SPEAKER_01 0:05

Welcome to the Good Old Blades Podcast. I am your host, Aaron LeVere. And join me as we talk to other knife makers and craftsmen about anything and everything knives. Welcome again to the Good Old Blades Podcast. I am your host, Aaron LeVere, and I am uh joined by Lucas Cow of Squid Industries. Uh Lucas and the Squid Industries team uh specializes in making trainer and live edge ballast songs or flippers. And I thought it would be a great opportunity to have him on the podcast today to talk a little bit more about the flipper community, um, his his start in it. And uh so thanks again, Lucas, for joining me.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

Yeah. Aaron, thanks so much for having me. It's a pleasure. Uh for everyone out there who doesn't know what a ballast song is, it's uh more commonly known as a butterfly night. So hopefully you guys have heard of that.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Yeah, I can I kind of forget sometimes. So uh for everybody listening, I uh a lot of people are familiar with uh fidget spinners and the culture around uh you know fiddling with things. And uh it was kind of through that uh that like the the spinners and fidget spinner type of uh industry that I first heard of uh squid industries. And specifically when I started going to knife shows and uh like the the blade circuit of knife shows, I got to see that firsthand. So um that's that's kind of like my exposure to it. Um I've you know obviously with my knife making journey and everything, I've seen ball songs and uh you know they're iconic in movies and things like that as well. But um, Lucas, tell me a little bit about how you actually got into uh butterfly knives and flipping and everything like that. Like what when did that start and what kind of precipitated all of it?

SPEAKER_02 2:04

Yeah, so it's about 10 years ago when I was first introduced to it. So in 2013, um I just graduated high school, and my buddy had got a butterfly knife from a local Chinatown, and he brought it to me and he's like, Lucas, I think that you'd be great. Oh, we're both named Lucas, just to be clear. We uh he thought that I would be great at it because I have a history of other fidget hobbies like yo-yoing, Rubik's cubing, pencil spinning, um, all very similar hobbies, and so he knew that I would definitely be interested. And when he showed me, I was for surely terrified at first glance. I wanted nothing to do with it because it seemed extremely dangerous. But after seeing him do a couple tricks and just kind of trying it out for myself, I thought that it was pretty interesting. So I decided to kind of pick it up as a hobby. And essentially what happened is that I I got better and better at flipping. And at the time, there was a couple YouTubers, there's only you know a handful of channels that that had YouTube tutorials for flipping. And over time I got better at flipping, and I I wanted to be able to learn more tricks and also try other knives because um, for those of you who are familiar with flipping or or any other sport that uses you know some kind of racket or club, is that every single item has its own nuances and balance, feel, aesthetics. So uh knives are no different. And so I I wanted to explore all the options around, so I started getting really deep into the collecting of it. And you know, I started joining, you know, all of these online forms, and you know, that's how I got really introduced to the hobby that's cool.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Um, in your in your bala song or butterfly knife collecting, uh did you ever uh acquire any like custom-made uh bala songs?

SPEAKER_02 4:11

Uh I did. I did actually. It was one of my most successful YouTube videos when I was first getting into it. Um there's a a knife maker by the name of Chris, I think Oliveson. He he used to go by uh 29 knives. I'm not sure if he's around. I haven't seen his work in a while, but um I did actually purchase uh not directly from him, but that was one of my first custom, custom ballastangs. It was it was gargantuan, it's much larger than the typical conventional ballastang that you'd want to actually flip. You know, most balsongs are on average, you know, they're about 10 inches in total length, the handles around five and a half inches. That's standard nowadays, but I think this one was close to maybe like maybe 12 inches in total length with the handles being almost seven. And um yeah, it was it was definitely interesting. It was and it was far too precious for me to do a lot of flipping with, so I ended up selling that one.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Yeah. Um, how does the the build quality compare from a uh a custom made uh ballas song to what you were used to in the production world?

SPEAKER_02 5:15

Um well, I honestly it's uh it really depends on on the maker, you know. I I think that custom is obviously a very you know vast word, and custom can mean many things. And uh Chris from 29 Knives is an incredible maker, so it was it was extremely impressive to see the work that he did with his hands. And um, but you know, I I think that the production knives that I had at the time were also impressive in their own rights. Um so to me, it it's a little bit difficult to directly compare. I think the production knives I had at the time that I had that custom knife was um a couple knives from Blade Runner Systems, um, had some things from Hom Design, some from Benchmade, and uh I think a couple from Microtech as well. And you know, all those were equally impressive um in their own ways.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

Yeah, uh I've talked to a few uh custom knife makers about getting into ballastongs. Not myself, but you know, they're looking for other things to challenge themselves with. And I I know quite a few knife makers that uh would turn down uh ballastongs. Yeah, and I mean it has a lot to do with the fact that they are impressed by the fact that the mechanism itself and the balance and like the the nuances of the knife is something that is like a a completely different world from even you know traditional like spring knife, pocket knives, lockbacks, liner locks, like the the normal stuff that you see in the custom um knife making world. Yeah, um it's just it's a completely different beast. So um I don't I don't really know anybody uh that I'm close to that that makes ballast songs at all.

