SPEAKER_05 0:05

Welcome to the Good Old Blade Podcast. I am your host, Aaron L'Beard, and join me as we talk to other knife makers and chat about anything and everything in life. Texas is an actual. Above all, Texas is a nation in every state. Out of that Texas, ideal, a nation of knife makers, scrimmage handers, engravers, saddle makers, blacksmiths, placements, chief and holster makers, spur makers, guild members, both Texas and National, ABS journeyman, and Master Smith, Let's go. Have collectively brought some of the best craftsmanship in the world. It's true that everything is figured. And through my observation of the moving and shaking that's happening inside of the great state of Texas, look at all the perfect. I wanted to showcase the teammakers that are constantly cultivated, the sniffing and knife making craft within the Texas Knife Maker skill, and the knife coast cultivation. You get to meet Don Silvia, Frank Mikado, James Hughes, Jeff Davidson, Jack Batcher, and Lily Great. Great craftsmen and vocal advocates of the craft within Texas. And we talk about their lives and experiences that push them to create that stemmed from conversations that happened at the Lost Pine's Night Show in Bastrop, Texas. Bar handcraft and nice, started his life in the swamps of southern Louisiana. As an avid outdoorsman for over 50 years, a rancher, game warden, woman, and bodyguard. Don has pulled deeply from his experience and passion to produce the money that satisfies the needs of the outdoors. With his son Travis, who makes beautiful leather goods and the cheese that safeguard Don's eyes. The do the work to push each other and have a father-son dynamic to be envious of. It's a pleasure to have you on the Good Old Place podcast.

SPEAKER_06 2:40

Thank you for having me on the podcast, Eric.

SPEAKER_05 2:42

Yeah. So can you talk a little bit about your past life before knives and retirement and things like that, what you did, and uh uh kind of what led you into getting into making knives?

SPEAKER_06 2:53

Yeah, you know, I grew up in in Louisiana many, many years ago, and back in the mid-80s, uh with the first oil crisis we had, there was no work in Louisiana, and uh followed work over into Texas, and now I came to to move to Texas and fast forward to 2016, I guess. We're talking about getting into knives. My son, one of my sons came to me and said, Hey dad, let's let's take a wilderness survival class. And uh so I said, Okay, we can do that. And growing up in Louisiana, trapping and hunting and fishing, we always had knives and everything. And I told him, I said, Hey, I'll just make us a knife. And so I made us a couple of knives for the class. We never did take the class. And uh fast forward a couple years after that, um he uh he came to me one day and said, Hey Dad, you know, I want to make you I'm gonna make your sheaths for you. So he started making my knife sheets of grizzly two leather uh leather was started back then. Uh kind of go backwards for a second back when I came to Texas. Uh I had gotten out of law enforcement. I was in law enforcement in Louisiana as a game warden. Coming to Texas, I got back into law enforcement, spent 20 years in law enforcement in Texas and and ranched while I was in law enforcement. I was in rural law enforcement. And in 2000, I moved into corporate America and uh I got into the security industry um doing executive protection. Layman's terms, I was a bodyguard for for probably 15, 16 years, I guess. I've having grown up in the swamps in the tiny woods of Louisiana, I feel pretty blessed. Uh I've been in six continents now, uh probably close to fifty countries, and then I've been in every fifty state in the union.

SPEAKER_05 4:39

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_06 4:41

Yeah, it's pretty cool. So got into knife making. Um I really enjoyed it. It's a great pastime. Uh since I've retired, I've kind of gone full-time making knives now.

SPEAKER_05 4:53

Yeah, that's good. Um I'm interested to know a little bit about your game warding experience and everything like that. Um I've you know, as a hunter fisher, I can't tell you how many times I've been like, uh we need to make sure we cross uh cross the T's and dot the I's on everything because of game wardens and uh getting you caught for things that you might not know that you are actually uh a problem. It's like uh that was entirely in Louisiana. I mean how how how what is it like enforcing laws in Louisiana like that?

SPEAKER_06 5:25

So I'll I'll give my probably give my age away. I started in in law enforcement a week after I turned 19. Um semi-automatic pistols weren't even around or were just they were exclusive at the time. We used revolvers back then and everything. And when I first went to work as a game warden, we were only allowed to enforce the conservation laws, and we only had conservation radios. We didn't have we you had to we had a hard time being in contact with the deputies, sheriffs, the police department, state police, and that sort of thing because of the radio bands were different back then. Um and then growing up in in Louisiana the attitude was I'm gonna hunt to eat and game warden the heck with a game warden. They didn't poach to to sell the some some people would sell meat, but most of it was to to feed themselves and that sort of thing. So seasons were salt and pepper. So it was it was always and I remember uh I have a story one over I uh first got hired as a game warden. We we went to our regional office and the captain had us all in there and he called me out and he said Sylvest, he said, you're gonna have this guy that squirrel hunt just before season. Okra comes into comes into harvest just before squirrel season, and that's a great dish to to eat in Louisiana, this mother squirrel and okra. And he said, You're gonna have a you're gonna have this problem and and uh I know that you're gonna have a problem catching this guy. And so we got a little closer and he we another meeting and he said same thing. He he just kept reiterating how how difficult it was gonna be. And I I told him, I said, Captain, we're not gonna have that problem anymore. And just before squirrel season opened, we're we're gonna have a problem with this guy, you know, every year. He said, I've been after him and haven't been able to catch him. Captain, you're not gonna have that problem anymore. And um after squirrel season opened everything, we were in our re at our regional meeting, and he's and something came up and he said, You know, that guy didn't didn't hunt this year, and I kind of smiled. I said, Captain, I told you weren't gonna have the problem anymore. And uh he it finally dawned on him who the problem was. Uh-huh. And um I lost a lot of friends when I became a game warden because I, you know, I kind of changed my mindset and really realized what we were doing and how to how to be better with manage our conversation conservation.

SPEAKER_05 8:03

Yeah. Well. Yeah, and I am you know there's a a double-edged sword, I think, to be in an outdoorsman and also uh trying to balance out the law and also balance out conservation. Because um, you know, like like the there's lots of law that's based on conservation principles and whatnot, but there's also lots of laws that are based on bureaucracy. Um and it's really difficult, you know, because you you in in the outdoor world, I I I feel at least like you you um you have to always balance out these things, like what the way that you feel about stuff, but then respecting the law just because it is the law, and also the fines are pretty heavy.

SPEAKER_06 8:47

Absolutely. I agree with you. And yes, you're right. Um we had people in Louisiana that would travel up to Mississippi and poach. And the Mississippi state laws were a lot more stringent than the Louisiana laws were back in the late 70s, early 80s. They would seize your truck, they would seize your guns and everything, and and they were especially hard on out-of-state people, especially people from Louisiana, because they knew the reputation that a lot of people had and that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_05 9:15

Yeah. But it's also interesting to me uh in in some ways because I've at the same time, like uh I respect the law because uh, well, especially when I came uh to game wardens because of the uh the severity um that it's enforced. Um I've also respected times when game wardens have been um very kind uh to me. Like for instance, I uh I was on this canoe and I was on a local lake and didn't realize that I had to have life vests in a canoe and that I had to have uh a permit to be on the lake because of the the launching and everything. I thought that you know, if you launched off the bank like you can with a canoe, it's not the same as having a normal craft that you have to use the uh the dock and everything for. And so I was there and I was off fishing one night. You know, I was planning a whole day of fishing, and I got I was on the other side of it, and the game warden stops me and it's like, so um, where's your life vest? I was like, say what? He's like, you'd be surprised how many people we pull out of this lake uh every season because of uh no life vests and everything. Uh apparently a lot of of drowning deaths on the lake. And uh he didn't he didn't say anything about the boat slip. He asked where I put in, and I said on the bank, and so it kind of let that pass. But he said, you know, no, like I'm you know, you're gonna have to have a ticket, but what I want you to do is paddle across this lake again, and if you can go get you a life vest down at the store, then you can keep fishing. So uh he said, and if if you do those things, right? Um he's he gave me a life vest, made me paddle across the lake again. Um I went and got one. He said, put just put him in the back of my truck. I'm sure he that did it so that way I complete the circuit, give him back his stuff. Um but then um you know I got took the ticket and uh contested it. He never showed up uh and uh well I didn't contest it. I just said, hey, I did these things, this is what we talked about, and it got uh it got dismissed. Yeah. And he didn't have to give me a way to follow the rules and then you have an out, right? Because that ticket was about $500 ticket.

unknown 11:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 11:29

We um when when I was a gay warden, we would catch someone poaching, say, rabbits at night. In in the state of Texas, it's legal to shoot rabbits at night. In Louisiana, it's not. Um, you would catch someone with rabbits and and even an occasional deer. And if you you knew the family and knew that there was a hardship there, it's kind of like well, you have to write them a ticket. That's you have to uphold the law and write a ticket. But we had enough leeway and where we could turn the meat back over to them and have them sign a receipt for the meat, and still, you know, uh odds are and and I hate to say it now, but I guess we're so far along that back then the the way the law worked in Louisiana, they'd probably get dropped charges. The local judge would drop the charges anyway, and they would still be able to to have the meat and to feed their family and that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_05 12:22

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 12:24

Come to Texas, I got back into law enforcement. Yeah and uh spent another right at 20 years in law enforcement in the state of Texas as a deputy sheriff.

SPEAKER_05 12:32

Yeah, that's cool. Um how do you think that that translates like the knowledge that you gained in that industry to what you do in nice today?

SPEAKER_06 12:41

You know, uh growing up in in Louisiana, uh, I did commercial fishing, I did commercial trapping. Uh everyone pretty much has a trap line in or did. Back then the the fur industry was Louisiana was one of the largest fur-bearing states in the United States back in the 60s and 70s. So we used a used a knife for skinning fur out, used a knife for hunting, and and growing up in the country, we processed a lot of our own meat, our own pork and and beef and that sort of thing. So we use a lot of chef knives for that. Just a knife is has always I've always had a knife in my pocket or on my belt. Uh pretty much all my life, just about. And uh kind of, you know, knowing the function, the ergonomics of it from different uses of it has has helped me in uh making my knives and it's yes, sir.

SPEAKER_05 13:30

Um how I'm interested kind of a little bit in like the uh the world of corporate bodyguarding and things like that, because uh uh I don't really know that very well. Um do you have any like particular stories or anything like that from that period of your life that are interesting or that you can talk about?

SPEAKER_06 13:47

So you know, um I uh get being in that industry and and traveling, and one of the things that I I did as well is I oversaw a security driver training program worldwide. And I I traveled worldwide supervising a couple of driving instructors to taught security driving. Um going to the different countries and being and I'd I'd already started in knife making, I'd I I'd gotten into knife making while I was doing that, it it piqued my interest to look at different knives in different countries and that sort of thing. So you look at some of the middle I've been to the Middle East and looked at some of the knives that are carried in the Middle East and that that sort of thing. When we some of the most interesting stories, uh I've been to Africa, I've been to uh I've been to South Africa, I've been to Mozambique, I've been to Nigeria, and we were in Nigeria and there's with turmoil going on in the country, attacks going on in the country and that sort of thing. Um we've had convoys that were uh armed convoys that were attacked, and I was sent over there to look and see what we could do outside of the box as far as protecting those convoys and stuff. So some of that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_05 15:08

Yeah, well it's uh it's interesting and kind of one of the reasons why I ask is because in in cybersecurity um there are some concepts around um security risk mitigation where we actually follow some of the same principles that they do for the presidential motorcade. Yes. And and the proximity and stuff like that. So basically we take that same concept from a physical security perspective and apply it to technological assets. So we you know there are some presidential assets and things like that. And like to me, it's fascinating that we have this cross-pollination and security technique.

SPEAKER_06 15:42

Yes, correct. And and to your point, uh, we a lot of our training and such came from originated with Secret Service and and some of that sort of thing. So we same way, we go out and do an advance and look at what we're gonna where we're going, that sort of thing, look at our standoff footprint and what's where, who's where, and and such. And there's probably it's not as much risk in the United States. I guess the risk in the United States is disgruntled employees, activism, and that sort of thing. But when you travel, whether you travel to South America, and I've been to South America, a half a dozen countries in South America or to the Middle East or to Asia, then you have to start looking at terrorism as well. So, you know, it it it brings on a whole new concept whenever you do that.

SPEAKER_05 16:34

Yeah. Well, yeah, I every once in a while on you on like uh Facebook or whatever, uh videos have come up where you know somebody's driving down the interstate and then all of a sudden they get corralled and uh trapped off like a truck or something like that, and you have all these like ransom and stealing that and taking the people and doing stuff with them and then the cargo and everything. And sometimes I just wonder it's like, why don't you just use your vehicle as a weapon and blow past it?

SPEAKER_06 16:57

But it it it you're absolutely right, though. That's and that's what you should do. Uh and that's one of the things that that I did is uh overseeing the the instruction of uh it's evasive driving. It's where do you park? How do you park the car when you pull up a site behind another car? How far should you be behind them so that you can allow yourself an opportunity to get a get out and stuff uh and get away. And all of that comes into play and and Hollywood has this great concept that if you run into the back of somebody, you're gonna knock them off the road. But that's not that's not gonna happen if they run into you straight on from behind, if you're managing your your driving, but if they hit you from the side or something like that, then yeah, there is the possibility.

SPEAKER_05 17:39

So yeah.

SPEAKER_06 17:41

So yeah, there is all of that.

SPEAKER_05 17:42

Yeah, it's to me it's fascinating. It's like I know it's not it's not necessarily knife related, but like in the con that concept is is similar in in some ways of like figuring out what the cause and effect is to certain things that we do in knives, right? Absolutely, yeah. Like if I if I think about it, like the way that I grind this thing or the uh or the position of something um affects like the physics of it. And it's like I have to think about whether this is gonna break in a situation or what the quality control is. There's like I I see that you know, when we live our lives, uh there's a lot of similarities in the concepts of uh security and uh integrity and uh things like that that m you know you you can take that and then use that cross-disciplinarily and in other uh aspects of your life.

SPEAKER_06 18:34

Oh, I agree with you. I uh you're you're absolutely correct. I um yeah, when you're it when you're when you're making a knife, you're thinking of uh the same integrity, the same um what's the word I want to use? The the the concept, the the basis for doing it and doing it correctly and taking those steps is the same as if you were doing uh say uh executive protection, so to say, is I have to take a necessary set of steps to get the end result, then it's the same thing in a knife making. It's all the same thing. And you know, what are the knife's gonna be used for and then taking the steps to get there?

SPEAKER_05 19:16

Yeah. Why, yeah. And I noticed that like a lot of hunting and cutlery stuff is uh is on your table. Uh do you do a lot of like tactical style things for that previous experience that you've had in the I I do a couple.

SPEAKER_06 19:31

I am uh I've recently started uh making folders of liner locks, and so that'll probably be come along more my my tactical style of not as a tactical liner lock style of knife.

SPEAKER_05 19:43

That's fascinating. Then you said your uh son was in leather, right? Yes. Um so uh talk a little bit about that. Like um for me, anytime I have to have leather done by somebody else, I always have to think about like the overhead, right? Sure. And I'm sure, I mean, obviously having like your son have his own business and whatnot, there is overhead, but I um what's it like working with them? And uh and do you find it um challenging ever?

SPEAKER_06 20:12

No, no, he's actually um we we work really well together. We we always have he um when you're right, there's a lot of overhead in where you have if when you have a a sheath maker, you send the knife off, so you you're paying shipping, you're paying shipping to get it back, you're paying all these other costs, uh plus the cost of the the sheath and everything. And I know that there are knife makers out there that that make their own sheath. It was never a desire of mine, and it will probably never be a desire of mine to make my own sheath. And you know, having him do it has been really nice. He lives relatively close to me. He he knows I know that whenever if I need 10 sheaths next week, he'll knock it out. He'll he'll stop what he's doing and he'll work on my stuff and get it. He does it, he doesn't make a lot of sheath for the public. He makes a lot of other leather and and it's really a cool story, is Grizzly Two Leather is is Travis Silvest on Instagram, is what it is. And it's really cool that that we started this as a father-son type deal to go on a trip together to do something together, and then it morphed into him making sheaths for me. And now he has grown to where he makes bags, leather, other leather uh wallets and and money clips and the whole nine yards, everything. So it's been pretty cool. And and we're still doing those father son son things because we travel to shows together and we share tables and we're side by side and and and that sort of thing. When I was in law enforcement, I had uh I had a ranch on the side and I had right at 200 head of cows. And he lived with me and helped me with the cattle, and and he and my dad, before my dad passed away, did quite a lot with the cattle. They fed the cattle in the wintertime when I was working and that sort of thing. So we've always had that father-son work team ethic and everything. So it it was it was it a difficult transition.

SPEAKER_05 22:10

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I like on the periphery, I see uh y'all's relationship, whatnot. I'm a little bit jealous uh for the uh ability to you for you to work with your son. So it's uh I lost mine. Uh and you know, I it's it's it's a beautiful thing to see, you know, and I respect it a lot to me. It seems like um like those moments that you you have together when you guys are doing those things that um it has to be a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_06 22:36

It is, it is a lot of fun. So we we hunt together, fish together, and that sort of thing. Yeah, it's it's a it's a great thing.

SPEAKER_05 22:43

Yeah. Well, um, it's uh a pleasure to talk to you and be able to like understand a little bit more about your life. Um, you know, in the context of this show um that we're at now recording, um, you know, it's I I think it's a great uh I like concept to talk to other makers and and and I'm like really honored that you could spend the time with me. We'll have to sit and talk a little bit more um at a future episode to give you like some more time where we can talk about some other concepts and things like that, because I want to pick your brain on things. But you know, thanks for spending your time with me and talking.

SPEAKER_06 23:17

Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_05 23:19

Absolutely. My next guest is James Hughes, and he's been a plaismith for 23 years. He's an ABS journeyman smith and a fortune fire season one and season four champion. James has also been a longtime champion of sharing his knowledge and cultivating an environment of learning, inspiration, and everyone is right. James is your nice, it's constantly a full. Has elevated his craftsmanship to heirloom quality made. James, thanks for taking the time to talk with me today.

SPEAKER_07 24:12

I appreciate it. I'm glad I'm here.

SPEAKER_05 24:14

Yeah, thanks. Um what I I you know I I ask this all the time, and uh I'm particularly interested in in what got you into knives because I really don't um I really don't know a lot of your backstory into it, to be honest with you. Um I'm interested in like what what what got you into the thing that you're doing now?

