SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to the Good Old Blades Podcast. I am your host, Aaron LeVere. And join me as we talk to other dynamics and everything. Thank you for listening in again to the Good Old Blades podcast. I am your host, Aaron LeVere, and I am joined by special guest, Steve Johnson. For anybody who doesn't know who Steve Johnson is, his uh contributions towards knife making or his uh the you know his living legacy, I I really encourage you to look him up. But also, shame on you. Uh Steve Johnson is a a pioneer of a lot of techniques in the knife making world and has uh has really uh changed the face of fine uh knife making, I would I would argue, in the modern knife making era. So uh Steve, it's really good to have you here.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Pleasure to talk to you.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

So um for everybody who doesn't know about you or hasn't read the the numerous publications that are uh about you, can you uh uh talk a little bit about um you, what got you into knives, and uh you know just generally more you as a person outside of knives?

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Sure. Uh I grew up in Manti, Utah. That's M-A-N-T-I. Let's pronounce Mantai, not Manti. Though I met a man in in Europe who uh lived in Manti. It's a town in Italy, so I guess you can pronounce your need to pronounce it anyway. Grew up on a farm uh hauling hay and raising beef cattle. We'd take them on the mountain every spring and bring them down every fall. That was a good good life. Hunting, fishing within two or three miles of our house. Of course, pheasants out on the farm. That's no longer having all the cement ditches in the sprinkler irrigation that we eliminated the ditch baits. Be that as it may, uh we had a had a good life and enjoyed enjoyed the out of doors. Church was a big part of our life, of course, in these little Mormon towns. So uh Utah's a great place. If you don't like snow, we've had record snow this year. And I even got a bit tired. I usually like the winter, but shoveling snow gets old after six or eight months. Um as hobbies, like I say, hunting, hunting and fishing, outdoors, pretty much anything. Four-wheeling, camping, such. My wife's a tennis player, a darn good one, but she hasn't uh hasn't taught me how to be even slightly decent. Yeah. And we have seven kids, four boys, three girls, they're all all great kids. They all have families now, and uh they're going along doing their lives. Um, mainly because of my wife. And we've had a successful business, a great deal because of my wife. There's a lot more to knife making and grinding and sawing and polishing. And that's in the in the business end of it. She has been there all the time. There aren't many years our accountant hasn't said these are the best records I get every year. And uh she's just totally perfect on on financial deal. She's she's an elementary school teacher, she hasn't been trained in finance, but she understands it. Wonderful. Uh Steve Johnson wouldn't have gone far without her. And looking back, there aren't I wouldn't have gone, wouldn't have wanted to go far without her. She's been the blessing of my life and our family's life, and I appreciate and love her. Superwoman, super wife, supermother, super saint, as far as our beliefs are concerned.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

And that's good. Um, so did she come to or ha had when you're doing knife shows regularly, did she come to knife shows uh a lot with you?

SPEAKER_02 5:01

Virtually all of them. Of course, if there was a a new child or something that needed care or illness, or as a rule, she was there and our children were there too. We traveled the country and to some in some ways the world with our kids. We we remember a time in Paris that I don't think our child was more than a year, year and a half, still in the stroller. We didn't have a stroller. We went to one of the knife shops in in town, and the lady that ran it, I can't remember her name, but we'll always remember her going in the back of the store into her apartment and bringing out a stroller for us. That was right across the street, street from the from the opera. It was uh our kids sometimes wear the stars that shows more than so uh as a rule she was with me and great support. My wife from the Dalles, Oregon, she was born in Utah, but her father went to the Dallas to serve as a technical consultant for an aluminum plant up there, and she lived most of her life there. We met at BYU in 1974.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

So um did did your exposure to uh knives come from being in the outdoors and and farming a lot, or were exactly where your uh interests uh with knives early on, or was that something that came later in life?

SPEAKER_02 6:51

I didn't like collect knives or anything. Uh you'd used one daily, you had a pocket knife, and course hunting and fishing, you had to have a knife, but uh I wasn't, you know, I didn't ever want to be a knife maker, I'd never heard of one. There were probably seven knife makers anyone had heard of in the 1960 era, and uh it just happened that Gil Hibbon moved into town and uh immediately the day I saw one of his custom made made home handmade knives, I was interested in knives. So it wasn't something that was was of great interest all my life, of course. Knives are fun to to use and whittle with and such. I wasn't into them as far as making them at all until I was 1965, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

Yes, so um what uh what did that look like? So uh uh Gil moved in and you uh what did you start uh making things in his shop or like uh what was your early making experience? Like what did your first knife look like and kind of what got you into it?

