and a better band saw, and you know, everything with knife money. I spent all my proper saved all my profits and put it into equipment, but you can't buy everything you really want right at first. So I was making my own grinders. I built a couple of them. I built uh a um the best one I built, or is I'm still using it about 10 years. It's a it's an army tank wheel, and it's kind of famous because it's it's actually off of an army tank idler wheel, and it's got rubber. You know, I call it government rubber because it's really tough. That stuff is on there, and it's just as hard as can be. It's still good after World War II until now. It's still a good wheel, but I had to cut it down, it was three inches wide. I needed two inches wide, but 24 inches means you can't use a set standard belt, so I went to 132 inch belts, and it's a variable speed. I like that DC motor instead of the AC motor that the people are using. I use a three-phase and put a phase converter and you know to get variable speed, but a DC motor, you could buy them cheaper and buy a controller for a lot less than you can any other method. And they have brushes, so you can rebuild them, and they go really slow if you want. Like I said, my hands are bad, so I just turn it way down and do my hand sanding pretty much on the machine, and then clean it up by hand afterwards. But if you turn that machine really slow, you can you can do some really fine grinds, grind lines, or turn it up fast, it'll go 55 miles an hour. We figure, we figure you can gear it too. When you make your own machines, you can change the gearing, you can put different pulleys on them and change it, go faster or slower, more powerful, or more torque. And this one's got one inch to seven inches, so it's got plenty of torque. The the motor is one inch pulley. Well, actually, it's two inch pulley, and then the the driven pulley is seven inches, so that's like two to seven, I guess. And it's got a lot of of power. Only with a one just with a one horsepower reiner motor.

SPEAKER_02 25:52

You know, you you mentioned this, and this was something that uh when we were talking to Matt Cullum, and I think it's probably a lot of our experiences, you talk about, you know, when you started out and you're making knives and putting that money back into your shop. You know, that's it the one nice thing, you know, when you got into it, I don't know if you got into it originally as a hobby, but I think most of us do. But um that is one nice thing about the knife making hobby is that it is you know, it is something that you can turn around and put the money back in to build your shop and to build, you know, it's like the you you you sell something, you make a little money, you put the money back in the shop, you can buy a little nicer equipment, which does not make you a better knife maker, but it makes knife making a little it allows you to be a little more precise in your knife making, and you know, it'll make things go a little bit easier, and it just kind of continues on like that, where a lot of hobbies don't. I you know, I I'd mentioned to you I think before at one of the times where we weren't recording that um uh some of the other hobbies and stuff that I do, but I come back to knife making when I'm running out of running out of hobby money for my my fishing and my other stuff because it knife making is the hobby that can you know pay back into itself. But you know, as an early you know knife maker just getting started, I was and it's particularly one wanting to make folders, I bought several books on folder making, and I was discouraged because the projects in the books, you know, people had really nice equipment, surface grinders, and all that stuff. And as someone just getting started, I didn't have that and you know kind of had to improvise, but um, but you know, it's neat hearing you and and and Matt saying basically the same thing is that you know you start off very simple, you with a with that shop um I forgot what you call it, that big all-in-one shop tool, but you know, a lot of us with just harbor freight drill press and one by thirties and that kind of stuff, and you know, it and have been blessed to be able to make and sell some knives and and build our shop over the years. But that's that's neat that you've kind of mentioned the same thing.

SPEAKER_04 28:06

I still don't have any CNC equipment. There's everything's manual, and most of it's just fly by the seat of my pants, you know. And I mill it out and then measure it. And I don't measure it and then set the machine up. So I'm not really a machinist at all. I did go to school for about three quarters at night or a machine shop, and that got me into sharpening tools and and know how to use a milling machine and it and um and a lathe, a metal lathe, um, properly. But you know, there's a lot of math involved to do it really proper. And um get a, you know, if you were a machinist, they'd they'd probably fire me if I had to apply for a machine shop job.

SPEAKER_02 29:01

When you're designing your guns, are you doing that just on paper, or you are you doing, like you say, just by the seat of your pants? I mean, you know you gotta build a uh a sear, and you know you gotta build a trigger, and you know you gotta build this and that. And like what is your how do you go about from the from the time and and and let me uh let me back up a little and say I really do appreciate you putting your you know steps online or your progress online. That's always fun to watch, you know, where you're coming with it. But when you when you get ready to start a new gun, what what do you do? I mean, are you drawing that out or you cadding it up, or what what are you doing there?