SPEAKER_07 24:37

Well, I've been doing this for going on 23 years. Professionally for the last 10. Maybe a little bit, maybe a little bit more. But I started in the fall. Not the fall, but the the winter of 2021, uh 2001. And I just wanted to see what it would take to make a knife. So a friend of mine, Clint Brock and I, we went to garage sales and we'd pick up old knives and we would rehandle them. Just put new scales on them or put them back together. Did that for about a year and then started making our own stuff, you know, hacksaw, using hacksaw blades to cut out our steel files to cut our bevels, things like that, and really determined determined to make a nice, nice knife, and they uh were very ugly in the very beginning, you know. You know, twenty twenty-three years ago there was no no real community that you could search for. So reading Blade magazine, looking at the tips and tricks that the Blade Blade magazine used to have, which back then Blade magazine was 90 pages long and not just 30 pages. Or no, there was 160 pages long and it's now reduced to 60 or 70 pages. Used to have a whole lot more how to do it content. And you get m I've got many books, you know, The Master Bladesmith, the Master Blacksmith, and you got other books that you know the the wonders of knife making. You read books and you and you just try it. Um but I wanted to I wanted to see if I could make a a good knife because I got tired of buying knives and that were made overseas. And got better at it, started getting opinions from people and meeting mastersmiths and aspiring to to be as good as a mastersmith, and that's what you've got to do. You can't just be satisfied where you're where you're at. You've got to get other people's opinions, and you've got to have a hero or such, something to look up to. I want to make knives like him, and you surround your your your inner circle with people that are better than you if you want to grow. And so just the curiosity of making a knife, I can do it, is what got me started. You know, and now I'm I'm a good knife maker, I'm not the best, but I can hold my own against some of the people that that are really really experienced knife makers. I've read plenty of books, I've taught many classes, uh I've taken many classes from several people, and people that don't take classes have a harder time making knives because they don't learn the tips and tricks. And anybody can learn anything from anybody as long as they're open to the fact that there are different ways of doing stuff. And that's what makes the community great, as far as Texas knife makers or American America in general, is that people are willing to share their knowledge of the craft just to better it and to expand it.

SPEAKER_05 27:43

Yeah. Well, I mean, something that I've been really proud of is is the uh the growth of knife making holistically in Texas um over the amount of time that I've been on the scene. Like it even seems within the last you know seven to ten years, uh there's been a a humongous um not only interest, but a lot of really great talent uh in inside of Texas. I mean, let's I mean, we're a show where I can go by a lot of a lot of tables and see just incredible work. Right. Um but uh I've always I think uh when when you did that gamblers uh the gamblers uh The gambler set, yeah. It's just called The Gamblers. The Gamblers, yeah. Um I was really intrigued by um I don't know what you what do you you don't call that a theme knife, right?

SPEAKER_07 28:36

But it was a very theme-specific, yeah specific knife. I mean it was a four-knife kit or four-knife set, but it had what they would consider keyhole bolsters where you remove a shape from a bolster, then you inlay the wood into that. Yeah. But each of the shapes were different suits of the different of the deck of cards. And that was I nobody had ever done it before, and I wanted to see if it could be done. You know, so I worked on it and worked on it and worked on it until I got the pieces to fit. But building that set, I kept that set for three years before I ever sold it because it was such a industry specific. I mean, it had to really somebody had to like poker, somebody had to like knives, and I had a custom deck of cards made for it. That were made from the actual ink money made from. Oh yeah. Same holographic material. And the person who made the who designed the deck of cards and had them made lived pretty close to me. His name is Jackson Robinson, and he made that's his business, is he designs cards for bicycle. Oh, that's cool. And and he designed a deck of cards for me, and I had poker chips, custom poker chips made from a company out of Las Vegas. And they were real money, you could cash them in if you wanted to. But it was a very poker specific thing. Yeah. And it was a collaboration of four people. I made the knives, um, Wes Griffin did the engraving, Carlos Pinha made the sheets for me, and then um the box was made by forgive me, I cannot remember his name. But the box was made made by a very another knife maker. Yeah. But it was an it was a a labor of love. But that's the kind of knives I want to make. I mean, I make my everyday normal stuff, but when I wanna when I have an idea, like any maker, you build something because you want to, not because you have to.

SPEAKER_03 30:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 30:41

And you know, I'm gonna build and this is gonna be expensive, and I'm gonna know I'm gonna keep it for a long time before someone buys it. But if you build something with the expectation of selling it right away, you're in this business for the wrong reason. You do it because you like doing it. Because nobody in their right mind thinks they can go out and make a living making knives that people don't need. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 31:00

So it seems to be the theme, right? Uh I th I think that maybe my motivations originally for getting into it was that I could have supplement income, right? And you know, I was uh interested in knives. I I I was making knives before I really invested in more equipment and things, but um there's a difference between doing knives as a hobby and then doing knives even as a part-time, because the reality is that you know your investment's high, and even like trying to get into selling knives, you know, it's I think that happens through osmosis more than it does bike because you specifically try to sell a knife.

SPEAKER_07 31:42

Right. I mean, you get into knife making as a hobby, do you want to do it? Then you realize real quickly that I cannot just keep putting out making knives because it's a rather because you always want bigger and better equipment. And you can't keep going out of pocket, buying all this stuff, and you realize handle materials are expensive. Steel of all the knife making things that we use to make knives, steel is the cheapest per capita of any of the consum uh any of the supplies that we use. You know, belts, consumables of the I mean, you go through belts dozens, dozens upon dozens a month, and they're not cheap. Yeah, no. So you start selling your knives to help offset some of the cost, and then you get better at it, and people want to buy more, and then it's just a snowball effect that man, I've got I can't keep up, and then so you up your prices a little bit to try to pull back. I mean, they keep buying them. It's like, man, I'm making some good money here. I'm gonna do this this way, and then all of a sudden it drops off. It's like, what happened? I was doing so good. It's an up and down roller coaster. Yeah, when then you think, you know, I fired myself four times this year, but I keep having to rehire myself because I still have to pay the bills.

SPEAKER_05 32:59

Yeah, I don't, it's insanity. Uh, it really is. I mean, with the uh the gambler, um I I think that that probably in in my mind made me think more about um my own knife making and kind of some of the things that I want to do um thematically, right? Um like if I can take uh some some cons like artistic constraints and uh and make something that expresses an idea, um what would that look like?

SPEAKER_07 33:38

And you know, the I I guess the thing is like um Well, you're trying to take a mental, like you said, an idea and turn it physical. Something you you it's hard to express because you can see the picture in your mind. It may just be the a theological idea. Yeah, but now you're trying to turn that into a physical thumb, something that you it can hold. And whether that's a spiritual idea or whatever. Now, but that's the fun part about it because nobody can tell you what that looks like. That is your idea. You know, all they can do is if they see something, a technique that you're using, hey, how about you try this technique to achieve the same goal, but they can't tell you what you're doing is wrong. And that's what I like about knife making. There's no right or wrong. There there are some, yes, right and wrong black and white rules for basic fundamentals, but outside fundamentals, it's all art. Yeah. And do what you want to do as long as people like it, then they like it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 34:34

Yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah. I think that like the self-discovery um and self-esteem component of knives is the most important. Um, because you know, uh c customers are ancillary, but you have to be you have to be in it the you know, in order to be able to express yourself and then to produce anything. And if you if you can't be or you s like you doubt yourself constantly, well, I mean I doubt myself all the time, but you know, it's one of those things where I think that I think that that like you have to be uh invested in your own ability to create things in order for stuff to happen.

SPEAKER_07 35:13

Well people pick up on that, customers pick up on that, you know. If you don't have the confidence in yourself that you're building, whether it's pretty, ugly, or whatever, then you as long as you doubt yourself, you're never gonna grow. You gotta push. It you know, it may be hard, but you've got to push yourself. If you want to get better, you gotta push yourself. If you're doing something that you don't know how to do and you're not willing to take lessons or ask people because you want to quote unquote be be all by yourself, yeah, you're never gonna make it. It's gonna be a long, hard road. You know, to to to achieving what you want to achieve. But it's but the but but the moment you doubt yourself, you've now taken two steps back. Just keep pushing forward. If you don't know how to do something, keep doing it until you can. That's all I can that's all I can say about that. Just that if you just are too scared to do something, you're never gonna do it. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 36:10

So my understanding, uh, so you you're a uh a junior uh journeyman smith.

SPEAKER_07 36:16

I'm a journeyman smith with the ABS.

SPEAKER_05 36:18

Yeah. Um what was that process like? Because you know, like I'm I'm like I I did forging before and um and a lot more blacksmithing, but some some bladesmithing stuff, and then when I got frozen shoulder, I uh hung that up thinking that I it was it was so hard for me to think that my shoulder would ever be working again the way that it should to be able to swing a hammer. Luckily, within the last year, um I've really kind of come to the realization that I can do it again. Use a lighter hammer, yeah, lighter hammer and machinery instead of just having everything where I'm heating and beating it completely. Right. But um, so I joined as an apprentice, um, and I was talking with Brad Jansen uh about his journey through uh JS and whatnot. Like how you know what what do you feel like the process is like? I mean, what do you like, what do you dislike? I mean, I don't I don't want to put you on a spot to air any grievances.

SPEAKER_07 37:13

No, I mean I mean the grievances are are neither here nor there because they have their process and they're an organization that's been around for 46 46 years. And you join the ABS as a as an apprentice, but Mastersmiths aren't gonna search you out. You gotta search out a Mastersmith, be a friend of Mastersmith, and hopefully get a chance to work under a Mastersmith or whatever. But you find somebody that you admire and you admire your work and you learn to ask questions. Don't think that they owe you anything. You're still there to learn. And so whenever I became a when I was a before I ever started became an ABS, I was friends with Harvey Dean. And he was one of the very first Mastersmiths that I ever became friends with. So when I joined the ABS and I joined the ABS a couple times, but recently, 2015, that's where I've stuck with it. And I told him I joined as an apprentice and I'd like to pursue my journeyman Smith. And he said, the first thing you need to do is learn how to forge a knife. Start to finish, forging the bevels. You want to look flat. And he he specifically told me, we're looking for this type of knife. No brute to forge, we're looking for do it in your own style, but we're looking for specific knives. We don't care what you make now, but we're looking for this because they have a standard. And you it's hard to judge a standard off of everybody's different styles. So they're looking for not specific styles, but they're looking for more traditional style knives, you know, western style knives, things like that. And if everybody goes, you can make your own handle shape or whatever, but the blade shapes is what we're looking for because we're looking for forging techniques. So I'd started forging that way. And the first thing you gotta do, once you once you've put in your three years, you gotta put in a minimum three years before you can test for journey journey smith. You forge a 10-inch bladed knife, 15-inch overall. When I did it, it could be full tang. It could be hidden tang or full tang. Now they changed rules where it's for Virginia Smith, it's full tang. Um and you put a guard, you put a handle, and the knife has to be heat treated in a way that you gotta cut a one-inch, you got one swing, one chance is to cut a one-inch rope with one swing. Six inches from the bottom of the rope or as close to it as you can. They don't want you to cut one foot. It's gotta be within pretty close to six inches. Because they're looking for control. And that shows edge geometry. If you can cut a clean rope, it shows that you you're pretty you're you've got a good edge and you got a good geometry to cut through the rope. Then you take the same knife and you cut, you chop a two by four and half twice. And that shows edge holding ability. And then they look at the edge, make sure there's no deformation to the edge, no rolled edges, flat spots, anything. And then Harvey Dean, well, Horrigan was my journeyman Smith, Master Smith, and he chose a section, you know, two inches or so. So shape with this section. So you got to shape that section. If it doesn't shave, you fail right there. If it does pass, then you lock it no more than three inches from the tip of the knife, and that knife has got to survive a 90-degree bend. It doesn't have to come back to straight, it just can't break. And that of all the tests, of all everything that we do, the the bend test to me seems unnecessary. Because nobody's gonna stick their knife and bend it in anything. You know, and I've talked to other people, and I'd rather see a torque test. Say, okay, lock this thing, lock your knife into a vice three inches, and we're gonna assert maybe 75 foot pounds of torque to it. Maybe make a limit, 75, 100 pounds, it can be 100 pounds torque, and once it clicks, you come back up, and now we're gonna see how straight it has come back and give them a range. That to me, that's more useful because if I bend my knife and it can so what if it can make a 90-degree angle? It can, you know, that to me that knife is useless at that point. But if I can put 100-125 foot pounds of torque on it and it comes back to true, that is a useful knife. That that means I can really pray with that sucker and I still have a useful knife after the fact. Yeah, that's one of the things I would change about it. But the tests have been around for four years. And you know, they've had their standards, but getting someone to change the idea of what you know, the use of a knife, because you can make almost any steel as you if it's heat-treated properly, do that bend test, but the torque test is something different. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 42:06

So Yeah. Well, and I I wonder to a certain extent whether it's the tradition of the Ben test more than it is the actual like Well, it is.

SPEAKER_07 42:15

I mean, it it's tradition. I mean, it it's been around, like I said, 40 years. Yeah. But once you pass that, they sign off on your paperwork. And then you submit your paperwork to Cindy Sheeley or whoever the secretary is at the time. And they say, okay, you passed. Now, if you fail that test, you can test again in six months. But once you pass, then you can go to the next available blade show, which is Atlanta. Every year it's Atlanta. And then you submit your five, you build five knives. In Journeyman Smith, it's all mono steel, no Damascus, clean, hand-sanded knives. And then they look at them, a panel of seven judges will look at them and tell you what you did right, tell you what you did not wrong, but they tell you what you need to work on. And they judge that they're looking for a fundamental standard to see whether you're good enough to go on to Journeyman Smith. They're looking for straight plunges, making sure the plunges that you cut are the same shape. Not that they just line up, they want to see if they have initially the same arc. They're looking for fit and finish. Um handle construction. Is it comfortable? You know, is it symmetrical? Is the blade straight? Does it line up all the way through the handle? There's a lot of fundamentals that you don't want a handle straight than the blade to kick off to one side.

SPEAKER_05 43:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 43:35

That's just fundamentally wrong. You know, anybody can look at that. There's no history that there's a knife that's kicked off. It has to be straight, otherwise, it's not going to be a useful tool. And that's what they look at. And you get people in there that want to put their own idea into it, and they use their idea of their skill. Oh, this guy should be here. And that's the problem. It is still subjective, it's still a subjective judging. Because there's no s written down standard. You know, well, I was here at this at the when I was at this stage, I was making it this way, but you can't do that. And that's one of the what's one of the things about the ABS is they don't have a written standard, so it's hard to judge on whether you're there or not. You're basing the ideal off of Master Smiths that they to look at your knives. And when I pass my journeyman smith, they all love my blades, they love my handles, but they all hated the shape of my guards, but they don't have any I they don't have anything written down on what shape the guards need to be. They just need to be symmetrical, there can't be any gaps, and it needs to be clean finish. But every one of my tickets says passed, hate your guards. Which is fine. I from that line I asked questions. What did you not like about my guards? Well, they were too thick, and they were just ovals. Just a plain oval, clean sanded guard. There's no character to it. And I said, okay, now I can take that and build my lives later. More toward my style. But as far as the judging goes, you didn't say you wanted any specific shape, so they can't judge on that.

SPEAKER_05 45:17

So Yeah, I mean, with Mastersmith they require the Quillian dagger.

SPEAKER_07 45:21

No, Mastersmith is a different test. The Quillian dagger is a very specific knife. Yeah. And that's the only one that has to be Damascus. The other ones can be monosteel, the other four. And then the bend test knife, same exact process, but it has to be made out of Damascus steel. 300 plus layer.

SPEAKER_03 45:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 45:38

Or 300 layer minimum Damascus steel. It's a harder test because it has to be hidden tang. And if the tang bends at any point of the test, you fail.

SPEAKER_03 45:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 45:51

So I mean you've got to learn your heat tree at that point. You've got to learn metallurgy. You gotta know blade geometry. You know, because you want the knife. You don't want it to break, but you also don't need that tang to bend. So you can't be real, it can't be real stiff. And if that tang bends, you fail. Yeah. Whether the knife breaks or not. It's a it's it's a little bit of a heartbreak when when things don't go your way the first time around. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 46:16

Well. Yeah, I I uh I guess in life I've been used to disappointment, but there's some ways where I think uh in knives it's it's real uh it's real hard at times. For as much as I mean, I don't know, for as much as it you know it doesn't matter in some ways, in other ways it does. I don't know why this is weird psychology too.

SPEAKER_07 46:38

It is, it's a psychological. I mean, I've talked to many people. Hey, are you ever gonna test for drug because even Texas Knife Makers Guild, we have our Lone Star membership where you submit three knives, we look at them, and but we have a written standard. And if you as long as you're honest with yourself about your knives, you can grade your knives yourself. So many people, very, very, very few people, look at that and grade themselves. We don't hide anything, we don't try to hide, you know, tell you how to build your knives. Read the piece of paper, judge your knives yourself. As long as you're honest, you can get a pretty accurate idea of whether you're gonna pass or not. That is a tool that we offer to the makers, to our members. Nobody utilizes it. And then they get surprised if they submit three knives and they fail. Yeah. Did you read this? Well, yeah, I read that. Then why didn't you at least do this minimum? It's not hard. Well, uh, uh, uh, well, I can't, I can't at that point I can't protect you. Yeah. It ain't like we're how we're not hiding anything. We're not some secret society here trying to keep people out. We want to teach you how to see your knives in a different light. Yeah. And until you can see the flaws in your own work, you'll never be a a good knife maker. You won't be able to see anything. And that's what we try to teach. That that that's the fundamental thing we try to teach people in the Texas knife makers guild is how to see your problems. Don't trust anybody else to tell you the truth. You gotta trust with your own eyes what what you're seeing.

SPEAKER_05 48:03

Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, it wasn't too many years ago that I uh I put in for Lone Star at uh ICCE. Last year it was in the stockyards, I think it was. Um and I had been making knives in a vacuum. You know, I was it was just in my shop, you know. I you know, I I would admire other people's work, but I was just really kind of like you know, trying to figure out learning. It's a boring way to make knives. Yeah, it is, it really is. And I I think um I I got a little feral um because I was really concerned having my knives judged, there I was thinking about all the things that could be wrong with it and all the things that anybody would say, a little real self-conscious. And uh I mean I had I had looked over all the uh the guidelines for the Texas Guild and had done you know that. I was like, well, I need to make sure that like all these examples of things not to do, I need to make sure that they're uh out of there. And you know, what was interesting is that um I think Jason Fry um looked at my knives and he was like, you know, here's like the things that you know I would change. I was like, well, uh, and and it was kind of like that inter interaction was done. And I was like, well, wait, so did I pass or not? He's like, Oh yeah, no, you're good, you're good or whatever. And I was like, oh, okay.

SPEAKER_07 49:27

And when he said when we say that, we're just seeing things that we see as makers being having more experience that you can change. We're not telling you have to, but to make the knife more fluid, to flow better, and make the knife more attractive, you know, because it's a balancing act of what we what what you what you could do. It's just suggestions.

SPEAKER_05 49:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 49:55

And my knives, when I started first started making knives, I made them the idea the way that I thought I needed to make a knife. If you've looked at the evolution or the adaptation, the changes of my knives, they've completely looked different from when I started because I started listening to my customers. I really like this knife, but I don't the handle hurts here. Well, make a note.

SPEAKER_03 50:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 50:16

And oh, I love this handle. If it was just a little thinner here. So it's a compromise. I really like designing knives, but I've got to listen to my customers because I'm not gonna buy every knife that I make. Yeah. They are. Yeah. So you've got to I'll only make the knives that I want to make. No, you make the knives that sell. And if you wanna if you want to do this long time. And if you make an only if you only make the knife that you want to make, you're not gonna make knives for very long. Because they're not gonna be comfortable. They're not gonna look good. You gotta, you gotta, you've gotta trust your customers to tell you what they're wanna what what they want what they want to see from you.