SPEAKER_02 8:17

Yeah, our first our church with along with many organizations, churches, fire departments, police departments, whatever, had Boy Scout troops. And uh I was of the age of explorer scout at the time. And he was in our our ward or parish, you may call it and uh the bishop called him to be our explorer advisor, or basically the scout master for for uh sixteen, eighteen-year-old boys. And part of their part of their program was to expose the boys to occupations, various occupations, get them interested in their next step in life, going to work. Go to see doctors or dentists or fire department or whatever, lawyers, whatever occupations were in the area, farmers. And he said, Well, we just uh just as well go down to the shop and see how what I do for a living. And we had heard that you know this guy came into town and made knives. I think he arrived in sixty-three, possibly sixty-four. And uh we also heard that he was charging forty dollars for a knife, and we also everyone thought he was crazy. Uh, you know, you could buy a boker or a shredder a whatever at the hardware store for seven dollars or for the good ones. And forty bucks was crazy, but uh he took us down, showed us how he made knives, and showed us his work and I didn't have forty dollars, but I was immediately thinking of a way to get it. Whether I had to get a job or whatever. Beg it from my parents. Uh I was gonna get one of those knives. And he was a great guy. He wanted to work with the boys and he told us, well, if you'd like to you can come to the shop and uh make a knife for yourself. Which uh oh, five or six of us did. There were two or three that finished them. I helped a friend finish his, but uh Gil could see that well, I I would sleep with the my knife, whatever stage it was in, on the bedstand next to my bed. I was looking at it all the time. Just I was enthralled literally with knife making and the product. And he uh you know that wouldn't happen these days with OSHA around, but uh he let us choose the equipment. He he was forging. Actually, you possibly may know he was forging 440C at the time. I think he was the first one to do that. And with success, I my hunting knife that I made was forged from a barb 440C. And I have cleaned and skinned three deer with that knife at one time, and uh it would still catch hair on my arm after that work. Anyway, uh he could tell that it was obviously I like knives, and he actually was new in town, he'd nobody was there that would could work with him and uh in time, actually between the time we met and the time I went to work after school, Buster Warren worked there a little bit, I believe, as did Harvey Draper. Um maybe it was just Harvey. Anyway, Harvey was very talented, as everyone knows, who knows of him. And uh he left and opened his own shop. And uh uh Buster may have just worked with Harvey, I'm not sure, but they were he they were both influenced by Gibbon. Anyway, uh he asked me if I'd like to work after school, which I did. Jumped at the chance for a year or so. I can't remember how old I was, 17, 18. Um I would I'd go down there after school or on a Saturday if I had the chance and work with him. He hired a friend of mine, David Lyman, a schoolmate, who worked there also. At one time he had four four helpers, I think, in his shop, including me. And uh while I was there I made uh three or four knives plus a twenty-four-inch short sword, which was forged again out of a two-inch or inch and a half round bar of 440 C. It's still hanging together, so I guess it was a pretty good forging job. I don't I haven't ever chopped down a tree with it or anything though. Uh and I made a big buoy knife and uh oh, two or three other hunters, fighters. A dagger. Anyway, uh I owe a lot to him for getting me going. It was quite a trail he set me on anyway. Anyway, he left town in time and I went and worked with Harvey Draper while I was at Snow College for a couple of years. There's more to that story. I don't know if you want to hear all that. It takes two or three hours. It'll take a few minutes anyway.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Yeah, well, I mean, um you're more than uh you're more than welcome to share what you would like. I mean, this is uh for for the sake I think uh that I have to iterate this often as you know, talking to people like you, um this might be one of not many uh interviews that we uh that we get to retain uh from you historically, right? And uh and and it is one of my goals uh to be able to uh document uh like your journey through knives and uh and what is important to you to uh share with posterity's sake. Um so uh even though like obviously I have a million and a half questions for you, the things that I'm most interested in are the things that happen organically. So uh if you if you'd like to share uh about your your work with Harvey Draper, I think it's a good segue into um what my next question would be, isn't you know your experience, like what got you into working with Loveless and everything.

SPEAKER_02 15:41

Uh well that's that's gotta be said probably then.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Yeah, so I think uh probably yeah, I think uh talking about uh Harvey would be great next, and then we can uh get into Loveless.

SPEAKER_02 15:53

Well, I worked with Harvey and his boy uh Bart for probably a year and a half while I was in school, and I think I was more important more interested in knife making than school because my grades weren't that great. And uh that was a great experience. So both of those men were very talented, super, super skilled in their hands and in their brain. And uh it was great uh they showed me lots of things that they had developed that Gil hadn't, you know. Every knife maker has his own ways of doing things. Some of them great, some of them not so great, but uh worked with them that time and um probably sixty eight ish. It would have been sixty-nine. A guy came into the shop and was gonna watch Harvey make him and make him two knives. He wanted to buy 'em, but he also wanted to m watch him make them because he wanted to make knives. So Harvey did. I don't know if Rod Chappell actually did any work or not, but he took good records and paid very close attention using his work. It's pretty amazing it's all in its own way. Anyway, he uh came to shop and we w we hit it off. He liked guns, and this is the country where everybody has a gun. Well, at that time he did anyway. And uh we went out calling coyotes one night and calling a red fox and didn't shoot him, but uh we hit it off and oh a little while later he called me and said, Steve, I want you to come up here and work in my shop. He had talked to the SBA and Small Business Administration and uh had his loan approved. He was a he was a full blood Eskimo, I believe. Not full-blooded half, but uh everything was approved. He went in to get his money and they said, Well, how long have you been making money? He said, Oh, I've never I've never made a knife. They said, What? He said, I haven't made a knife, I'm going to. That's what this is all about. And they said, Well, we can't give you any money. You need to have somebody in that shop that knows a little bit about knife making. So he called me and said, Come, want you to come up and be in my shop and be the help me to get things going. Which I did finally and got to uh Spokane and his shop wasn't set up yet even, but uh he he got a little place just the right size and everything out toward Airway Heights is where it was. It was five or ten miles, seven miles out of town. I worked with him and we had a good relationship. But uh I I had met and talked with A. G. Russell more than once through through the years, you know. We left uh Spokane because AG called and said, I hear you're look I'm just wondering if you'd like to work with a guy out in California. And I said, Oh maybe.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

And so I flew down to LA and met with Bob and he put me up in a little motel and worked with him a week.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

And actually he went to Las Vegas for uh the weekend, left me a pile of knives and said I want you to grind those and taper the tanks and all I'm gone, which I did.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

He came back and he said, Well, you obviously know what you're doing.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

