SPEAKER_02 0:05

Welcome to the Good Old Blades Podcast. I am your host, Aaron LeVere. And join me as we talk to other knife makers and everything. Thank you for listening in again to the Good Old Blades Podcast. I am your host, Aaron Levere, and I am joined by STA Custom Knives Artisan uh Spencer Applin. Now, um right previous to us uh starting the recording, uh I pronounced it wrong and I said Al Alpin, and uh Spencer reminded me this Applin. So if you look at his name, um I encourage everybody to actually pronounce it correctly because I was wrong at first and it has to be noted, even though we didn't have it uh actually part as part of this episode. But um the reason why I wanted to have Spencer on is because uh I I've been following him for a long time, um, and I've I've always associated his work in knives uh to the way that the old masters would sculpt uh stone and marble. Uh you know, he does just a superb job of of applying his particular uh flavor of artisandry to to knives. And also we have a lot in common with uh having family members with uh various types of disabilities and you know how uh we uh manage being the heads of the households and uh and working with them. And you know, Spencer, it's uh it's a real pleasure to have you on the on the podcast and to uh talk about you and your life, and I I just really appreciate you.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Well I got to meet you and your your uh daughter at Blazeho, Texas, and I just fell in love with her. I mean, she's such a um uh cerebral person, even though she's a little adult is what she is, and I'm used to that because my wife and son have osteogenis imperfecta, and so they never really get to be a kid either. And so it was one of those deals where I recognized it immediately, you know, they have different uh disabilities, but you can see it, you know, that the intelligence beyond the disability, you know, and so it just warmed my heart. Now that was the highlight of my show, you know. Getting to uh you know, to actually chat with Steve Schwarzer and uh several other uh makers there that I've always looked upon was was not it. Your daughter was, you know, that literally made my show, and so it was just you're seeing that intelligence in somebody that's so tiny, you know, and it just warmed my heart. I mean, it's just I'm a sucker for that. So um it just the way I am. Everybody looks at me, and and I've got resting bitch face real bad, so I always look like I'm angry, and that's not the case. No, and uh, she wasn't scared of me at all. So that was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 2:59

Yeah, uh for better or for worse, Evelyn uh most of the time does not know a stranger and uh she's very inquisitive. But you know, I never it's interesting to me, I think, that I I've never um interacted with you because it's been a few shows that we've seen each other. Um and uh anytime I've just come by and maybe looked at your stuff and have asked a few questions. Um I've never gotten the idea that you were any less than uh warm and inviting and knowledgeable and willing to talk to anybody. So I don't, you know, I I I've always thought that you were uh that way, and I'm sure that Evelyn saw that as well.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Yeah. And uh, but no, she's just adorable and so smart and so inquisitive about everything, wanting to learn, you know, she's just a sponge, and uh my son's the same way, and so I was seeing uh my son through her in many ways, even though he's much older than her now. My son turns 30 uh next month. But anyway, it's just I I've been around it um since me and my wife met, and um it's one of the things I've never seen the disability. I don't see disabilities, I see personalities, and with them having so much to to overcome makes them a more beautiful person, I think. You know, so I'm very much attracted to that. Um and it's the the want to the the hunger for knowledge that they have is a lot of like what I have, you know, in my craft and pretty much anything I do, I've always done it to the highest level I could. Um partly because of my upbringing with my father. I don't have a military background, but my father was as close as you could have to being in the military, I think. And um, so it was just part of it, you know, is mediocre mediocrity was never an accepted trait you could have. You know, it was um it was never even a thought. There was always this you're always on this journey for knowledge, you know. So um staying and for one thing about the way I do things is I don't look for help. Um I look look for inspiration, but I don't want the easy road. Which goes totally against a lot of what other people want, but it's the only way to really be unique in my view of it anyway. But um that's for me it's it's trying to stand apart instead of blending in. That's that's the direction I've gone with.

SPEAKER_02 5:45

Yeah, which I that interests me uh for sure, because I I can't honestly say that there's that there's anybody that I see making knives quite like you. Um and I I I that's something that I kind of want to unpack a little bit. Like in in your journey through making knives, um, what led you down the path of what you do today and the way that you do it?

SPEAKER_00 6:11

There was two makers, well, it's one of two, but two. Uh I've never met either one of them, never talked to either one of them, but they were um in the 80s, they were in the magazines constantly, or at least it appeared to be to me. And uh Virgil England was one, and he had this organic uh style that was creature-like, you know, it's still a knife or a mace or uh whatever he was working on, or a scepter, but it had these characteristics, each piece was its own entity, and I fell in love with that idea, and then the other one was uh Pierre Reverde and uh him and his wife, the work that they do, and uh with a lot of the trick fullering and uh stuff that they did. That was the two uh things that you know that you did not have to have a meal to do it, and because of the way he did his fullering, it would be very difficult to do it with a meal. I like the hands handmade, act like I catch so much crap from people about signing my blades because my signature is not that great. But I and I've always been looking for a better way to clean it up, but the knife is handmade, and I don't want to just put a stamp on it, and um but in my opinion, if it's gonna be handmade, it should be signed by hand. Yeah, I mean, it's just uh one of my uh oh pet peeves being hard-headed, I guess. Uh I don't have a problem with other people doing stamps, just for me, my work, I want it signed, you know, and uh you can't copy it. There's nobody else got that bad a handwriting. So but that's just me. It just I I want it to be uh skilled labor. I don't um there's things that I I have discovered that make me faster, but it doesn't take away from it being done by hand, it still requires a skill. Um the skill it has to be really the the main skill is is controlling your body. Um because being able to apply apply the right amount of pressure or as little of pressure as possible to where the bit or the burr does what you wanting it to do, and uh and not trying to think so much about it, just doing it more if it's a feel. That's like this this the designs that I do are not intended to look like a bird or a fish or whatever. It's it's pretty much I'm wanting to give it a character that makes you see something in it that it's and it invokes an emotional response, good or bad, you know. It may be going that's horrible, whatever it made you think, you know, gave you you know, and it made you feel something, and uh but for me that's the passion is creating something that somebody hasn't seen that version of. Um, because it doesn't have to be completely original, uh, because I mean just about every design has been done as far as silhouettes go, but it's all the details makes it unique. And always pushing it. See, I have a few students that I have taught the carving to, and I've changed the way I teach where it's not this is how you do something, more in the line of this is the thought process I had when I did this, and so trying to develop their brain to connect the pathways to where they can create their own knowledge and develop beyond what I've taught them instead of this is uh the 26th letters in the alphabet. This way, here you have an alphabet that is infinite in uh letters. Um, I I want them to be able to develop and go beyond me when I'm past, not just have a certain limit to their knowledge level. And so the difference that I teach is to put it in a simple term, is you I'm not teaching a regurgitated knowledge, I am teaching a thought process and how to can how to how to create knowledge instead of how to regurgitate knowledge, if that makes any sense at all. And uh that's come over time. It didn't start out that way. When I first started teaching, it was this is how I'm doing this at this time, but over the last 10 years, and really it ain't even been 10 years, I started carving steel in the fall of 2015. And um I had seen a maker by the name of uh Brian Chovanik or Chauvenik. Uh he's an Aussie maker that lives in Slovakia, and um he had a sweat plunge line that was unique to him from what I had experienced, and I didn't want to copy what he was doing, I wanted to create my own. I did not realize that just something as simple as a plunge line could become a focal point. And because it's not that I'm friends with the guy or even like the fellow, but I could appreciate him as an artist and what he had done. And um, so it was one of these deals to where it got me to thinking that if a plunge line can be a focal point, everything can be a focal point, and that just about made my head explode. You know, we've always been taught that what's a plunge line? Well, it's where you start grinding, and yet it needs to be clean, it needs to be even, all this kind of stuff. But why does it have to be just that? And for me, that was one of these head scratchers that was like, well, hell, if if you know, if a plunge line can be, how about a fuller? You know, how about uh anything in like where your your plunge lines meet? Why can't that be a focal point? I mean, it would just so and so I started experimenting with all those points and places, the spine, not doing file work because it was done so much. Anything I had seen done a whole lot, I avoided. And uh, because again, you're trying to create uniqueness, and so the easy path would be to go follow a trend. And uh, but I thought I was gonna be smart, I was gonna be okay, I'm be doing something nobody else has been doing or not done often, and done in a way that I'll be popular in no time. Well, there was there's no supply, there's no demand. It was one of these like oh crap, you know. Uh I made something unique, but I'm the only one there that's enjoying it, you know. And uh it was sort of a backfire type deal, but and then you do stuff and you don't realize anybody's watching, you know. You're not getting any feedback, and so it's you know, and for me as a maker, the collectors didn't learn from me, they learned from the response from the makers. Okay, when you're doing an uh uh altered plunge, the makers just see, well, it hits a different plunge line, it's the response of the makers going, how in the heck did you do that? That's incredible, never seen that done before. The the collectors learned from the response of the maker, and um so it was just something for me. I didn't know whether to keep doing it or throw it by the wayside because you know you're trying to fast track, you know, becoming popular, you know, because that's how you get to where this uh business becomes uh profitable. And um, but anyway, it was just a trip, and it's I'm still on it. It's and now it's the whole point is to stay ahead of my employee, and not my employees, but my uh my students, because uh Pete uh Sloan from Sloan Custom Knives, and then Jordan Bartholot from um JB Blades are two phenomenal craftsmen, and so and they're doing like Jordan primarily does chef's knives, but he does fighters and EDCs too, and then Pete is not retired yet, and so he's a school teacher, and he's got nine kids. He's got uh five that are adopted, I think, or six, and then um so he's part-time, he gets to do a couple of uh uh uh hours a weekend, is it, and um, but he's a phenomenal maker too, and he's he's been growing faster than after I've gotten Jordan as a teacher because then he had some competition, and so I kind of get a kick out of that. And um, but anyway, they've become really good craftsmen and they've always been great people, and so that's who I who I was attracted to them to teach them was because of the what kind of person they were, not how good of a maker they were. Um, because if you're not that good of a maker, you can be taught if you have the right brain set so or mindset. But at any rate, that's about it for that question. I think I've run it to death. You ain't never gonna get taught.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

No, it's fine. It's fine. I mean, I'm sure we if you if you give us enough time together, I'll get some words and edge wise. Maybe. Um, well, uh, you know, something uh I I honestly when I when I look at your work, it's hard for me to wrap my head around the technique uh that's actually required to get to a place where you're um where you are carving metal, right? So um can you describe uh can you describe to our listeners uh because it's it's it's difficult uh just to uh um imagine your work without seeing it. And so I encourage everybody to look up um uh Spencer's social media and actually see his his product. And it uh I I'm I'm willing to bet a lot of people have, especially if they listen to this show. Um but uh what at what point in time do you um transition from just making a knife to actually uh adding in your sculpting to that to make it the final product?