SPEAKER_05 50:53

Yeah. Well, and I think that's also that's also what what you're saying is a different concept entirely from the maker the who is outside of the box about design, right? Because most everybody learns the fun like the fundamental truths of knives, right? Like the form and the function. And then after that level of mastery has been obtained, then they go and play. Right. Right? They learn what it what uh the baseline is, and then they can play. But you have some people, I've seen some real interesting cats make some real knives, and I was like, it's just not at all practical.

SPEAKER_07 51:35

Right. I mean, there's practicality. Yes, that knife looks it's a very artsy knife, it looks good, but how practical is the use of the knife? Do you want them to go out and use the knife, or do you want them to be a wall hanger? So you've got to find a happy medium there that, man, this is a really nice, this is a really really unique shape, really unique grind. And it is very useful in a handful of tasks. But there's a fine balancing act there. Uh you can there's been funky knives built historically for hundreds of years that does that that that had one purpose. When that knife was built and designed, or sword, or whatever, one purpose. For the most part, we try to make knives that have multiple purposes. And it's just really hard to do. I want a knife that cuts always perfectly every time if I go and decide to chop up brick with it. I'm sorry, that ain't gonna happen. You know, you know. So you've tried to you try to incorporate as many uses as you can into a knife, but it's sometimes it's just real hard. Yeah. And when people come to me, customers, and say, I've got this idea for a knife. Okay, let's draw it out. Well, I don't know how to draw. Can you explain what you want? Not really, I just got an idea. I'm sorry, I'm not the man for you. Yeah, yeah. We're not gonna play this game because the more, the more I the the the stranger your idea is, the more expensive a knife is gonna be because if you can't get it out of your head, I'll never be able to make the knife that you expect.

SPEAKER_05 53:05

Yeah. That's true. And I mean it's like that's the common problem with um custom work, is you know, you have like technically we all exist in this handmade space, but then some of us also live in this custom world. And even my like the amount of stuff that I'm willing to customize is not as extensive as some makers. Like, I I stick within patterns, I modify patterns that I that I I'm comfortable with, I know how they're how they perform, but if you want to do something that's like really out of the box, that's a harder thing for me because I think about I still want to be able to produce a knife that in all ways, shape, and form performs the way that I think it should. So um that's difficult to say no sometimes uh or to even work with customers on creations like that.

SPEAKER_07 53:55

And and I'm the same way. I like making my handmade stuff that I know is useful. If someone comes to me with a custom design, I do very, very little truly custom work. And I, you know, again, if you can't draw it or describe what you want, I can't make it. And I'm not willing to put in the time to build something that you're gonna be ultimately dissatisfied about because it isn't what you're thinking about. Yeah. But I can't read your mind. And to me, if you really want the knife, I could care less what you use it for. You know, you just want the knife, but you're gonna pay for it because I don't do things for free. Yeah. And the more I have to work on this thing and the more times I have to overdo do things over, it's gonna be ultimately more expensive. But again, if you can't describe it and you can't design it, and you can't do this, then I can't build it. You've got to be a never artistic person to build something. And if you come up with me, it looks like a flamin' a flamin' blade with curves and bevels everywhere else. I'll build what you control and we'll discuss the design. But that it's that whole fast, cheap, good kind of thing. You know, it's gonna take me time to build it, and you can't bother me about it. You know. And I'll and I'll share my steps with you, and I'll show you pictures every as along the way. And if there's something you don't like, then you better tell me now because I'm not moving on. If I have to, if you say, Oh, it looks great, and then by the end, oh I don't really don't like it. I don't care. Yeah, you're still paying for it.

SPEAKER_05 55:34

Yeah. Oh man. I uh I'll I'll I like knives because there's always something to chew on.

SPEAKER_07 55:44

Every shape has been made historically. There's nothing really you can come up with that's that's brand new that's never been made before. But it's the oldest tool in history. It's been around for thousands of years. It's a useful tool. As long as you use it as such, it can be a weapon if it's stretched out and made into a sword. The cutting edge. The cutting edge is is the most useful tool we have. Whether that be an axe, a chef's knife, a hunting knife, a sword, or anything. That's what built this country or built the world is the cutting edge.

SPEAKER_05 56:19

So Yeah. Well, James, James Hughes, the uh knife Buddha from Buta.

SPEAKER_07 56:25

No, not Buddha. I am from Buta, Texas. Yeah. And uh I am just uh just a humble a humble man.

SPEAKER_05 56:37

But I I've always appreciated you because uh you've always been very insightful uh and uh and an inspiration to me. Uh I've I think about uh our conversations and there's lots of stuff that I can pull from it and I think about it. So I mean, like in in in so many ways, you might not know it, but you're like a you mentor me in knives, and I've always appreciated that about you. So it's a pleasure to have you on the show.

SPEAKER_07 56:59

I appreciate it too. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_05 57:00

We'll have to do this a fur a longer version where we can really get more into the f uh uh philosophy and whatnot, too, because I think we would probably spend quite a bit of time talking about different aspects of knives.

SPEAKER_07 57:12

We could go through and talk for hours about different ideas of knives. Yeah, it's such a large industry, and there's so many different aspects of knives, you know, that you could you could have a whole podcast or whatever just talking about the styles of knives. Yeah. You know, culinary, EDC, buoy knife, the history of the buoy knife, the history of the sword, what kind of sword, where is it from?

SPEAKER_05 57:37

You know, it's just I mean I think uh I think about that a lot. Like, you know, I'm I am focusing on one very specific uh corner of podcasting, and that's the the motivation to create and knives is that medium, right? Because arguably a lot of us um could be any other type of creator in physical goods, engravers, you know, everything, right? Carpenters. Um, but why knives? And you know, it's interesting to me, like kind of what stems into that. It's just all these tendrils. Uh so you know, we'll have I'll we'll have a full episode again um and talk through all that stuff and yeah. Yeah, anytime. Yeah, absolutely. It's a pleasure. Frank and Nita Machado of FN Metal Works and Two Bastards, Texas Smithyan Supplies, have been a driving force within the Texas bladesmithing and blacksmithing community for almost 10 years, supplying restored and anime cameras and other tools. This dynamic duo has gotten stuffed at their location that many of the cameras used to hire the schools of their craft. When they're not in their smith their students, other hospitality cameras shows and in a way that makes one feel like I got the chance to sit down with Frank while Nita attended to their table and talk about the great work that him and Nita are doing within the community. Frank, it's a pleasure to get to talk to you finally.

SPEAKER_01 59:14

Thanks for inviting me on. We're honored to be here.

SPEAKER_05 59:17

Yeah, absolutely. So um a little bit before we start hit the record button, we were talking about um you know, kind of your backstory, and I want to know more about like kind of what what drove you to where you're at now and what that parallel is with you know, hammers and knives and what you're doing in your shop and everything.

SPEAKER_01 59:39

I'd always thought it was the blacksmith world was fascinating. You know, whether you're making knives or you're making tongs or you're making camp cooking kits. I've always thought that was just absolutely fascinating. So one day I said, I'm I'm you know, I'm gonna learn this, and um, there's a local college up in Dallas that that on Thursdays and Saturdays do a blacksmith program. So aside from my regular job in the medical field, I went up there and started taking classes. And it I'd already forged a hammer and knew I was gonna have an issue with this because I was doing a lot of restorations, I do a lot of restorations from Austria as well as a lot of domestic stuff. And I uh I wanted a very specific design of hammer. And my mentor, Kelly Kring, Master Blacksmith, said, make one. I said, Well, you know, I'm not a hammer maker. He goes, You've made a hammer, make one. So we made a couple, and he said, These are great. You need to make more, you got a demo coming up. I want you to sell your hammers, the restored and the new stuff. So we came up with some different designs, and from there got invited to another demo. From there, I met Cowboy Siminsky of Phoenix Knives. He came up and said, Hey, me and my wife, my family are thinking about doing our first uh forge and fire knife show at the backyard blacksmith shop of of Phoenix Knives in Belleville, and we'd love you to be the hammer vendor. So great honor. You know, he didn't charge us anything because he didn't know how it was gonna go. Now it's just a monster show. Yeah. And and we're honored to be vendors and sponsors of that show every year since. So we went there and again, it was it was uh amazing. It was the first time I actually met all these forge and fire guys. And we're having dinner with them and finding out what they liked and disliked most about the knife world because I knew I wanted to get in and be able to provide them products that they could use, hammers and geometric shapes that they enjoyed, that that made their world easier. Because if I can make what you do for a craft, what you're doing to pay your bills, what you're doing that brings you pleasure to create, if I can provide a product that makes that somehow easier, that's what I want to do. So they're giving me ideas on coming up with prototypes and selling every single one of those prototypes to each one of these forge and fire guys that that had asked for it. So it started growing from there. Um, we started meeting more people, doing more shows, and then the first time we had a couple of hammers on Forge and Fire, we couldn't believe it. We couldn't believe it. Now you couldn't see our logo because they don't do that on the show. Um they they take the logos off if you want to use our hammers on the show or any hammers with a with a deep etch like ours, you know, no free advertising. So we thought, okay, this may actually turn into something, and that sparks more orders, and that sparks more orders. And now it's six years later, first week of December will be the six-year anniversary of our business, you know, FNN Metalworks, two bastards, Texas Smithy and supplies, and we uh we will be uh by by April, by the Belleville show in April next year, we should be at about 26, 2700 hammers in six years. So we do lots of hammers. And when I'm not making new 5160 or 4340 or 4140 hammers in dog heads or whatever standard geometric shape you want, I'm importing big groups of tools from Austria and the UK and slowly restoring those and getting those back into circulation here in the States. Yeah, I think that's cool.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:24

Um and I one thing I noticed about like being at your table and um, you know, uh uh odd odd uh uh uh cross section, right? Because I'm getting back into forging um after spending some time with a frozen shoulder or being out of it, right? Right, not comfortable. Yeah, and I'm looking at like before I don't think that um some of my hammer equipment and whatnot was very useful to me. Right. Um and uh it was makeshift at best. But there's like you know, I'm sitting here uh looking at some hammers, and like I don't know if I have like three or four hundred dollars to spend on trial, right? Trial and error. Yeah, it's an expensive experiment. Yeah, well, and I but I I look at like your hammers and your prices and things like that, and I I have to say it's very reasonable for the quality of the hammer and everything, uh, to uh for your price tag, right? And to me, it seems it seems like um I I could definitely see the appeal um for for uh people who are forging uh to have a product that's a like high quality and also affordable uh offered to them. So I mean I to me it makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:37

If you're a knife maker or a hobbyist knife maker, if you're paying the bills or just paying for your own hobby, or you're a general blacksmith and you you love doing the church craft fairs, you love doing the rent fairs, you love doing uh the flea markets and stuff, where you can go out there with 20 bottle openers, 50 stake turners, and things of the nature. Um, the the horseshoe hearts and crosses and stuff. The more expensive your tools are, the more that cuts into how much money you're gonna make, which means fewer supplies you're gonna be able to do, and the more stress put on you. You know, we are more than happy to make it up in bulk. We're more than happy to get a hammer in your hand for you know, 120 bucks that you're gonna make 30,000 on. We're more than happy to do that because you're gonna come back and get another one. Now, if you go, there's so many really good hammer makers out here in the blacksmith bladesmith community. I mean, you got Matt Marty, Jeff Bogdanoff, Mark Ling, I mean, and that's just three. I mean, there's there's some phenomenal monsters. I mean, Jim Poor, I mean, he he does a whole line of production Ferris hammers that a lot of knife makers are using for for knives. Um, and and they're all more expensive than mine, but they're all amazing quality. You know, if you never buy a hammer from me, but you show up with with one of these other guys' hammers, I'm gonna be just as excited for you. Because with with proper care, that's only going to last you three or four hundred years. You know, and this is going to be an amazing tool in your in your kit. Now, if if we can somehow fit fill a need in your kit to get a two bastards hammer in there, oh my wife and I would love it. Yeah. Now awesome. And if and you're if you're thinking about something else, no problem. You know, or let's say you bought a great hammer, or maybe it's not even a great hammer, but it would be with the right handle on it. You know, you bought a hammer because it was super budget, it was 20 bucks, it was at a flea market, but you hate the handle, give it to me, we'll reface it, my wife will, you know, do the handle upright for you. And now it's gonna throw and swing and feel like one of our hammers, even though the head and peen's different, but we can make that work. Anything that keeps people swinging, heat, beating, repeating, the more they're in this. You know, we we we love the idea of um, you know, when when if you have a big boat in a bay that draws, has a deeper draw than some of the other boats. So you need more water in that bay. You're not just gonna get water into your boat. So the more water comes into that bay, more fish come in for the fishermen, everybody catches more. So I'm just as excited if somebody buys somebody else's hammer and then comes and shows me, hey Frank, Nita, look what I got. I got this hammer from Jeff. I got this hammer from Mark Ling. I love it. You know, these are these are great hammers. Or I got one of Jim Poor's Farrier's hammer because I like that, I like that kind of shorter, stubby design. It just feels better in my hand. Or his handles feel better, you know. I'm gonna be thrilled with it because you're gonna be turning out an amazing product.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:44

So as long as there's there's produce being uh tools being created by all of us, then everybody benefits from this.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:54

Yeah. Well, I think that um one thing that's interesting to me in this whole di dynamic of uh forging is the anvil price has gone through the roof. Oh my goodness. Yeah, I mean, we think like we think a lot about like back back in the day, you'd buy an anvil, and even though you could talk about like the Cadillac and the Haybutton or whatever, and and the price point, it was still reasonable and obtainable for somebody to buy an anvil and then uh know that they could recoup their money.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:28

Oh my gosh, if you were paying two bucks a pound, it was almost too much. Yeah. Now you're lucky to get you know a vintage hay button um or a vintage Peterite in really good condition. You're lucky to get it for $9 a pound. Yeah. But you have again that that market's picked up because again, once the market goes crazy, you'll have more people enter it at a more reasonable price. So you have the Atlas Anvils now that are that are I mean, they're making amvils specifically for Bladesmiths. And they are filling this community up. You have Texas Fair Supply doing amazing anvils, and and they'll work with you on the shipping. I mean, again, everyone, most of us suppliers want to get as much stuff into the market as possible, you know, and bring more people into it. You know, with with especially with the knife making community, um, as with the blacksmithing community, you will see newcomers talking to veterans, guys who've been paying their bills and buying cars and putting kids in college with their knife making business for the last 30, 40, 50 years. And they are given every single secret they've ever had to some 15, 16, 17, 18-year-old newcomer who just bought his first forge, uh, you know, anvil and three or four hammers and a set of tongs. And they're given every secret because we all want to see this keep producing. We all want to see this keep growing. And and, you know, a lot of people still think, you know, outside of our community, still think blacksmithing or bladesmithing is a dying art. It's a dying, dying, you know, it's more of a hobby now. It's not a profession. And then they get in it and they realize, oh my goodness, there are people across the world doing this. I mean, I have conversations with Finn and Liam Christie from Ireland every few weeks. Um, the guy is a master blacksmith. He's been doing this for decades. Um, Torbion Amon, and I'm probably completely screwing up his name, but he's just a super great guy. Um, you know, the popular guys like Alex Seal, you know, that everyone knows the name of, who started off blacksmithing when he was like 12. And then coming up through does a lot of machining, a lot of restorations on old equipment, things like that, who bounces around between outside of London to, I think, Montana or Wyoming, wherever he was. And now I think he's back in England now. I'm just all over the place. But to see how much information is just pouring back into the community to make more blacksmiths, to help create more bladesmiths, because we got to keep it alive. And it's not, it's not in a panic. Oh my God, what do we do if this dies? Because there is zero chance. I mean, we are being flooded. I I mean, I've sold you know, eight hammers this morning to guys that were just getting into it. I just sold them their first hammer, and that is awesome because that's gonna continue to grow, it's gonna continue to go.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:23

So I'm interested. Um, you mentioned about being in the medical industry, yes. Um, and um, you know, what I I've picked up uh from my little bit of research on your business and everything, and kind of you know, talking to you and others about you, uh, you're very like entrepreneurially minded, like you see a need and you feel a need, and you're very um um intense about understanding a problem that you're solving. Like, where where did that come from? And like how how has working inside this industry um nurtured that kind of concept uh for you uh in in uh insofar as it relates to knives?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:07

Crazy question, great question. Um I have a million stories running through my head. So let's let's uh my parents, my father was um they're they're both past, but my father was a uh generovascular surgeon, my mom was his scrub nurse, two of the most hardest working people I've ever met. I'm the youngest with four siblings. There were five of us kids, all of us very driven, all of us um uh business oriented, very business-minded. None of us were were just couch potatoes. I mean, always running, always busy. I grew up down on uh South Padre Island back when it was a small town. And my first job was uh actually where we where you're getting paid by hour and you have hours to show up and that kind of fun stuff was being a deck hand on deep sea charter boats when I was 12. So you're you're running 12-hour days that start at 5 a.m., you know, fueling up the boat, getting up bait, rigging lures, the whole bit, you know, before you're taking a 36-foot crush craft out to the South Sponge Rock and pulling up as many kingfish, Wahoo, and Dorado as you can. Um but as far as independently, we used to have a paddle boat that would go up and down, or our house was on the bayside, and a paddle boat that would run north up the channel there, and it was a stern wheeler, uh, not a not a center wheeler. So the uh stern wheeler, paddle boat, and it would run up to the the top of the channel, and it would turn, make a U-turn to the left, and and come back down. Well, about three out of five trips on this dinner cruise, it would get up to the end of the channel. I could watch it, it was about a quarter mile up the up the bay. It would it would turn when that south wind would just push this thing into the mud flats. Well, I had a little 14-foot aluminum skiff called the Tinker Toy, and I'd see it up there and I went, like, you know, I wasn't thinking it like you said, see a need, fill a need. So I went up there and told the captain, for 10 bucks a person, I'll take all these people back to the dock because you're gonna be here until they can pull you out. This was a, I believe, a 75-foot stern wheel padder boat. And he said, Okay, so I'm putting five, six, seven, eight people in this little 14-foot aluminum skiff. It's amazing we didn't capsize. And I'm taking them back to the dock and I'm making 50, 60, 70 bucks a run, taking them back about a quarter mile the other side of the deal. I'm only running a half mile, making 70 bucks, haul butt back to the paddle boat, and I'm doing this, and every time, and it got to be a thing where eventually I told my mom, I said, Hey mom, can I borrow your boat? She had a 24-foot center console that I could put 12 people on. That was a lot faster. And she said, Yeah, just fill it up. And I was probably 14, 15 years old. And I go up there and he says, I'm not paying you. I said, Okay. And then all of a sudden, sudden the people were, the hell you're not. Pay the kid. We want to go back. We got plans. We're not gonna stay here for two hours. Yeah, you know. So I'd start doing that, and and that's kind of where it began. And I bought more surfboards and bicycles and fireworks when I was a kid. So you know, I was great at making the money, but also I was real good at spending it, you know. Um uh getting into the medical field, it was uh uh uh I got into medical imaging right at about 21 years old. Um I my goal was military, but I had three knee surgeries before I graduated high school. So I mean they wouldn't even let me carry water. Um so followed, followed parents into the medical field, got into medical imaging, um, and uh just continued to continue to do fun stuff in the in the medical field through uh from forensic radiography for the state of South Carolina to running special procedures, vascular interventional labs, and uh uh always had hobbies on the side. Um you know, always loved rusty tools, always loved restoring old things. You know, uh whether it was after a hurricane at the beach and going down and salvaging some of the stuff off the boats that had capsized, you know, and then restoring the stuff off those boats and getting them back, whether it was old compasses or or the portals off shrimp boats, you know, things of that nature. So I just always loved old rusty stuff. Um and my love of the restoring of the old stuff to restoring hammers that I would use and then getting into blacksmithing and using almost exclusively restored hammers that I did. Learned how to restore them, learned how to how to rehandle them properly, or you learn how to do it wrong ten times before you do it right. Yeah. And then and then that's kind of your secret and your trick, and you try to teach everybody how to do it that wants to learn, you know. Um and and getting into the the business again was kind of a trick from my mentor, my blacksmith mentor, of you know, you just started a business, you just don't understand it. You know, you don't know that you just started a hammer making business. So whether it's twisting wrenches or the anvil hold down tools, other suppliers, at some shows we may have uh, you know, four or five knives from from different knife makers on our table who couldn't make the show. Uh whether it's um uh other, you know, bigger suppliers like Texas Fair Supply, you know, if they say, hey, you're going to a show and we're not going, can we drop off a couple hundred pounds of of tongs or or belts or supplies or whatever? We'd love it. We we love that stuff. We love, you know, if if you can find 90% of what you're looking for by coming to us, we're thrilled. If not, I know who's got it and I'm gonna I'm gonna hook you up. So whether it's imported anvils and fly presses and swage blocks to local belts and you know small wheel attachments for your reader grinder, I mean, whatever it is, you're gonna get it.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:24