SPEAKER_02 7:01

Yeah, another thing too that I've heard from um I think his name uh I'm I'm not sure if he's still going under this name. His name's CMF Ian from Arizona. I'm not sure if you're familiar with him. Um and he used to make ballast songs, but he eventually transitioned to folders, and and when I asked him, you know, would he ever come back? And he's like, you know, it's tough for me to say, Lucas, because with Balasong, there's twice as many handles, so it's it's um it's and in folders is only one, so the profitability is much higher on a on a standard folding knife. There's so much work that goes into a bala song.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Yeah, no, I get that. I mean, it and also the there's a certain expectation of uh materials. Um, I feel like the uh titanium and damascus and damascus and other kind of um uh ritzy materials are and maybe that's just my impression, but it's more expected in the custom world of of bala songs, and so you kind of have to uh keep up with the Joneses in order to manufacture and be uh relevant in that way.

SPEAKER_02 8:08

You know, I I I feel like um that intuition makes sense, and I would I would agree, but I I I think that no one has actually tried making custom knives with lower materials. It's just I think generally the audience, the purchasing audience for a custom knife would want that. But I feel like there's um there's still success to be had with with lower materials as long as the design is is well well thought out and then and you know it performs well. So it's just uh not typical for someone of that customer type to just aim for that price range, you know.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

Yeah, and you know, the the kind of the point being is uh there is a uh diminishing return when it comes to custom knife making. Because uh well, I mean, I'll I'll tell you, if I'm making a knife and I'm trying to target a consumer market, so like the sub, let's just say $400 market, um, in in order to do that, I have to make things simple, right? Uh and I have to use simple materials. However, um if you want to put out a good product, like the the fit and finish has to be something. Like you don't you don't want to to buy a like an entry-level flipper and it look like a prison shank, right? And so that's that's kind of where in order for a custom maker that's doing everything by hand to get it to that level, it takes a lot of time. And if I'm only selling it for like 350 or 400 bucks, um it doesn't, it's not really worth my time where you could do the same thing in maybe half the production time for a fixed blade or even some simple um you know, like slip joints or something.

SPEAKER_02 9:52

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

And so I could see that. So I mean, but kind of like on that note, and it's it's interesting, like what going from you collecting to manufacturing, and uh, I will pause here and say I do appreciate on your website that you uh uh you have a a uh chronology of how you kind of got started and and and how that affected your schooling and stuff. And I'd like people to hear it from you directly. Sure. But I I do appreciate that because I felt like I I at least knew what your uh at a surface level what your journey was uh from where you started to now. And that's one of the you know the the compelling uh pieces where I really wanted to talk to you.