Uh go get your stuff, which I did. And got to Skokane in 1971. And uh don't check all these dates. I'm a little bit over the hill. 7071. And uh even brought my dog down there. His wife didn't love it, so it didn't last too long, but uh I don't not sure that was a smart thing to do anyway. Because I couldn't have it in my apartment, it had to be in Bob's yard. Anyway, he was great, he treated me like a son. Uh you know, he's the reason I have a name, I think. Took me to shows and eventually ended up putting both of our names on the knives, and uh we'd go shooting and he loved photography, loved pistols. You may have seen the Model 41 Smith and Wesson 22 target pistol that he modified and called it a camp gun or what anyways a three-quarter size, but by the time it was through, little camp pistol. And I almost got one of them, but it didn't work out that way. However, uh the day I got there I knew I lanted to stay because what he was showing me was exactly what I thought a knife should be. I just hadn't ever thought up or seen it before, drop point hunter. And before I had been there a week, he gave me a drop point with full wrap brass tape. Beautiful stag out of the special melt steel. Checkered top and bottom for the thumb and finger. And a beautiful sheath with a wraparound front stitched. Kind of cowboy look cowboy look. And we did we did great. Although I think we both got tired of each other by the time I left. That was 1974. I was going home for the deer hunt and a drunk driver hit me head on and near mesquite in the bed and put me in the hospital for three weeks. I was unconscious for three days and should have been killed, but uh the Lord was with me. I pulled onto the freeway out of Loganale, strapped on my seatbelt, reached over to grab my shoulder belt and thought, no, don't hook don't hook that up. In the accident the steering wheel went from its position clear to the rear rear window. There was maybe two or three inches space between the wheel steering wheel and the window. Because I didn't have a shoulder strap on, I was thrown sideways over toward the radio and it went up over me. Didn't that didn't hurt me, but it did have a broken pelvis and concussion, etc. I was knocked out by the stick shift knob. Still got a dent in my head here, but uh anyway, I was blessed to live through that. Uh it happened that uh Henry Frank had he had come to the shop to talk about knives, and of course, you know her Bob was selling his knives from our catalog. Every time he'd see me, he'd say, Steve, you gotta open your own business. So when I got home and a year later, after I'd recovered, that's what I did. Got married and started making knives. Thanks to Buster and his help there and Frank's Henry's encouragement. And here we are. 40 years 40 years later or so.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

There's a lot, there's a lot missing in between Yeah, there's a lot missing in between that, right? But uh Oh yeah. You know, uh something that uh you know, you think about uh Buster, um AG Russell, Bob Loveless, and and and you, right? I mean, I I you know there's uh to a lot of people, there's not a lot that um you guys are giants, right?

SPEAKER_02 24:56

And some of them are, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

Yeah, I mean I mean arguably all of you are. Like I don't know, like you're you're talking to a different generation of knife maker, too. Um, and you you guys are like uh I I mean I see everyone. They they everybody wants to uh replicate your work.

SPEAKER_02 25:14

Many have never heard of some of the guys we've mentioned, you know. It's a different different generation.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

Yeah. And well, that's that's what's interesting too, is because you know, when I think of um like pioneers of knives, there's a lot of people that don't know who Bob Loveless uh was. Oh yeah. But they but they replicate his knives all the same. And what what's uh interesting is there's like there is a lot of mystique, I guess, around the Loveless shop, um, and uh you know what what came out of it, how work was done, everything like that. But when when you got there when when Bob invited you down and everything, what was what was it like? I mean, was it I I your impression of of the work, was it just going and making knives for an another knife maker, or was were what what was the the attitude or the I guess the the atmosphere around working with Bob at the time? Did it seem like a really, really great opportunity, or did it just seem like another job at the time?

SPEAKER_02 26:20

Well, I I didn't know he was who he was yet. I don't know if he was who he was yet, you know. Um he treated like I say, he treated me like a son. He I wasn't the employee. Unless we had a little stress now and then, which is rare, but uh I was a partner even though it wasn't said so. He uh certainly would do things his things his way, but his way of doing things seldom if ever didn't agree with I didn't I didn't agree with, you know, uh from the design work to the fabrication. He had things figured out. We we would take the bars of steel and scribe 'em, scribe the patterns on. Go down to a commercial knife manufacturing place in I think it was in Downey or Compton and make straight cuts with their uh shear. We'd make three one one angle on the butt of the knife, you know where that angle is. And a cut from the top of the back of the handle up toward the point. That'd be two cuts, and we'd cut the angle for where the curve comes up to the point. There might have been four cuts, that would take a minute or two. Then we take them back and grind them to outline, which would take another two or three minutes. I mean, that's pretty fast knife cutting out. And uh when I when I got there he pointed to some bars of steel laying in the driveway there, a bit rusty. So this is this that's this new steel I'm gonna try out, and that was 154 cm. So it wasn't long before we were cutting knives out of that and trying to make a knife out of them. We we assumed you couldn't polish it. But because they were, you know, 60 Rockwell he treated uh so it the early ones had a kind of a I don't know if we used Scotch Bright or s just less left a 400 600 grit belt finish on them, but not too long before we were polishing them and found that it wasn't that it wasn't that bad to do. His heat treater, Art Jacyl and Downy, Downey Steel treating the first batch he did didn't get hard. We went back down and talked about it and he said and uh cryo treatment brought was brought up and he said, Oh, I didn't bother doing that. That can do any good. And uh so he ran them through again, they came out just right. I don't know if that was the only thing he wasn't doing, but uh it was kinda exciting to have a stainless steel knife at 60 Rockwell and uh the only ones that had it, you know. He had lots of dealings with the Japanese eventually, and of course RW ATS-34 was an offshoot from that, and he worked with went to the Hitachi steel plant and talked with them about getting that steel made, and it in my opinion was cleaner than the Crucible 154 at that time. It seemed like they went from really nice and beautiful to didn't seem to care about it that much, but I'm not a metallurgist, and I don't want a bad mouth crucible because I'm still using their steel, and they've always been great, great with me.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

Yeah, well, I mean I think I think it's fair, especially during the time that um to make the assessment that an uh a steel manufacturer it in the in the spirit of increasing uh productivity in the in producing you know their their steel uh that that there is some quality control that's lost, right? I mean I it's possible.

SPEAKER_02 30:58

I know I I know that many times uh you'd hear that this ATS was was cleaner.