SPEAKER_00 17:06

Okay, let me understand the question. Today when I do that, or when did I when did I have the desire to start carving the blade? Is that what I'm trying to understand the question?

SPEAKER_02 17:19

Oh no, yeah, so what I'm asking is about like technique specifically. Like uh, you know, because every I think what what distinguishes your knife making technique is that it's not it's not just a knife, right? It's a it's it's a sculpted knife. Like it's a it is uh it it well doesn't you know that there's multiple steps beyond what the average knife maker is doing, uh without disclosing too much of your technique and everything, I guess, but I don't have to worry about that. What what do you like what what process do you go through to get from the the very uh onset of a blade, like uh uh you know uh profile on everything to where you're carving everything?

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Um for me, it's it depends if I'm making an order or if I'm just creating. I love I would love to get to a point where I could just create what I want. Um I'm not there yet. Uh, but a lot of my clientele, the order starts like this here. I want um a 10 and a half inch blade, I want to, I want to I want it to be a fighter or a buoy style, I want a waller cyber handle, or I want wood, whatever. I want nickel, nickel, hardware, copper, whatever. I like big guards, I like little guards, I like I want pomos with a lot of you know flair, whatever. They give me a brief description, and um, or they'll say they like copper mile or they like just bright nickel or whatever, other like a dark sinister, like what is the mood of the blade, and then I'll run with it from there. Because it's never to meet their expectation, it's always to exceed their expectation, and so it gives me a lot of creative freedom. When when I when I have when they tie my hands, I I don't like doing the build because then all these ideas rush into me because I in the beginning I don't know what it's gonna look like either. I have an idea, and it's sort of like looking through fog, and over the years it's gotten a little bit clearer and a little bit clearer. But I start with the handle material, and then that gives me a little bit of inspiration because sometimes it has patterning or whatever, and it goes with a color scheme. Um, like if I'm doing stag or if I'm doing uh walrus ivory that has the browns and the copper colors and stuff in it, it I want to use steel that has we're really blessed now to have options of like copper mai and bronze my and um bright nickel in the mix and be able to have all three for that matter. Um, so it gives you a lot larger color palette, even for your steel, and so you can really tell a story pretty well. Um, and so for me it's okay, okay. Then the blade style, depending on the style, like a nest muck gives you certain windows behind your plunge line. However, I alter the plunge line, behind it's gonna leave a certain shape or whatever. That's gonna tell me, okay, I can only do so many things in this area without having to come up with something totally unique, which takes sometimes a little bit longer. Sometimes I just happen to see it, um, and then it's just bulking out the material. Then how deep do you go? I've I've started out, you don't have to go as deep, depending on the steel, if you radius things just right, because what happens is it plays light off of it to make it look deeper or shallower. A lot of the people that see the knife think that the the carving sticks up a quarter of an inch, and most of the times it's a 32nd to a sixteenth if it's deep. Uh, I have gone deeper than that to where it's like a sixteenth is really, really deep to three thirty second on something really, really deep. Um, but it's not necessary in most cases because the carving is not see, I'm using a lot thicker steel than this norm. And so I'm not just giving it, you know, character, I'm also getting rid of weight. What is it? What's a fuller for? It's to remove mass without sacrificing strength. Well, I'm doing that in a decorative way also in the carving. Um reducing drag coefficient is another thing that I'm also doing. It has multiple reasons for doing it, but you're doing it in a decorative way. So you're not in here. So I never almost never put form over function. It's always done in a trick way to where it actually enhances performance. Less drag coefficient, more balance to the blade, makes a faster blade, uh, getting rid of weight. Even like when I did the uh um it won, what was that, 2018? Uh Chad Nichols Best Fighter. It was uh the Night King, it was um a dragon skull of uh skull head uh for pommel, and I had to I carved it out of a solid piece of nickel and then had to hollow it out, and I just do a creative uh anchor system on it where it had dual anchors uh where I retained the strength, but I was able to dial the balance in even with that massive look like a huge chunk of uh nickel for pommel, but I was able to balance it out, and so uh I got the weight just right to it was a very fast blade. Uh the the subhelt I just finished and all the copper, same thing. Um it's you're not just making a piece that's just gonna sit there and be looked at. It could be used and used well. Um they're not, they're they're collector's items, they're investment grade, but it's one of those deals in my mind. If it never needs to be used, could be, you know, and and not just it'd work, but it would perform at its highest level. So uh making sure the heat treats dead on, uh geometry is on on par, everything is there, um is super critical. I and it's it's one of these deals that me and Jordan and Pete always pick at each other about. It's like we're the only ones that's gonna see this flaw, but I I can't leave it there. You know, one some little radius, maybe a little bit sharp. Um like this is my personal knife. It was the Eureka moment until late. It was uh I finished it in the first week of December uh 2015. And it was the first, other than an S plunge line, which was a recurve plunge line, somebody said, Oh, that's an S. I said, Yeah, yeah, that's it. Um, this was my first attempt at flames, and um, and it's horrible, but it's not about how well I executed it. It was that stepping stone, and that was the last time that I had a lull that I didn't have uh I didn't have orders, I didn't have uh I wasn't able to catch up after that. And so that night there was never to be sold, and uh I put it up for seven, had so many hours in it, like each side had eight hours. Uh no, that was more than that, probably 30 hours on each side, and um and now I could do that, and that same amount of carving, two and a half, three hours per side.

SPEAKER_02 25:16

That's pretty incredible, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

But it I've changed techniques, they they've constantly evolved. It's like I've got to get faster. It's that's the whole thing. There's no one to ask for help on this stuff because you're you're doing things. I'm sure there's somebody somewhere, but where? You know, and to me, it's the fun of figuring it out. I mean, I'll get I'll I'll be like a little school kid, just giddy as hell because I I I ordered the one thing, got the wrong thing, and the wrong thing works better than what I had originally ordered. You know, so it's just thumb-luck sometimes, meant to be, whatever you want to call it. But to me, that's the fun part of it. It's just the figuring it out process. There is no answers to the test. It's you gotta figure it out and overcome adversity as you see it.

SPEAKER_02 26:07

You know, I you know, um what I'm thinking about is that you know, it's the same way uh I I think that uh I don't have to make a tie-in with disability. I'm going to make it because it's like it's it's important for people to understand. Um I uh found out that I had type 1 diabetes at 16. Um and and I was like the my my cousin had it, but he had it when he was real young. And so I I found out because I got sick, and then I ended up uh in the hospital, almost died from it. And um out the other side, I was like, you know, all the things that I enjoyed in life uh to that point were then things that I couldn't, you know, like being able to go to for a pizza party or eat a cake or whatever. You know it's it's a fundamental disability because it's related with what you eat, right? And and my entire world was turned upside down, and I had to navigate through a space being still fairly young, where I didn't really understand uh the rules. And um I I I was able to do pretty well with that. You know, I didn't I wasn't in a a circle where I dealt with a lot of disability until my daughter was born. And then I was kind of forced again into that situation where um you know I I loved her from the moment that I saw her. Um and her her heart condition and everything was never seemed like a mountain that was too high to climb, or that I wasn't willing to do. And I think that li life in with diabetes and dealing with um of that form of disability, because it was it was an autoimmune disease, it wasn't weight related, right? Um but uh it it helped to to prepare me for uh to appreciate my daughter in a way that I don't think that I would have otherwise. Like she never it never seemed to me like anything that we were going through was was a burden. It always seemed like it was a blessing. Every day was a blessing, every day was a gift. And uh I I think that sometimes like life life turns you like uh sculpts your mind and your spirit in a way that you uh you can then be prepared for a certain type of purpose. And every time I talk to you, I I'm constantly reminded that um you are very receptive towards turning um situations that other people would probably just it would be the end of their day and it would really ruin them into a situation of opportunity, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:53