SPEAKER_02 10:38

But yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I started flipping in 2013 and I was collecting for several years after that and learning how to flip. And at the time I was going to community college, and I was also working part-time at my parents' place. Um my parents owned a small electronics manufacturing company, it was you know about eight employees, and we had a very small machine shop, just one machinist and two really old used machines. It was mainly for RD work, nothing serious. And uh I worked there as a as a saw cutter, just prepping stock, so I didn't really have a lot of experience. I was doing very basic work. And at the time, uh business was kind of slow, so we had quite a bit of free time to ourselves. And as I was getting really deep into collecting and flipping and engaging with you know all my friends online, you know, I was trying to help a lot of people get into the hobby because I, you know, I enjoyed flipping so much that you know, I went out of my way to assist others online to figure out what's the best knife for a certain price, or you know, based on your preferences, you know, what did you recommend? And um, I was doing a lot of that um on all sorts of forms, including Reddit, where eventually I got voted on to become the uh the head moderator there. So what ended up happening was that people seemed to be asking for something that flipped well, but at a lower price. You know, generally the people I was helping, you know, they're asking for the best flipper for under you know $20, $50. Um, a lot of these guys are kids, you know, they're you know in high school or middle school and they didn't really have a large budget, but at the time it was unfortunate that the best recommendation I had was the Benchmade 51 Morpho, which retails for about $225, which was far beyond the budget of most high schoolers. So, you know, that got me thinking after a few months, I was like, you know, maybe I could make a budget-oriented flipper that had great balance and maybe just reduce a little bit of the durability and aesthetic features, um, but still performed like a great flipper. So I went to my boss and I said, hey, like, can you help me prototype a couple ideas? I showed him kind of like a rough napkin sketch of a design I had, and I said, you know, I want to use these materials and I want to try to use this design. I gave him my whole collection of knives, I think I had five or six nice knives. I said, you know, let's take all these dimensions and let's just take the average and you know, we'll we'll try to make something here. And I posted that work online and I kind of shared over my journey, like, hey, like I'm I'm making this thing, and and I hopefully if it's good, I can you know make a couple and sell them. And people seem to be really interested. You know, I I documented the whole process. If people are curious, it's um it's on our Instagram. If you scroll all the way down, there's quite a few posts, but if you scroll all the way down, um you'll see um you know all the all the steps that I took to make the first prototypes. So eventually I ended up posting up a couple and and they sold like instantly, which which shocked me because I I guess um at the time I I was surprised that people would would trust my uh my design. But I guess at the time there was really nothing like it. You know, nobody was making budget-oriented bowelsongs that were made specifically for flipping. You know, at the time, a lot of butterfly knives were made for you know as a knife, not not necessarily to be flipped. It was made you know to be a great EDC tool. Um and there was some training, but most of them were kind of like gas station knives. They're they weren't really well made. They were you know mainly you know, just just to look cool and just to have, you know, just a show off. But you know, nothing meant for flipping. So I think that's what really captivated a lot of my audience. So I sold a couple, uh the first four, and those sold super quickly. And then, you know, I after that I was I was really shocked with the uh with the response. So I asked my parents for um a little bit of help to start the first batch of 50, and so I sold those and it just kept kept cascading, you know. I sold the 50, you know, the next month and it and uh it went instantly again, and I'm thinking like, holy cow, you know, I I gotta get more. So uh throughout the year, that was in actually in 2016, that was January 2016 where I I sold the first batch of 50. I think I sold another couple hundred throughout that year. At the end of 20 2016, I ended up transferring to UC San Diego because I had aspirations to study mechanical engineering. And so I took a break from from making it I didn't have access. But during the during the uh summer of 2017, I decided that you know I really wanted to keep it going. And I decided that I was gonna hire a couple guys to work for me back at at home so that when I went back to school, I would be able to just kind of send them parts so that they could do the assembly and the and the shipping and the warranty, as I kind of remotely managed the business from UC San Diego. So a couple guys that I'd met in college through the flipping hobby, one of them was actually um I met you know through Instagram, the other one uh was a was a customer that I had actually delivered to a product locally too. I I tried to actually drive um the first few products to people who live close to me because I I thought it'd be really fun to meet my customers. Um so that was a really cool experience. So I ended up hiring these guys, their names are TB and Way, and they um they basically are the first guys that kind of like work remotely with me. So, you know, that basically went on for a couple years, and I decided that you know I'd continue this for a while, and eventually I went part-time because I got so busy. And uh at a certain point, the business was growing so quickly, and I was putting so much time into it that you know I I decided, well, maybe it's time that we buy a our actual machine. You know, it's it seems like you know, outsourcing parts was wasn't really the move. Um when I had moved out to UC San Diego, which we stopped using my my parents' shop to help us make parts. And uh I had started outsourcing to local shops in the in the San Francisco Bay Area. And uh we also worked with some shops out in the Midwest. And uh, you know, I I was getting a little bit tired of certain lead times and um not really quality issues because the quality was generally good, but you know, I just wanted to be able to control the timing a little bit better. So I decided to pull things in and I was like, okay, I'm gonna buy a machine and I'm gonna use it, I'm gonna figure out how to use it. So I told my parents that I'm gonna take a three-month break, take one quarter up, I'm gonna run it, and then I'm gonna train one of the guys, I'm gonna go back to school and finish the degree, but that ended up not happening. So in December of 2018, we got the first machine. Um, you know, during that winter quarter, I I ended up, instead of instead of going back, I ended up buying a second one. And uh I've been full-time with Scoden Issues ever since.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

Well, I mean, uh I I have to say, like, so I I uh was homeschooled and then I I uh enrolled in uh community college and then went to university. I was going to pursue a uh uh veterinary degree. And uh I I previously worked in in IT, uh doing systems administration and eventually in cybersecurity. And uh while I was going through school, a uh a job came up that I was you know making you know good money for me, uh being in my early 20s and everything like that. And I was like, man, I can't see spending so much time and energy in a degree where I'm gonna be over a hundred thousand dollars in debt and in like six plus years of further education uh just to make about what I'm making now, right? Right and the you know, I think like we there's a lot of knowledge that you can get from college and from uh uh structured learning, but you're you're living the dream, right? Like like the mechanical engineers want to study those things to be able to do what you're doing now. So you kind of like short-circuited that process. I mean, you have to be a little proud of that.

SPEAKER_02 19:05

Uh yeah, I I think I am. I I mean I I I don't think about it too often. You know, when people point it out and they say, like, man, like that's that's the dream, you know. I it does um force me to take a step back and look at it and just try to be a little bit more grateful for the uh for the opportunity for sure. I think that it's pretty rare for people of to have the opportunity I did to find such a unique way to create a business and uh not need to utilize a degree to you know to to get that business to be successful.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Yeah, well, and I mean uh like there's lots of things that I still agree. Um uh higher education is a uh is a uh it's the path, right? You like you you have to because there are things that you get in there that's just you just can't get in in a um uh experience-based type of lifestyle. But um I that's something that impresses me too, because you know, uh especially I I think that uh we're at a paradigm shift in uh in our cultures, yeah, especially in American culture where uh people are starting to look at uh education and the costs associated with it and wonder does do the ends justify the means? And I think that there's there's uh a lot of um use cases that the uh you know the younger generation, like my kids see to say, oh well, I I don't have to necessarily follow this. Like I go to high school, I go to college um or university, I study this thing, and then I decide what I want to do throughout this period. Like it's not so like prescriptive. Like sometimes it's just well, you you find something that you're passionate about and you pursue that. And if you have the the grit and determination, then maybe that actually works out, but maybe it doesn't. What do you do? And um like when I when I look at your journey, um, that's something that I'll use as a use case for my kids to say, hey, you know, like Lucas did this thing and he found his niche and he is passionate about it. And those are definitely qualities that my my kids and I think that young young kids can emulate in trying to find what works for them and what they can be passionate about.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

Right. Yeah, I definitely I definitely think that finding unique solutions in in niche markets, um, there's always gonna be opportunity there. Uh whether they're gonna be profitable, I'm not sure, but I I definitely think that uh that's where I feel kind of lucky. But uh yeah, I think that passion takes people far and it took me far. So that's definitely important to me.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

Yeah, so uh so you you started manufacturing um you know on a on on a in an in-house scale, and man, that that has to have a a humongous learning curve associated with it. Like can you talk a little bit about so you got one machine and then you made the decision to get another machine and at add in production turnaround and design design like like talk about that like this is crazy to me.