SPEAKER_04 29:38

Well, I've got a file full of drawings that I've made the the gun after the drawing, but it's never exactly like the drawing, so it's not actually a working blueprint. But I have tried to add, you know, even after the gun is built, I I try and go back and write down what drill bit size and what reamer size and what screw this is and what screw thread and you know that kind of thing, if I ever want to build that one again. The thing is, I'm so tired of it by the time I build it that I'm ready to move on to something else. So I'd never make anything twice, basically. But you know, um what was I gonna say? Um now I just just drew it out on notebook paper on the bench, like this one. This one has no drawing at all. I'm just flying by the seat of my pants on this one. There's no no set to anything, no plans at all. I'm just building it, and it's full it's a lot of fun that way. A lot of people do knives that way, they don't know, they just forge it and then just start grinding, and pretty soon it looks like a knife, and they put a handle on it, and it's cool. Guns are a little more technical than that, you have to draw a few pictures and and make sure they work. The problem with that is you make the parts and they don't work, and you spent half a day or a day on a part that you've just thrown away. But if you make the parts out of something flimsy like real thin sheet steel or aluminum or anything that you can you can um manipulate or bend or twist and uh make it work and then make the part from that as a template, then um it's it saves a lot of time.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

Yep, it yeah, and it's on this hammers.

SPEAKER_04 31:41

Oh, I was just gonna say hammers. This is um I'm on my third hammer on this one, and now we've got um the frame. I've got uh a grandson, I've got a TIG welder. I'm just not very good at it because my eyes aren't that great anymore. But he's uh he's a professional TIG welder, and I call him up, and he'll weld a part on on the frame, and it looks like it's been on there the whole time because you grind it down and smooth it and buff it. Looks like it was designed on there, but no, just they're just parts welded on on the frames, and the barrel too, just weld that barrel right on a piece of steel and just start building it from there.

SPEAKER_02 32:26

It's a lot of fun. This one you're building now, if I recall, is uh 45 caliber, is that correct?

SPEAKER_04 32:33

Yeah, 45.

SPEAKER_02 32:35

Is it percussion cap or how or is it what is it? What does it take?

SPEAKER_04 32:39

Well, this one has uh an adapter. I can't think of the name that or the company that sold them, but it screws in to the back of the barrel. You have to make a breech plug and then tap it, drill and tap it, and then screw this adapter in. And the adapter holds a number 209 primer, which is nothing more than a if you're a reloader, it's just a shotgun primer, and they're really powerful. They're loud, and that that ignites the main charge in the barrel, and it's cleaner, a lot cleaner burning than if you'd had a nipple like a musket with a cap on it, right? It's a lot easier to clean the gun afterwards because there's no flash, it doesn't flash out all over, and there's no smoke, so you can tell if you've hit your target.

SPEAKER_02 33:34

Are there any type of regulations? Um you know, like where where what's the divide between the type of guns you're building and and say somebody is building something, you know, like that they'd have to register with ATF or how does that all work?

SPEAKER_04 33:52

Oh, the trick is for me, I don't have an FFL, Federal Fire License, firearms license, but the trick is it has to load from the front and not the breach, not the breach, you know, like an a gun that cocks open. You can load it, even muzzle load it from the from the breach. That's not that's not a muzzle loader. That is a breech loading gun. And they're regulated. You have to have them registered. You should be a um have a certificate, a manufacturer's sit certificate, and then have it, have it certified or with a gunsmith, and then then they can sell it, and then transfer ownership, you know, paperwork, and uh then wait your two weeks or whatever it is. But no, mine are muzzle loading, so they have to be loaded through the barrel from the muzzle end of the barrel. You just pour powder in there, put a wad on or a patch, and or uh some bullets are soft lead. You just put a little grease on them and push them on down till it's solid against the powder. Put the primer on and pull the trigger, and makes a makes a lot of noise, and it's not very accurate. But but I've got sabbated bullets with this one, which is means that there's a a casing over them, it's a plastic casing with a hollow back, and it will hold a bullet. Like mine's a 45, so the plastic has to be 45 caliber, but the bullet itself inside the plastic could be like a 36 or or 40 or 38 or whatever, it's got to be smaller, and those those are a lot more accurate because they look like a miniball, or they're a conical shape, look like a little rocket, you know. Um, you can get different bullets for hunting that have got hollow points or silver points, you know. There's a lot of different bullets out there. So just because it loads from the front doesn't mean it has to be an an inaccurate bullet. And my my my barrels are are just um repurposed gun barrels, so they've got lands and grooves in them for a twist, they're twisted, and they make that bullet twist and fly straight. The problem is sights, you gotta put sights on it, and I file them in or I weld them on or I um use a dovetail cutter and slide them in. You can buy sights in Brownell's catalog if you want. Um, I I've never actually bought any, I make my own, but um this I built a gun, I've still got it. I should show that at the Atlanta show. Um, and it's got fiber optics, which is nice and bright. Yeah, it's pretty modern for a muzzle loader, and it's built off a 1911 frame, the angle. So it's really comfortable, it's got almost a 12-inch barrel, and the barrel is so heavy I had to put a like a beaver tail on under your hand so that you don't lose grip on it. It kind of sets in your hand, and and you don't have to white knuckle it to shoot it because of that heavy barrel. Anyway, there's a million different guns you can make, and that's that one doesn't have a blade on it though. So if we're talking knives, we can't talk about that one.