I we gotta rewind growing up and everything, we didn't have nothing, we were poor. Or we uh we were we were told we were poor. We were actually pretty blessed. We ate good, we were loved, um never really needed for anything, wanted for stuff, but never needed for anything. Uh we always had electricity and you know it was always fed. We may not have got gifts at Christmas, but we had each other and we ate real good. And so it gave uh gave me a whole different outlook on that. But then I didn't realize it until m many years later that I had th thyroid issues. Well that one of the side effects of thyroid issues is depression. And for me it would piss me off because I'd get depressed when everything was good. When I had nothing to be depressed about, I'd be depressed suicidal attack. And um and then I'd move to Texas and uh got introduced to the lady that was gonna be my wife. And uh because my cousin's girlfriend had caught me with a pistol in my mouth a few days before. And um she introduced me and my wife, or future wife. And uh here's this little woman that's two foot eleven and just a firecracker, okay. And for me it was I've always been an o overthinker, and so I'm here thinking like, you know, you get a dater that you know that you don't you need to think about it because it's not something you you do just lightly to where it could be a whim for a week or two or whatever. And so I mean I go through all the stuff in my head, I'm like, okay, I can marry her. You know, I before I agreed to date her, I agreed, you know, without you know, something happening, you know, family hating me or whatever, or some personality trait I didn't know about. I was like, I can marry this person. And um and when me and her, after eight hours of conversation, knew each other better than me and my ex did after two years and eight months. I mean, it was just one of those deals. And for me, it was one of these deals when I saw her, it's like, what the hell are you whining about? You know, and then with her, we could talk about anything, and you know, people go, Oh, I'm so sorry you can't walk. Because he goes, Well, I'm so sorry you can't fly. I ain't never been able to fly, she goes, I ain't never been able to walk. I'm not missing anything. He said not just that, it gives me a bond. You know, my boyfriend became became husband, would carry me, and we were closer because of it. It's her talking. You know, you know, because I mean I would pick her up. I used to get powered up there, and so I'd pick her, she weighed 35 pounds when we were dating. I pick her up, we go to the mall, we go to the movies. I'd forget the wheelchair because it was a mute point. It was at home, she wasn't in the wheelchair. And so it'd be one of those deals. I'd grab her and take her, we go to the movies or whatever. I was poor as hell. But we go to the dollar show, eat at Taco Bell, and she was, you know, I tell everybody the reason I married her was because she was cheap dates. You know, I could take her a soft taco and a small drink, and she may not be able to finish it, you know. I'm like, shit, this is it. You don't wear shoes, you know. So I'm like, damn, cheap. And uh and I'm a pain in the ass, and she can't whoop my ass. So I mean that's another plus. And so it just was meant to be. And um, but it was just we've always been. I mean, don't get me wrong, we fight. We have disagreements and other things, but we never go to bed mad at each other. And she's made me the man I am today. You know, and so it's having to figure out how to like with our son, when we found out we were pregnant, we were told we couldn't have kids, so we threw cough into the wind. Months later, we're pregnant. And uh well, she denied it. Like, I said, I think you're pregnant because I'm just getting fat if you're good cooking. And I'm like, Well, the best of my knowledge is when you get fat, you get an innie, not an outie, what it comes to the belly button. I said, You're getting an outie. And I'm just fat. Oh, a month or so goes by, and I come home from work and work in construction in Baytown, and her and her girlfriend, her best friend, which was my roommate's girlfriend, um, was there. And I walk in the door and they're both squalling. You need to sit down. I'm like, I'm assuming somebody died. And uh, you need to sit down, I'm like, I'm tired. It's we were having a summer like we are now, hot as Hades. And uh I finally get them to tell me what the deal was, and she goes, I'm pregnant. I was like, Well, no shit, been telling you that forever. She said, I thought you'd be mad. I'm like, for what? We both wanted kids. It was just and so we were told we had a 50-50 chance of him uh him or her having the same bone disease. I knew, I just knew he was gonna have it, or she and uh to me it was never I I wasn't shocked, okay. She was devastated because to in her mind, she gave it to him. You know, and and her knowing the hell that she went through. Because before they reach puberty, they break her knowing you can't imagine. I've oh I've had people if it wouldn't be for some really good doctors, they'd have both been taken away from me. Um all the breaks. Well, you know, well, how'd they break? Well, he sneezed. Um, I would I just put my hand on the bed to change the diaper and took the support out from the knee by pushing on the bed and his finger broke. You know, it's just that easy to break. So they've had hundreds and hundreds of broke bones. Uh my son's had numerous surgeries. He's had the bones taken out of both lower legs, cut into five pieces each, and took two inches out and then threaded them on steel rods and put them back in. And they did both of them at the same time. And did that twice.

unknown 35:25

Put them back in.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

And uh, so there's you know, what he's gonna, and when he came out of surgery, he was not worried about him. So he was worried about me and his mom. And when he comes out of the song, that's a trip. That's a mental trip. When he had the scoliosis surgery the first and second time. He was not worried about him, he was worried about us. Are we are we okay? And to me, that gutted me the whole time. But it gave me a whole new look on life. That's like the self-pity in this household is not allowed. Because we've seen the ones that need it, and we don't have it near as bad as they did. You know, when you go, if you ever get self-pity, go sit in a smoke pen at a hospital, especially like a trauma center like Herman here in Houston. And you'll find out you ain't got no problems. Real quick. You know, that's what that's what straightened us out big time. And um, but it was just it, I think everybody needs to go through it because there is no but it would be you have to go through adversity in life to to grow. You cannot appreciate anything that's good if you don't know what's bad. It would be boring as hell if you didn't have both. Anything that's good if you don't know what's bad, and so realizing that sometimes bad things are good things. So you know, it's that's the that's the kicker. And so just because something bad or you perceive it to be bad right now, maybe one of the best things. Like when I snap my Achilles on my left leg, it's I've always had a solution to the problem, and I had no solution, it was tripping me out because there were so many people depending upon me for a living. I was a commercial crab or I was a captain, and um, and I had a 30-minute drive back home, and that was seemed like three hours because I was trying to solve a problem that was not solvable, but I'd had heel spur problems on both feet, and that one it was death by a thousand cuts, and it finally snapped on the left leg, and then so they put me in what it was is not my Achilles didn't snap, the bone spur snapped off. It pulled it was actually like a broke bone, with the exception of one part of it that did actually snap, that the muscle ended up dying. But um, they put me in lifts on both legs, casted the left leg, but put me in lifts both like I was in the six-inch stilettos. Once the one time in my life for six months I had an ass. And so my wife was like, I like this. And uh, what I did was it actually ended up solving the problem with the other foot at the same time, and to where I don't really have that issue anymore. So it was a bright side to that. I mean, plus I found out that I was I was replaceable. They weren't as good as me, but they got the job done, and uh, which helped me realize that I could retire. And uh, so it was it's all for all bad things happen for a reason. I mean, it they may really suck the death of a loved one and all that kind of stuff, but you don't want to live forever. Can you imagine? Like, I've seen it, I've seen Miss Roberts 110 when she died. She outlived her husband, her all of her kids, her grandkids, and there was only two of her great grandkids that were still alive. All of her friends, everything. And what her biggest fear was is living forever. You know, so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:25

Well, I think it's a that's the thing. Yeah, I think it's important uh for people to understand because you you uh mentioned the medical term uh osteogenesis imperfecta, but a lot of people uh know that by brittle bone disease.

SPEAKER_00 39:40

Brittle bone disease. Yeah, they have type three.

SPEAKER_02 39:42

Yeah, and there's different there's different typing and things like that. And you know, when um when Evelyn was in the hospital with uh waiting on heart transplant, um she actually be because of all the diuretics and steroids and everything like that and the lack of mobility, uh she developed osteopenia. Um so some people are familiar with osteoporosis and the breakdown of bones, but uh osteopenia is like it's uh her her body was stripping out all the calcium from her bones that was stored up, and because of that, they became very brittle. And um she uh she was sitting on her on her bed uh playing and everything, and she would she would get in these little fits where she's like uh uh it would take her breath away and she would say, uh, my back. And we thought that it was something else. And I was and you know, there was something in me that was like this something that's not right. And so I I was like, you know, she keeps she she keeps talking about this, and it's in the same location. So she um I think she had uh uh an MRI done on her back, and they found out that she had actually broken her back it was a a compound uh uh like a compression fracture and it was causing her problems, and so she had to have a DEXA scan and everything to try to figure out that, and then we had to, you know, figure out how medically we could uh um counter the effects of the drugs and everything that she was on. And you know, now now she's doing well, but I can remember um I can remember how terrible I felt with the f with the fact that she had broken her back and and so many times she had just like screamed out in pain and everything, and I I thought that it was just either her throwing a fit or or her um acting out. And the moment that I I realized that my intuition was correct that something was wrong, but then that how severe it was, it really broke me.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

Um in in a way that's not hard to be broken by. Uh it's nobody will ever understand until they're in your situation, and um the stuff it's especially as a father. I mean, it uh it goes the same as a mother too, but um there's been uh nightmares with them of of seeing them fall and trying to catch them in the splatter. Um that's like when we had a scoliosis surgery done, we were you know I I see their bones are are like wet chalk. Now after reaching puberty, they they do stiffen up some. But um the thing was with them like with Lisa, it's she never had the scoliosis surgery, she had severe scoliosis. Um, but they she never had the surgery done, and so it affects her palm her her uh her breathing and all that kind of stuff. And it's um it's sort of like COPD, but it's strictly for people with OI that have the spinal the compression of the internal organs from the spinal collapse. Yeah, there's a thing her pulmonology is the top one in the in the United States since he knows of like four other people with OI that have the same thing, and um we're trying to prevent that from happening with Alex. So um here's my own doctor uh now you don't understand. I'm not mad at him about it because there's so much unknown that with him, he's the kind of doctor that's like, okay, we can try this here. If it doesn't work well, you know, we tried. And but just to leave it alone, it is it it it's a it's a it's worse of a crime to not try to fix something, and maybe it doesn't work, and you're back where you were in the beginning, versus you. Just to assume it's not gonna work. Okay, so um we agreed to the um the surgery, and Alex had been cut on a bunch already. Um mostly in his legs, and then um anywho, he'd about had enough of surgery and um he had his legs done twice, I think. Then we uh uh and they ended up wanting to do the the the spinal surgery. They went in there and we was in there for two weeks and never looked at the incision because it's only as sterile as the first time. Well, Houston had had a flood years before with a tropical storm, uh Allison had flooded the medical center. Well, they were still having trouble with uh waterborne bacteria in all the hospitals because this was done at Herman. And um any rate, we get home, and I'll try to keep this short because people want to talk about knives anyway. They don't want to talk about this, but it's it's it's one of these deals where um we get him home after two weeks, and the bandages weren't wanting to stick. I mean, it was like and we were told, you know, leave them on there as long as you can, as long as you can, but it was just like it was like sweating underneath it, and we keep our house cold. And I opened up the bandages and it was it was pulling away. You can see the metal hardware, and it was pulling away and it was green all the way around the perimeter. And one thing you cannot ever do is freak out in front of a kid because they're looking at you. Is it bad? And I'm like, Yeah, Lisa, you need to call uh Dr. Brock. We need to get in there. I just want him to look at this. No big deal. I'm looking at her and I'm like, it's bad. Just lip syncing it to her. And uh so the doctor's like, uh, you got overreacting. She said, No, I don't think I am. Yeah, he said, Well, just to ease your mind. He won't you come on in tomorrow, uh, this coming Monday. It is like a Saturday. We get him in there, and uh, we get us in a room, and he opens up the bandages and he looks at me. He goes, Let's step outside. He goes, We're operating today. I said, I don't know how we're gonna get him in. We'll have to wait until this is bad. I thought so. And um, so it was probably nine o'clock that night before everybody cleared out, and he'd end up getting his wife. His wife was also a surgeon. Uh, he ended up asking, pulling friends and favors from other uh surgeons. And he goes, If it's a if we're in there a long time, it's bad. He said, if we're in and out, it's good. Well, 45 minutes later, they'd come back out smiling from ear to ear. He said it was just on the surface. We was able to debree that, get it all taken care of. Um so he was in the hospital another two weeks for them to run um to find out what it was to where they could treat it. And then they end up having to give him Cypro, which is um it was a running joke because the bone disease, the more you break, the more dwarfed you become. It's not you don't always have dwarfism, but the more you break, that you either heal or grow, one or the other. So the if you ever see anybody that was really, really small, they stayed broke. Okay, and uh so anyway, uh he said, Well, it's it's gonna be hard to get these filled because in beagles it causes uh uh stunt stunts of growth in beagles. And uh he looked at I like, are you a beagle? No, and uh, but anyway, that ended up kicking it and he ended up healing up. But um it was it was a long recovery, and all the anchors they can't use screws, they use uh they use on us, they use what we call pedicle screws. On him, they had to use clips because the screws would just rip out and break bone and all that kind of stuff. All of it pulled out, and so but the scar tissue around it is what held it and it does support him somewhat. But he was three foot nine, and now he's three six, I think. So that's how much some collapse is in it. Yeah, but anyway, you see, you can't put me on a tangent like that there. I'll talk for hours.