SPEAKER_02 22:06

Sure. So I remember um I I had actually asked you know I I I was fortunate enough to become good friends with the owners of Hom Design and Blade Runner Systems. And I think that I still am to this day. At the time, you know I was you know a kid I still am and I was I was a nobody at the time and I had asked them as I was starting my business I said you know how you know what kind of shops you guys work with? Like who who who makes this stuff and how do they do it? And I was I think that you know them being smart business owners you know they didn't want to necessarily reveal their secrets. They they were relatively cryptic about their answers and and so I figured I was like okay well it seems like I'm just gonna have to figure this out myself huh? So that's essentially what I did. You know I I use the power of the internet and you know there's far more resources uh on there than I had imagined especially for CNC machining so you know I I had outsourced the parts for many years and over those years I I had gotten a slightly better understanding but when I got the machine itself you know that it was definitely a huge undertaking on its own but there like I said there are quite a few number of resources online um and I was able to use those online resources to just kind of like I'm trying to find the word brute force my way into it and I I broke a lot of tools I I ruined a lot of parts and um but eventually you know through good troubleshooting and critical thinking I was able to figure out a process that I was able to reliably make good parts and yeah I mean I I did a lot of trial and erroring for for several months. I think I ran the machine myself for the first probably six months and then after that I uh I ended up hiring my first machinist and that's a great story actually is that my parents' company um my boss names fat he's the one that kind of mentored me in um machining I did end up taking some additional courses at um my local community college to learn how to do uh drafting and modeling so that I could have those parts outsourced but when it came to like machining knowledge and just general stuff um my boss fat really really mentored me and gave me that knowledge so uh my parents' business unfortunately ended up closing and so that was an opportunity for me to hire my boss as my first machinist which is which was a really cool um and really interesting dynamic change and he's he's still a machinist uh here with us to this day which is which has been great so uh he had received curriculum from you know the early 2000s this is you know way before we had the advanced software that we use today so it was kind of kind of like a shift where after I had gone through this huge six month journey of learning how to use software and and all these new machining techniques that I was kind of teaching him. So that was a really interesting experience and um it was it was fun. So uh yeah that's pretty much it. I mean we I ended up buying two of the same machine so if you're curious it wasn't two of the um two different machines I bought uh Haas VF2 SS for any of the listeners out there who are interested in starting a machine shop or manufacturing business um I would recommend a Haas you know I I agree with most machines out there that it's not like the best machine but I think it's the best value in that it's a great machine to start out with because it has so many resources out there. It's a really really popular machine so the community is really vast and the resources are are really vast and um when it comes to the performance compared to the price it's definitely something that I would I would recommend. And I do know that a lot of guys who who start out they start you know a little bit smaller it's generally with a Tormack that's a pretty popular machine to to kind of get your your feet wet with CNC machining and that's a great machine as well but um if you're trying to hit real production numbers um reliably with good accuracy then I think that the step to the Haas um is well worth the money although it it is a pretty big jump so I don't blame anyone who who isn't able to make that jump so um you can definitely do great with a Toramox.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

What what um I think is interesting to note uh and just so people can grasp the um the monumental task of actually getting to a mission like being able to run a CNC machine is it's it's not just the machine right it's like you have to have a facility that has the right power you have to have all the tooling that you think you need um you need to be able to run all the programming you need to be able to have all the understanding of how like how to set up your your workspace and everything for actually machining the parts like there is a ton that goes into that and every mistake is is expensive. It's like people like you know I I get mad when I break a $20 carbide bit. But I mean if you're talking like hundreds if not thousands of dollars for certain types of tooling and uh yeah I mean and it's expensive in that trial and error phase of learning it gets really expensive really fast.

SPEAKER_02 28:02

Oh absolutely yeah I I think that um one region where I definitely lucked out and that's a topic we can talk about is basically you know luck versus you know hard work or skill is um a lucky part for me was that I was able to utilize my parents uh you know facility so that I could actually store my machine and you know the facility already had power and we had the space and I think that for anyone who wants to install a CNC machine it's it's not a it's not an easy feat to get that properly you know hooked up and set up because it requires a lot of power and space. So that was definitely something that worked out in my favor in that you know eventually we did end up taking over the uh the building and the lease as my parents' company declined. So it was it was quite a natural takeover so it kind of worked out beautifully there.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

Yeah and the the overhead of starting a new facility is a little bit different when you can uh slap into an existing facility that has all the accoutrements that you need right that's right absolutely yeah I know um Princeton Wong are you familiar with him?