SPEAKER_02 37:46

We're talking all things made. So well, let me ask you this. I uh and I I may not be remembering right, but did you have a brother who did engraving?

SPEAKER_04 37:56

Yeah, it's our son, Brian.

SPEAKER_02 37:58

Oh, it's your son who does it, okay. All right. So does he do the engraving on all of your work?

SPEAKER_04 38:04

Um, he he was doing it for about five years, and it takes him too long to make a good living at it. He's so particular and such a perfectionist that it it he spents spends months on a job that he can't make money unless he can get it whipped out in weeks.

SPEAKER_02 38:27

Right.

SPEAKER_04 38:27

So he had to go get a different job, and now he likes this new job. So I've got engraving equipment probably gonna be for sale. I don't think I've got years in me to to learn it. I'm too busy with uh playing around with them anyway to start a new career engraving. Yeah, you know, engraving has always been a problem. People love to see engraving, but I don't think it really pays off sometimes. I can, you know, I've sell a knife for a certain amount, I have to add the engraving cost on top of that, and that puts it out of the ballpark for some collectors, quite a few collectors. So um lately I've been not engraving them and just letting letting the new customer or owner or collector, if he wants it engraved, he can find an engraver or use one of my favorite ones and spend the money separately. That way the money, you know, the engraving cost doesn't go through my account, and I don't have to be a metal man for the engraving.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

So when you were making uh the high roller and war and peace, did you uh uh did you make the uh the book casing and everything yourself to fit everything in it, or was that something that you sent off for?

SPEAKER_04 39:53

Um my neighbor was he's he since died, that's why you don't see any more books. But he was a bindery uh supervisor at the library bindery here in town. He went home and started his own little business called the Book Tinker, and he would do Bibles mostly. Uh and I I built a book, I just bought a ream of paper and glued all the pages together and then cut the center out, and then he put the binding on it, the leather binding, and and then he can put my name in it, like the high roller it says by Bruce D. Bump. And I think War and Peace too says Bruce D. Bump as the author. And it's it's just a way of storing it, basically. That's what it started as. Where to put these and if you don't have room in the safe, you can store them in your library or your den on a bookshelf, and nobody really knows what it is. They don't they don't it looks more like an encyclopedia than than anything else. But I think I've got one book left from him, and it's the Bible. I think I'm gonna make one in a Bible next time, which has got to be small because the Bible is only like eight and a half by eleven. That's gonna be fairly small.

SPEAKER_01 41:23

Yeah, for for anybody who's uh been following along with you on social media and your and your knife or your sword build, um, how is that going? And um what what are some like caveats to to going from um you know smaller uh fix laids to doing um you know cut and shoots to going to larger uh larger swords? Like do you do you snap into that pretty easily, or is are there things that you have to like re-remember whenever you're kind of switching artistic mediums?