SPEAKER_02 48:55

No, no. I mean I I think I'm I'm not trying to make a point with the show about knives so much as the life behind knives, right? And uh, and I don't think any one of us who has any experience in what we do, it's that's the sum total of what we are, right? I mean, and if if I if I'm doing a good job of talking to you and letting people see this like see you, um it's it's not the knives itself, it's like what makes the person that makes the knives, right?

SPEAKER_00 49:32

It's what it's what turned you into who you are.

SPEAKER_02 49:35

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 49:36

And uh it for for me, it was commercial fishing helped a lot about being able to visualize what you can't see. Um and like with my father, not everyone disappointing, even after he died. I just couldn't disappoint him. But then I've had several people that made their mark on me. Uh there was a jeweler, Roel Hens, uh Cuban, Cuban version of me, except he was better looking, damn it. And uh about the same height, same build. And uh he's about eight, nine years older than me, but he had this beautiful mind, and he helped direct me in my thought process, um, helped me get tunnel vision and what path I need to focus on, which was the carving of steel. Not I was wanting to get into to be able to do some engraving and all that kind of stuff, too. Like if I was carving an eye or whatever, I wanted to be able to put eyelashes, whatever. And he goes, You're thinking about all this wrong. He said, Anybody can carve a face. He said, But what I was even doing then to some degree was giving it personality, but not being, oh, that's a spider or this, oh, that's a flower, or whatever. It was leaving it open to interpretation, impressionistic or impressionism. Um, and so he said, Don't act, don't, don't put the period on it, or the exclamation point. He said, Let somebody else in there, you know, whoever sees it can say what it is to them, and so and that's why I have a hard time naming them. Some of them that they name themselves, some of them that don't. And um, but it was just trying to give them personality to where they're you know they're they're almost like a child, or um, you know, and so it meant a lot to me that way. I care a lot. I mean, I'm very passionate about my craft, and when I create something, I want to put the effort into it to where it wasn't just here's another one. I don't I don't enjoy making just a tool, you know. I I've made tons of them, but I want to give it character, I want to, you know, to where you know, when you see it, it it speaks to you, when you hold it, it speaks to you, when you use it, it speaks to you. And so that's not the trifecta is not hard to, I mean, not easy to achieve. And that was one of the things that was with Raul, he was like really pushing me in this direction without knowing what this direction was really going to turn out to be. Um, because I'd done some carving of pomels and that kind of stuff, and um, and so for me it was that, and then Mark Manley's a good friend of ours that was uh a machinist and ended up becoming Alex's uh one of his teachers. Um and his wife couldn't have kids, and so he ended up eventually becoming a school teacher. I said, now you got more kids than any damn buddy I know. And uh he finally retired, but he was uh trying to, you know, as as people we talk to each other and um and about different um paths that you can take in whatever you're doing, whether it's making a cup of coffee or um cutting grass or digging a hole or whatever, you can do it to a certain level and go, yeah, it's gotta work, or you can take it to another level. And you may be the only one that knows that you did that much effort into this because it could be just something totally mundane, it doesn't matter. It's one of these deals to where you're only given so much time on this planet, okay. How much of it are you gonna waste? You don't know how much time you have. You know, it's one of these deals to where you were gifted this ability to do a plethora of things. How much of it are you gonna half-ass, and how much of it are you actually gonna apply and do your best to? Whether it's being a father, a husband, you know, a boyfriend, a brother, a sister, an uncle, you know, whatever it is, you know, you have to make the this this decision of when it's your time you have any regrets, you know, and this is also a form of immortality, you know, to where you're leaving your mark. And it's not all about what you build, it's what it's the spark you put in another person's head, you know, it's that little girl that comes up to your table that just you can't disappoint her, you know. To me, that would have been a travesty. Uh it's understanding that you're not a small thing. Yeah, you are a grain of salt, you know, or a grain of sand on a beach, but that beach could not be as full without you. You see, and you do make a point, and you do make a per you are uh pertinent enough to make a difference, and uh it's when you never fail in trying, you only fail when you don't try, you don't put forth effort, you know. Um, that was for me was analyzing what other people have done for me, and it seemed you know, like I thank them, and they're like, why? I didn't do nothing. But you pointed me in a direction, you made me rethink the situation, you know. It's you didn't give me the answer. That's the the the thing you made me think, you know, to where I end up um coming to a different answer than what I thought I was looking for, you know, and sometimes they're not right, but sometimes they are, and sometimes it leads to a future date of you having another eureka moment about that causing this, it was a butterfly effect, you know. So it's like I wouldn't be who I am today without meeting her. That's like I would still be crabbing if it wouldn't be for her, or I'd be dead. Uh, but she wanted me to stop and well, I still could and follow my passion. Something I enjoyed doing, you know. Um and so I'm like, well, I'm not good enough to retire, she goes, we'll get good enough. And so I did. And uh, so it's that's that's the thing. It's if I if I leave anything when I'm gone, it's effort with enough effort you you can reward yourself and others. Okay, and it's all an effort. We can all do it, you know. It's it's not it's not about hard or easy. It's not hard. Maybe time consuming, but it's not hard. Nothing is hard, you know. Um it's time consuming, it may be frustrating, but it can be so rewarding finally figuring out a problem. You know, that's the thing, and that's what becomes addictive, is when you you see the struggle in between your ears, which we all do, we struggle, and then finally going getting the answer to that, figuring out a answer, not the answer, the a answer to that equation, and it's like, oh finally, and then you start thinking about well, what if I'd have done it this way? You know, and then that's the that's where I'm at now. It's there's a thousand ways to skin a cat, and so I do stuff certain ways, and it's like this is still taking me too long. There's gotta be a way I can do this faster, cleaner, and get from point A to point B a day quicker. And uh, so and that's like with these people in here, it's trying to I'm losing my mobility, but how can I overcome that to the point where I they're not having to do it out because of me? So it's all it's not a struggle every day, it uh you know a certain struggle, it's multiple struggles and it's just part of it. And it is it is it fun always? No, but we all have them. Everybody, you know, and so and without the struggles it would be boring as hell. I would hate to have an easy, easy life. To me, that would be horrible. It would be no fun in anything.

SPEAKER_02 59:19

Yeah, I've thought about that. You know, there's times um there's times when uh life has been real real hard, you know. And there's there's always this portion of me that's like um uh when when will things relax, right? Like it's uh it's not that they won't be like full of controversy or full of um drama of some sort, but can they just relax because I'm feeling like the weight weight of things uh quite a bit.

SPEAKER_00 59:49

And it's I get scared when everything's going good. Like yeah. Here we go. Yeah, it's really something that happened.

SPEAKER_02 59:58

Yeah, I totally agree. You know, like I I think this probably um for me the thing that I uh I'm not gonna say I I I hate it, but the thing that I feel makes me squirm a little bit is pity. Because um life is life uh life has just taught me to be able to have big shoulders and to do big things and to uh suffer. I and I and I wish in some ways it was a little bit easier to exist in a world where um you you could suffer in everything, and the first thing that you experience with other people who maybe don't suffer is pity, right? Um I mean I I get it, like there's sometimes that people look look at my life or whatever, uh, in all of its controversies and all of the many ways, and and the respect is something that comes out of it. It's like man, that that guy can withstand a lot or whatever. But I I by and large, the first thing that people think of is pity. And I it's the same way as like I I look at Evelyn and she has suffered so much, far greater than I have, and in in some ways. Um in all the ways that I think it matters, she suffered more. And yet she can sit there, she can go to a knife show, she can do something that's like it's a uh it's uh started as a me thing, but she loves to go to knife shows now. And she uh her she likes to look at handle material and she likes to get stickers and she's just like it's she's added an element to knives uh and knife making and going to shows that I wouldn't have had if I didn't invite her into that. Um and if she wasn't as interested in it.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:48

Well, it's it's it's daughter daddy time. Yeah. The thing is sympathy it's not allowed here. I mean, it's not really that's not accurate. Self-pity is not allowed here. Uh sympathy is definitely allowed here. Um it it's actually promoted here a lot. Uh it is but pitying somebody is not. Uh because when you see how bad it can be, don't pity us. That was why I didn't nobody knew that Lisa and Alex had this disease or anything forever. They could hear them in the background when I'd go live on my Sunday chats. They'd hear him in the background, you know, but or they'd talk to him on the phone, all this kind of stuff. But I never let anybody because I did not want anybody pitying me or buying my knives because you know it would help us out and all this kind of stuff. And um, and it was just, and then twenty in 2014 we went to Blade Show and they went with us, and oh my god, I was so afraid of them so open-minded. I mean, they're so oh at home, you know, there's there's no buffer, it's just you know, you got these two wildcats over there, and they're very opinionated, and I'm like, oh, please, please, please, please don't go around going, you suck, you suck, you suck. That was my fear, you know. And uh they did really good. And um kids they'd get a knife, they'd be looking at it, you know, and doing looking at them the way you're supposed to, and they'd go, You must know a knife maker. Lisa, no, I own one. So, and that was the first year we met uh Steve Schwarzer and uh Todd Beg and uh several of them. And um, but any rate, it was just that it was the highlight of Lisa to this day, if she could, would go to every knife show. She loves it. And um but it's just something that we did together. My wife supported me 100% and everything. My son did too. And uh, we've actually had a couple uh design collabs, me and my son have. But it's just it's one of these deals to where that's like when I seen your daughter, I did not pity you. I thought you were blessed because you have this beautiful child that's got this mind that she is just so incredible, it's unreal. And then until anybody, until anybody on here, you know, that I'm not kissing ass here. You you have to meet this girl. And she's just such a brilliant mind. Uh way above average intelligence, and uh, and so intuitive, and just listening to every word you say, and just um she's just a sponge when it comes to knowledge. My son was the same way, and that's when I I could see it and I recognized it immediately. You know, I didn't know if she had a disability or not, but that was it's normally the case because they never got to be a kid, you know. Uh I mean they've got it was always there, they're surrounded by adults all the time, so they're a miniature adult, but more inquisitive like a child, but you know, it was it was just incredible. It's one of these deals you'll never understand it unless you've been around it.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:43