Yeah. I mean, it's um it's an incredible journey. I I'm always uh fascinated by people, uh, and I I can't the there's some people I think that look a a natural, I guess, God-given type of uh talent towards things and say that somebody lucked into something. And I hate that term when hard work is really a the primary factor to it is hard work, but timing is everything.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:53

Yeah, and either you're gonna seize that moment, you're gonna seize that opportunity, or you're not. Yeah. I mean, my wife is she's the other, she's my partner in this business and in life. She's my best friend and the biggest encouragement for this business. She sees what's happened over the last few years, she sees how fast we've grown, she sees where we are growing to. I mean, with with the shows we're sponsoring, now we're involved with Quad State, now we're involved with Oklahoma, we'll be in Arkansas next year. So we've we've shipped all over the world. Um, but but we've never done shows outside the state.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:32

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:33

And now we're going to be doing that. I mean, we're just we're excited to keep going. And uh a lot of it is seeing the moment, but being scared of that unknown. I think every entrepreneur, every everybody in business can can maybe be a little intimidated by that certain opportunity. You know, is this something that I'm gonna fall flat on my face on? Is this a good opportunity to grasp, or is it just is it just an opportunity? And sometimes it's best to walk away. You know, there's there's stores we sell our hammers in, and there's stores we used to sell our hammers in, you know, because it wrong market, maybe wrong management, whatever it was. It just, you know, we just found, again, this is business. This side of it's business. Just because you want to sell our hammers in your store, we may not be the person for you. There may be somebody else that that would be a better hammer provider that might move better in your store than ours. You know, so um it it you're right. There's I never like that idea of you know lucked into a business or lucked into an opportunity. No, the opportunity's there. Now, what I like to do is set up those dominoes, start making those relationships, making those friends, making those contacts, um, you know, network like a dog and set everything up. You never know what's gonna happen. You never know what's gonna happen. I mean, you know, you you comment on somebody's post on on Facebook or something, and next thing you know, they're they're they're trolling your page and they're going back three, four, five years looking at stuff, and they're liking photos that you forgot you took.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:14

You know, restorations you forgot you did, or you know, gifts, whether you're you know, restoring a portable forge and restoring a couple of hammers for some kid's 15th birthday, because his dad knows he's a huge fan of blacksmithing, and I know what his dad does, and there's just no way he's gonna be able to fund that. So, yeah, absolutely. I got stuff. We're gonna make this happen. And the kid's gonna do cool guy stuff. Dad's a hero, the kid's a hero, they're gonna grow in this together, and all of a sudden now we got a whole new level of relationship between father and son there. So, do you set up these dominoes and knock them down the way they need to be knocked down, or is this just being in the right place at the right time? Sometimes it's both. Because you can be in the right place at the right time and absolutely walk away from a golden opportunity. So it's not always making the right decision, seizing the right opportunity, it's not making the wrong decision.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:19

Um I pause here, uh, mostly because I'm just like I'm contemplating kind of like the my like cerebral kind of concepts or thoughts, and then also my emotional. Like I I you're probably like I just talking with you in the span that we have, I feel like you're probably one of the most intelligent people I've ever met. Right? And I it's all it's all show. No, it absolutely is not. But the thing is, like, no, you're you're super intelligent. Um and you you are able to be successful um with your energy, right? But uh you're also um uh that comes from the heart, right? And the energy and investment that you put uh from your from your life energy uh comes from a place that um I hope everybody sees that because um you're a lovable person, and you have you have an energy that to me is uh very profound. So um, you know, it's it's hard sometimes to think um like try to quantify that. Um, but it means a lot to me that you want to talk because I get to discover the side of like what how's like what how how does this thing happen, right? I mean, everybody I've talked to loves you, right? Um I see the Oh I could give you a list of people who the others, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:55

It's a much longer list. I I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:57

I mean, but you know, the thing I I I think though sometimes people in life have to be disruptive. And because and the only way to shake shit up and to change things and to be positive is to have somebody who's help like helming that that's willing to shake it up and willing to do what they feel is right, and you know, to me it takes integrity, it takes uh opportunity. Uh and so to me, I you know, from what I feel that I know you're that person, and it's interesting to me.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:31

And I think every grown-up has a dark place inside somewhere, you know, and uh throughout life with with the adventures and the the the stories I could tell I have several areas where that uh that dark side is kind of where I hung out. It was safe. That was that was the place I was most comfortable. And then you know, you have a child and and that becomes the most amazing thing to your world, you know. Um you know, fast forward a few years, you meet the most amazing woman you've ever met in your entire life, you know. Uh Nita, again, my wife, my partner, um the the cooler head of when things need to prevail. She is the cooler head about it. And uh she is the one that taught me how to have fun again, how to really enjoy things again. Um driven, yes, I was always very driven. Um always had a hard edge on me, very, very hard edge on me. Uh there was no smooth transition in my personality at all. It was either black or white. You know, I was either on or I was off. Um and she has really, really brought me back into hey, sometimes the best thing is to just walk away. Or, no, no, no, this is a go-getter opportunity. This is a go-getter opportunity. Uh, I mean, as I was coming up here, because she is terrified of podcasts, so she was like, Yeah, no luck. You know, you're you're going solo, pal, you know, and she kissed me and she said, Go do what you do. Which, which, and of course, my voice is gone from yelling over the band yesterday and just having a blast with all these guys last night. It was just, just we have had so much fun and we always do at these events. But so, you know, I apologize for the harshness, the raspy in my voice. But yeah, you know, aside from that, she's the one that encourages me and says, no, no, no, this is good. This is good. This this opportunity is a good opportunity. This you can do. She's the one that's brought me back in and said, no, it's okay to be super happy and super driven and super excited about this. So her, as my, I don't want to say therapist, but guys, she taught me how to do this self-therapy so much to keep me out of the dark places and keep me in the light and keep it, keep life fun. You know, again, she taught me again that it's okay to have fun as a grown-up. So she's she's the amazing person in my life, without a doubt. She's the one that brought me back. Um, gave me so much meaning. It's incredible. And between my son and her three sons, we have the greatest, tightest, funnest family ever that you only see on cheesy movies, you only see on cheesy television shows. It's like that family doesn't exist. Dude, I'm living in it. Yeah, you know, I'm living. I got the greatest kids that love ribbing me, love doing stuff with us. And they're like, So, how'd the show go? I mean, on the way back tonight, you know, probably about seven o'clock, where our phone's gonna start blowing up and they're gonna be asking, so how'd the show go? And these are grown men with their own wives and owners. Kids. So there's excited, you know, they live vicariously through our our our adventures at these shows, through our conversations, through the people we met, through being on a podcast for the first time ever, you know. Um so it's and I have no idea where I was going with this, but uh again, if all you do is go to work and go home and turn on the television, you will be miserable. You will be miserable. I mean, it's it's just not that's not a fun existence. It's just an existence. It's necessary, you gotta do it, but why not have fun? You know? And and I I saw a sticker on one of the guys' uh fridges in his forge, and it said, We do not do this because it's easy. We do this because we thought it would be easy. And that's the fact. I mean, there is nothing fun about um doing a 12-hour shift at the hospital, and then you walk in, instantly fire up the forge, turn on the forge press, and you know, it's 110 degrees outside, and you look up at the thermometer and you're like, okay, it's 128 degrees in here, and I've been in here for three and a half hours. I need to step out into the 100 degree 10 heat outside, 110 degree heat outside and cool off. You know, there's nothing fun about that, but there's tons of rewards. You get to see what you've done at the end, you get to see other people using it. Um, we we always keep a handful of resto hammers, you know, restoration hammers, small things, you know, one and a half to three pounds. And we'll keep some under the table. And when, you know, little Susie or little Jimmy come by and their eyes are like pie plates, and they're, you know, they're 10, 12, 13 years old, and they're looking at the hammers, and they're looking at the ambles, and they're looking out of the knife from these amazing knife makers out here, and they're looking at this stuff, going, This is why I want to do this. This is why I want to do this to their parents. Yeah, that's cool. You know, and mom and dad are like, okay, you're gonna be three grand deep in this before you ever strike fire. And I'm like, no, no, no. There's a chunk of train rail, there's a 10-inch chunk of train rail. Susie, can you pick that up? She's oh yeah. Picks it up. You pull a hammer out from under the counter. Okay, mom and dad, they already have something to hit hard with, already something hard to hit on. All you need to do is buy them something that makes fire. You know, that's all you need to do. At this point, it's all about fire. Yeah. And they can play with railroad spikes and rebar for the next year. Yeah. And and make hearts for Valentine's Day, make crosses, make uh bottle openers, make steak turn. You know, they can do all this kind of fun stuff. And you're into it for the price of a forge. But now in this case, you also owe me a debt to little Susie or Jimmy. You you owe me a debt. Within a year, you need to send me a picture of something you've made. Something you've made with this hammer and anvil and forge.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:22

You know, whether it's a stake turner, it's a cross, it's a really bad S hook, something. And it was funny, about a month ago, got a package in the mail, and it's it's a return address, no name, but it's a post office box somewhere from Wyoming. Uh-huh. And it was a tube, and opened it up, and it's a gorgeous uh uh railroad spike steak turner. Oh, yeah. Gorgeous. I had no idea who sent this to me. No clue who sent it. But I was like, no, this wasn't the deal. I just wanted the picture. But oh my god, I've used that steak turner like 10 times in the last month. It's great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:59

Well, I don't know. Um, I know that you have to get to this uh uh demo that you're gonna be doing.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:04

Yeah, we're gonna restore hammer. I got a guy out here begging for it. Um I I love the restorations, you know, taking something that's that's been completely abused and then giving it a home again. You know, we're gonna reface it, repaint it, just give the whole sexy fi it and handle it, um sand it, burn it, sand it again, BLO, and walk off with a new hammer. Yeah, well, let's get to it. It's a pleasure having you on the show.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:31

Uh pleasure being on here. I'm we need to talk more. Uh anytime. Lots of stuff that we're vibing on, and I really want to expound on that, but I feel that way all the time. I love talking. I my gift is the is the gift of Gab, and that's about it. But but I really appreciate you spending the time with me talking. It's been a pleasure is completely mine. Yeah, thank you. Machinists turned ABS Journeyman Smith and full-time bladesmith, Jeff Davidson, spent his formative years collecting knives and learning the craft through hard work. Through an apprenticeship with knife making icon Ed Fowler, Jeff has taken advantage of his acquired knowledge and plied it in manipulating metal to produce some exciting pieces of functional art. In addition to this, he spends a great amount of time teaching knife making classes and advocating for the craft with his country charm and thoughtful expression. Jeff, it's great to talk to you.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:30

Good to be here.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:31

So, um, what was your decision to go full-time? Um, I don't know what you had done uh previously per se, but I'm interested to know kind of like what the um leap of faith requirements are for that level of commitment. I just uh I respect the hell out of people who want to go full-time and knives and everything.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:55

Well, I'd say I'd say leap of faith is a good way to describe it for anybody that has taken that move. Um, long story short, uh I come from a machining back machining background, manufacturing background, and I've made knives for 21 years, full-time for the last three. Basically, I wanted to be able to be home more. I wanted to be able to be more involved with people I care about, and chase my dreams. So the I was working for General Electric. That's that was a great job, great benefits, but all the uh the corporate stuff, the typical corporate stuff, the uh the politics, all those kind of things played into that big time, and I mean I'd always dreamed of doing my own thing. And so all that kind of came to a head in COVID, kind of in the height of COVID. And um, yeah, we just we went for it.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:52

Yeah, um I have a lot of respect for that. I mean, I I can't say that I've ever had the I don't know, strength is the wrong word, because I've been an entrepreneur in a lot of different ways before. Um uh had my own businesses, but when it comes to knives, I know that I like I love it and it's really fascinating to me, but I just don't know that I could make a living at it and then feel like you know the the uh consequences of that would be uh not keep me up at night. And so like when I think about somebody who's uh been willing to take that chance, uh for me, it's like a lot like a lot of respect. Like what I want for you is to always just be successful, and that's what I see with anybody in knives who goes full-time is like that that's what I want. So um, you know, for anybody who listens out here, you know, you it is an incredible honor of ours to support full-time knife makers because like it is directed to table.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:55

And and we appreciate that no matter where that support comes from. I mean, and yeah, I mean anybody listening to this guy's whether you're sharing posts or buying raffle tickets or buying knives or taking classes or even just telling your friends, hey, I know this guy that makes cool stuff, it doesn't matter what you make, supporting makers, like we literally live and die by word of mouth, and uh, we appreciate all that support. And I'm not gonna lie to you, it's tough. But I mean the Lord provides, and like say when he said it's a leap of faith, it truly is because you never know when you're gonna get a payday. So, I mean, for those thinking about it, I mean, think about it, pray about it, don't take it lightly. I mean, save up, build quite an Est egg in your savings, build quite a stockpile of supplies that you're gonna need. You better make sure that your shop is in order and the all the equipment that you think you need to be efficient. Um, I mean, if you got a steady job, tool up. Tool up, gear up, save up, and then pull the trigger when you think the time is right. But uh, yeah, it's not easy. It's not for the faint of heart, but I'd do it again for a second. I mean, they wouldn't call it chasing dreams if you didn't have to actually chase it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:14

Well, that you know, it's it's with so many things uh in entrepreneurship, uh, they like pe people think that like knives is like the easy thing, right? Um, and I don't know what it is about turning hobbies into businesses, but oftentimes if you're doing like growing a business or have any idea of taking it to another level, you gotta put like a considerable amount more effort into taking that risk of making it a full-time thing. Like there's a safety net in like part-time or hobby craft, but full-time, it just you know, it really makes a big difference uh in the level of uh spontaneity and adaptation to your environment in order to make sure that the next move that you make is the one that makes you succeed and not the one that makes you fail.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:04

Right, right. And that and that fear is totally real. That um, I mean, strategic planning and decision making. I mean, most businesses are a few wrong moves away from going under. So, especially in the early years, like I'm thankful I've got a really good support group around me of people, I mean friends and family and customers that are really into what I do and they tell everybody around them. And uh shout out to my buddy Chris Coulter that literally random strangers is like, hey, look at my knife, and my buddy Jeff makes them. And I mean, those kind of people literally are make you or break you, having them or not. And um you you have to you have to reward those people, you have to thank those people and and cherish them in your life because that's that's hard to find. And I used to have this when I first got started, I didn't know anybody in the knife world, and I didn't have followers, I didn't have a big customer base, and I used to think like I see these big time guys, they have like their people, quote unquote, their air quotation, they're people, and I was like, well, maybe someday I'll have people, and like one day I woke up and I realized I do. It just you don't get to pick who those people are, but when they show up, you better appreciate them, all right? So um, yeah, it just we makers, we pour our hearts into this stuff. You work a crazy amount of hours, but when somebody sees a piece of the vision you had in your mind and in your heart to create this thing that's an expression of yourself. I mean, I have a I have a shirt and a sticker that says this is my definition of art. And uh that's that's many, many fold for me. But uh I mean that. I truly mean it as an expression from inside of me. And when somebody sees that little piece of you and they get it, there's a connection that you can't really quantify or explain. Um that yes, it's great to make a sale, but when they truly see it for what it is and they understand it and they appreciate the blood, sweat, and tears that went into it, you cannot put a price tag on that. That is one of the most fulfilling things I've found in life.

SPEAKER_05 1:40:21

Yeah, well, uh the movie Avatar, uh the Navi tribes or whatever, like the one of the things that they uh that it's poignant in the movie is that they like I see you, right? And uh I I think that um there is something beyond a purchase, right? When somebody invests in your in you, they are really investing in you. And when you get that acknowledgement and you and that's something that you share, you know, people like genuinely, you as the maker, you as the person behind that, um, is is who you know, like what motivates them. That's a really great and symbiotic relationship. So, you know, man, I I really appreciate what you do. Um, I know that you got to get back to selling knives, it's busy out there. Um, and you know, hopefully we can uh schedule some time when it's not so busy to have a full uh podcast where we can talk about all the uh the myriad of questions that I have for you um that we couldn't cover here, but you know, it's a it's a pleasure for sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:19

Right on, right on glad to be here. Look forward to doing something in the future. Um guys, please, please uh support your local makers and thank you to Aaron for having me on here. And uh can't wait, can't wait to see what the future holds. Uh y'all check me out, Jeff Davidson Custom Knives on Instagram or Jeff DavidsonCustom Knives.com. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:40

Yeah, thank you. A bladesmith for the last 10 years. Elon Green has a jovial disposition that makes you want to be his friend. His passion for bladesmithing. And his beautiful work is probably one of the many reasons he's been a repeat guest on three seasons of Last Blade Standing and the ninth season of Fortune Fire. He and his wife operate locked with knives, Elan making the knives, and Brooke providing the weathercraft. What's more, they both share a love of knife making that is inviting and affected for others. I got to speak with Elan a little bit about himself while Brooke attended their table at the show. Elan, it's great to talk to you. Yeah, it's like take two. First time around, I didn't have my microphones on. It seemed kind of stupid. This is my job. So um, I'm interested. Uh, what got you into knives?

SPEAKER_02 1:42:42

So this is gonna be funny because it's it's like every little boy, you know. I loved swords, knives, action movies with the swords, the medieval movies. So I always wanted to make my own sword, and it evolved from that into what it is today of making knives. I've made two swords now. Um but it turned in from it turned from that and always needing a knife when I was growing up to well, I can make that. I don't want to spend money on buying one when I can make it. And then I found out it's more expensive to make it than it is to buy it.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:14

So it's the same old, same old. Yeah, so uh my understanding is that you've gone full-time more recently, but what were you doing before you know to make a living uh before you went full-time?