SPEAKER_04 41:57

Well, you know, swords are uh that is a whole different ballgame. There's professional sword makers and that's all they do. I make a little bit of everything and swords included, but this cut and bend test that the ABS puts you through, you you need to know how to heat treat a sword, and that's always been a stopper for me until recently. Um how do you how do you get that sword evenly heat treated the in the entire way? And if you use a mosaic method, how do you how do you keep those last welds from breaking if you wanted to bend that thing at 90 degrees in a vice? Well, it should do it. You should be able to take your sword and bend it, and it should not maybe go straight again, but it's more of a spring timper than it is uh a hard steel temper. Unless you're building a katana, then they're pretty pretty much full hard on the edge and then soft in the center. And that's that's a whole different. I don't speak Japan, Japanese, so I've never made a Japanese sword. But I have made some some uh Viking type swords, double-edged, and I like my method is to make mosaic, which is the tiling method, but then split that down the middle and open it up. To do that, you use a bandsaw, takes about two hours of cutting, right down the center of that mosaic sword, you know, 40 inches long, and then open it up and then surface both sides or both insides, and then put a piece of solid steel as a sand mai in the center, so that would be your cutting edge, and then put those two back together and weld dry weld. do a weld all the way around the edges and put that back together and forge it forge weld it together and and then um go ahead and make the stock removal sword out of that so and then that way the core holds everything together so I believe my swords will bend I've never really tried them but I do it um the abs method of of heat treating and I believe that it would would bend and spring back mostly anyway depending on your final tempering your spring temper is about 50 51 52 my swords are about 54 or 56 as the spring doesn't hold an edge but 56 is real close to to a good edge holding hardness well anyway um oh to heat treat that I built I built um a heat treating oven out of two kiln two kilns they're scut brand scut ceramic kilns and I cut them down so they're smaller and they're 24 inches high each so two of them is 48 inches high and then I put up a PID controller which is a little digital controller and um I can adjust the temperature just perfectly in those but trouble is it's four feet tall so you have to climb a ladder. So I've used a pulley and a hook on a cable and just lower the sword point down in those kilns and adjust it and I can pull it out and quench it. I've got videos on I think it's on Instagram of that that's it's pretty neat. That's what I'm doing nowadays anyway the first swords would fit in my oven I've got an even heat oven that's 27 inches long so the first swords were only had about a 24 inch blade but this one's got 42 inch it's pretty long.

SPEAKER_01 46:17

So Bruce we asked this of all of our guests but if there's one or many uh pieces of advice that you can give to new and maybe intermediate knife makers what would that be?

SPEAKER_04 46:29

Yeah you know um I got advice on not to even be a knife maker when when I when I was in that stage and uh I've always remembered that and sometimes it's it's tough to be a full-time knife maker especially if you've got uh bills to pay and car truck and truck and trailer payments and mortgage payments you know it's really tough. It takes all the fun out of knife making it really does you still enjoy your job you like to go to work in the morning but that stress is there that you have to sell. So my advice is to um don't don't quit your daytime job just to be a full-time knife maker because it's tough it's really tough. Now we've got more competition than ever I'm I'm one of the old guys you know I've started in 1989 but now since forged in fire there's a lot of knife makers and what they're doing is they make knives and they're good knives and they're they're giving them away or selling them to friends and relatives so that's where all of the friends and relatives are getting their knives from from the newer makers well it's it kind of cut some of a a market out for us old guys I think the collectors you know I have have some really good collectors some of them are um from overseas I got knives all over the world but my best collector was Preston Gough goth Resty Soul he died and man I miss him because he would buy anything I made he you know he was just my best collector and he loved everything I came up with and he would buy it he had he had the money to buy it but it seems like it's a little bit tougher right now.

SPEAKER_01 48:38

Well Bruce I think this is probably a good place to wind it down. Um I hope it almost goes without saying but I I feel that you you deserve to hear it that you're a cherished and loved member of the knife making community and your art will go down in as in history as one of the you know premier examples of not only uh knife making but with your cut and shoots and everything and it has been an absolute pleasure to get to hear you get to talk to you about your life and your work and to get a little bit of advice so thank you so much for spending your time with us and uh we hope that Blade Show Atlanta goes really well for you and it's you know again just been a pleasure.

SPEAKER_04 49:24

Well Aaron I really appreciate you too you've always talked to me at gun at shows uh knife shows and we become friends when I was in Texas you came down there and spent time with us and took us out to dinner and we walked the around the around the Texas cowboy what was that uh stockyard stockyard yeah that was a lot of fun it was a lot of fun to do that yeah you know you've you've been you went above and beyond just as a never met you type of friend if that's what's neat about the internet is you make a lot of friends you just don't know what they look like thank you so much for doing this this is gonna be gonna be fun yeah absolutely thanks for joining us thanks again for listening into another episode of the Good Old Blades podcast just remember that you are loved and God bless you