SPEAKER_00 31:08

Yeah. Yeah, and I I also remember that too uh from a few uh older knife makers where they're saying you know they it it depended on where uh where the ore was uh from and what the process was that was being used in everything. Like there's it's almost as much conjecture as it is actually what happened, but I I remember that there's you know a back and forth over the years of uh uh in you know the 70s and 80s over uh cleaner or dirtier steel. Um and you know, like whether that's whether that's actually directly related to uh Crucible's uh quality control process or not, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 31:46

But I mean if you think about it, could have been the man in charge, you know, like uh um for this five-year period, we've got him do it and he's wants to make money, period, whatever. Um conjecture is the correct word because uh I'm use I use of course I use CPM now, but when I see and use I bought some of Herm Schneider's 154, and it was probably made in the 80s, and I never had a problem with that at all, or concern, or thought that, oh, this is dirty, you know. So be that as it may, it's a long time ago.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, in the with uh powdered metal metallurgy uh today, I think that there's a really um strong argument for like the uh um homogenous nature of it. I I've actually really enjoyed uh geeking out a little bit with Laren Thomas and all the uh different research and development he's done around steel and metallurgy, you know, Devin Thomas's son. And uh and I I I I was I was speaking to I think Matt Martin up in uh Michigan about that and uh and how the the the heat treating book that Laird Thomas made is uh provided way more data than we ever had uh on heat treating, right? I mean, because you know it used to be specific to the uh the manufacturer of that, and and people would kind of guess around it what would what produced the best results, but he went through and built all of these different uh test subjects around it, what what does it do with or without cryo? How do you get the most out for what kind of equipment you have? Um but it's uh a lot different than being the exclusive uh uh of like a uh ATS or whatever, or what you know, like Bob was, you know, back in the day when heat treating and whether you could get a 60 60 plus rock well was even possible. I mean, that's kind of it's come a long way in that amount of time.

SPEAKER_02 33:58

Well, you could get it, you just couldn't get it that wouldn't fracture and chip. Whatever. You know, uh oh, what was gonna say. Even these days, you know, you could buy a D2 hunting knife that may not have been in made in the US or the steel wasn't made here, or whatever, and it's not the D2 that custom makers use, it seems like doesn't hold an edge like the do I say real stuff. I don't know where that comes from, and maybe that's just guesswork too and and and gossip. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

Yeah. Well, um, so kind of on on the note of uh Loveless and everything, I guess what what were the some of the things that you took from your time working with him that you carried on in your own knife making? I mean, I I know you touched on the drop point hunter being like the quintessential blade design, but I mean, how did how what other things played a role in you moving on your own and what you've done since then with your own knife making?

SPEAKER_02 35:14

Well, an obvious thing was he gave me probably enough materials for 20 to 50 knives when I left, be it blade steel or stag or uh hardwoods or and handle screws and guard material. That kind of helped me get going. And uh course the I've stuck with his designs. There are many knives out there with my name on them that are not loveless designs, but uh that was for custom orders. And if I w someone wants me to make him a knife, I it's a loveless just because I love him, you know. And loved him. Um the production, he he'd like to do ten or twenty at a time, you know. And I can do five, that's about all I can. I get uh I would rather change jobs, grind on some blades and maybe polish one or two and then put a couple guards on and finish a handle or assemble a handle. That could all happen in a day. Whereas there we uh I'd grind knives all day long for two or three days perhaps and polish them for that much also. Then we put the guards on and he would s he soldered every I think I soldered maybe three blades while I was there. I watched him solder every one. Um then uh when they were soldered and the fillet polished, which I'd do uh I'd start assembling and he'd start the sh the sheaths. When I got them assembled, he would rough shape them. Which a rough shape for Loveless is about eighty to ninety percent done, you know. And uh but I'd go to file and sandpaper, sand strips from there on while he finished the sheaths, and around the time I got the knives done, he would he'd be fitting the sheets up and we'd be ready to etch them. And at that time we used Kodak Metal etch resist KMER, which ultimately probably took ten minutes per blade to get a logo on it. And that's what I used when I got Comanti for a year or two until the Yancy boys wasn't them, who was it yeah, it was I believe it was them who showed me the the stencil electroch setup or process. And uh that was it from then on. It takes maybe a minute if you don't have any problems to get your logo on. Um then he would he probably three-fourths of the time I was there, he would then sharpen the blades on the belt with a four hundred grit belt, get the burr on the edge, and then I would go to a uh an old an oil stone and put the final edge on by hand. Eventually we got to the point where we'd we'd belt them and then buff it off like I still do now, and most modern act makers do, I think. Um I still don't go to work before noon hardly. And most of my years I would quit at nine or ten o'clock at night. With Bob it was ten or eleven or twelve. We seldom went to get work before ten or e ten or eleven or twelve o'clock in the morning. It's 'cause we were tired. Often we'd run around living in LA, you don't have to have anything mailed to you hardly. You just go pick it up. From a from my target to buffin compound to leather to steel to uh we never bought solder, we always we did we had the eutectic rep would deliver it for well maybe a while. Then we'd get it from one of the suppliers in the area, but we were on the road a lot. Which wasted time, but also gave us a break too. Always stop at cold sporting goods and Englewood and look at the guns. Always there was a camera store in in uh where was it? Not Compton, but toward down that way. If we were in the area, we'd always go in and look at the newest cameras. Bob Love cameras, Keen Gunworks, we he had them do some of the work on that. Modified 22 and some 45 automatics. He he we we bought two uh national match Colt 45s, and then he would cut off the barrel, machine uh ventilated ribs on the top, modify the handle a little bit, and King Gunworks did some of that work too. But uh typical day would involve some road work just about all the time.