So uh, but no, yeah, you're blessed to have her at even if God should say something happened to her and she passed over it, you'll have more of a relationship, better relationship with her than you might have had with a child with. Out the the disability. That's the thing because you've bonded more. You've had more of a bonding that stays there instead of going through a phase you know to where they're daddy's little girl, but then you know, you know, things change. Um the bond is is gonna be a lot tighter, a lot stronger. You know, that's like with me and my my wife and my son, same thing. Well we're very tight.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:29

But it's in unless you've experienced it, you'll never get it.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:34

You know, so you are very blessed.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:36

Oh, and I you know, I feel that it's not just it's not just like looking for um the the good out of a bad situation. I feel blessed because there's just so many things that really were on the trajectory to being the worst situation possible, and and and crisis was averted, you know. I I feel very, very, very blessed to have her in my life. And I I I feel blessed just to be, you know, to have her in a a time in my life where I think that I was I was ready to have her, right? Or or I was ready to be the kind of man and father that could protect her, um, that could help to educate her, um, that could uh be emotionally vulnerable and also strong for her. Like it happened all at a time where I just everything has just felt so natural with having her in my life that I you know it's I I have zero regrets about about anything that I've gone through with her.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:39

Well, that the one bit of advice I'd give you this year from my experience is don't ever kick yourself for making a decision with the best intentions and it not be the best. Okay, because she's still young, and uh, because that was like for me, I regretted basically forcing him to have this uh scoliosis surgery and uh it didn't do the po the doctor says it did some good, but he could have damn near killed it, okay. Um bad, I don't know if I could have lived with that. But it was one of these deals to where growing through time, realizing that you're doing the best you can. There's no book on this shit. You know, you do the best you can and and put thought into every decision, don't just you know you know be blind about it. But at the end of the day, you're human, you're not perfect, but as long as you're doing the best it's at it you can, you can't beat yourself up over a decision that may not have worked out perfect. Okay, you know, because they will consume you.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:05

Yeah. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:08

But it just is what it is. I mean, there's no uh there is no book on these none of none.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:14

Yeah. Well, and you know, like the whole transplant journey, you know, like they they when when you have kids with uh congenital heart defects like she had HLHS, uh, they they go through a set of like three surgeries, and uh the idea at least is that you're supposed to get the malformed heart to pump uh both sides uh and uh to do both like pumping and uh and circulation uh redraw, right? And the and you're supposed to like wait that out until your heart fails, basically, and then you get a transplant. So it it's when Evelyn was going through surgery and uh she had she had a tempanod and her heart failed, then they had to resuscitate her. Um she went septic and she almost died from that. It was like we were like we were like minutes away from losing her, um, and they were able to like pull her back. Grace of God and and just phenomenal doctors. Um all throughout that, you know, they tell you there are worse things um than dealing with this physiology where you try to make it work. You're like transplant is not a magic bullet that solves all of your problems. Um she's been through um uh they call it uh antibody mediated rejection uh once. And uh she's been through that once. We dealt with that last year. Um there's been many months and many like multiple uh hospital visits that just um they really kind of screw with everything, right? All the like nor like any any type of normalcy that you have, it screws with it. Um and I don't there was probably a point in time when I I thought, well, hey, is this decision really going to um I am I'm going to regret it? But it seems like all the decisions that I've I've made uh on her behalf have always ended up giving her a quality of life. And I mean that she's actually had a life and there's been some quality to it, right? Um because like the alternate is like you it's pretty selfish in some ways where you know uh she was diagnosed of what I think at 19 weeks in utero, and they said, hey, she has this issue and you guys could choose to abort her. Um and they were like, you know, there's lots of lots of parents to do. And I um like even though I'm divorced from my wife and everything, or you know, or ex-wife now and and whatnot, I do appreciate the fact that we both looked at each other and said, hey, abortion's not uh the path. It wasn't I I wouldn't say that it's not necessarily an option in the sense that I I didn't feel pressured to make that decision out of either religious or ethical reasons, right? Um but it was like you the thing that you're presenting us with is like a it could be a problem and we don't know what that road's gonna look like, but we're both willing to like you know commit to the you know uh br bring her into the world and see how things go. And if she if she does well and we have a plan of attack, it's better to know that in utero than some parents who they don't get that chance, they they find out about it after they're born, and then they have to race to try to make a bunch of really critical decisions very quickly. Um but uh there were times definitely when I thought, man, I just don't know if this is um this is the best decision for her because you know I was seeing her um in medically induced coma for months at a time, or that she was, you know, when she was going through the transplant, she was super weak and her back was breaking and everything like that. Um there were lots of times where I I wondered um if if like what quality of life actually meant, right? Because everybody talks about it in terms in in like kind of blasé terms, but they don't really think, well, hey, what is you know, put yourself in that that kids' shoes and wonder, like ask them, do they like spending all the time in the hospital, do they give up on all this stuff? And the reality is is that Evelyn uh for for as much as she's been in the hospital and everything, and as much as she doesn't like it so much, she always finds a way to bring a lot of brightness into like some dark times.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:36

It has a lot to do with being loved and touched, is the thing, you know, it's like we were asked the same question when we went in for our first uh ultrasound. Um he had a broken arm and his head was bigger than his body, which is science, and um anyway, and so they we were uh we were at uh Baylor College of Medicine, or they the hospital are connected, so they had us go to Baylor and to a team basically that was there to talk you into aborted, and all they did was piss us off. You know, it was not like uh diagnosed. There is a type of O height where it would have been the right choice, okay, because that type there um never lives more than a couple hours because they just have no structure at all, they're like a jellyfish, their head's not round, it's flat. Okay, it's a horrible thing, and with that, I could it would have that would have been the only choice was abortion because you're not saving nobody by being born, you know. Um but with him and it being the same type as Lisa, we had the knowledge to where he'd have a better life than being born to parents that didn't have the knowledge, you know. So uh it's like he got to be taller, his legs and arms aren't near as uh deformed as Lisa, and um so it was one of those deals we knew what to do when he did break, you know, how to isolate it. Because the thing is, it's like, oh, you need to get a cast on that. I'm like, well, no, we need to isolate it because the cast is so heavy it'll cause him to break further up. You know, using too much pain meds. Uh they've learned how to deal with pain uh with minimal pain meds, and so um it's a hard life, but they've had a lot of fun too. That's the thing. It's you know, if they had to do it all over, you know, when you know you ask the person, would you rather have been aborted? And they're like, hell no. You know, that's the thing. It's not like their uh vegetative state or um something where there is no life of any kind of quality, uh, then I could see the abortion. I'm not one of these people that's anti-abortion completely, um religious or non, it doesn't matter. Um, but that for me that was that was the deciding factor. And so I I was pretty much prepared for it already. She was devastated. We had a a low, a good long cry on the way home from Houston. And uh by the time we was about halfway, I'm like, you know, he couldn't have better parents. So she had pretty much, I mean, she still kicked herself for years, but um, she was the best for being disabled. She did a whole lot for him. Change diapers, nosedive into poop, all kind of stuff, you know, slip and fall. Um and it would just um when I was working, I work nights a whole lot. And so uh when I would get off, I'd give her a break. And um, but if I had to do it all over again, I would do every bit the same. You know, that's the thing. Yeah, and um, and so it was it's I I I don't I don't I there's no self-pity here. You know, that's you know, that's the thing. Um I just wish I could do more for them. That is it.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:42

Yeah. Well, you know, like uh on Gray's Anatomy, uh everybody loves that because all those weird uh medical conditions and osteogenesis imperfecta and hypoplastic left heart syndrome, the two that our kids have are like they throw that around all the time on the show. But you get like listeners, you get to like actually talk to people whose their kids are like that. Uh and uh they make it sound like on the on shows that it is the the worst possible outcome of any existence that you could ever have. And no, I I don't feel that way. I mean, I I don't think that my daughter feels that way. She is she feels incredibly lucky. It makes tougher people, yeah. Tough times build uh build uh tough people.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:28

And yeah, well, that's the thing. It's and that's what's sad. What's sad of this here? When they go out and they want to get a job, oh you're disabled. If they would give them a chance, they kick ass at anything they can do. Because they're trying to prove that not only are they equal to you in that, they are superior to you in that. I mean, they don't half-ass anything, and so I always tell everybody I thought I'm a dumb one in the bunch, and uh but it just they're so driven to excel. Mediocrity is not in the vocabulary at all, yeah. And so, you know, for me it s some of it's rubbed off on me to where you know I tried to keep up with their you know up to their uh caliber, but I fell miserably on a day-to-day basis. And um, because they uh just kill it. Yeah. And I all of my students and everybody that's come here fall in love with them because they're just wowed by you know the way they are. And um, so anywho, it's it I'm blessed to have the family I have. I'm not there's no reason to pity me whatsoever. You know.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:49

Yeah, well, I mean, you won't get it from me. But you know, the the I think in that same in that same way though, um when I ask the question um of of all my guests, like why create things, right? And why knives? I I think that as at time you know, at times it it's a little bit easier to answer that. Like creation is just it's it's so much better than destruction.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:19

