Automated Transcript
Chris Rossiter, Renegade EDC and Renegade Provisions Co.

Welcome to the Knife Junkie podcast.
Your weekly dose of knife news and information about knives and knife collecting.
Here's your host Bob the knife Junkie de Marco.
Welcome to the Night Junkie podcast.
I'm Bob DeMarco.
On this edition of the show, I'm speaking with Chris Rossiter of Renegade EDC and Renegade Provisions company.
Now I heard about Chris's work producing and selling EDC gear, especially custom made Hanks and other Hanks.

00:38
But he really came onto my radar when he took renegade provisions into the knife territory with a big beefy yet hollow ground, and I assume finally cutting bolster lock.
Named after Odin's spear.
There aren't too many designers out there making 4 inch bladed knives so that really made me sit up and take note that's my wheelhouse.
And now he's got a very easy on the eyes.
EDC knife on the way.
It named after the God of mischief himself.
We're going to find out how he got into the EDC game and where he's going to take this knife career.

01:10
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Chris, welcome to the Knife Junkie podcast.
Hey, thanks for having me.

02:12
Hey it's my pleasure.
Uh so like I said right up front the the gungnir.
How do you pronounce that?
First of all, gungnir the gungnir.
Yep, and that's.
This beautiful hefty knife here.
Yeah, so that thing really really grabbed my eye.

02:32
It's a very bold design.
The shape of that blade.
Everything about it.
The size.
I was very thrilled to hear the size of that.
But before we get to that, how did you get into this EDC selling game?
Tell us about about renegade provisions company.

02:47
By the way, a very cool name it Harkins back to something classic and renegade provisions company, the.
The naming process actually came from a. And Instagram group that I'm part of called the the grog.
It's a small group of guys that we we try to delve deep into the iconography, the imagery back, stories of things we we talked to, various makers, you know it's just a real good group of guys that have kind of a classic mindset.
So we're we're always talking about.
Delving into the the psyche of men, and you know the kind of the root problems of the world and things like that.
So I started out as renegade EDC and I was very quickly finding that my side gig of making handkerchiefs was turning into more of a complete side business, and I wanted to diversify my renegade EDC page, which was kind of like my personal face of the renegade line.
You know what I was doing in the day, what I was cooking in the day, what I was carrying.

03:54
And I didn't want to focus so much on the business side of it and kind of pollute all that or try to meld it together.
So I started brainstorming different things that I wanted to do, and renegade and savagery and chivalry.
All of those were kind of like a a word brainstorm that that came together, and as we continued to whittle down things, a good buddy in that group, MB Wild, said you should make it a provisions company.
It's like, you know, don't don't limit yourself to just handkerchiefs or whatever, etc gear that you'd want.
He's like you do beekeeping you.
Do all kinds of stuff he's like.
Don't limit yourself.

04:34
Make it a provisions company and renegade provisions company was was born from that.
So beekeeping are you, beekeeping Hanks.
Now knives.
I noticed on your website that you do beard wax which half the year will come in handy for me.
So a very diversified bunch of products there.
Obviously there's a real love for knives.
We're going to get to that in a second and.

05:02
And I bet if I were a Hank expert, I could.
I could identify a real love for Hanks because because of all the amazing, beautiful designs and everything that I saw there.
But I'm interested about this grog group, so you're not just talking about EDC stuff, you are talking about, like the meta issues of man.
Basically, yeah, it's it's really just a it was born from from EDC.
That's that's all of our common interest.
Uh, but it goes a lot a lot deeper through that, so we we may go from talking about.
Just a couple of days ago we were talking about edge geometry and the and the differences between flat ground and hollow ground.