SPEAKER_00 41:25

What uh so I mean you went out you went out on your own, and uh I mean that's there's a lot of a lot of history from the time that you went out on to your on your own to where we're at today. I mean, um what were some things that you uh you found fascinating about that journey and time, uh things like individual works that you've done that were challenging, things like that. Like, I mean, what it's really kind of difficult to pick apart, you know, that many years and uh highlights on it, but do you have any uh very memorable com like times of when you were out on your own?

SPEAKER_02 42:03

Uh it was it was a great job for a dad, you know. Kids are thirty yards away from you all day, or the ha in the back backyard whenever they were around after school or before weekends, whatever. Uh we really enjoyed the people in the in the knife business and had have some great friends in in this United States and Italy and Japan and Germany and France and um certainly enjoyed those times. Uh my wife, after the kids got in school, went to work and so we couldn't go to Germany and spend a week. She had to be back basically the next more next Monday or Tuesday. But that was okay because we you can do a lot in the weekend four or five days, depending on how soon you left for your destination. But uh great people. We've got some great friends all over the world. Appreciate them. Meet guys at guys at knife shows have two tables, one is for his knives and one is for nothing but candy. And uh that made our children happy. Grandchildren. Uh that was amazing to sit next to you that that one weekend.

SPEAKER_00 43:39

Yeah, uh in Atlanta. Well, you know what's funny about that is uh uh well for one the the other table was a buddy of mine. I actually don't live that far away, but he uh he works on movie sets, and so he had to get his uh he had to get his time in with the guild and everything and or the union, right? And so he went out. was to California or somewhere. And he was like, Man, like I I have I had all my knives set up. I might be I'll be able to fly in, but like and and just display for you know the time there. But it got real close and I was about ready to take his uh display out and everything and just uh pack it with my stuff. And he he was like, you know, if I miss three days here, I'm missing a lot of money more than I you know can speculatively make it a knife show. He's like I really gotta stay I gotta stay here. And I was like all right bud we'll find we'll find out something to do with it. And so but probably probably more probably more than I made at the show in candy and uh that you know made everybody happy. So uh but you know one thing that impressed me a lot is um you know I I had never met you but you know your work is iconic and so I I I knew it you know but I saw all these people coming up and shaking your hand and talking with you taking pictures and everything and I'm sure I'm sure there's probably like 30 photos of of uh customers and fans of yours where I'm in the back just looking at them wondering what's going on here just floating around but when I actually got to talk to you and everything I was like oh my god like that's uh that's uh Sr Johnson right and uh uh I we are talking through everything and you know I was getting into the guild and everything too and it was it was my first knife show um out of out of state and I I just yeah you you and your wife and and son really made that a very memorable experience for my wife and I as well and so it was just a really great time. So I mean I I take that to heart anytime I think about um being cordial and being uh uh supportive to other makers is I want to emulate the way that you made me feel then especially with this uh as prestigious as you are as a maker um you know you are I mean you're one of the greatest living knife makers according to uh Steve Shackelford so um for you to to spend the time with me and everything it was just a you know humongous honor.

SPEAKER_02 46:08

Well we enjoyed it thoroughly so people are people and if you get to know them you learn to love them don't you?

SPEAKER_00 46:15

Yeah absolutely so um one thing that I I think a lot about and I I don't really have a lot of historical example examples of this but when you're working with Bob um it seemed like it seemed like you were a key figure uh to change the the dynamic of how fit and finish was done inside of the shop. Would you agree or disagree?

SPEAKER_02 46:41

Because I you know again I'm not I don't have a lot of uh early loveless examples um but my understanding was they were a little bit more crude and when you came into the shop your fit and finish um had you know raised the bar uh it with loveless knives well that was you know Hibbon was polishing everything and that was certainly a step up which I learned to do pretty well and Draper was was a true craftsman he not that Gil wasn't but Draper made he was a pilot had a little cub and uh anything he had to had to have he would just build it so he put I learned a an awful lot from Gil I learned an awful lot from him I had a chance to learn a lot from from uh chapel only in different ways you know making the shop work and uh making things go there and certainly grinding some of those grinds that he drew up that was a different world and I could never do it as good as him he he knew what the blade had to be and he would just make that machine turn it out um between uh getting leaving Loveless and getting going I worked with a little bit with uh Buster who let me use his shop and we went to the knife show in Vegas with I had my first own table Buster did things like Ibn and Draper but he did them mythically he he was Harvey Draper on steroids as far as if he needs it yeah I'll just make it I don't care you know and every day or every knife I make I use some techniques out of every one of those men's the time I had with them whether it's fitting a guard or soldering a guard or assembling a handle or grinding a double grind or shaping a handle like this or that or Lovis has probably had the most influence but Buster had some techniques that I still use and appreciate. So it's it's fun to go through a day and as you're working on this knife you're thinking about that man that taught you how to do this. Appreciate every one of them and AG Russell without him I'd I'd still be in Spokane or Manti, I don't know he's the one to push the button that got the the college of knife making into high gear I was just blessed to have these men you can't go to a college and learn how to make a knife even if it's a knife making school learn all the stuff I did. So I don't know if that answers question or not but every one of them helped me Loveless was he took me in you know you know how what I think what I'm saying when I say that respected me and my religion and my desire to make noise and he was never never I'm better than you with me.