To me, it's a fantasy world. It's I I'm a man, so I can't I can't I can't, you know literally have a baby. You know, I can do the fun part, but as far as carrying to the child and creating it, no, that's not my job. But this is me being able to create, you know, not really children per se, but uh the equivalent thereof for a man. Um and I put a lot of thought into every one. It's and I have people all the time ask me, how long does it take you? I'm like, well, long does it take? Yeah, I don't I don't I don't have a clock in the shop, the clock is not my mistress, and it's one of these deals to where when you make them stuff like I make, it's gonna take a certain amount of time. I try to, depending on what it is, I try not to work over three weeks on something, and um, and that this three weeks is different from the next three weeks, you know. So some days you can get in, you know, 16, 17 hours, and other days you get in one or two hours, you know. So, but there is no vacation time, there is no um time off per se. Now I'm gonna have to take a couple days off when I get done with this build and let this knee and hip rest. But old age is catching up on me, and I don't like it.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:51

Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, I don't know. There's a lot, there's a lot I think that people can unpack from a conversation like this. Um, and I think for me it podcasting and talking through this kind of stuff and trying to unpack knives has really been the thought provoke for me is just like what am I doing with myself? Like what what am I making and why am I making it? And sometimes it's easy, I think, when you when you get into hobbies or things to um marginalize the intent uh for the sake of the technique, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:22:35

The thing is with this craft is this as a hobby, if nothing else, it's an escape from reality. Where in your shop you do have pretty damn good control over the outcome. Okay, and so for me that's what it always was while it when it was a hobby, and even now it is therapy, it is um I can control it, I can mold it. You know, it's one of these deals to where if something bad happens, you know, you have a catastrophic failure, how bad is it really? You know, it's a piece of material. You know, as long as you don't get hurt by being, you know, you know, irresponsible and stupid, if something just fails, it's just material. You know? Not that big of a deal.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:33

Yeah, all it is is time and money.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:37

My students, one of the things I teach is to invest into materials for your craft. Um, I stopped a plethora. That's an understatement. Uh wood, uh stag. We I've we got so much stag that we created the stag depot in Jordan. Uh we got we dabbled into ivory and all that kind of stuff too. And so if you have a block of wood that fails or a piece of stag that you know with a stag, we we take imperfections and correct it to where there's no such thing as a perfect piece of stag unless you create it. Okay, you take the imperfections and you correct it, you reshape it, recarve it, recolor it. And um, but it's just it's it's been able to look back at it and laugh and say, Okay, this wouldn't sell before, and now everybody's wondering, you know, I I see I'm you save all the good pieces for you. I use the stuff that don't sell. But it's the like the wood, you have a handle in-grained piece of uh wood, you drill it out and it breaks. Don't you throw in the garbage, go grab another one, go back right back to work. Don't whine about it because the time that you throw chicken rocks, you know, you could have replaced it and be right caught back up in 30 minutes. And so teaching Jordan that was huge. It's like him, he has he probably has 30 or 40. Oh, he probably got close to 100 uh billets of of Damascus and I. So if he has one fail, chunk in the garbage, grab another one, you know, just get right back after it. And uh, because what you cannot replace in the shop is time. You can you can replace handle material, you know, you you can replace tools, all that kind of stuff, uh belts, epoxy, stir sticks, burgers, bits, uh shop rags, alcohol, carburetor cleaner, drill bits, drill presses, you know, all that stuff can be replaced, but not time, not one second of time can you replace. So that's the key. That's your most expensive commodity. That's what you charge the most for. Now, if you're slow as hell at what you do, you can only charge so much for it. You know, that's like for me, I'm having to get faster because the way the economy is, you know, yes, they should be going for this much money, but I'm getting half that. So I've got to make it at half that and still keep it profitable by getting faster. Okay, so therein lies the rub. And uh it's and then with my body not cooperating, there's a huge problem there too. So I'm getting more money per night than I ever have, but I'm having a hard time keeping up with the bills because I've become an old fart. You know, so yeah, that's the the dilemma. And so I've got to, it's like I I need to take a couple days off and heal up. But I can't afford to take a couple days off to heal up, but it's fixing to make the decision for me if I don't be careful.

unknown 1:27:08

Yeah, no, I get that.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:09

And then it won't be a couple days. That's the kicker. So I'm used to working every day, every day, every day, every day. I don't find it to be work, I find it to be play. You wanna see somebody go nuts, it's me not my shop. Even at shows. Uh it's it's not bad at the show, it's after the show's over that day. I'm bored to death. You know, I end up going back to the room and calling my wife and choosing shit with her. You know, at least to me that's enjoyable.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:44

You know, because a lot of knife makers don't think the way I do, so don't have a lot to talk about. You know. And uh it's uh that's a problem I have severely is since I had no teacher. My way of doing things is really alien. And so some people think it it's wrong, which they're entitled to think that. And so I have a hard time, you know talking with others, especially when it comes to knives. Normally I just listen. That way I don't fend, you know, piss nobody off or offend nobody. And um because I do things so different. I'm the proverbial bumblebee. Nobody told me I wasn't supposed to be able to do that. So I did. So anyhow. How long have you been making?

unknown 1:28:42

How long have you been making?

SPEAKER_02 1:28:43

Um I have been making about seven years. Um what I you know, I I uh I've always uh been I've always been inquisitive and always uh creative, I guess in some ways, uh even if it was just like play-doh and modeling clay back in when I was a kid. And um and when I moved down to Texas, I had uh there's a guy uh at our Sunday school group uh that was a jeweler. And so I wanted to get into that. So at the same time I was uh putting myself through some university classes, I was also doing an apprenticeship with jewelry, but you know, it got so expensive because um with the economy the way it was, uh everybody was in investing in platinum and gold and silver and everything. So it's like you know, I I couldn't I couldn't dabble uh with the economy because the cost of precious metals was so high. And the disposable. Yeah, and the disposable income of of people who were purchasing that stuff was going down, and so um I was just like I just can't do it anymore. So I focused on school, then I went to uh work for a company in Plano doing cybersecurity because I was you know I was doing some technology teaching at a charter school in Fort Worth. Um and I went and you know started to make money again because I wasn't getting paid real well there. And uh and then there was something that kind of stuck with me with jewelry that I wanted to be able to create and I wanted to be able to manipulate metal, but it seemed that precious metal that it was very hard to find a market for, and the investment was very high. So I started doing some very basic knife making stuff after a while and blacksmithing. Um and that turned into making knives and then going on this whole trajectory of um you know f finer knives and getting into the guild and stuff like that. Um but um that's I I think like I've always I've always wanted to create things and it made sense at the time that it was uh less expensive than jewelry. But what it actually turns out is that it's just um to step into higher grades of knives has just been stepping into higher uh higher forms of equipment uh for me uh to save time and to make a repeatable process and whatnot. And so I think that like the the total cost investment is probably somewhere around if I actually did have a fully working jewelry shop um with all the equipment and stuff that I've had. Um but it's happened a lot slower um because there's like different barriers of entry for different types of work and knife uh knives. Whereas pretty much if you want to be able to cast things in jewelry, I mean you have to have all the casting equipment and that costs quite a bit of money, you know. Uh you have to have the metal to be able to work and that costs a lot of money. So um so yeah, and I think that in in getting into knives, uh it seemed like it was pretty straightforward at first. You know, it's like, oh, you make a knife, you sell a knife, you know, whatever. But it's like an onion. Like there's just so many different facets of knife making that I got to a point where I was like, you know, I don't really know I don't know if there's a way to tell whether you're successful or whether you're not, or whether um, you know, what exactly is the attributing factor to that success or not? Like, and so that's kind of where I'm at now where I'm just you know I'm discovering all that stuff and asking the question, you know, like what what actually like uh makes a good knife maker or a good um a good story or a you know what makes a business successful? Um and that's something I just can't answer for myself. So that's the reason why I talk to smart people like you, who are evidently just trying to figure it out the same as I am.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:38

It's it's that's the puzzle. It I've learned this much here. It doesn't really matter how good you are, because what they're buying is you, not what you make. Uh so if they like you, they'll buy from you. If they don't like you, they won't buy from you. You know, and see my whole deal is is trying to be likeable is very difficult to know.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:04

Well, I mean, you know, I I I I I think that there's certain things that you can uh attribute to the economy and other things that you can attribute to um the the mark of the maker in the sense that you know your personality and everything. I've I don't think that I've ever in the entire time I've been making knives have ever had an easy sale. Um there's been like every time I've sold a knife, it's always felt like I've had to earn the ability to sell that thing. And there's there's obviously that way. Yeah, I mean it you should.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:41