05:47
Can a well and a well done nice thin flat grind be competitive to a hollow while still giving edge rigidity and and strength?
And we went from that to talking about fatherhood and what that means and what that brings out of us in men.
What it changes in our personality and our hormones in our.
In our wild spirit kind of thing, so it's it's like a men's book club, EDC club Psychology lounge, where we can kind of go in and vent a little bit and get some some input from some fellow men of of all age ranges because I think we have guys in there from from like upper 40s, lower 50s all the way
down to to mid 20s.
So we've got quite a a demographic of people.
In there, so it's just a. It it's kind of the the bar throughout the day where we're not drinking, but we're just enjoying the fellowship of of other guys.

06:45
I mean, that sounds like a real welcome kind of environment for a lot of people.
A lot of men this day and age.
Some version of that, you know.
I live in a house full of girls and women and and even a female cat.
And sometimes the dog and I we just repair to the basement and wonder what is going on up there.
Man, you know.
But yeah I love.

07:05
I love the idea so I mean.
We talked about this a lot on the show.
What what do knives mean and and right now for the purpose of this conversation, we're we're gonna expand that out to EDC for a second.
What does EDC mean?
I mean, for me I feel the love of knives is is not just a man and a man or woman thing.
I think all people have an innate love of knives.
I think it's part of our you know part of our genetics.

07:30
At this point it means it's a. It's a it's a tool of hope.
It's a tool of of utility and.
There's a lot that goes into it.
It's already in us, but the EDC everyday carry dad.
If my father's listening, he's like.
What is this EDC that keep my everyday carry?
The stuff you carry on you to make sure you can get through your day with the least resistance, right?

07:53
I mean, that's that's basically what it is.
How do you define it for yourself?
And what are the kind of things you're looking for for renegade?
That how do you want those things to integrate into people's lives?
Well, EDC to me really just boils down to what am I going to carry through the day?
Like you said, that's going to make my day easier.
So my primary profession is A is a building inspector based in civil engineering, so I'm I may be crawling in crawlspaces, addicts, going through a house from top to bottom, so I may need a Flathead screwdriver through the day.

08:27
I may need my pocket knife to cut.
Say somebody painted their attic scuttle shut and I have to score that paint to be able to open that door up.
I get into a dusty attic and I gotta blow my nose, so I need my handkerchief.
It just boils down to what am I going to use on a regular basis.
I have to use a flashlight five or six hours a day so a flashlight's going to be in my EDC knife, a pry bar I just recently exchanged out my pry bar for a Swiss army knife.
To try to test that out and see how it equated to my everyday needs.
But it's just something that makes you.

09:04
Makes your day easier even when it comes down to if you don't need a knife, you could have something as simple as a as a challenge coin or a worry stone.
Do you have nervous issues?
Do you have?
Attention issues.
Do you need something to fidget with to be able to occupy your mind just enough to pay attention in your meeting in, you know anything like that and as you as you go down through the the page, there's there's quite a. An assortment there.
So when I look at my when I look at my shop.
It it may be something that I'm super interested in, like the breakdown mats.

09:41
I really have a lot of fun.
You know, breaking down my my pistols or breaking down an optic, breaking down a knife and having a nice leather base to organize everything and then be able to customize it.
However I I want.
Same thing with the handkerchiefs we have.
And just a immense.
Gap in in all the people that are out there that use handkerchiefs.
So I have the the wool handkerchiefs that I just recently came out with.

10:11
So like this is the is the Super Classic line and you know for people that want that that classic carry that works out very well, but then you go into.
All of the younger guys and there's anime characters.
There's childhood cartoon characters.
The other day I had somebody make a request he wanted a shaggy and Scooby Hankerchief with the with the mystery machine in the background and then you have all these other guys.
I've got a whole section of collaboration, Hanks like the MY Wild and the.
The bite from.
Niche designs ohh yeah.

10:50
Primo with the Swanson you know.
So there are a couple of artists in there that that collaborate with me and and do work so it's also ways not only to get my product out there, but to collaborate with other people and help them grow their audience as well so that there's a little bit of everything in there for everybody.
And you can give one to your kid.
You can give one to your to the misses, give one of the girlfriend the dad.
It try to cover everything.
Yeah, I'm going to have to I I carry every day have for years a folded up bandana on the back pocket I think I need to up my game a little bit you know I'm seeing all those beautiful patterns and that's how I started out too.
I was raised by my grandfather, the same one that that built this this House and he always had a handkerchief in his pocket.