SPEAKER_00 50:31

Yeah I mean and I think that that is interesting because uh you know I mean there's a lot of there's there's a lot of uh people I'm sure that uh didn't find themselves able to tolerate uh Bob's personality uh so well at times I uh the I used to work with uh well I I bought the my my knife shop from a a knife maker that had been doing it for maybe 35 years or so he was uh uh good friends with uh clay gault and uh Martin Pulling and he was to say uh you know he said you know like knife shows were great and it was uh nice to uh uh watch Bob hold court and and talk to everybody but you couldn't bring your wives around because of his uh his his little language and um you know and you know different uh different world we live in because my my wife probably wouldn't uh like mind those kind of things and I don't know that I uh can really protect her uh too much against that in in this day and age but um you know it's just it's interesting to me and uh really I I think that I want people to understand that in knives you know we have the ability to really be a community um and lift each other up and uh encourage each other and a lot of that just be uh has a lot to do with being gracious with your time and your knowledge and uh being patient with each other and that's something that that I really appreciate about your time with phenomenal knife makers in their own right and how that encourages uh you to uh push the bar on your own knives. So Steve um I like your your commentary on this knife on knife treasures.com and so it's one of your uh big bears that you did with uh Barry Lee Hands and I saw that it was going for uh $115,000. Uh I'm I'm interested uh primarily about uh how you got into working with Barry and uh talk maybe a little bit more about these these integral big bears and uh how you feel about them. I mean they're they're very intriguing to me. It seems like a lot of a process to go into for the knife so the price tag does not uh surprise me either but can you just give me a little bit more history on it?

SPEAKER_02 52:58

Sure. Uh sh probably five or six art knife shows art knife interpretational shows back um it would have been pre 2010 or 2008 ish uh I as I recall I called Steve Lindsay and said are you would you be willing to do just one knife for me to take to the art aki and he said I really can I'm so busy with these vices and uh air gravers that uh I'm sorry but I can't wouldn't wouldn't be able to help you but I know someone who can who I can he highly recommended Barry Lee Hans who at that time wasn't involved in knife engraving much and uh so I called him or he he had Barry call me I can't remember and uh we talked and uh at that very time I had a customer looking for a little bit of work and Barry said I told him about that and he said oh well let's try that and he just did a little bit of work on a classic fighter with Pearl and it was it was beautiful and that evolved into take uh taking a I think it was a six and a half inch seven inch fighter to an art knife show in San Diego and uh everybody was impressed there was one collector who could not believe the the price Barry was getting for it who eventually ended up ended up being a one of Barry's best customers but uh from that little small subhilt I believe we did a a big bear all of them with Mother of Pearl it wasn't integral but we took that to another art show and it was well received and they weren't cheap each I believe each show we went to Barry's prices went up and mine went up dramatically because that was where we stepped into full integral big bears and uh they uh they were well received and the reason there are only probably three total is because anyone who does an integral knife knows they're a lot of work. I didn't machine 'em had a friend do those but uh there is there's just a ton of work and you have to finish the knife totally and then the engraver would take it and do his engraving cuts and uh then I'd get it back and send it to the heat treater who uh obvious obviously had to be careful with it or know what he was doing and uh I think uh Paul Boss did one of those and Peter's heat treat uh did beautiful work with them. You know the blade was finished down the final thickness twenty-five thirty thousandths and everything was polished and and the engraving cut so there was no room for any dings or banging it around with other blades. Uh then I'd get it back and as an atmospheric controlled uh knife blade that comes back typically with a little haze on it which has to be and you can you can generally buff it off sometimes takes a little bit of sanding but then I would clean them up and send a send the knife back to Barry without a handle installed.

SPEAKER_00 57:22

Well no back up I would put the knife back together put the pieces of pearl in place and and the screws and basically assemble it exactly as it was before it was heat treated and then he would go ahead and put the the gold inlay in be it yellow or pink or green and I believe in those knives there were over a hundred of those little tiny diamonds installed in it in a lot of the flowers anyway uh not a knife everybody that collects knives even wants that's not a knife that everybody that collects knives can afford either but they were they're certainly uh groundbreaking for me and they they caused a bit of a they were noticed still horribly great working with him he's a marvelous talent worked with a lot of engravers and every one of them is enjoyable I just love engraving working impossible for me to do I think yeah I uh engraving to me is uh just one of those facets of knife making that uh not not everybody does and not everybody can do and not everybody can afford but um it really uh exemplifies like I guess the the top end of what a knife can be uh what it has really just really well done engraving and inlays so but and and uh Barry uh something I've appreciated about him is that uh he'll show up to sometimes uh fairly obscure knife shows and give commentary and encouragement and whatnot to knife to knife makers and I've I've been the recipient of that twice with him already I didn't think he'd show up or look at my knives or things like that so I've always I've always enjoyed our interactions so he's he's good to get along with and he's he's very knowledgeable about knives and guns and a lot most anything uh not to say that other n other engravers are any less they all have their own way of work and their own way of working with people and from Fricassi to Woransky to excuse me right now I can't remember any other Mike engravers Joe Mason Lee Griffiths or some of those earlier Italian engravers and US engraver there's a lot of talent out there so uh that knife has a little bit of history behind it and it's it'll I'm glad I did it but I I don't think I'll be doing any more yeah it seems like a lot a lot a lot of work for sure yeah well you know and I I was talking to you at Blade Show Atlanta in 2021 was it yeah 2021 uh you talked about that being one of your last knife shows but like what is are are you semi-retired retired like what exactly are you doing with your with your your knife life now I'm officially retired as far as the US government's concerned but I can can do anything I want as far as making money and uh I still want to make knives I've always said I'll make knives till I can't my wife tells everybody oh he goes to shop every day not for very long and it takes me a long time to make a knife these days with uh people that order I don't take orders I take an I'll take someone's name and with them knowing that if I don't have a delivery date then I'll do it when I can if I can.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:45

I have twenty or thirty maybe on that list. And you know in days of old I was just looking the days of nineteen ninety five records. I was making eighty or ninety seventy to ninety year knives a year. No I make twenty maybe yeah I get that so what is uh what is a tr uh uh traditional drop point hunter uh cost from you these days they start at two thousand or at two thousand fair fair deal that's with micarta and micarta stainless fittings and one cpm cpm yeah but uh yeah I think that's fair mammoth and some of the oh handle materials are are getting crazy you know stag used to be I remember draper paying two dollars and fifty cents for a set of stag and uh I I I haven't bought some for so long and I don't need any more they're probably a hundred dollars plus these days.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:05