I've seen other people that could I've seen other makers sell knives for prices that I thought was insane. Okay. And you get envious of that, you know. It's like I I don't I'm not saying they're not worth it. I'm just saying that mine should go for more. But the thing is, it's not up to us. That's the kicker. You know, people always talking about how do you price your knives. I'm like, that's the hardest thing. Making knives is easy. Designing is easy. Figuring out how to sell how you know what what are they worth? Uh that's the challenge. You know, because you can't go by what other knives are selling for, you know, because it's not just the knife, it's the maker that they're buying. And so what I end up going by is this here. I can only make so many knives a year. Okay. If I have five people call wanting what I just made, and I tell them this is the price, and three of them go, that's too expensive, that doesn't matter. One of them go, oh that's good. And the other one go, that's it. So who do you listen to? One of them it was just right, one of them it was too cheap, and three of them it was too much money. And if you can only make X number and you make two orders off of the one, that's double what you're making, you'll never catch up. Okay, and so you don't go down your price for sure. But it's making stuff that's creative, that's unique in some shape, form, or fashion. It don't have to be you know, I don't have to reinvent the wheel, but you got when they look at it and they go, he put forth the effort to make it cool, not just perform because performing is easy, um, comfort is a little harder, and then visual balance is a little bit harder until you figure it out, and then it's just like breathing. Um but uniqueness, even minutely, something that gets that puts a signature to the knife without a signature, uh, is something that takes time. It the the I'd been making knives since 88. The first one that I made that had my signature look, and it was totally by accident, was in 2000. And then uh, which I hadn't made, it wasn't like I'd made a whole bunch of knives per year. Um and then it wasn't really it was incremental after that. But when I came from 2014 on, I started asking people like uh Steve Schwarzer and Todd Beg, what did I need to improve on? And they couldn't put a finger on it, but it was something to do with my blades. My guard was was great, my handles were great, but it was the blades, and so the next year, same thing, and I met my first apprentice. Um he went with us, and he wasn't my apprentice, then he was just a friend. And um while we were there that second year, it hit me what the problem was, and it was dimension. My handles had dimensions, my guards had dimensions, my blades were flat, and it was almost all in stainless steel. I didn't hardly have anything in Damascus because where I live at, you can't give away Damascus, um, not on a user. Um and so it was finally I figured out that it was dimension. I need to go thicker on my steel, that way I could, you know, start doing swedges and um the altered plunges, that kind of stuff, and it just developed from there. And it once it was a it was a it was like an explosion in my brain because it was like I've been fighting, not figuring out what it was, and just just butting beating my head against the wall, and then finally the doors just opened to the problem. It was like once I could see the problem, I could solve the problem, you see. But until I I could see what the problem was, I couldn't fix it. I just knew I had a problem, and that was just frustrating us all get out, and so then it just started that, and then uh Pete was like, That's kind of cool. I said, Oh dude, you come here, I'll show you how to do it in five minutes. You're like, I have it, no problem. Well, he came and spent a few days, it's the first time he got to come to the house, and he goes, You know, you a lion son bitch. I'm like, not that hard. But it was uh the ability to be able to see it, you know, that's the thing, and so I found out that um I am a little bit of an odd duck, and uh because all of my students, all of them, because I have three, really four. I've got five or six, but that I teach carving to. There's only three, and one doesn't want to do the carving, but he applies it to the sheath. Um but it's just one of these deals to where it's all in the in the uh frame of mind and the thought process and um the mental aspect of it's always broke. It's not one of it's like my brother, me and him are so different because his mindset is this if it ain't broke, don't fix it. My mind is always broke because there's always room for improvements. So nothing is ever fixed, nothing is never perfect. You can improve on it always, and so and if it's something that you can if it's simple enough to where you can get it to a near perfect, you're not trying hard enough. You need to add difficulty, and that's how you just grow exponentially, you see. And so you gotta be a little crazy, I think. But that's it in a nutshell, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:15

So a after you had all of this um experience and trial and error and everything, and you're getting feedback. Um uh I a few episodes ago I was talking with Steve about him coming and uh learning carving and stuff from you. What was that like to like be the subject matter expert in a uh in a field that you asked somebody like him to help give you feedback on?

SPEAKER_00 1:40:40

Well, I'll have to rewind that just a little bit. We're at Blade Show, Texas, this last year, and he goes, I'm coming to your house. And I'm sort of a hard ass, you know. I'm like, okay, when you come and you know, this is Steve Schwarzer. You're not gonna say, hey, wouldn't you like to be invited first? You know, and uh so anyway, we he's like, I want to learn how to carve. And I just went down the rabbit hole with him about you do realize, you know, I don't teach this to everybody. You know, it's something that's especially I'm not wanting to copy you. Uh I'm wanting to learn how you control your tools. And there's so much to when you're holding I it's it's like anything you do. If if it's grinding free hand, whatever, are you comfortable? If you're not comfortable, you're gonna suck at it. Okay. Um so it's it's having a a work rest that you're comfortable on, and then the amount of pressure you apply, and then how you hold your hand piece, and what are you actually doing with it? How do you are you treating it like a gouge or or what? And me, I treat it like a brush, like I'm sweeping away with it, and it's just very light pressure. There's no and see when the lighter the pressure, the more control. And so it's one of these deals that you're using really super sharp stuff at high RPMs in most cases, and you're sitting there, and but you've got to be able to. It's like he said, he said, you're doing stuff. What he's carved longer. Steve's been carving longer than I've been a knife maker. I've been a knife maker 35 years. Okay. What he was wanting to do, he actually would get there and hold on to my hand when I was carving and just feel the pressure and the rhythm that I'd have. And for me, I have uh a hard time focusing. I'm I'm very music-oriented, it controlled, it calms me so I can focus. And so I put on my my music, and it'll vary. If I want to change my style, I change my music genre, you know, from country to hard rock to I I'll go from um creed to Jason Aldean or Saya or whatever, and it'll change the way I'm I feel because I I'm I'm carving through emotion. Okay, so I design through emotion, everything's through emotion. It's like, how does it make me feel? You know, and it's one of these deals to where it's it's almost like lyrics coming out of me, and it's there's no thought there, and so I can focus and I can really let my imagination run wild when if I'm having to think, there's a problem. If I'm just letting it flow, it's cool. That's like the blade that I did when he was here. I had the blade cut out, everything. I had it ready to when he got here because he had basically 24 hours. And uh, and he wanted me to get one side to a point that where he could see the finishing seat. Like I've shown the rough work. Rough work, anybody can do the rough work, at least I think so. The getting the sides to match is the some bitch. There are designs I won't do or haven't done yet because the transfer would be a son of a bitch. You can look at some of these designs that I've done and not see the difficulty in them. But it's because like like when I did Slither, it's a herringbone fuller on both sides, and so it's like you're doing carving in a circle this way, and then carving in a circle counterclockwise, and you're having to do it not just that, but to the way you're having to hold it, and then when you flip it to the other side is the reversal, yeah. And so you're having to teach your body this certain range of motion to where it may take you an hour to do the first couple pieces of heron bone, and then you get faster and faster after you're having to build the pathway in your brain to where it's like learning to walk. First you crawl, then you pull yourself up, then you you you fall and and make it take a step or two, and then next thing you know, you're you're you're walking pretty good, then you're running. Okay. I'm having to do that. By the time I get to where I'm running, you gotta start over and change, and you gotta learn all over again because it's it's a reverse of it, it's a mirror image of it. Yeah, that was such a bitch. Oh my god, and be mentally, and that's like I even called um uh Van Barnett. Man, how the hell? What would be a faster way to transfer this when you use it? He used, Spence. Do you know why gun Smiths and someone there engrave different scenes on each side? Like, so they don't have to transfer. Gotcha. He said, There's only one way I know of, and that's with a laser engraver. And then it'd be cheating. He's the same way I am. He likes to do it if it if you can't do it through skill, it's not worth doing. You see, and that's like with Jordan's got a laser engraver, and many himself talked about it. Like, I don't care what he does with it, he can use it to transfer easily. He said, but that's cheating. He said, that's that's not the point. It is the you want to be able to pull it off through skill. It and it's not, you're not gonna get paid more more than likely for it. It's the mental reward of you pulling it off through skill, is the deal. That's like you know, these double grinders and all that kind of thing. That's great for production, okay. But as far as a knife maker having a double grinder and then bragging on how good his grinds are, who gives a shit? You see, there's no skill involved in that. Now, it has its application. Now, everything I'm saying here is an opinion. Okay, it doesn't make it fact. You know, people get all butthurt on stuff because a person has an opinion over it. So what? We all have opinions. I don't like tomatoes. You do, you know, doesn't make it right or wrong, it's a difference of opinion.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:42

Yeah, I do like tomatoes.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:44

See, I knew there's something wrong with you. And uh, I guess you like cilantro too. Avocados, boo.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:52

I like avocados, but marginal on this on the cilantro.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:56

Yeah, nah, it's just you know, the third point is you're you're entitled to have a difference of opinion. There's nothing wrong with it. That makes it fun to me. And um, but that's the whole deal with all this kind of stuff. It's it's not being butthurt when a guy does do things different. You know, you should be a little bit inquisitive about it. And I've had people just rip me up one side down the other. Well, this Master Smith said this is how it should be done. I'm like, well, then do it that way. I ain't telling you not to do it that way, just that I'm not doing it that way. Yeah, but you're teaching other people to do it a different way. I'm like, they don't, I'm not forcing anybody to do nothing. I mean, you wouldn't believe it, bro. I mean, it gets bad.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:42

Um, yeah, in in knives, I would believe it. But I'm I'm interested to know. So uh Steve was sitting there with his hands on your hands, feeling like you're uh carving everything, and you're a sensory guy that's like carving.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:56