SPEAKER_02 29:10

Yeah Princeton and I are are are well acquainted oh there you go uh we've worked uh we haven't like actually made knives together but uh him and I have have worked together on certain things and um yeah he's he's in the balcony space as well and you know it's good to know who your friends are in the space and he's he's an amazing maker for sure.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

Yeah yeah so uh Princeton and I um we handle some of the technical side of the knife makers guild and uh you know we we know each other pretty well but I remember when he was like building out some of his tooling and whatnot I just like looked in and I was like I don't I don't know that I ever really want to do that but um if I for the sake of production work. But it fascinates me because it we're not just talking about what you're doing with uh with balisongs and and man and you know the the community we're talking about just the sheer uh technical um ability it takes to be able to run those machines and then produce a product and then do it in a a manner that is affordable to your end end users, right?

SPEAKER_02 30:12

Right absolutely yeah that it's uh I I feel like uh it's outsourcing was definitely the smart way to start you know I I I had planned to have like parts as a cushion and I I definitely didn't dive into manufacturing my own without you know parts to keep me afloat.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

I I did buy myself time so that we uh we had items to sell while I was trial and error and destroying parts before I made good ones yeah so what was the transition into making uh trainers and everything like that so you got you were manufacturing actual bala songs for you know for you know use but they were you know but but with this mind towards flipping but then what what what transitioned you into also making trainers?

SPEAKER_02 31:00

Well I actually um the first products I ever made were trainers it was trainers was the focus of the business for and the start of the business. Okay okay um so I I didn't transition into knives until until much later so yeah it it's just you know it's trainers are just much more simple to make you know it there's no sharpening and actually back in my first products I didn't even heat treat the blades which is embarrassing to think about now because the wasn't amazing um I remember talking to uh a knife maker um and you know he was interested in the design he's like yeah I'd love to buy one and I was like yeah like he's like what blade still are you using I was like three or four stainless he's like dude what that's awful I'm like really I I was like I chose it because it was affordable and he's like well there's a reason why it's affordable I'm like shoot um so I I remember that conversation vividly uh but yeah it's it's just a lot easier it's a lot easier to make a trainer to start out with um eventually we did when we transitioned to knives uh a couple years later and I think it was 2017 um you know we we didn't make them in-house because I didn't have the knowledge or the technology to actually do the the grinding um the bevel grinding is you know obviously something you have to do by hand or you need some very very fancy you know special equipment for that so that's why we uh ended up starting out with trainers it's just way easier.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

Yeah no I get that yeah there's a uh I believe he's a Canadian knife maker uh his name is Aaron Gall or Gal and he uh he figured out doing uh a bunch of uh I guess semi-production CNC work where he's doing uh he he hardens his billets so they get they're profiled and everything and then he hardens them if I remember correctly and and then he machines them from a hardened billet.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

Yeah um I'm familiar with him I I definitely looked into his work uh very deeply before we started doing uh pretty much a very similar process so we uh in tw in 2019 or 20 you know I I wanted to not just rely on outsourcing the knives I wanted to make them in-house but I didn't have the fancy equipment to make the knives in-house so um that's when I found Aaron and we developed our own process to do uh pretty much the same thing as you know hardening the the parts first and then machining them on our three axe CNC mills. But um news for the audience and you know and for me soon is that uh sometime in June is that we'll be bringing in our very own CNC bevel grinder. So that's been a long time coming and it's a piece of equipment they're all very excited to to have nice.

SPEAKER_01 33:57

Well I mean yeah that's interesting um I it's it's cool to me at least uh to find somebody else uh to talk to that uses the the internet and research the way that you do because that's you know I I I have to really um like engage my Google foo sometimes for uh for IT work. And so I've I've just uh as a cross-discipline I just applied that to knives and I'm like well as if it exists on the internet I usually can find it but there are like thank god for uh the community and uh and you know publishing the things on like YouTube and Reddit and whatnot where you know people can like like me can learn that through osmosis because uh you know doing a lot of that stuff and uh with trial and errors can be kind of costly and expensive too. I I think I've cut a lot a lot of my learning curve out by doing all this research and being able to uh you know see other people do it on you know the various platforms yeah definitely I mean there's a lot of good resources out there in the internet um just gotta know how to find it. Yeah. So um what would you say that your your spread is on um you know production like a production bala songs versus your trainers do you find that there's more um like kids uh interested in your trainers uh as compared to your uh your full balisong builds or whatever kind of what does that look like yeah it's it's that's a that's a hard question because I I don't think that we have a fair representation and offering between the two products you know for our Live Blade offerings we we have very few options and um you know for our trainers we have much more expansive product lines for our live blades we only have two products at the time um currently and for our trainers you know we have many more and many more of the them are at the lower end so we have trainers between like 45 and 300 you know expanding that whole price range but for our our live blades we have products around 250 to 300 and then the other product line is 700 and up so it's not really a great comparison um and also because the the business is really established um in trainers first and not really equally with live blades and trainers so I think there's some influence there.

SPEAKER_02 36:25

But I will say that uh we do have a lot of young adolescent and uh and also international customers that are really enthusiastic about the trainers you know for for young kids you know a lot of parents aren't okay with flipping knives so trainers are there's generally a good compromise there. And also for a lot of international customers butterfly knives are just straight up illegal to have so if they want to get into flipping then you know their only option is a trainer.