Oh yeah oh yeah yeah uh even a stag roll uh I've seen some like Randall quality um uh stag rolls that are going for $250 plus wow uh so yeah I mean the uh stag market's changed especially since that the uh stag embargo has gone in place uh in India so oh yeah and it's so hard to get good stuff yeah I mean yeah and uh mammoth I mean especially with all the stuff that's gone in on with Russia and Ukraine and everything it's really uh stopped up the uh uh export pipes with uh mammoth uh and all the dredging stuff that they were doing so that those prices are getting yeah so yeah I mean it's it's interesting how you go from like two or three dollars for a really good set of stag up to two hundred and fifty dollars for you know I mean good stag but it's not like like insane popcorn you know not like you could see I I I I have some vintage uh I said you know vintage uh stag from you know probably the 70s you know late late late 70s early 80s and like the comparison is just not there it's like a phenomenal stag yeah maybe one maybe one day I'll I'll make something out of it but I don't I only have a few pieces so yeah do it make somebody happy only yourself. Yeah maybe maybe I'll make something for myself but um yeah one of the things that uh I like to ask everybody who comes on is you know if there's like a uh like some type of advice that you can give to you know new and uh and upcoming makers just based on your vast experience and everything what would that be like any words of words of wisdom?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:52

Well as in years gone by I would say don't quit your day job you know I used to say if you s if you're gonna make knives plan on three years until you get paid anything you have to just give a lot of them away or sell them for very low prices and which is not a bad thing because you're getting if you sell it for anything you're getting paid to learn how to do it, you know? Patience is great. You're not gonna sell any nice if you think yours is so good that you can get a thousand dollars for a hundred right now or two thousand or whatever. Uh if you get a hundred dollars you're pretty well paid for your work. Especially since you're you're being paid to do the work. Um if you can find a friend or a knife maker who'll let you watch him that'll be a d drastic

SPEAKER_01 1:06:00

Uh help.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:03

Um I'm to the point I can't do that anymore. Um I'm not in the shop every day really and uh less patient than I used to be. And uh that equipment is deadly, you know. It's a different world than when they haven't started us guys. We could have cut off a finger and gone to the doctor and got it fixed, and that'd pretty much be it. These days you get sued for everything you have. Maybe I'm being too grumpy about it, but no, I mean you're right.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:45

I I mean if in the in these days if you're if you're inviting people into your shop, you either take a real risk or you have to carry liability insurance. Which makes it I mean which makes it a a humongous endeavor, because even if you're running a small like sole proprietorship business to maintain uh insurance and everything on it, in addition with all the other shop costs, I mean it can get expensive just to be a hobby a hobby, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:11

Yeah. Anyway, there are guys who offer knife making classes and they're not cheap, but uh if you want quality work, you it's worth the worth the cost. It'll save you years of experimentation. Uh I haven't met many knife makers that don't welcome newcomers into the business, whatever the stage they're in, whether they're brand new or they've been making knives for a year or so or whatever. It's still a good good group of men, women organizations. It's not like it used to be in many ways, but uh I suspect the small clubs are probably still like that to some degree, but the bigger organization you get, the more the less personal it becomes, I think. Lifelong friends can be a result of knife making just just because you're involved with people. Great people. Um there are lots of videos out. I used to have a video, but uh got to the point where the producer wasn't making them anymore, so that's kinda down the twos.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:44

Yeah. Do you still do you still own the rights to that? Or like who who owns the rights to your video that you made?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:50

I had the copyright, but I don't have the record anymore.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:53

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:55

So I could loan a loan a copy out, maybe, but that you know, I can't sell them. And I don't have copies. I would just I just have a link. So uh business gets involved when trouble things happen, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:19

Oh yeah. Yeah, that's uh something that like uh we uh Chris Crawford and I uh founded this podcast together, and he does a lot of uh uh videos with other makers uh and shares royalties and does the distribution and everything like that. And uh I I can imagine that he uh he's encountered quite a bit of uh the like how how to finesse all that where he uh you know it's fair for everybody involved and he can maintain the integrity of the videos and whatnot. So uh and uh just about everything in this craft, I mean, we all age out at some point in time, so it kind of becomes difficult when you're talking about videos that are made, you know, 15, 20 plus years ago, uh still being uh like who who even remembers who has the copyright and who has permission to share what and everything. But I get that.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:08

As far as new makers go, if you can get certainly get to shows, you can learn anything you want there from anybody to ask virtually, you know, how do you do this, how do you do that? There's a few that think they have the best secret in the world they won't share, but not many. That's probably one of the best things you can do. You can talk to those who do do this the uh classes at many knife shows and get that hook up done or find out what the best video is, or if they're available or uh and you can make a friend who's be glad to show you everything you need to want and all two. Don't be afraid to ask. If they say no, then there's a table next to you.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:07

Well, that's something uh for everybody listening, uh don't inundate Steve with a bunch of uh unqualified questions, but especially when it comes to how to uh how to do certain operations on Loveless style patterns and everything. I've picked your braid a few times, and you know, when you're talking to somebody who is a um probably made more of those things than anybody, um uh it's it's always good to get the information from the horse's mouth on exactly what needs to be done in order to get a historical representation of the blades, right? So um are you still uh are you still open for people to uh to chat with you online if they have specific questions about those things?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:56

I'm not hoping for it because I'm not a very fast typer, but I I never turned anybody down, I don't think. You know, there are great great guys that I've worked with, uh John Young or Ricardo Villardi or Mitch Jenkins or uh Europe or Packy, he just does pictures now, but uh uh Charlie Benica his knives are the best of the best in the way he does them. Uh it's exciting whenever I see one of those guys' work or some of their work. So uh any serious question, I'd be happy to talk to them. But I don't have not for hours, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:02

Yeah, no. So qualifier, be respectful of his time, don't ask unqual qualified questions, and he might take a lot a while to respond to it because I mean, even even when I talk to you online, I might I I just start to ticker and I'm like, what was the last time uh I got a response from you on something? And uh sometimes it's uh many days.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:23