Doesn't bother me at all. You can stand right behind me, you can have your hand on my shoulder, be heavy breeze in my ear for that matter. It doesn't matter to me. If I know you're there just to observe, it doesn't matter. Now, if you're messing with me, yeah, that's one thing. But with him, I knew he he did not have time. That's like for me being a uh a long-winded individual, he'd get me back on track a few times. You know, he said, I ain't got a lot of time. Get to work. I'm like, all right. So I there was no offense taken by it, you see. And um, so it was just he was wanting to know, and it's like uh I gave him sources for stuff for my blending that I would never give anybody else. Uh sources that took me five, six years of hard hunting to find um equipment uh that saves him thousands of dollars. Uh finishing techniques that saves days. Um, but the thing was, it's with Steve. You I don't have to, you know, it's like I told him, I said all this information is not you didn't buy it. I would not take no money from you. You wanted to pay. I'm like, nope. I said it's on loan. After I'm dead, you can do whatever you want to, and I won't care. Okay, but this is my information I'm loaning to you. Okay, you don't own it. That's my whole deal there. Now, as far as how to do guards and all that kind of stuff, I teach that to just about anybody, but I just don't have the the patience or the time to teach just anybody. Um, and I'm really, really what's the term? Uh I'm not very patient on explaining it over and over and over. Um then I I could be I could be pretty tough. And so anybody that's ever been here that's that and you it's like I've had people come once. You're not a student until you've been twice. Okay. And uh because one thing I have delicate people upstairs, okay, you gotta fit in upstairs just as much as downstairs. And I really don't really care about your skill set. It's your your ability to pay attention, uh, how respectful you are, and can you be trusted? And are you a good person? Uh that was the one of the deals about Jordan that I fell in love with, and Pete, too, uh, is I fell in love with a person before they became students. And then Jordan's very persistent, too. I mean, he was willing to sleep in his truck for two days because I had no room for him. And uh, we were putting on a boot camp here, which is like a grind in, whatever, because I'm not a Smith. A lot of people want to call me a Smith, and even people that know, yeah, but Spencer's still a Smith, and I said, No, I'm not. He said, But you know how you can know technique, but until you actually strike uh hammer to hot steel and haven't you know created something that way, you're not, and so um I I I find it offensive for them to be called that. I'm not a smith, and um I as see that the whole problem with the term Smith is it means works with. So if you're uh a steel smith, you work with steel. That I am, I do work with steel. But when you have or your bladesmith, I work with blades, but we learn for us, our opinion of a bladesmith is a guy that takes hot metal and he shapes his blades, and even like with uh somebody, there's two guys that are phenomenal at what I call uh hammer finish or planish finish, and that's probably the wrong term, but that's Jason Knight and uh Adam DeRozer and Haley. And um, they can take just and never put it hardly on a grinder at all, or even a piece of sandpaper, and just put an edge on it, and it looked pretty damn clean, it may look antique. Um, and I it's like first time I ever chatted with uh Jason Knight was at Blade Show, Texas last year, and I said something about his knives that I didn't think that it could be taken, you know. I was calling it a compliment, you know. I and luckily he said I take that as a compliment. Well, that's the way it's intended, you know. And what it was, I said, I I'd seen pictures of your knives, you know, some of your higher-end stuff and all that, and I've seen that you did a lot more that were users. And the year before, I actually got to handle some of his knives, and uh I'm I'm very uh uh touch related. I see with my hands my most sense of feel, and I'm like my first impression of them when I picked them up, the ergonomics and the flow and everything was spot on. Uh, but they were to me, it was just like an old worn quilt. It felt so good. And he goes, I've never heard of but I take that as a compliment. I'm like, I promise that's what I mean by compliment. It's just the way my brain works is it should be comfortable as it, you know, it should feel as good in the hand as it performs, and uh, and that's what it was. It was just a warm, uh, it's just a plaid feeling to it to where it's there's nothing you know high depth like mirror finish and anything like that there, but uh it's just the way my brain translates it, you know, it's just that warm fuzzy feeling, it's a satin finish on um like your maples, your coa woods, and then your carbon steels. He likes 1084, 1080. And um, and I just I just love them. They're beautiful. And I don't say shit like that there unless I mean it. Uh you know, I could say, you know, I I that guy does pretty good work or whatever. There's mastersmiths that are not not true, excuse me. There's masters that do phenomenal work. I don't like their work, but I can appreciate the artists, you know, their skill level and everything they do. It's just not my tape. And um, but he is, I actually do like his work, and um, but I didn't really I didn't ever want to say it until I actually touched it because some knives just photograph well, and um so at any rate, uh, and he'd handled my knives before and wasn't really impressed with the signs, and so I should have not liked, you know, but I I I take honest critique as a a privilege. Uh I would rather somebody say I don't I don't like your knives, I appreciate the artistic work in it, but I don't like it's not my style, and not be offended whatsoever because I appreciate the honesty. I I can't stand somebody that will say something nice just to be nice not to hurt your feelings. You know, I'm not quite that sensitive.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:53

Yeah, well, and then that's something that I I uh I I get the idea that it's around the knife industry a lot more than I'd like it to be. Uh, it's hard for me to get uh like good honest criticism, right? Uh constructive criticism, but because even if you ask for it, people are like, hmm, I'm still going to be very cautious about how how critical I am.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:19

Let me explain something to you there. What a lot of people don't really, you know, the a lot of the reasons why, like for me, when somebody asked me to critique them, it had a lot to do with it's like this here. What were you trying to achieve? Were you trying to make an art piece? Were you trying just to make a very comfortable ergonomic hard user? Were you trying to make something that was Journeyman Smith quality, matchmith quality, or uh just a damn good knife? Those are different criteria. You know, if you're just trying to make a knife in the 150 to $350 range, that's just a damn good user's gonna skin the animals, do all the work, and never fail you, you're not gonna get critiqued that hard. Your plunges that beer don't give a shit if your plunges are even. Okay. If your scales are just off a little bit, it don't matter. If your pins, you know, uh you didn't drill your holes perfectly, you know, and you filled them with CA, that that doesn't matter. When you're trying to do something that's to a higher level, so my whole deal is this here. I I critique first thing I ask is what was your goal? What was what was you after on your end result? What level were you shooting for? What was the criteria you were shooting for? Then I ask, what problems do you see with it? Because it don't matter what I see in it. You see, you have to learn how to critique yourself and others. I've learned to critique guys that are phenomenal, way better than me, and be able to say something wrong. And that something wrong was is they didn't push it hard enough, they played it too safe and they kept it simple to where they couldn't have a fault, a fail there. You see, that could be a huge problem with a maker. They're gonna stick to their comfort zone, they're not gonna push it past a certain limit because they can do X, Y, and Z perfectly, and if they go beyond that, they can't do that, and they cannot accept the fact that it's not gonna be perfect, so they won't go beyond that point. Okay, that can be the failure, that can be the flaw. Others can be visual balance to where the blade's not proportionate, you know, the the width of the skin you hear, the rest of the handle is this tall, whatever, or the um the flow is off. Um, it could be a number of things. The the fit and the finish, the all that can be fucking perfect and it'd be a failure. Okay, it's there's so many. That's one of the reasons why I do what I do, because I leave myself a way out of a bunch of things, because it my knives are sort of perfect, like the human face. This side is not exactly the same as this side, but together that it looks perfect. Okay, now they're close, okay, but they're not gonna be exact, but it's gonna be hard to be able to see it from all the angles to be able to tell how much off it is, you're gonna have to work your ass off. Okay, now if somebody comes up there with a monocle trying to look in my eyes, I'm gonna stab them with it. Okay, that's not the point. If you got to use, you know, magnification, the look of the knife, that's retarded to me. Okay, now that's an opinion, again, that does not make it so. Um, but it's it has to do with what you're after. That's like uh Van Barnett is after his stuff is eye clean. My god, it's eye clean, it's magnified clean, and it can have a thousand or two thousand components, it's unfathomable. And uh, and he'll even tell you they're not perfect. He ain't made a perfect one yet. You know, I mean he he he now uh any normal human won't be able to see the problem. I've only problem I've ever you know, I've told it to him. I said, there's times that you embellished for the sake of embellishment, you should have left some of that stuff off. He said, I can take that. I said that was done perfectly clean, you know, but it had too much embellishment. That was in that again, it's an opinion that doesn't make it so, and uh, but having somebody that you can talk to that has that ability there. That's like for me, what I get from Ben is trying to force myself to be more patient because he's got the patience of an angel. I mean, it's unreal. He can work on something for thousands of hours. I can't. I go insane because the the problem with that is the longer you look at it, the more flaws you see, the more you fix, the more you see, and next thing you know, all you see is this pile of shit in front of you, and everybody else says it's a masterpiece. You see it's it's it's a curse.

SPEAKER_02 2:02:47

Yeah. Well, sometimes sometimes with that, if I spend long enough looking at stuff, I actually talk myself out of completing something. Um, you know, there's sometimes when flaws, I'm just like, ugh, like I need to start over again because I don't think I personally can get past this thing.

SPEAKER_00 2:03:06

It's learning how to fool it. Um or just dropping the price. Because one of the things that I've trained my students is this year. If at all possible, you need to put forth the effort into it to see if you can turn it into something to make a buck off of. Because now there are exceptions to that rule. If it's gonna cost more time than it warrants, you need to have the skill to be able to turn it into something. But once you have the skill, you know, I could fix it and do this here with it, but it's not worth the time. That's okay to scrap it. Um because again, you don't want to waste the time on it. If you've already gained the knowledge off of fixing something, you don't need to do it twice. Um but it's just one of these deals to where uh it's the knife making there's so many directions you can go with it. You know, folders, the different types of folders. Um, like I like doing um I call it artifact style, to where you're talking you're playing with textures and patinas, to where it looked like it come out of a tomb, you know, but in in really great, you know, shape. Um I've seen some folders done that way. Where it's the it's ivory that's a little bit crackled, whatever, and you're not trying to make that ivory look brand new, you wanting to use that worn look, uh sort of like this one right here. It's a fire starter. Not trying to get rid of the fire, you know, keeping that, leaving that there, and some of the tool marks where you keep that artifact look, but you're not trying to make it look perfect, you see. You want it to feel pretty good. And uh this one has the carving that you like and the sculpted guard, but see it's textured. And it's not about making it it's just character. Um but it's not for everybody. I mean, you're gonna have people that I hate that, and it's like shit. I'm like, Well, you're not wrong. You know, it's it's making what you like and the way you like it, and hopefully there's at least a hundred other people on the planet that likes it too, and you can make a living at it. But whatever you like and you have fun building is what you should build. Don't let other people tell you differently. If it's brute to forge, if it's railroad spike knives, whatever it is, if you that's your passion and you like doing that, that's what you should do. Don't build something that you don't enjoy building because somebody told you that's what you're supposed to build. That's that's the ultimate failure, is that because the whole point is to have fun and to build something that's tells the world a little bit about you, you know, and so um I think that's that's the whole thing right there. Have fun doing it and create it in a way that you know is distinct to you, and go with that.

SPEAKER_02 2:06:55

Yeah, Spencer. I mean, uh I I'll always be a fan, and I really appreciate you taking the time to talk and and drop these pearls of wisdom because I I I mean I hope it means something to people, and I know it will. Uh, but the the fact that you're willing to invest the time and and talk and just kind of shoot the bull and everything with me is uh it's a it's a great honor.

SPEAKER_00 2:07:16

I'm glad you listened. You didn't fall asleep on me or nothing and didn't tell me to shut the hell up, so it's been pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 2:07:22

Oh if you talk to my wife at all, uh you would know that I'm long-winded. Um so I mean I like talking for a long time and I like listening and talking and listening. So I mean that's just kind of the way it goes. When you talk and listen a lot, then you just have long conversations.

SPEAKER_00 2:07:38

Yeah, when you do this again, maybe not for to put up there, but if you wanted to, it'd be fine. And um because I go live every Sunday, and um, and my whole problem is like I don't have you there to ask questions. That's what sucks. Because I'll talk from time and memorial if I got somebody there to ask the right questions. So anyway, you have a wonderful night, and I've really enjoyed this.

SPEAKER_02 2:08:04

Yeah, it's Betty Bytetime, and I really appreciate you uh spending that time talking with me. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Good Old Blades podcast. Remember that you are loved, and God bless.