SPEAKER_01 37:00

Yeah that makes sense. I mean I uh Blade Show Texas this year um I bought two of your squiddies I think it was like the $75 ones the ones with the uh yeah that one's made of uh Ultim the Squid yeah uh yeah yeah yeah and uh and they love them I mean they're like always clicking around but my uh at shows my first experience with like the flipping community really was in uh uh these uh kids that were walking around and flipping and stuff and I at at Blade Show I'm going to say it was at Atlanta um there was one uh flipper who lost control of their knife and it went and uh flew in the air and slammed on somebody's table like display uh table and there's like you know like the crotchety uh older generation are like those dang flippers and uh there's it it's you know it's generally associated with uh I guess I don't know maybe uh a nuisance type of thing like uh I I don't know but like when I bought when I bought those flippers and the kids started kind of like going through the rudiments and wanting to like go on your website uh I guess they went on YouTube uh where you have different training videos and stuff yeah I can I kind of gained a little bit more of a an unbiased appreciation for just how technical the flipping uh uh I guess world is and I I I tried a few and I I knocked my knuckles a few times and I'm like I don't know if this is for me I'm not I'm not as coordinated as they are yeah it's definitely a skill that takes quite a bit of patience and dexterity for sure. Yeah so what does that look like so it you have this um uh you know a business that uh feeds the uh community of flippers and everything uh do you do you guys regularly compete in uh flipper uh competitions or what does that look like and on the one hand where you're manufacturing for the community and then what role uh does uh squid industries play in in the flipper community itself as a I guess demonstrator or trainer or things like that yeah um so for us we focus on obviously providing the product but I would say the other thing that we're quite proud of is that we also host uh an annual live blade flipping competition at Blade Show West.

SPEAKER_02 39:27

So we've done it um since 2019 and it's been a really really successful event ever since we have 32 flippers you know go head to head in a bracket style tournament and at the end there's a bunch of knives and cash prizes as well for the winners and uh we try to stimulate the community with you know in-person competitions and also online events so that you know people are enjoying the hobby more and getting to know each other better and uh just overall just grow the grow the hobby.

SPEAKER_01 40:01

Yeah that's cool. So I um I'm interested to know you you so you have your lines of uh of vowel songs that are um edged right um but like what when you get when you manufacture those and then provide them to the customer there's not a lot of extra customization that you can do correct yeah I mean I I say that for our particular products there's not a whole lot of things that you can really change for for what we have and I I don't I I think that's partly because of the way I've designed them uh you know there's not a lot of interchangeability with the parts there's we don't have a lot of only one of our products has you know G10 scales.

SPEAKER_02 40:47

You can obviously change those out but the rest of the product line are all just solid channel we call them channel but I I think other you know most of the knife industry calls it billet. So you you can't really change the materials out. You can obviously change hardware but apart from that there's not a whole lot of things you can really do apart from standard aesthetic changes like you know acid washing the blade or various things like that.

SPEAKER_01 41:12

Yeah that makes sense. Well um one thing I thought was interesting from uh somebody I've known for a while now his name is uh Bruce Bump he's an uh ABS mastersmith and uh he developed out this uh this pocket knife called his Formula One and you can search it on Google um but basically the idea was is that he built a pocket knife that is it almost fully modular like if you wanted to have another blade made by somebody else uh to to his specifications you could do that but like the the the handle scales and the pocket clips and the bearings and everything like that can all be changed out so that way you can really like once you purchase that platform you can really kind of like customize it to do your own thing. So if it's a you know all titanium uh frame and everything so you could do your uh your acid etching or your uh your um heat anodizing or whatever and I always thought that that was interesting because you know like when you have when you have a product that you yourself um you know you you manufacture and you have kind of like this start-stop uh process for for how you manufacture it um that the thing that keeps a consumer like me interested in is is the modularity of it where you can uh you know you can put different kind of bearings to see how they feel you can uh you can uh do different types of finishes and whatnot so that that kind of keeps me interested because uh I don't fidget as much as I tinker and and so like what I I had one of Bruce's uh Formula ones and I found that like when I'm getting bored with something I'll just kind of say oh I can make a new uh set of scales for this we'll just see how this new material works or whatever. But I'm like a knife maker and I go out and do that stuff in my shop versus somebody with you know if you could uh if you could buy individual modular parts by a manufacturer it'd be a completely separate industry of making complementary uh uh uh parts and and mods uh for you know the base model or whatever so if you ever actually if you if you ever get into that kind of thing I would actually be interested in uh playing around with it because I think that concept is really cool.

SPEAKER_02 43:23

Yeah definitely I'll try I'll try to I'll try to be more creative in my design process I think um I I didn't mean it that way. No no no no no I I I know you didn't mean it that way. What what I what I meant is that you know I started the business with a very specific focus. I knew that I was going straight for production right and I saw that there's success in making a product that was streamlined and and not complicated that it used very few parts and that basically meant that you know you could maximize production and and so I I think I've carried that you know throughout my process for all of our products and that I I want things I designed everything with manufacturability in mind. I think that's one of my strengths. But you know the weakness is that I I think I could be a little bit more creative with um with details and designs and and I I tend to stray away from that because generally those things cost more you know it's more time in the machines or material costs or you know various various hand finishing or whatnot. So yeah I I think that my designs are relatively um relatively simple because I I've wanted them to be easy to manufacture. So um I think it would be a good idea and a great experience for me to like really stretch my my creative muscles and try to make something that was super modular.