SPEAKER_02 1:43:30

So I've I don't want to say I job hopped, but I spent about an average of three years at different jobs. Um I worked a machine shop, um, and that helped me with some of my knife growth, honestly, because I had guys like, oh, well, you can use this tool for this, or you can use this tool for that. And so that helped me grow there. And then I went into um powder coating, which didn't really help my knife career, but it paid the bills, allowed me to do this on the side. I did that for about six years, and then got to the point where I couldn't focus there because so much stuff going on in the shop, and my brain was there instead of my job. So it just turned into well, instead of waiting until you turn 30, which was the goal age to go full time, my wife's like, no, you're you're done. Don't go give them your two weeks, you're done. You're coming home and working from home. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:44:21

That's great. Well, I mean, you know, you say your mind was there, but really if you think about it, your heart was, right? Everything. And and that's I I think that's something that's interesting is um, you know, when you when you job out, as it were, um, you're really just trying to find the thing that speaks to your soul, right? Exactly. And if you had that thing that you're nurturing and putting it off because of like the financial ins instability of making knives and stuff, um, I can I could see that. But I mean, how how's it going for you?

SPEAKER_02 1:44:50

Do you do you regret it at all, or is it it's a struggle finance-wise, because you know, not everybody's out to buy a custom knife, not everybody is out to buy a $2,000 high-end knife. But I've been told a lot, do what you love and the money will come. And we have been able to be okay without any major issues. I have an awesome group of customers who have bought multiple knives. They love to come back, they share it with their friends and family, they'll buy their friends and family knives as gifts. And then we have shows like this, um, the Lost Mind Show, and I think three or four lined up just throughout the year that are a big help too, because people come out and they know what they're looking for. They know they're coming with the mindset of, oh, there are custom knives here. I'm probably gonna buy one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:39

So yeah, I think that's cool. And I also you fit really well into this, like um uh the the narrative of the Texas knife show and culture around knives that um I'm I'm really seeing emerging where um it's it's not just like you and and Hughes and other people like that that are kind of like the uh you know rising in popularity, but it's it's like what I'm I'm interested in with this Texas culture of uh of knife making is really just the um the uh investment in knives uh for the sake of what you know I don't I don't know what it is, a secret sauce, um you know, like loving customers, loving the craft. Uh it's it I everybody I talk to in in Texas especially is just really like we're we have a lot of similarities in the way that we think about the craft, and I think that's what if the rest of the the country is looking at what the rising uh tide in uh in Texas, it's you and others that are they're kind of like promoting that and trying to be available and supportive.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:49

Yeah, like so for the Texas Knifemakers Guild, um our vice president Terry was saying that we are one of the largest growing groups, and I think part of that is because like you said, we all have a passion for what we're doing, we all have kind of a similar mindset, but nobody's afraid to share knowledge, nobody's afraid to direct a customer to somebody who might be more specified for what they're wanting made. And it's just it's a great group of guys, and well, I can't say just guys because we have several lady makers, it's just a great group of people that are willing to share their knowledge, willing to share anything just to help another person grow in the craft because we don't want to see it die out, we want to see it expand to where there's a maker for just about every person that wants a knife.

SPEAKER_05 1:47:36

Yeah. Well, yeah, and another thing I think about too is the you know, back in the day you had like some knife makers that were doing a pretty good job um in Texas and a lot of uh a lot of knife-shaped objects. And I've been really impressed with the the bar raising around just good knives um from makers and whatnot. And uh it's it's it's interesting too. I think probably because it seems like uh it seems like a lot of people are embracing uh forge work inside of Texas. And I'm I'm interested to know if we'll it'll be like the epicenter of Forge Blades, because it yeah, it seems like there's a an awful lot of makers that really want to focus on forged work versus stock removal like me.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:28

Yeah, there are there are a ton of forge workers. But it's kind of hard in Texas too, because we got the summer heat. But it's it's not so much a focus on foraging. I don't feel like I could be 100% wrong on this, but it's the matter of we're moving the metal with the heat and our hammers, and we're able to shape it to what we want. Just, you know, and it for me, it's sometimes letting out aggression, like I need that space of okay, I'm aggravated or I'm having a bad day. I can go out there and hit steel with a hammer and let it all out. And I know there's a lot of guys that are the same way, they get in their headspace of foraging, and it's just a whole nother world. So I don't know about it being the epicenter of it, but there are a lot of us out there, and again, it's a lot of shared knowledge on that because there are a lot of awesome, awesome bladesmiths out here that share their foraging knowledge, and there's a lot of places that don't share it.

SPEAKER_05 1:49:26

So I mean Yeah, one the the proximity to uh some knife makers in a lot of other states is yeah, you like pretty far. But here you can throw a stone and almost hit one. And I I I appreciate that because it seems like everywhere that I'm around, like coming down here, I could think of like five five to ten really solid knife makers who do forage work that I could come and talk to and uh you know, when I'm down here, right? And when I'm up back in the you know. DFW area, it's the same way. Um, you know, there's just incredible makers and distributed very uh well uh to be able to learn from. So I'm not encouraging people to move to Texas, uh, but it is a really great place to be able to uh hone that craft.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:16

Yes, it is. And there are a lot of awesome people, like you said, you pretty much can throw a stone and hit three knife makers. Yeah. And there are a lot of people who offer classes for the foraging that I mean, I've been forging for several years and I went and took a class and I still learned stuff. And just having that wealth of knowledge right down the road is awesome. Because, like you said, not a lot of states have that. Some of them have, you know, you gotta drive four or five hours to find another knife maker. Whereas I can drive I think an hour and a half down the road, and I'm at Jeff Davidson's place.

SPEAKER_05 1:50:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:50

And it's you know, he's invited me out multiple times. Come forge with me, come forge with me. I gotta make the time, but yeah, that's it's awesome because a lot of people are like, hey, come back to my shop, we'll make we'll forge together, we'll have a good time, you know. And it's it's awesome. Having that community within Texas just makes it all that much better.

SPEAKER_05 1:51:09

Yeah, yeah, it's uh it's fascinating stuff. So, you know, you you're forged and everything, and you uh uh I think your focus was more towards going full time um at the point where you got on forged and fire, right? Or where you had you already gone full time. I can't remember, I can't remember the timeline.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:26

It was if my boss is ever my old bosses ever listened to this, they're gonna laugh. I think about a month after my episode aired, my wife was she texted me, she said, Hey, you're you're done. Give them your two weeks. Like, are you sure? Like, how's that gonna affect us financially? She said, I don't care, you're doing it. Like, I'm tired of seeing you suffer doing something you don't enjoy when you were so busy here and you enjoy it, you have a passion, a fire for it. So we had been talking about it for a while, and the age went from okay, at 35, I'm quitting whatever job I'm at, and I'm going full-time. Then it went to 30, and then it went to 28, and then before I even turned 28, that's when we called it done and been going ever since.

SPEAKER_05 1:52:12

Yeah. And so what was the fortune and fire experience like in all of that?

SPEAKER_02 1:52:18

I am not used to having people yelling at me in my own shop. So I had I had a blast. I met a great group of guys. I still talk to one of them, Clay, almost every day. We've done a collaboration, we've done a show together, and it's it's an awesome experience. And I would tell anybody who wants to do it, do it. Even if you fail, it's still a fun experience. You've got to be like, oh, I'm on TV, you know? And so I I had a struggle point where because we had to do San Mai on ours out of these giant coil springs, and they pulled us away to do interviews. And when they do that, they tell you to set your stuff on the on the anvil so it doesn't overcook in the forge. And that messed with me because when they pulled me over for my interview, I started getting frustrated because I was watching my work cool down and that timer countdown. Yeah. And I was just to the point I'm like, stop asking me questions, let me go back to work. And but you know, they need it for the show, they need they need the conversation and stuff like that. So, but it was it was a fun experience. I had to do it again in a heartbeat.

SPEAKER_05 1:53:24

Yeah. Yeah, I uh like biasly, I don't know if I could uh tolerate that because uh I've always I've always felt like a knife takes as long as it takes. Yes, right, and so because of that, there are certain things that I'm just like I I do not sacrifice quickening things for the sake of it. And Forge and Fire is not like that. Like the the entire methodology is to do stuff quick. It's like it's a it's a timeline that builds drama and chaos into it naturally.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:57

Yeah, they gotta have that entertainment.

SPEAKER_05 1:53:59

Yeah. Well, yeah, but it is it is uh like Alex Steele um had a I I guess maybe he had been asked at some point in time if he wanted to be on, and he was like, um I don't think that's my direction. But then he started like he did some stuff where it's like can I forge this in a few hours, like under constraints that are worth are similar to forge and fire? And he was like, I you know, it turned out not great. Yeah. And it's interesting to me, you're like the people who know how to manage heat and manage their operations to be able to um not only do in those constraints, but to also turn out a really you know good-looking knife. It's not a knife-shaped object, it is a full knife, functional, everything. It's crazy to me.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:44

And see, I I've had I've heard people say that that's luck. No, that's that's skill, it's time management. They know what they're doing and they're adaptable because it took me, it took me a little bit of time to get used to having to work around things, having to turn off my equipment. Because when I'm in my shop, if I know I'm gonna be running right back to the press in about two seconds, I'll leave it on. You can't do that there. They scream at you, shut it off, because the camera people and they don't want anybody getting hurt. I understand it. So it it takes you got to be adaptable and you've got to be able to move on your feet and get to the mind space where you're like, okay, I gotta get this done, this done, this done, this done, and I have this much time to do it, and I have to be here, here, here, here, here, and here. But you're also working around another person because you're sharing a grinder space, a welder, and your press with one person, and then you're sharing the power hammer with all four people. Yeah. So it's it's it's you have to be adaptable and you have to have that mindset of time management.

SPEAKER_05 1:55:40

I didn't do too great at that, but well, yeah, I don't that seems crazy to me. Yeah, but I don't think it's luck. I I mean I you know, if if I I think it's it really I mean, I'm speaking like completely biasedly here, but um I've s known uh you know forgers who uh they they they're just they're like blacksmiths. Like um, you know, I've been at Texas Ferry Supply when they've done some demos and I've seen some uh blacksmiths that um the way that they think about forging is so foreign to me because they do certain operations at certain times, like draw something out or um swedge something or something like that. And I'm like, why did you do it here? And then they like fold everything together or whatever, and it's like this rose or whatever. I'm like, magic, like you lied.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:37

That blows my mind. Watching people be able to unfold patterns of Damascus in their head to recreate it. I know I can't do that. Like somebody will be like, Oh, yeah, you just do this, this, and this. I'm stuff here. How? How did you get to that point? Because I have to watch it go from step one to step two to step three. I have to watch it get to the end. I can't go backwards and unfold it. That just people who can do that are on a whole other level.

SPEAKER_05 1:56:59

Yeah, well, and I I I think that everybody who really like tries can uh can get there, but there are definitely some people who have natural, oh yeah, like God-given gifts to be able to figure out that stuff, and I am not one of them. I can I can sit and talk, I have the gift to gab, but when it comes to doing stuff like that, I sit and and and and marvel. And and you know, I look at your work too, and you've come a long way even since you got on my radar, and that uh the knife you just did is it a buoy um with uh a mammoth uh that big old feather damascus buoy with the mammoth tusk. Yeah, if I had the money right now, I'll buy it off you. It's a beautiful knife.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:40

I appreciate that. Um what's crazy is there were so many firsts in that one. So first feather, first frame tang, first mammoth tusk. And it just blows my mind that I I was able to make that.

SPEAKER_03 1:57:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:54

And so my focus, even from the beginning, has always been the everyday Joe being able to come up to me and say, Hey, I need a knife that I'm okay if something happens to it. I'm not out a grand, you know, for a knife that I'm gonna be using in the field. I'm gonna be using it to gut and skin animals, I'm gonna be using it to do all this stuff. And well, there's a grand gone if I lost it in the field.

SPEAKER_03 1:58:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:16

So, I mean, that is not the norm for me, that $2,000 buoy. But it's something I like I want to try and do more of, if that makes sense. Just every once in a while, just to test my limits as a maker.

SPEAKER_05 1:58:31

Yeah, I mean, I think I think we all have a desire sometimes to do the uh I want to call it the art knife, um, but there's art in it. Uh you know, I don't I don't think of like certain projects as being art. Um, but I do think of things as being um my ability to play and to uh to imagine things versus you know just doing kind of the regular rigmaro. Yeah. Um it's to you know just kind of you know discover. And that's why I kind of see like those elements that you pulled together in that blade, they they oddly work together very well in a in a way that to me is very attractive. And so I think you pulled it off wonderfully. And I don't even know if you that was the intention, but whatever concept you came up with and executing it in the final product, I I think it's a lovely thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:59:25

Well, thank you. I really appreciate that. It was like you said, it's being able to come up with that idea in your head and play with it because as full-time, you don't get as much free time to play with these things, so I consider them my little pet projects. Yeah, because I make the you know everyday Joe stuff, and then I had that one or two projects that I'm like, man, that's drawing all my attention right now, and I really want to work on it, but I need to get these done so I can pay bills so then I can play on these. And that buoy was to date just the most wild thing I've done. And like you said, it it came together better in reality than it was in my head. Like there, you know, with every knife that you make, there's gonna be one or two things that you're looking at at it like, mm, I could have done better on that. But that's how we grow. We play with those you know, pet projects, those side projects, and on the next one we can be like, oh, we're gonna do this differently. So that's that's one of the nice things about those.

SPEAKER_05 2:00:20

Yeah, that's it. Um, more power to you. I mean, I um most of the time when I get in the shop, it's with uh, you know, uh having time for my full-time gig and things like that that I do um uh after that. And most most of what I do in the shop is not I mean it's all playing around at some point because you know, if I'm I'm uh not a full timer. Um but um between the podcast and between you know doing stuff in the shop, I I need to spend more time dedicated to that that portion of things, like being creative instead of just like trying to make stuff for shows to sell and whatnot. It's it's a weird it's a weird psychology knives, uh, because you you you want to make stuff that sells. You try to get in your customer's head, you try to do stuff that expresses yourself, you get stressed out if something doesn't sell. It's like all these emotions that just like it's like hyper speed emotions, like you're just living on the edge of yourself and you're and what you can tolerate. Sometimes it gets to be a lot.

SPEAKER_02 2:01:24

Oh yeah, it can be overwhelming. There's I'm I'm gonna be so serious right now. There are times I'll be out in the shop trying to do multiple things and my brain just fries and I sit down and I can't do anything because I'm just there's so much to do, I'm just like down.

SPEAKER_05 2:01:39

Yeah. Yeah. I uh I I've never been like diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, but there are um elements of it that I notice in my uh daily life. And knives is hard sometimes because if I get if I get overwhelmed with something, I just get scatterbrained.

SPEAKER_02 2:01:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 2:01:56

And then for me, I'm like, well, I've lost my usefulness here. I just can't do anything else because it'll take me a little while just to kind of like I don't know, whatever this wobbly, wobbly plan in my head is my brain just has to start evening itself out before I can go.

SPEAKER_02 2:02:12

So right there with you. It's it's crazy. But uh this is personal opinion, but I almost don't think there's a knife maker out here that doesn't have some ADHD or something because if you watch anybody in their shop or as they're you know just talking, they'll go from from this all the way over to a different conversation about something else, and then right back to that, and then all to a different conversation, and then it's just we're all moving so fast in our own heads, and we'll get to talking business or we'll get to talking creativity, and we're all just gone. Yeah, just a hundred miles a minute.

SPEAKER_05 2:02:45

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think it's also we're talking about things that we're very passionate about. Yeah, it's that too. And passion drives um chaos, I guess. I don't it's uh I don't know what it is. It's whatever this thing is that we're doing together, it seems like for there are certain people that just drives real well with and oh yeah. Um I don't but yeah, I mean uh so what's in in the foreseeable future, what do you got going on? Is there anything interesting that's on your plate?

SPEAKER_02 2:03:15

So I am playing with the 3D canister Damascus, 3D printed forms. Interesting. I've made I've made my first one, it came out successful, and I got overzealous with my smashing on the press because I was just so excited that it worked, and I just cracked it all the crap. Oh man. So my second one, I took my time and it came out, and it it looks awesome. It's a little distorted because I've never done anything like that, but I plan for either Balacho, Texas, or um Bellville next year to have a mosaic of the 3D printed canister. Yeah, I think that's that's probably about the coolest thing I'm working on right now.

SPEAKER_05 2:03:55

Yeah, I uh I I don't know why uh things like that excite me so much, but you know, uh Steve Schwarzer was talking to me about um 3D printing and whatnot. Saw some of the hubbub when uh it was published and everything. And I I love the fact that in our craft now um we are realizing that the modern technology we use still has applications in knife making because uh you know something I was uh talking about with Steve is that there are people that were in like uh aerospace and everything like that that were using you know wire EDM and and things that were available at the time to advance us to a place where we are now. Yeah. And taking 3D printing makes it way easier. Like I remember when 3D printing came out, um, and I was like, you know, it'd be super cool because you know, you need a a tool on an international space station, and somebody designs the STL or whatever, and you should like send it up there and they can print it out, and they need stuff whereas there's no way to do that in space exploration or in like long-distance things, you can't manufacture certain things, right? But you have the ability to do certain things with uh 3D printing and some of the uh uh the tools available at the time, like you know, integrating some metal parts with stuff and kind of designing around it because really it's an engineer's playground at that point. You can put things that are you know completely different materials and things like that and pop them in a 3D printed um scaffold and make a tool that you just would never even think about before. And like being able to like I'm all about in knives where the barrier of entry um is lower because like if you're in a wire EDM, you'd either have to send it off or you'd have to have one yourself and like you know, sixty to a hundred thousand dollars plus, you know, and it's an obtaining them. But here you have a 3D printer and you spend a little bit of time on the knowledge and you can kind of figure those things out. I mean, it takes a lot, but it's not so expensive that you just could never do it, you know.

SPEAKER_02 2:06:06

Right. And then once you expand your knowledge on that, like if you know CAD programming and stuff, the things you can do, not just you know, for knife making, but 3D printing in general is really cool. But when I got my 3D printer, I had no thoughts whatsoever for knife making. I thought of it for nerd stuff. I was gonna make card deck boxes and stuff. And then they posted, like you said, Steven Kuror's workshop posted the canister molds. And I turned to my wife, I was like, that's the coolest freaking thing I've ever seen. I'm gonna start playing with that. And it does take a little learning, but once you get to it and you can learn your CAD programming, you can make all kinds of designs that will work for the canister. You can make different inserts just for your handles and stuff, you can make ways to cast. I know there are people who are using it for like the lost wax casting for guards and stuff like that. You can make guard templates, handle templates, template knives. It's it's wild. Once you have that open door, it's just like anything else with knife making. You branch off into this whole other area and uh just a whole new world of what you're capable of doing opens up to you.