And it's 74, so one might even just forget about you.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:31

Yeah, something like yeah. I think everybody has to treat you with a little bit of grace. Uh you're you definitely have your you're you have your retirement to enjoy, right? I mean, like if people need to stop talking to you all the time about knives and maybe about can't camping or one of the other uh many facets of retirement you're enjoying.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:52

Family, grandkids. You know, uh boy. I'm thinking of the Blade magazine and knives. Knife magazine. As well as others they go into some great detail and specifics sometimes. Um don't don't let those things go by. There are some books that are quite well done. Um I'm being encouraged to make another video that I can handle my by myself, you know, as far as distribution and and everything instead of counting on somebody that decides they're not gonna pay you royalties and decides they're not gonna make any money. Like that, but uh glad to talk to people.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:54

Yeah. Well, I mean, I'd encourage you. I you know, here's the deal with uh it's the same concept with like podcasting, right? Um there are so many aspects of technology that make it really obtainable to do your own uh publishing work with books and written word and uh uh recording and distribution with with uh videos. So if you have the time and you can even just collect all the raw footage and have somebody edit it or get you know one of your uh kids kids' kids to edit or something like that, then you can really easily set it up uh and uh they you know just call it putting it behind like a paywall so somebody has to you know buy the individual piece. So I mean you ever you ever get interested in any of that stuff, uh talk to Chris Crawford because he has some infrastructure type of uh uh setups where you could you know pick his brain on it. But I mean, you know, especially if you're if you're making long videos, um then it's one thing, but if you're breaking up certain operations and doing uh smaller uh tutorials and stuff, you could do that and you know kind of pass that knowledge along. Sure. It's definitely way more obtainable now than it used to be, where you you have a a long long production cycle to get anything done and then have to burn CDs or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:13

Oh yeah. Well we have we have that ability in our family as far as making that video, no problem at all. Of course, these days the kids in high school have that ability.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:30

Yeah, it's amazing what you can do on your phone alone.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:34

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:36

Well, um, Steve, I'm sure you have uh a life to get back to. Um I really it it means a lot to me that you spent the time uh talking to me and uh and you know giving these words of advice and some of your history to the listeners. I was gonna mention you're more than uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:54

Take any knife advice you can get. I don't sorry to interrupt you, but this is a thought just came to mind. I have a nephew once removed, or second nephew, I don't know, Chad Nell. He came up and he wanted to make knives, and he was doing a great job with straight knives. And I don't know if he ever makes a straight knife anymore. He's evolved or gone around and he's makes super line rocks, you know. Um I'm not making a hibbon knife anymore at all, but every knife I make is a hibb, it's got hibbon in it. And you don't don't decide I'm just gonna make loveless knives, period, because you're stunting your growth. You know, take whatever you can get, I guess, as far as knife business and knife practices. And thank the Lord for your for the blessings he gives you, because none of it's none of it's you, it's all him. And I appreciate you taking all this time. We're over time, probably right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:03

No. We're it's uh as long as it takes, that's as much time as uh we dedicate to it on this on these things. So I I really appreciate it. I mean, that's uh when I think about that type of advice, uh, I don't just take experiences even from knife makers and advice, I take it from uh machinists that I admire and in jewelry um and my experiences in there and some of the work that I even do in IT on how I lay out certain processes, like you know, the cross your cross-disciplinary um experience um helps a lot. And I I think that you know as you're learning and you're trying to apply it to your individual process, it's important. So I mean I learned things from a lot of guys that are more machinist-minded, but they're knife makers, sure. Or ones that um you know they've they're in art knives and uh in I guess the aesthetic, and some are in fit and finish and whatnot more than others. And I those moments where they can share with me like little tidbits of how how they think about something really just opens my brain to how I can apply that in my own shop, and uh uh it's invaluable to me.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:17

Dorothy used to call that building categories and teaching kids. Doesn't matter what you put in there, it's it's gonna be useful sometime somewhere. If you put good stuff in, you'll be glad it's there when you'll be doing this job, and the thought will come to you. This would be a lot easier if I did it the way Buster told me 20 years ago, you know. And uh we're thinking along the same line, but I'll be quiet and appreciate you. You're doing a good thing, you know. Uh Jim Sornberger, I told you he's writing a history, and I don't know if you've talked to him, but that will be invaluable in time, both of your works.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:06

Yes, sir. Yeah, I uh when when he gets back in country, I saw they have the Solvang show, and then he's gonna be out in I think Indonesia for a few months. Oh, he loves it, yeah. Yeah, and so when he gets back, we're gonna try to sync back up. And I I would I I imagine I'm gonna have multiple uh episodes where I'm trying to pick his brains, but uh we'll just have to see how uh how all that plays out. But yeah, yeah, he's on my list too. I'll like to get uh Delon on at some point if she has time. A lot of other people, you know. It's like there's but there's only so much time to schedule uh time, and it's mostly um it's mostly being respectful of of your time. Uh so you know, we'll we'll see how this goes. Like Lord willing, I'll I'll be able to have you know all you uh makers on and get to spend some time uh to share share you with the world. Uh but um I'm definitely always looking for um more opportunities to record things and ask questions and uh you know at least play the fool so that way I can uh ask questions that maybe uh everybody else wants to know as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:14

That's important, you know. You if you already know everything about making knives, and that's all you can talk about is the the end result. It's not gonna help Johnny with his brand new grinder do much. That's stuff that will help everybody. Appreciate you.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:35

Yeah, absolutely. Well, um thank you again. I really appreciate it. And uh, you know, if you ever want to hop on any other time, you're more than welcome to. Okay. All right, thanks, Steve. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:47

Thank you. Take care. Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:54

Thank you for listening to another episode of the Good Old Blades Podcast. Remember that you were loved and God bless.