SPEAKER_01 44:58

Yeah well I mean I'm I'm a process guy right so um that's kind of what I get paid for. So um the the concepts are interesting to me. But you know how often do you have like a good business model and everything and somebody comes up and says hey that's really cool but you should do this and like really my interest uh in talking with you is that you know the you're a very authentic uh person and your company is very authentic and your mission is very authentic and all of those things equal a very successful business where um I you know I I hope that you feel that the community uh supports you in that and changing up things to chase um an idea uh sometimes or don't always pan out but um that's that at least is something that I think is you know appeals to my um my thinking is the modularity side of it. But uh I'm also not your target audience I would say. I mean my kids yeah my kids are and I mean yeah that's that's where I I'm in support of what you guys do because it uh it it gets them into something that they can uh they can mess around with and it uh builds new neuro pathways and things and I don't have to worry so much about the you know the exorbitant cost of going to the emergency room either yeah no I I mean like you know just looking at companies like for instance a great example would be like Fitanium right is like uh personalization and customization is an industry in its own and I think that that's something I yeah I just overlook.

SPEAKER_02 46:32

So I definitely think that there is um something that I could learn from that and just figure out how to be um you know utilize that better.

SPEAKER_01 46:43

Yeah well I mean at the very least just keep doing you I mean I I'll sit on the uh sidelines and continue to watch what you do. I I kind of do that uh with a lot of different makers um because it's it's fascinating to me to see what you come up with, right? Um and that's that's something that I've really appreciated about your journey through uh bowel songs is just that I'm never uh I'm never uh not interested in what you're doing. So anytime you guys have drops or things like that, I'm always you know kind of looking uh at the sidelines to see what you're you're producing and uh any announcements and things. So you know uh thanks I appreciate that. Well I mean it's it's um it's interesting too because the you know you have a decent uh social media following um and it seems like everybody is pretty highly engaged in what you're doing and uh to me uh there's there's there's some conversations that I've had with uh custom knife makers and um you know non-production makers right so it's all custom it's all small batch and things like that and um what is that this I guess the secret sauce is probably the wrong word but what what do you do to build a successful business and how do you nurture that and like Matt Martin is a knife maker up in Michigan um was was saying that you know it's it's about that community it's about uh the people who believe in the same dream and I if I look at the cross section with your your business I also see that same dynamic so it's kind of interesting to me.

SPEAKER_02 48:20

Yeah I'm I'm glad you see it that way. I think that what what I think about a lot is that I I think that we were successful at the start and and continue to be successful is that we were like a champion for the community. You know I was a really avid flipper you know a really passionate collector and I really wanted other people to enjoy the hobby the same way I enjoyed it. So you know I that's why I went out of my way to find a solution. And so I and that's what I continue to do is is try to find solutions. But I think for me the the hardest part is knowing when to listen to the customers and when to not listen to the customers. I think that my most successful products um to this date are the products that people didn't know that they wanted and um I think a really great example of that is the Squiddy you know when I introduced it in um I think it was in the winter 20 2017 I got a lot of backlash for it. You know at the time titanium was still a very dominant material and you know Squid Industries as a company like we started making aluminum and that's something we kind of pioneered in in the Balason space. But going to plastic was really controversial because obviously flipping has a very very you know strict requirement on durability I think that perhaps it might have the highest standards of durability because I I mean a lot of people might use their knives heavily and you know I I definitely see that there's a lot of you know people that hard use them but balsunks are used in a very unique way you know they're because of the nature of it they get dropped and purposely damaged in ways that most knives aren't you know so I think that that requirement makes it difficult to use materials like plastic. So most people reasonably were skeptical. They're like there's no way that a balaston could flip well and also be durable enough to to handle flipping. So eventually over time though as as people got to use the the squidy and see the product line and and its value um it became real really pivotal um and now I think that it's the squidie made it normalized and it's and it's expected and there's so many makers who have made businesses out of making plastic battle songs. I've seen like four or five you know different makers who use like 3D printing technology to make their own line of custom battle songs and they're relatively successful and you know I I think again going back to this an example of something that people didn't know that they wanted and they didn't believe it was possible and those are the those are the things that I'm I'm actively searching out for.