SPEAKER_05 2:07:12

Yeah, that's incredible stuff. Well, when you get it all uh nailed down, uh I would love to come up to your uh your shop and and uh do some mosaic and stuff and learn the process because I you know getting into like forging again, I have like no equipment anymore. So and I like as much as I appreciate heating and beating stuff, um I would much rather be able to do Damascus on a press or something like that. You know, it's kind of interesting how all that works out. So I'll make sure that you're you're compensated because I know that stuff costs money.

SPEAKER_02 2:07:42

But just give me a heads up so I can clean my shop and take a coordinate away.

SPEAKER_05 2:07:46

Dude, mine too, mine too. I I appreciate these uh uh knife makers who keep uh their shops really clean. Unfortunately, I'm not one of them. Same. But well, it's uh it's real cool to have you on the show, dude. Uh we'll have to do this again in a larger scale and talk more about uh kind of kind of some of the same concepts, but I also kind of want to dig into some other things I've been thinking about. Uh so you know when we can get together and talk and do a full, full episode, I would love to have you on.

SPEAKER_02 2:08:13

Yeah, dude. You just hit me up. I'm down A-time. This was a blast.

SPEAKER_05 2:08:15

Yeah, man, absolutely. Thanks for being on the show. Jack Thatcher is a quintessential character in the Texas platesmithing and knife making scene. With over 30 years' experience as a hunting and fishing guide, his knives are both utility and art. He's an ABS journeyman smith and receives professional training from internationally acclaimed masters with J.W. Randall. Whether Jack talks with you or at you. He boasts the bravado, knowledge and experience that gives confidence he knows what he's talking about. Backed by a truly sincere heart that also lets you know how much he cares. Jack, it's great to talk with you. It's good to be here, man. Yeah. It's a good time. So um I'm I'm interested, you know, like um with every person, there's a story behind what got them into knives. And I I want to briefly cover that with you because I think it's um from what I've heard so far, it's interesting. Can you cover kind of like what this this transition into like knife making and your your particular style of knife making and like how that started?

SPEAKER_08 2:09:25

Yeah, uh, you know, um, I have I'm one of those lucky individuals who've been able to make his living uh in some form of the outdoor industry, uh, one way or another, my entire life. Um, I did the corporate thing, I wore a tie in a suit, and you know, it it just wasn't for me. Um I did a lot of outside sales and marketing and stuff, and I said, you know what? Uh this I'm just not enjoying myself. This is how I need to own my own businesses. And so uh back in the day, you know, I was lucky enough. I got I I started uh an archery shop, I've owned uh different kind of businesses. I've owned archery shops, I've actually been a fishing guide. I was a fishing guide for 14 years, taking people out bow fishing for giant alligator gar. Um, you know, and so uh it's on top of all of that, I've been a bow hunter for like 36 years, I believe. Yeah. And I bow hunt exclusively. It's taken me all over North America. I've not traveled anywhere else, really. Um, but I've been all the way from the Arctic Circle all the way down into Mexico, you know. And so uh, you know, I've chased a lot of big game with my bow. And with all the bow hunting and all that, you know, you've got to have some knowledge of cleaning game. We eat, or I eat everything. My family, we eat everything that you know we harvest. And so um I got tired of having to carry two and three knives into the field, um, especially like on an L cunt where you're packing way back in the middle of nowhere. Yep. And so, you know, that's a lot of extra weight. And some of those knives, and we're talking about store-bought brands, okay? Over-the-counter store-bought, you know. I'm not gonna mention any brand specifics, but you know how that goes. Um, you once once they stop cutting, you're done. And you can't get them sharpened in the field. So my journey at that point, I realized, you know what, there's gotta be something better than this. I've got to learn, and maybe there's a custom knife. So I remember buying like in 2002, I remember buying a really nice custom blade, and uh, you know, and it performed fairly well. It was you know, handmade, handmade for me. Uh, and I thought, you know, I can do this, I can build this, I can build something. I was always good with my hands. And uh, you know, I started with prototypes at first. I started forging before I ever knew anything about stock removal. My journey, I learned how to forge, I learned how to manipulate the steel, how to heat treat the steel. Um, you know, I attended and I realized there's other levels, there's several several levels, and I said, Okay, I I've got to learn. And more. I started attending uh Johnny Stout's hammer ends, you know. And I think I did that for like 10 years. Um, got to meet a lot of people in the industry, uh, you know, made made friends with a lot of these guys, started uh taking classes with JW Randall, uh, which really was an eye-opener. Um, and and you know, he's a great bladesmith. Um, and so that you know, my journey's my journey's taken me through the American Bladesmith, the Texas Knife Makers Guild. I'm actually a journeyman smith with the ABS. And uh, you know, I it's it's been a really cool journey, man. I've I've I've enjoyed uh you know putting my knives to work, testing them. I've got Border Patrol guys using my stuff. I've got hunting guides on on the King Ranch using my stuff. And the feedback that I get back, um, in fact, yeah, before I forget, uh I've got uh Justin Dixon, which is a fantastic tracking dog guy, you know, he's using my stuff, my knives. And he tells me, he says, Man, this is you know the most amazing cutting knife I've ever seen in my life. You know, you get all this feedback from these guys in the field, actually day-to-day using, it starts to build your confidence. Yeah. And so I started to do, you know, shows and people started to like my work. And uh, you know, it's it's taken off from there. When all of us start out, you know, we get support from our friends, yeah, you know, and our family, like, hey, yeah, I'll buy one, you know. But it's not to really to make money, it's just to keep you going and start to grow your inventory, maybe start to grow, you know, materials and and equipment, you know. So uh anyway, that's that's kind of what it's been, man. I mean, it's uh uh bow hunting has driven just about every aspect of my adult life, pretty much.

SPEAKER_05 2:13:41

Yeah. That's uh I've always been uh better with the boom stick than I have been with archery. Um I'm not exactly sure why. I've never really been particularly great at handguns either. Um, but I you know, I I I noticed that there's this common thread in knives where um it is it really is like see a need, fill a need, right? Sure. And uh you know a similar kind of like experience with me is like I went uh hunting, uh, TBWD draw hunt and uh and you got selected for Laguna Alaskosa for Nil guy. And we took just like generic stuff down there and we're hunting some like you know half cows, basically. Yeah, yeah. And we we like uh we got two out of there, a bull and a calf, uh, or a bull and uh a cow. And uh they were a little bit to get through with uh that that that like those knives that we brought. And basically, uh there were three of us there, and I was sharpening the knives pretty much, and they were going through them. I think there were some it was like really crappy uh heat treated 440 C. Yeah, like it's just you know, just like whatever the knives are um that you can buy in the store, like uh brand name excluded from this. Sure. But you know, it was that's the thing. It was just it was just painful, and I was like, never again. And so I I was like, you know, I was uh in a similar boat where I was like, Yeah, I can do this. And you know, I was like, before I go on another big game hunt again, um, I want something of quality. Maybe I should have stopped there and just bought custom. Uh, but there was something in me that said, I really want to discover this and do it for myself. Yeah, um, and you know, that I I I think further to that um progression and thought or whatever is that um if a chef could make a knife all the time, right? Have the duality of uh of um experience and everything, then a chef would probably make a really great knife. And I think a uh phenomenal hunter makes a phenomenal hunting knife, right? And that that's where I think that when uh people really pursue not only their interests, but zero in on the expertise that it really produces something in an industry where it's just not that much of, you know, like everybody who I've seen who's done hunting knives really well has also been a successful hunter, not just a hunter, but a successful one.

SPEAKER_08 2:16:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:16:09

And I think that's important.

SPEAKER_08 2:16:10

Yeah, I agree. Um, you know, and and like you said, um, well, one of the one of the things I'll touch base on is that when when when you're making a good hunting knife, you also got to take into account, you know, how it's gonna be used, the guy's the guy's hand shape, how you know you got some guys with giant bear hands, you know, and you can't you can't hand them a little seven-inch knife and say, hey, get after it, because it's not gonna be comfortable. Yeah. And what you get with a custom knife, you get somebody that can say, okay, yeah, you've got bare paws, uh, you know, this is what we need to fit you into. You know, we'll build you one of these and and you know, go out and use it and try to try to tear it up, you know, and have fun. We feel that need as custom knife makers, you know. We can we can really narrow down um you know, uh for for somebody that you know and feel a need, like you said, uh specific things like uh, you know, uh the the edge of I'm sorry, the angle of the edge and how they're gonna, you know, hey, am I gonna baton through stuff? I I don't even get me started on bushcraft. That's not my thing. I I couldn't tell you a whole lot about it. But Neil Guy, yeah, I've taken three of those with a bow. I can assure you, I can tell you about Nilguy. Those things have thick hides, and man, and you will destroy some knives real quick on Neil Guy if you don't know what you're doing. Um, you know, but but man, fantastic table fare, am I right?

SPEAKER_05 2:17:25

Uh yeah, at the best.

SPEAKER_08 2:17:26

Yeah, it's really good eating stuff, man.

SPEAKER_05 2:17:28

Yeah, I've uh I've I've dreamt about getting another nil guy, but there's like expensive to buy into and it's hard to draw for. So I don't know any of South Texas boys or anybody who wants to get like delitter their property with no guys.

SPEAKER_08 2:17:41

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Texas ranchers will say that, oh my god, we're overrun with harsh, we need help from the state. Yeah, but that's yeah, they'll try, you know, they'll charge you 500 bucks to come out or a thousand dollars to come out and they do it, you know. Yeah, so cry me a river, man. Yeah, back in the day, uh when I first started bow hunting, and this is man, I want to say uh, you know, maybe late 80s, early 90s, uh, we could actually get groups of guys together, we'd go to big ranches and they'd cut us loose. We could fill pickups with hogs. I mean, there was just so many places to kill pigs, and they wanted them gone.

SPEAKER_02 2:18:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 2:18:14

Uh nowadays, I man, I don't feel sorry for these guys at all. You know, you made your bed, you want to, you know, you want to profit every day up from it. You know, hey, good luck. Yeah, you know. Um, but you know, I mean, I've I've I've gotten groups together, at least 30 people sometimes to go on big hunts and kind of you know, management type hunts where we're trying to get you know numbers down, and you can't hardly do that anymore. Yeah, it's almost impossible. In fact, I I just gave up. I just I stopped doing it. I'm like, and they don't appreciate it anymore either. So, you know, but uh uh but yeah, man, it's uh yeah, it's it's a passion, it becomes a passion. Uh the the knife making, you start to uh, you know, uh the knife shows have been a blast. You get to meet a lot of different people from a lot of different walks of life. Um, you know, if I can't make something for somebody, I refer them to a guy that I know can. You know, absolutely. Uh and this, gosh, I guess this community is just fantastic. I mean, I have I I mean, literally have yet to meet somebody that I just can't get along with this in this game. Uh, you know, um I am working towards building uh making the Texas Knife Makers Guild a stronger community. We're trying to help the guys that are in this game already. Um and sometimes I give advice when it's not when it's not asked for. You know, when you when we met outside, I was giving that man advice because he was sitting there with his arms crossed, you know, in a bad and I said, Hey man, look, you know, you're not gonna you're not gonna get people to stop and talk to you if if if you have you know a kind of a bad attitude. You gotta you gotta talk to people, get up, enjoy yourself, you know, either that or get with a group of guys, you know, where you're comfortable and you can start to, you know, participate and just you gotta because he's a fantastic knife maker, but he's just timid. Yeah. And you can't be timid in this game, you know. Uh you gotta be able to keep comfortable talking to people. Yeah. And and man, and and and your sales will take off. Because I mean, I'm telling you, he great looking knives that guy has. You know, he just sit there quiet and never got in it, you know?

SPEAKER_05 2:20:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 2:20:25

And I don't I don't know if he sold anything.

SPEAKER_05 2:20:27

Yeah. Well, and I think uh I've experimented with that over the years because I'm not um well, I'm inherently lazy. That's probably why I'm like really good at IT stuff because I always try to find ways to solve problems that I can use the least amount of energy. It's probably also why I'm overweight. Uh but um I I think about that like ooh, man, knives is like one of those areas where there's no substitution for hard work. And it's you know, it's hard, it's a hard barrier of entry to get into making a knife and making it well. And some people, you know, relax into it pretty uh intuitively, not easy, right? But intuitively. But knife knife shows and sales and marketing are all um not easy in like after you get the knife done, you gotta sell it. And like it's not hawking it, it's selling it, and you put all this energy into it. And it's like the worst, you're the worst critic of your own work, and you also don't want to give it to like some some you know idiot or you know, whatever the case may be. I don't know anybody who really treats their little baby that they've created as disposable, right? Sure. They love it and they want to want somebody to own it and care about it. Yeah, exactly. You know, and so that's difficult because you know you got to convince somebody that you're you are not and your knife is not ephemeral and that that it's valuable. And that's kind of difficult for uh a lot of people.

SPEAKER_08 2:21:51

Yeah, yeah. No, I agree. That's true. Um uh, but you know, a lot of times people are buying based on on the person. You know what I mean? It's not just it's not just the the material thing, you know. I mean, it's um I I had a and I'm we f I'm sure you have too, but I had one guy that he said, man, I'm buying a knife from you. He goes, just based on who you are. He goes, I can, you know, I was showing him pictures of some of the stuff that I've done and with been able to do with a bow. He goes, Yeah, I'm buying a knife based on solely on who you are. And I and I, you know, he just I said, Well, this is what I've got. He picked one and he goes, and I said, Well, you know, do you want a shirt? Do you want a hat? And he goes, I don't want any of that. He goes, I just, you know, yeah, I'm I'm happy to meet you, and I I've enjoyed visiting with you. I like your energy. He goes, you know, yeah, I'm buying this knife. So, okay, cool. That had never happened before. Normally it's like, hey, you know, it's a it's a sales pitch that you know, where I talk about the knife and why I designed it the way I did. Um and and you know, and so I'm I'm basically, oh, it's a sales pitch. You're telling people, yeah, hey, this is what it's about. This is why why I did this. Um and uh fit and finishes, you know, is this, and you know, and then they they decide whether they're gonna buy it or not.

SPEAKER_05 2:23:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 2:23:03

Um, but yeah, man, it it's been a it's a great community, it's a great group of people. Um and you know at the TKG, we're you know, that's one of the things that we're trying to work with our guys, uh, especially like the the newcomers, you know, we want to make sure those guys uh you know get a good base of information when they're first starting out so that they're creating quality work. Um in fact, you know, uh like this weekend, I think I we judged, I think either three or four sets of knives, um, you know, and we talk to the guys. I mean, it's not just hey, you passed, you fail. We sit down and we we highlight, hey, this is where you need work, this is what you can do to improve, you know, uh, this is wrong, you know, this is why it's wrong. And you know, you're not gonna learn everything from YouTube. There's guys out there, well, I'm self-taught. Nobody's self-taught. Everybody goes to YouTube or everybody, you know, reads articles or buys books. Yeah, I mean, and so you know, um it's important uh that these guys understand when I'm you know, if they ask me, if you ask me where can I do you know, or critique this life for me, what can I do better? I'm gonna tell you. Uh and I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, you know what I mean? I'm not uh all diplomatic. I'm gonna tell you, hey, this is what you gotta do. And how and how to do it. And and some guys, I mean, they get their feathers ruffled, you know, I mean ruffled up. And then some guys are pretty cool. You know, some guys take it in stride. I talked to uh a couple of guys this show that were just you know a year and a half into their journey. What do you think about this? It's okay, yeah. You want me to critique it? Yeah, okay. I said, look, I I'm gonna shoot you straight, dude. And oh yeah, that's what we want, you know. And so one of the guys wore his, you know, he had his arms folded. He was in a bad mood, you know, he didn't like it. The other dude took it stride. He goes, Yeah, man, he goes, I'm gonna work on that, you know. And he I could tell he's going places. They're both make makers, but I could tell the guy that you know the attitude right there tells you who's gonna succeed. You gotta be able to take some criticism and and then build on that because you're gonna come out at the other end, you're gonna come out better. You know, so anyway. Yeah. Sorry, man. I don't I I I know I flew way off track. Sorry.

SPEAKER_05 2:25:19

No, no, no, no. That's there is no tracks. This uh this crazy train goes off. My uh my daughter loves uh uh crazy train. And so she uh used to as a kid uh sing I'm going off the rails on a crazy train over and over and over again. And uh uh so life is like that though, right? And uh the podcast is like that too. There's everything is tangential. But um no, I I've never really um I've never understood the uh the facade uh of life, right? And what I mean by that is people saying that they want a thing, and when you give it to them, it's not what they want at all, right? The criticism, uh for instance, or mentorship in some way. No, no, no, I really I just want you to say what I want you to say, but through your mouth instead of mine. I'm like, that's not you know, that doesn't work, right? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, you're either asking me my personal opinion because I'm a fully formed adult and you know I could do that, or you know, if you want an echo chamber or you know, somebody like that that's just going to bounce off your ideas uh back at you, then I'm not that person. Yeah, and I think that that's that's a hard thing. To get somebody who really wants uh criticism is difficult. You know, like if you look at my knives and everything, um I I think also like I have a level of maturity to know that there are certain things that you look at from your eyes and perspective that is opinion-based and there's other things that are fact-based. You know what I mean? Like that, like your impression of things is important to me, but I also have to synthesize that and take it uh for what it is. You could be making a an assessment over my my uh knives and execution, or you can be presenting an opinion on what you think is more valuable out of that than others, and I think everybody needs to be able to have the maturity to um take information in and not get upset, but use that in a way that makes sense for them. Like not everybody peeds the same stream, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 2:27:26

Yeah, you gotta be able to process it your your own way, and but that's the once again, that's why the disclaimer. I said that some hey, look, uh you know, don't get butthurt. I'm gonna shoot you straight. If I see something that, you know, that uh is clearly, you know, and a lot of it's function stuff. Yeah. You know, uh there's a difference between aesthetics and function. Yeah, yeah. Right? I mean, yeah, yeah, you know, your plunge lines may not be the same. The knife's still gonna cut. But if you want a high performance knife, there's certain things that need to be happening there. Yeah. Right? Uh edge thickness. Number one thing I see is you know, guys taking knives and and and you know, primary bevel sitting at 40,000ths, and then we're gonna we're gonna make a you know an obtuse uh you know, you know, 45, 50 degree uh secondary bevel, and now it's sharp. Yeah, you're making chisels. Yeah, you know, uh and and you know what? You may need to make chisels. Uh you know, the guys over in Border Patrol, you know, the the one of the first things that that I handed out was too thin. And you know, if if they start to pry open doors or something crazy, or or or you know, what do you call those uh dashboards? Yeah, well, the knife's not gonna last if you leave real thin. You know, you want a robust uh beater type knife for that kind of work. Um, so you got to build for the application.

SPEAKER_05 2:28:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 2:28:48

Um the first time somebody asked me to make a tactical knife, I know absolutely nothing about tactical. I'm not that that's not what I grew up in. I mean, I just had no clue what was important in that in that arena. But because I used dark colors and because I used Cerakote, yeah, man, I want something tactical. Okay, cool. So what did I do? I went and I went and found some freaking pie pitters, man. I said, hey, you know, you've been overseas, and you know, and I sit there and talk to spec ops guys.

SPEAKER_03 2:29:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 2:29:16

Okay, what's important? Well, I need to be able to come like this, and I need to hold a knife like this, and I need to defeat gear. Okay, so that means we need a three-to-one ratio. We need a long, sharp, pointy eye, you know, knife with a decent edge and good edge holding. And yeah, you start to you start to put things together. This is what the the recipe is gonna be for this knife. Hand it to some guys that know what the hell they're doing and let them check it out and say, okay, yeah, you did good, or hey, you need to change this, or maybe a little more drop in the in the heel here. So this, and I'm like, why? What's what's the point of that? You're not gonna use it as a chopper. It didn't make sense to me. But once they present it, how it's gonna fuse and the reverse grip is important. And oh, okay, I got you, you know. But do I like making tactical knives? No, I like to make hunters. Can I make a tactical knife? Yeah, you know, I can't, you know.

SPEAKER_05 2:30:07

Well, yeah, and then I they air quote tactical, right? I mean, that's like lots of ways where like I've kind of rebranded some of my knives as you know specific things, but you know, back in the day they were just hunting and caping sets. Uh but now, because you know, guides are hired a lot for that stuff, they you know, they get a good set and they're not really going out and searching the market for a ton of caping uh utensils, right?

SPEAKER_08 2:30:30

Right, right.

SPEAKER_05 2:30:30

So I had to break it apart and you know, name it things and you know, change the utilization of it. I mean, it they they're all coming from a hunting type of uh I guess requirement. You know, th thinner edges, sharp, you know, durable. Um but I it's interesting sometimes when people come up uh to a table and ask what's this for? And I am you know, we in I think in the the context of uh cutting implements and tools, I look at something as uh how versatile is it, not always does it have a specific purpose. Yeah, but chef knives, you know, like it's like it you know, it has it has parameters that are required in order for it to be a chef's knife, right? But you know, you could also be uh you know in a uh a horror movie and be a you know hacker slasher. Sure. It's like it could do the same thing. Yeah, and I I have a little bit more imagination. Uh I'm actually really surprised sometimes how many people come up and ask what is a specific purpose. And I'm like, I like yeah, you could do this or you could do that. Like these are these are some versatile blades. Um but I I also like exp experience in some ways teaches you to look for specificity and things, but also be able to find the versatility in it once you kind of get that one thing that you know that you need.

SPEAKER_08 2:31:49

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:31:50

Um and I I think on in blade design and also um the production of it when you're first starting out in knives, it's really hard to to understand form and function and to be able to critically assess that for yourself.

SPEAKER_08 2:32:06

Yeah. And and I know I catch that uh on a lot of these knives that I get to judge. They're very rectangular, almost square with just the slightest rounding of the edge. And I said, Do you guys know why screwdrivers either you know are square or slightly squared off like this? Well, yeah, because you gotta torque it over. I said, Okay, so why are you putting a screwdriver handle on a knife?

SPEAKER_05 2:32:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 2:32:31

I mean, can your hand hold it? Yeah, our hands are freaking capable of molding themselves to whatever. Use it for two or three hours, cutting several deer opening or something like that, or a couple of hogs, and you're gonna be fatigued. I said, It's not, you know, uh I and you know, I've I've studied ergonomics a little bit and I've I paid attention to what feels good, what doesn't fatigue you. Um, you know, a lot of that is from buying freaking box store knives that you absolutely hate to use. Yeah, you know, they're so thin and so easy. I mean, they do that for manufacturing. Oh, it's gonna be easier to manufacture and slap these on and go. But they feel horrible in your hand, yeah. You know, and then your hand fatigues on your hands constantly fighting the slip because there's no positive stop, you know, nothing that so you're always a little worried. So now you're clenching up on the knife. Man, if you're if your knife is designed well, you can hold I've a lot of time I'm cutting with three fingers on it. Yeah, yeah. You know, I'm doing this. And I mean, just go. And um, we had a deer lease, you're gonna laugh about this. We had a we had a it was a bow hunting lease, and we here we had an MLD for the first time. And uh our biologist came in and says, Hey Jack, you know, you guys gotta get after it. We got a lot of deer to shoot. And I'm thinking, oh, what are you thinking? You know, 25, 30 deer. And he's like, No, you have to shoot 90, uh 80 deer this year. And I said, between four guys? And he says, Yeah. So man, okay. So man, we really went to work that year. I'm talking by myself. I think I shot twelve that year. And I would bring a buddy and I'm like, shoot, just start shooting. You know, I mean, I shoot four or five deer. Well, every night we'd come into camp and I hunt with four great guys, man. I mean, just I'm blessed in that regard. And we're, you know, lifelong friends. And man, we come in and okay, who's who wants to cook? I'll cook. Okay, so, you know, one guy's getting a fire lit and getting things ready, another guy's getting food going, and two of us are out there cleaning deer and kitten after it. And it's a race. Oh, yeah. I mean, we, you know, we got to the point where we could get a deer skin and in an ice chest in under 30 minutes. Yeah, yeah. You know, quick. And um, and there's and I mean, sometimes faster than that. I'm thinking, I mean, it may have even been at one point where you're doing it two deer at a time in 30 minutes. But um you're gonna learn about knives quite a bit when you actually put them to work. Yeah, that's when you're gonna really realize, okay, um, so you know, it did I design a really good knife or did I not? Um, I want some I have a model that I call the the the uh I call the Kestrel, and it's designed uh uh yes, it's a skinner, it's a drop point skinner, and the only place that's weak is in the reverse grip when you're trying to do like a zipper cut. It's there's not a really good place to put your thumb. And and I and I point that out to people. I actually I'd sit down and I point it out, you know. But I have another blade that I designed called a Saker, and that absolutely does that. So, you know, pluses and minuses, different knives. You know, you get kind of specific. Well, you get to sell more knives or you get specific. Yeah, you know, they these do different jobs. But uh, you know, uh I've learned a lot, you know, just being in the field. Uh I I've cleaned, and I couldn't tell you how many car I've cleaned, but it's it's up there. It's a lot, I mean the whatever number you think it is, it's probably more than that. Because I mean I had 14 years on the water, 10,000 plus hours on the water, easy. Yeah. And I think at one point, I think 5,000 people fish with me. Wow. And you know, you it's like, okay, you stop counting. I don't want to know, man. Yeah, yeah. But 5,000 some people hunted with me over those years, you know. So that's a lot of fish to clean. And you're gonna find out what works and what doesn't, because you're day in, day out, you know. And those are not little fish with little filet knives. No, yeah. You gotta you, you know, these are you know, seven-foot gar with great big, you know, tough scales. And uh, you know, it you're gonna learn what works and what doesn't real quick. Yeah. Uh and I'll tell you a really funny story. I had a I had about a I had this guy fishing with me in the past. And he that I anyway, uh a year later he shows up on the same water in his own boat. You know, he's f and that's fine. You know, he's paid his dues. He came out fishing with me, he knows the spots. And I was out there cleaning a bunch of tilapia, and uh the man shows up and I recognize him, says, Hey, how you doing? You know, we visit a little bit, and he pulls a gar up there, you know, kind of like it's like he's trying to show me up. You know, he pulls his big old gar on the cleaning table, you know, like a six-foot fish. And I'm sitting there watching him, and he pulls out a brand new cut coat, you know, big old serrated cutcoat. And I'm looking at it and I'm like, okay, you know, and I'm still cleaning my fish and I'm minding my own business. And and Aaron, there's a there's only one way to really clean it. I mean, there's several ways to skin this cat, right? But what you don't do is try to cut across these scales. Yeah, you can't do it.

SPEAKER_05 2:37:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 2:37:34

And here's this guy sawing away with this cut coat across the scales on this gar. And I look at him and I'm saying I'm thinking to myself, oh man, this guy's over here poaching on my water. Should I tell him and should I not tell him? You know, and I'm kind of fighting with myself. And I said, you know what, I'm gonna let him go just a little bit more.

SPEAKER_04 2:37:54

I'm sitting there trying to cut through the scales, like, you know, straight down on him.

SPEAKER_08 2:37:58

And I'm just sitting there, and I and eventually, you know, uh, you know, I said, okay, I give. I'm gonna, I can't watch him do that anymore. You know, I pull my fish aside. I said, hey man, let me let me holler at you. I said, can I show you how to do that real quick? And he looks at me, he goes, I know what I'm doing, and I said, Yeah, I understand that. I said, Can I show you a faster way to do it? And you know, I got a little more nicer, a little diplomatic about it. Let me show you a faster way to do it. And he goes, Yeah, yeah, okay. I said, watch this. And I took my knife and I stuck it. The scales that lay down and I stuck the knife under the scale. I went up, up, and then I crossed it. He goes, Oh my gosh. And I said, Yeah, I said, your cut code's wrecked. I said, I don't know if you know that. Your cut code's done, right? He goes, he goes, ah, they're pretty tough. And he's oh man, that's that's done, isn't it? I said, Yeah, you're done. And then we got that thing open. I helped him get it all the way open. And you know, you take the back straps out, and they're giant back straps, you know. But uh it was so funny. I remember thinking to myself, I don't care whose knife you use. The best knife I've ever made in my life wouldn't have lasted any more than that cut go because yeah, it's not a saw, you know. Uh but anyway, it was funny. You know, man. So many I uh I could go on and on, man.

SPEAKER_05 2:39:13

Yeah, well, I mean, some at some point in time we'll have to do a a large, like a larger episode where we could talk more about that. Because, you know, I I think that there's a lot that can be pulled from experience like that. Like, I mean, I've hunted almost like hunted a fish almost my entire life, but not to the volume you have. You know, I've I've like skinned and uh cleaned like hundreds of animals, but not to the level that you have. Like there's a there's a uh there there is a vein of experience that comes with age, but then also with being in a position where you're just exposed to that a lot. You know, I mean day out, yeah. Yeah. There, I mean it's uh a perfect example is uh uh Jake McCoy um was uh I forget who he was working for. Uh so he he got into doing uh knives and worked at a company um grinding blades and things like that, like going through an apprenticeship program. And he had to see way more blades than everybody else says, you know. And so him going to out on his own and whatnot and uh and doing his thing um has produced a much better blade, but he's seen it more than everybody else. Sure. So like it's not like me who like you know learns through a lot of like trial and error and you know a longer period of time, he was doing all that same work, he just was doing it in the context of where he was getting like drinking from a fire hose. Sure, sure and and now he could put out a superior blade, you know, he put in putting his dues.

SPEAKER_03 2:40:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:40:44

Um, and I think that that's something that you know Grace Horn said there's no shortcuts in this thing. Yeah, like there really isn't. Like, even if like you could make a superior um uh you know hunting or fishing blade or whatever, um, you still put in a lot of time in R D before all that was said and done.

SPEAKER_08 2:41:02

Oh, yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_05 2:41:03

And I've taken lessons, man.

SPEAKER_08 2:41:05

I I I I've actually uh taken a lesson with JW Randall. I started going all the way to Louisiana for that. Yeah, and and money well spent. Uh JW breaks things down for you very easily. Um it doesn't bog you down in technical jargon. It's basically, hey, this is this is why this is gonna work, this is why we do this. And you know what? Uh I I enjoy his type of teaching. I and I relate very well to it. Yeah um and so as as my mentor and teacher, I actually did my oh this is I so I did my journeyman smith test at a hammer end that he hosts every February.

SPEAKER_03 2:41:40

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_08 2:41:41

And and and let me tell you, I was nervous, you know, of my performance test. And you're familiar with that, right?

SPEAKER_03 2:41:47

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 2:41:48

Uh I don't know if your listeners are, but uh the performance can I can I tell them a little bit about it? Okay, so the performance test uh you know you have to uh cut a free-hanging one-inch rope, you have to chop through two two by fours, and then the knife has to shave. Yeah. And then after that, it has to survive a 90-degree bend test. And I got to do that in front of about a hundred people. Oh my goodness. And dude, I was sweating bullets. I mean, literally sweating bullets, and it was cold. And dude, I'm like, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, you know, JW, I don't know if I can do it. And he goes, Man, you're good. He told me, just you know, stay calm, you're good. And I mean, I like to I like I mean, I got through it, let me just say, I got through it, but I just remember it was it was it was traumatic. I was like, uh, you know, I wasn't so much worried about it failing as I was having to do it in front of everybody. I think that was.

SPEAKER_05 2:42:41

If it does fail, then everybody sees it.

SPEAKER_08 2:42:43

And I and I've seen it, I've seen I've seen, I can tell you the names of the guys, I won't do that, but I've actually seen two guys detonate knives at at JW's. And so uh, man, it's it's catch-dropping. We go bang and blades going different directions and stuff. It's like, wow, that's harsh. Um and and so yeah, man, it's uh it's it's a cool journey. Um, I'm I'm very proud uh that that he's that he's been a mentor to me. There, but I've had I have a lot of mentors, I bet guys like John Horgan probably calls me once a week and we visit and we just talk and you know he's a good friend. Um, you know, uh Harvey Dean, Johnny Stout, yeah, all those hammerins that I attended, those two guys, you know, kind of molded me. The number one guy that molded my knife making, believe it or not, is Harvey Dean. Yeah, and you know what he did? Amazing knife making. He dropped me on my head. I I showed up, I showed up with some knives to one of the hammer ins, and I had Johnny uh checking them out. I said, Johnny, what do you think? And Johnny's looking at it, and he's just man, this is Dredyman, you know, Smith level work, Jack. This is fantastic. And he just lifted me up, man, and I'm like, God, I can't believe that. Really, Johnny? He's like, Yeah, man, you you need to be doing more. You need to get out, you know, get these knives out where people can see them. And I'm like, man, that's awesome, man. I'm just so pumped. Here comes Harvey Dean. What are y'all looking at? And I'm like, hey, Harvey. I said, I was just checking out some of my knives, you know. And Harvey comes over, he goes, and I said, check them out. What do you think, Harvey? You want me to tell you? I said, Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. He like, dude, he says, This is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong. So, you know, Johnny Stopp picked me up and Harvey dropped me on my head, man. I mean, just deflated my dreams and aspirations. I'm like, no. So, you know, but it was great for me because it made me realize there's a whole other level that I'm not aware of. I look at that knife now, I've kept it. Yeah, I look at that knife now and I can I can immediately see it. I was like, okay, how did I miss this? Well, if you don't know what you're looking for, you're you know, you're never gonna see it. Harvey Dean had more to do, I think, I mean, with me pushing uh than than anything, anybody else, because he told me straight up, this is what's wrong, this is what you gotta do. This is what you would, you know, you gotta fix this, you gotta fix this. I hell, I didn't even know that I was, you know, like I I mean I can remember specifics, but there was, I mean, it was so off my radar that I was like in shock at the time. And I just remember being, oh my gosh. You know, I remember telling my wife when I got home. I mean, I'm not talking about tears or nothing, but I was like, huh, I can't believe this happened, you know, and she's cracking up. She's like, you'll be all right, you know. And sure enough, you know, I mean, I've come away stronger from that from that time on.

SPEAKER_03 2:45:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 2:45:31

And and I'm just gonna say this about it. When I actually tested uh for my journeyman in in Atlanta with the fit and finish, you know the whole spill. The first person to greet me when they let us in was Harvey Dean. And and man, he had he wrapped his arms around me, gave me a big old hug. I'm proud of you. And I'm like, thanks, Dad. That was that was the journey, man. For the time he dropped me on my head the time he picked me up. I was like, that was okay. Uh and it was cool. It was a cool minute, man. I was like, oh, okay, thanks, Harvey. And I just, you know, I still get fuse bumps from it. Thanks, Dad. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_05 2:46:12

Yeah, I mean, that val I think like being validated is an important part of the knife making journey. And that comes from a lot of different places, but especially when you admire people and they've already done like amazing things, you know, when you get that that little nod, that's that's definitely rad.

SPEAKER_08 2:46:27

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean it was it was it was a moment, man. I really uh I was like choking up. And I was I was fortunate that my kid was, you know, there. He got to, you know, he got to see it, some friends. I had I had the crew of guys that I run with, man, cheering me on and stuff, and that was really cool. Um, you know, um I f I felt bad for Jeff. I wasn't I wasn't able to um be there for his. Um I had stuff going on with my mom this year, but I would have I would have flown all the way to Atlanta just to be there for Jeff, you know, passing his journey because you know, he he's been through a lot to get you know where he's at. You know, uh his his journey is is is something else. I'm sure you all talked about that.

SPEAKER_05 2:47:07

Yeah, we talked some, yeah, some about that. Yeah. But yeah, I um this interesting stuff. I don't know. I mean, uh it it's an enigma. The knife making, as much as it makes sense, it also doesn't make sense to me. That's why I have to have like people like you on to talk about things and like Jeff. And I think all of my guests help me to understand in a more sophisticated way that there is no uh there's definitely wrong ways to make a knife, right? Um, but when it comes to like where you take your journey, I don't think there's any wrong ways. Uh you know, you can you can make a lot of things and a lot of paths for yourself in this in just this focal point of the industry. Um and uh it just makes me uh it makes me kind of wonder, you know, like uh where I want to go and what I want to do with more intent purpose.

SPEAKER_08 2:47:59

Uh you know, and not to interrupt you, but that that's one of the first things that that I did once I decided, hey, I want to pursue this a little more than a hobby, right? I went to Blade and I said, okay, I'm gonna call I'm gonna find the niche. I gotta find a niche that I can kick the doors into. And so I went to Blay within like I want to say it was 2017 or 2018, I can't remember 100%, but I decided uh, you know what, I I gotta look. And so I all I did uh I had Blade that time. You know, I I I was I wasn't shopping, I was actually looking to see is there is there something, is there a niche here that I can fill that's gonna be different, that's gonna set me apart, that I can also, you know, make what I like. Yeah. And that's when I started realizing there was room for color. That's why I started using Cerakote, using good, cool combinations, still build build a quality knife, build something that it looks unique, but still can be is a high performance tool, you know. And that's the thing, you know. I mean, knives, you got knives that are tools, you know, how they gets back to how they're gonna be used. Knives that are artsy, you know what I mean, that are gonna be hell, they'll probably never get used. Yeah, you know, they're gonna sit in uh in a safe somewhere. Um knives that are you know straight up investments. Now people buy them things as investments. Um so you know, I mean, you got to decide where you want to be in the middle of all that, you know. And also what what keeps you excited about the next project? Yeah, I like challenges. I'm not scared of, you know, every once in a while I get somebody to tell me, oh yeah, I want a kitchen knife. Well, let me send you to a kitchen guy, you know. Uh you know, I'm not scared of making a kitchen knife, but right now um I'm I'm not excited about making a kitchen knife. But you know, there are certain knives that kind of draw my eye and like, yeah, you know what, I can build one of those. Uh, you know, so or like a dagger. It's a great example. I've never made a dagger. That doesn't mean I can't make a dagger. You know, so that's kind of in my, you know, okay, at some point I need to get serious and they try to make a dagger anyway for Master's Map. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, uh anyway, that that kind of that that kind of drive to try something new, and you know, that kind of keeps things fresh, keeps things going, keeps you interested, you know what I mean? Uh keeps you pushing for for you know better results. Uh yeah, I'd love to sit down with Bill Burke and watch him build for a little bit, you know? So anyway, it's uh yeah, it's a it's a fun game. And and also I wish continuing to improve. And I I I'm taking classes, or I have a class with uh Bill Poor in December. Well, that's cool. Um, and I already make my own Damascus. Um but you know, Bill Poor, we're gonna talk about pattern development, okay? Yeah and how how he gets from point A to point B rapidly. Anything you can do to cut time off. Um, I'm very careful about my Damascus. Uh I'm very careful. I like nice, you know, crisp, yeah, high contrast Damascus. I'm you know, temperature, you know, but what takes me probably eight hours to build a billet, some guys can do a lot faster time. So anyway, you know, I'm trying to always learn from people that that are doing it better than I am. Yeah. You know, so uh trying to grow in that regard.