SPEAKER_01 51:31

Obviously it's the it's the toughest thing and it's hard to continue to be creative and innovative and it gets uh it gets harder and harder but um you know I still try my best yeah well I mean like I the way that I look at it and it it's in in knife making in general um materials are kind of something that's touchy right like uh uh blade steel for for instance uh all the all of the different types of blade steels and how clean or dirty the manufacturing process is and what the end results are on heat treating and how uh durable that blade is as a result kind of has its own um uh stigma uh right there's there's some people that wouldn't you know at some point in time use D2 as a blade or CPM 154 50154 CM or whatever. Um you know there's there's different time periods where certain materials were not really thought of very highly like um you know there's uh Westinghouse uh made micarta for forever and uh and the industrial uses of phenolic resin had been around for a long time but I knew lots of knife makers who thought that uh like uh the ivory or paper makarta was uh trashy is the wrong word but it was uh it's it's it an industrial material of sorts and so when they put it on knives they're like eh you know it's it's all right but why don't you use something nice like desert ironwood or uh put elephant ivory or something like that on it like do do something nice if you're gonna make a nice knife fast forwarded to today where that same like everybody's looking for ivory like it's a finite um like resource and nobody has it because everybody's coveting it because you know Westinghouse doesn't make it anymore and um and the the it sometimes it just takes a little bit of supply and demand to change the way that people think about materials and I would argue that not all plastics and not all uh polymers are made the same so I don't really necessarily think that uh it makes it inherently worse but if you're using really basic cheap plastic like uh um like plastic silverware plastic I mean that's a different story than the uh the high quality uh materials that you you're using in in your squiddies and everything so right but but yeah I mean I would also agree that um as as a general uh use case uh your like ballasongs and what they're being used for is far and above what uh what most knives are are being subjected to from a a use and abuse perspective I would not expect anybody to mistreat um my custom knives uh the same way that the you know my kids uh abuse your your ballasongs that I bought for them so yeah one of the last questions I usually ask the guests uh I I have one here is you know if you uh if you have some like words of wisdom or advice for people that are you know getting into knives manufacturing ball songs things like that like there's like some pearls of wisdom from your journey that we haven't included uh so far what would they be uh I would say that you know manufacturing in itself whether it's a custom knife or production knife is that it's it's all expensive there's like no cheap way to do it but if you wanted it to be you know on the budget side and you wanted to be effective with your money I would recommend to really utilize 3D modeling software like Fusion360 and 3D printing.

SPEAKER_02 55:09

I feel like that's really the best way the most effective way to get your feet wet with um with designing and manufacturing and that you know if you're looking to be a little bit more custom and try your try making things with your hands um I still think that utilizing 3D printing and and modeling is a great way to to get a better understanding of what you're actually going to be making and I think that you know it using resources like local community colleges you know for manufacturing courses is also a really great way to learn rather than you know relying on you know the internet to to give you the most accurate and relevant knowledge to you know to knife making which is a very very specific manufacturing process. So um I would also say that um you know for me personally like outsourcing the products uh it definitely helps me validate the design in that you know it's it can be hard to just make everything on your own at the beginning you know it's without access to the technology you know it's you know obviously impossible so there is definitely a lot uh to be said that outsourcing is in in my opinion a great way to start out as well because you're able to to really see what your design looks like from you know an actual manufacturing company and and not you know the limited knowledge that you have because you might have a great design but if it's crudely made and it looks awful you know it it might not be enticing to customers and then you just never launch your business. So um and I I think the the last thing is uh is just try to be different. You know I think that there are many aspects of knife making and in the knife industry where it's just incredibly congested where everyone is kind of cramming in on the same uh same ideas and just kind of throwing in their own aesthetics which which can work but I feel like the really successful guys out there that I've seen are the people who are really really devoted to doing something different and something in their own way so I feel like that's a it's it's important to stand out and it's important to have your own um your own image and yeah and also just like being a part of the community and just asking for help. Knife making is uh is daunting to get into but there's so many people that are incredibly passionate about it and you know people like me you know I I love helping others get into it because I I've been there and I know how difficult it is to have no resources and to to to feel lost and and so I think that makers in general are really great resources and and are generally open books. Unless you're competing directly then you know perhaps you maybe choose a different different guy. But generally makers are really generous with their time their and their knowledge and they love and we love helping others learn learn the craft. So you know definitely you need to spend time and effort into devoting yourself to learning the rudiments but and and when you can demonstrate that to someone who's who's knowledge and experience then you know makers like us will have no issues with you know providing anything that that we need and we'll try our very best to help. So yeah and like we discussed earlier just you know just be passionate about it and eventually you know you'll you will find your success.

SPEAKER_01 59:11

Yeah well those are all really uh great pieces of advice I appreciate you uh taking the time and uh talking to me for the time that you have um uh I will definitely uh post up all your social media contacts and if anybody's interested make sure that you give uh Squid Industries a follow on uh on Instagram and whatnot keep an eye on their website because they always have uh drops and uh Lucas uh uh again I really appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_02 59:40

Aaron it's it's been an absolute pleasure being on the show. You know for all you listeners out there you know flipping is a really really fun hobby and sport and uh it can be daunting because you know it does look dangerous but you know there there's a lot of resources out there and uh I think everyone should really give it a try because it's it's awesome and uh think everyone have a lot of fun. So thanks again for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:02

Yeah absolutely especially if you have kids that don't have anything uh better to do with their time you know put a flipper in their heads make I mean it is a great dexterous sport you know hand-eye coordination goes a long way in many in many ways. Oh yeah I mean my parents hated that I had a yo-yo and I was just like always doing the Eiffel Tower and things like that. So I mean I I'd always find ways to occupy myself. So it's no different in the flipping community and I uh I appreciate that there's a company out there like yours um that I can go to for a uh a reasonably priced uh high quality product so thanks again for that as well my pleasure that's that's the goal all right all right well you have a good one uh thanks again and uh well we'll I'm sure we'll talk to uh soon yeah we'll do it thanks so much later thank you for listening to another episode of the Good Old Blades podcast remember that you are loved and God bless you