SPEAKER_05 2:51:17

Yeah. No, I agree. I mean, I I agree with everything you just said. I uh I'm all I'm constantly on uh I don't know, I'm on a quest to kind of f find what I guess gives me the most purpose, if that makes sense for me. I mean, you know, I've I've made knives and I guess maybe some like switched from you know uh fixed blades to um some slip joints and like doing stuff like that, right? And um I think that it's it's uh it can be dangerous at times to make a change without really thinking too much about it because I've kind of ostracized my fixed blade uh customer base in pursuing pocket knives and and retooled for pocket knives and stuff, and I kind of like you know, I also like the idea of making slip joints and doing stuff like that, but there's also a portion of me that really r does realize that what that kind of that trajectory I was taking with my fixed blades uh suffered some while I was kind of on this little walkabout. You know, I'm I'm getting back into the um the idea of uh going for my journeyman smith. Uh so I'm an apprentice uh now, and we'll see what that looks like in two or so years. But yeah, it's it's stuff like that where I think that there's always room for growth and there's always room for study.

SPEAKER_08 2:52:36

Well, you know, I've one thing that I've noticed in this is uh uh you know there are guys out there, they try to master they're not even trying to master anything. They try to that they're throwing too wide a net. I'm gonna get really good and I'm gonna be able to do this, this, and this at any given time. Like, no, no, you're not. Yeah. If you try to be the master of all of it, you're gonna be the master of none. Yeah. You know, you know, pick pick a path, find, you know, try a couple of different things, find a path that you like and then go. Run with it.

SPEAKER_03 2:53:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 2:53:05

You know, but if you try to uh and I don't want to get too specific, but like you know, like let's just say for argument's sake, I'm doing hunting knives and somebody throws, yeah, I'm gonna try to make kitchen knives now, too. Yeah, yeah. And then I'm gonna try to make you know liner locks. If you start doing that, you you know, you're never gonna figure it out. You're never gonna be really great at making any of those knives. Yeah. Okay, you gotta you gotta try to get a little specialized, and I think um the quality of your work's gonna show it. And your clientele's gonna, you know, show you're gonna you're gonna do better. Um you know, and some guys are real nitpicky and some guys are not. Some guys, oh yeah, that's really nice, I'll take it. You know, and they they're happy with their knife. You know, they don't give it a they don't give it a a real look. You know, I I talked to somebody several people this weekend about fit and finish. Fit and finish, what are you talking about? I'm like, well, you know, look at the knives. I said, I'll take a Pepsi challenge against anybody that's here. Look at my work and look at anybody else's work that you want. You'll think you'll, what's a Pepsi challenge? Okay, that's a different generation for, yeah, I get it, man. I'm sorry. Uh I don't know what I could throw out there. So um, you know, that would help you understand. I said, but my work, you know, if you look at my work, and I, you know, and this is what we look at, you know, and how does it fit in your hand? Is it is it comfortable? Are there any hot spots? So you got to kind of educate. That's another thing that the guild, we're we're trying to work to educate the public, you know, as much as we can. Uh and also uh uh, you know, there's a bunch of junk metal coming from overseas, and you know that. And the public doesn't know any better. Yeah. You know, and uh the but I I sure love the look on their faces when you take one of those uh can can we say Pakistani Damascus? You can say it. Okay, when you take a Pakistani Damascus knife and you whittle on it with one of mine, yeah, their eyes open up.

SPEAKER_05 2:55:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 2:55:02

How is that possible?

SPEAKER_05 2:55:04

Well, and I I mean I think that that is a a thing is uh there's there's all of these uh there's all it's not just in inferior heat treating, it's inferior steel. Sure. And it's done in mass production for export, and it comes from Pakistan, Wazarabad, and whatnot. I mean, it's very specific to a region where they just produce it all.

SPEAKER_04 2:55:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:55:26

And all those blades um are not they're not better than butter knives. And any well heat treated, like well-made blade will cut right through them without any real problem. And I and there's a lot of people that think that like in in the Wazarabad um um mentality of picking up on market trends, they're really good at that.

SPEAKER_08 2:55:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:55:51

And uh and they're making stuff with like etched Damascus of real poor quality, and people are buying it with saying, Oh, it's Damascus. Like, yeah, I mean. Loosely, right? It's not high quality at all. And there's I mean, it doesn't it like put it on a rock wall harness tester and it's like in the forties. Yeah. Yeah. Like, yeah, I've had some in like the the low thirties.

SPEAKER_08 2:56:12

Oh man, I get guys, hey, can you sharpen my my you know, I bought it at the gun show. Nope.

SPEAKER_05 2:56:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 2:56:18

I can sharpen it. I can sharpen a spoon too.

SPEAKER_05 2:56:21

Yeah. Well, I think I the one thing I will say is that there are like some people that get so like irate over Pakistani, Damascus, they get a little bit racist. Um, and I know that's like the the the real problem is is uh it's it is it's not scammy, but it is kind of that way, right?

SPEAKER_08 2:56:40

Well, yeah, man, but what happens is have you listened to these guys pitch?

SPEAKER_05 2:56:44

Oh yeah, several times, lots of times.

SPEAKER_08 2:56:46

Yeah, you know, I almost got into a uh well, I don't want to say a full-blown fight, but sure enough, an argument.

SPEAKER_05 2:56:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 2:56:51

And this guy was telling me he was have the best bladesmiths in the Houston area are making his knives for people. And I said, really? He goes, he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, excellent, excellent knives. I was okay. I said, uh, well, you know what? I said, I'm on the Texas Knife Makers Guild board. I want to know who's making your who are these bladesmiths that are making your knives. Because I pretty much know everybody. Uh uh uh well yeah, you wouldn't know these guys. I'm like, well, no, I would because yeah, I mean, there's a good chance they're probably Texas, you know, knife maker guild members. And I said, I want to find out who you who's making your knives. Well, it you know, it went downhill quick.

SPEAKER_05 2:57:33

Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, and well, I I don't know that I necessarily respect anybody who um buys these knives and sells them as uh for you know hand forged blades either. Like every uh when I when I was like getting into selling knives, I go to some like not flea markets, but um, you know, like down in uh South Texas uh by Kyle area, they have uh Wimberley has a uh once-a-month sale thing. Okay, and I was going there, and one of the first stalls was like all this cutlery, right, which is all import blades, and most of it was uh um or uh origins of uh Pakistan, right? Sure, sure. And there were I can't tell you how many people walk into that thing and buy it. Yeah. Um, like I mean, yeah, it's like $30, $40, whatever, right? You sp buy it on Amazon too or whatever. But by the time that they realize that that's not great quality, they've already bought three or four of them and they could have just had a custom blade for that. I mean, there's lots of good makers that I've seen at this show that have something for under under $250. And like you look at the difference on the like these scam knives, basically. Um, and it's I don't know. It's I I I can't say that there's room for everybody because of that kind of business practice shouldn't really exist.

SPEAKER_08 2:58:51

Exactly. And that's the thing, is it what it does is it cheapens the mascots for everybody. Yeah. Because you know what, you got that same customer's like, well, I can buy them at the you know over here for this much. Why am I paying you so much? You know, you gotta sit there and educate and explain.

SPEAKER_05 2:59:04

Yep.

SPEAKER_08 2:59:04

You know, um, I took an order this week, uh weekend for a uh uh a very specific pattern. Uh, you know, we we we went over a couple of different patterns and what I you know what I can do and what I have available and what you know, and we we settled on ladder. Okay, I want ladder to baskets. Okay, you bet, you know. Uh and so you know, we can get pretty specific with our patterns. Most of what you see coming out of Pakistan is gonna be, of course, it's about the metals junk, but you know, it's random, if anything. Yeah, uh maybe twist. I've seen some twist over there. Um, but uh at the end of the day, what it does is it, you know, people walk around thinking, oh man, uh, you know, all the masks should be this cheap. Yeah. And it's not, you know, and it takes a lot of hours and a lot of work and a lot of discipline to make that keep that steel at the right temperatures so you're not burning your steel. Yeah, yeah. You know, you know the game, man. You've been on it.

SPEAKER_05 2:59:58

Yeah, yeah. I uh yeah, I don't have there's lots of aspects of knives that I just don't have any real answers for. And I don't know, like who cares what I think at the end of the day, except in the context of a podcast that gets internationally distributed, right? I I I think about that sometimes. Like I have a little bit of a responsibility with uh the podcast to try to um be fair and balanced, you know, like our like uh journalism is dead in so many ways, but what I'm trying to do is balance opinion out, right? Sure. And there's like the one area where I just like I like I vehemently agree that it's uh it's a bad bad thing for us in in America, especially is the um the you know Pakistan origin, Damascus and how it's affected us, especially in this um in this rise of the forge blade, right? Um you know, it you know, back back in the days of the the guild, I mean before before the ABS was really um um a thing, people were having a hard time with the legitimacy of forged blades. And then we have like this shift where it's like you know, the you get more out of a forged blade than you do out of a stock removal blade and this back and forth and banter and everything. And uh I think it's interesting because some of the um the best early knife makers in America, you know, but post-70s approximately, right? Yeah. Um they pushed it in uh in both realms of forged and stock removal into areas that boggle the mind. Yeah. And I I think it's uh it's just interesting. You know, it's interesting uh to try to unpack knives in a way that we could have debates for like years and probably ruin great friendships over some of some of those debates too. I always try to do it in jest and everything, but you know, it's uh there's a lot to it.

SPEAKER_08 3:01:47

Oh yeah, yeah. Uh you know, it one thing that peeps me about these guys though, I mean they're they're um they're taking other people's work and they're trying to pawn it off as their own. Oh yeah. And so as you know, that's one of the if it were if we're weak anywhere as the you know, as far as as far as the TKG, that that's where we're weak. We need to do more to educate the consumer. But you know, we got to get the consumer to look at the TKG in the first place. Yeah. So, you know, the like today, I had them say, hey, please, please announce that yeah. Of course, what what I wanted was a little different than what actually got on, but I said, hey, if you're you know, I wanted I tell them so, hey, if you're interested in knives and you want to learn more about knife making, go to the TKG booth. Oh, that's that's what I wanted them to announce. What they announced was something similar, it was a little wash down, but that's okay. Um, you know, anybody that wants to learn more needs to come, you know, to events, talk to people, um, reach out to other knife makers. Man, you have so many resources. Yeah. Uh uh yeah, I'm available. People want to ask me stuff. I got guys, you know, on a regular basis. You know, hey man, I've I'm I'm stuck. Okay. Come over here and we'll do this, or or I'll come over and we'll we'll figure it out. Oh you know, uh I forget what you know, Nate Tuna. You know him? I've heard of it, yeah. Yeah, you know, you know, he came over today and says, Hey man, we need to do a collab on I I gotta figure out this battleship steel. I want to get this pattern. And he showed me a picture. I said, I got you. I said, We'll build it in my house, we'll draw it out, I got a rolling mill. I said, we'll get you on point. I said, but it ain't gonna be worth a damn because you got battleship steel on your edge. He goes, No, we'll put a core in it. I said, Done. You know, as long as you're good with that, so you we're gonna have three colors of steel, it's gonna look like camouflage. You know, and so we you know, we it that kind of you know collaboration and fun and friendship where you can sit down and just reach out, you gotta have that, man. I mean, you got you know, uh, we all make each other better if we can figure things out together, you know. Absolutely. That's one of the my favorite things about this gig, man. I mean, it's just it's it's cool, it's cool in that, you know, and some guys, you know, I mean, even even the guys that have some secret sauce formula, whatever, those guys, nah man, do this. It'll look a lot better. And sure enough, man. I mean, you know, you try different things or whatever. Or pattern development, that's another great one, you know. If you're trying to come up with something new, well, you're not, I don't know if you'll come up with something new, but you're trying to get to a certain pattern development, you know, uh in Damascus. Man, you reach out and you talk to these guys, and some are some are tight lip, you know, some don't want to tell you, you know, and that's cool, man. I I I don't hold anything against anybody. You know, say, hey, whatever. You know, uh, no hard feelings. Uh, but some guys, you know, yeah, man, you just do this, do this. And you know, John Horgan's helped me numerous times. Yeah, you know, uh, of course we're we're buddies, you know, we have that camaraderie. And you know, he doesn't hesitate. And he's, you know, he's a mastersmith that makes, I don't know, five to seven hundred dollars a day to come to come and learn from him. And I don't don't quote me on that. Uh you know, I mean I'm guessing it's in that range. Um but you know, super guy. You know, I I mean I can't thank him enough for you know all the stuff. And man, you know, one hand washes the other. I've tried to help him in every way that I can, you know, but uh I still owe the guy more than he's you know, but uh but yeah man, I I'm blessed to have uh so many great role models to live up to then and I'm and I'm and I'm trying, man. Uh I don't know that I'm ready to do Mastersmith, but if not if not this coming year, then the one after. Yeah. You know. Um just because I feel like my fit and finish could get there if as long as my my my my patterns are tied and you know the same on both sides and the contrast is good, yeah. I think I can get there pretty quick. Yeah. You know? Um and I'm excited for that. I'm excited for the challenge of it. Um I may even test in February with JW again with my 300 layer Mastersmith, you know, but we'll see. Wouldn't that be cool? Dude, and you want to hear something really interesting uh or funny? I don't know how interesting it'll be too, but I built one test knife for my journey of my knife. I I forged it out, actually filmed it, quit filmed the quench, you know, and all that, got everything straight. And I I kind of put it, I never tested it. I never put the final edge on it, I just kind of put it aside for a while. Well then one day I decided to clean it up, you know, and okay, it's you know looking pretty good. Still had some some hammer marks on it, you know, but you know, nice and clean and light. Well, I made the thing too light. I mean, it was really light. Not kitchen sharp, man, not kitchen uh knife light, but approaching that, okay. And uh I was like, man, I think I made this thing too damn light, you know. And when I, you know, when I had it finished, I I walked out in the yard and I I you know I just had some two by fours there, and I don't even know if they were, you know, uh probably just pine or something. Pap, pap, pap, pap, pap, pap, pap. Went right through them, you know. I and I and I checked the edge and no deformation, everything's 100%. And I had uh Brett and No Kid giving me some one-inch rope. And so I yeah, and I just, you know, kind of haphazardly threw it over a branch in the yard. I just cut right through it like nothing. I said, Oh, I'm good. You know, that's the that's all the practice I did uh to test for I mean, literally all the practice I did. I cut through one two by four and I and I cut or two two by fours. I'm sorry, I cut through two two by fours and I cut. I cut a rope once and I cut a rope twice. I still have the pieces. And and I said, Oh, I got this. And dude, I was wrong. I mean, when I got the JWs, the rope was different. It was a bigger rope, and it had this knotted, freaking nasty. And I don't know if it's what would I not builders gray. Listen, let me tell you, it took me, I think I have it on video, and I think it's north of 200 strikes to get through two two by fours because it was such a light blade. So I'm like, and I'm sitting there forever chewing through this, and it's embarrassing. I'm like, oh my god, everybody's watching. And so with all the strikes and everything that that it finally took to get through that thing, you know, I thought there's no way this is gonna shave. There's no way. At the house, I did it in like 14 or 15 strikes out here at JW. And I and and I I mean, I have the video, like I said, I'm just sitting there. It looks like a woodpecker. And dude, I'm like, there's no freaking way this knife is gonna shave. And JW in front of God and everybody real boy, he pulled, you know, he wears long sleeve shirts, he pulled it up and he went and he left a you know, four-inch ball patch on his arm. He goes, Whoa, that's jar, buddy. So I'm like, what? Right then, you can see it on my face. I'm like, no kidding. I just freaking, oh my god. And so, dude, when I'm I'm like literally with bated breath sitting there on the on the pipe, you know, waiting to bend this knife. And I'm like, there's no freaking way it's gonna, you know, I had never been a knife before, you know, and I'm like, there's no way this is gonna come together for me. And sure enough, it comes all the way down. I'm like, oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_05 3:09:18

Oh man, that's uh that's funny. I I can't imagine. Well, I mean, that makes a hell of a story, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_08 3:09:24

Oh, dude, I was so I mean, I was confident in every aspect of it. I'm like, you know what, I'm just gonna build one, you know. And then I, oh, you know what, I'm just gonna, and everything came together so easy, and everything kind of just, you know, I said, Man, I got this, you know. And then, man, I oh my god, do I really have I I thought there was something wrong with my knife when I started traveling to the tube. Like, what in the world? What kind of wood is this? You know, actually you can see it on my face. I'm sitting there looking at it, like, what kind of wood is this? You know, and it was my fault. I knew the knife was light. Yeah, I knew it was light, you know, and I and and and I should have, I should have but I had never, you know, I mean, I'm I'm a hunter, man. I what when do I need to chop through freaking, you know, if I'm gonna chop through wood, I'm using an axe. You know, I I'd never had to chop through a knife. Yeah, you know. So I should have, I should have, in retrospect, I should have made it thicker, a little heavier duty, you know, carry a little weight, a lot less chops. But if you ever see the video, it's on Instagram. I don't know, or some of it's on Instagram. Uh, if you ever see the video, you'll laugh your ass off. You can see it on my face, and you can see how many chops it takes me to get there. Because I'm sitting going like this, and there's little many chunks falling off. And I'm like, oh, I'm so screwed. There's no way this is gonna cut, dude.

SPEAKER_03 3:10:36

There's no way this is gonna cut.

SPEAKER_08 3:10:38

After 200 strikes, I'm like, this is gonna hurt. But yeah, no, it passed.

SPEAKER_04 3:10:43

So, you know.

SPEAKER_08 3:10:45

That's the benchmark of a journalist. You know, you understanding hatry. I you know, I felt that all that, I was confident in all that. But I didn't actually take the time to test and and really find out, you know. I was confident enough that like I I got this, you know. But then when I got there, yeah, I started going, oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 3:11:03

Some variables change. Yeah, yeah, variables change.

SPEAKER_08 3:11:06

You can bet that for my Mastersmith, I'll be I will have tested and built multiple knives, I can assure you.

SPEAKER_05 3:11:12

See, that's hilarious. Well, I know that you gotta get going. We're at the end of the show. And um, not only the podcast, but also the knife show. And uh we need to uh get again, uh get together again and talk more, maybe go on a hunt sometime. Sounds good, brother. But I really appreciate your time and energy and uh and the insight because I think that's really important as uh you know people think about Texas and what we're doing here, uh, to understand that um we are all part of this thing that we're creating, and we need everybody uh in it and to be invested and to you know want to do good things to build up Texas knife making, and you're one important pillar of that. And I I really appreciate it. Thanks so much, man. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Good Old Blades Podcast. Remember that you are loved and God bless.