11:39
So as I started kind of growing up with him and working with him I have it really bad.
Allergies all through the summer, so he gave me one of his old red bandanas and I started putting it in my pocket every day and then as time went on, I thought, well, I I can make this.
I can, you know, get something a little bit more rigid because those handkerchiefs they kind of fell apart when you work in the construction trades and you're up and down and in and out, they end up getting oil stains on them and ripped and torn, and they're very thin already too.
Yep, wanted something a little bit more sturdy so just a couple of years ago.
I thought, well, I can make these.
I'm sure I can make these myself.
I can figure it out.

12:20
Got on the sewing machine and.
You know, I think it's just two years ago that that that whole endeavor started.
It sounds like you are the kind of person who.
Has a real appreciation for the classics.
Like for me when I was much younger I thought when I'm older and I have to shave, it's gonna be a straight razor or nothing.
That's sort of a gentleman shaves with, you know they've got a collection of straight razors and safety razors.
Yeah all kinds of different soaps for boar bristle brushes.

12:55
Yep, that's that nails it.
There are so many really cool.
High quality classic items that have kind of gone away sacrificed on the altar of modern efficiency that that, I think really should be in everyone's lives.
Still.
For instance, if you use a straight razor to shave, and I don't recommend it, certainly.
But you do take your time.
That is for sure, and we we tend not to do things like that.

13:27
So it's I love hearing that you know how, how the how the Hanks got started.
It all seems like it started from a desire to keep some masculine traditions going, and I really I appreciate that.
Yeah, and it.
Mixing from the the keeping the classics alive and and kind of bringing them to a new generation.
There are a lot of things that we.
You know, like you said, it had it's broken way to to modern ease of use.
So instead of using a handkerchief we use a paper towel and then we throw that paper towel away, which is a waste product.

14:05
And then there's no kind of.
Yeah, what do you do with that?
It's just A roll of paper towels.
That's it.
There's a lot of that classic Ness where I feel like it's almost like we're self pampering.
So if we talk, we relate back to the straight razor when I go to my Barber shop and get my haircut from the 1940s, they still have the steam towels.
So when they line up my beard they put the soap on.

14:31
They wrap my face in the steam towel.
They take it off, they wipe the soap down.
Then they put a gel on and they straight razor cut.
And it's just it's that relaxing extra 5 minutes of the haircut where I close my eyes.
You've got a hot, steamy towel on your face and you just kind of want to fall back and asleep into like a dream state.
Or you can get just a normal haircut where they zip, zip, zip, cut, cut, cut out the door and there's no kind of pampering.
There's no kind of.

15:02
Connection with you and the the Barber, or great clips wherever you know wherever you go.
So bringing back that classic barbershop field, bringing back the pampering of a nice quality handkerchief, it just makes you appreciate yourself and what you're doing.
That little bit more yeah.
And and like that moment just that moment.
Yeah I'm blowing my nose where I'm I'm rubbing my eyes or whatever you're you're doing with it I may I use my hands for everything clean on my glasses but I'm doing it with this beautiful thing and this is going to be with me for a long time as opposed to that paper towel that I could have jammed in
my pocket.
So all that being said, how did it?

15:44
How did it come to pass that you decided to go into folding knives and have you always been a knife person?
All I've I've been a knife person since I was old enough to walk.
I like I said, my grandparents raised me so pocket knives were introduced to me very very early on because my grandmother carried one to do gardening.
My grandfather carried one to do all the tasks through the work day that that he did.
We were avid fisherman so we always used him for for cutting line and doing whatever else that we needed to so.
I think.
It wasn't long after I started potty training that I ended up getting my my first knife, which was an old timer that I had found walking with my grandmother and my grandfather had taken a file and kind of filed down the edge so it wasn't sharp, but it was still a knife.

16:35
And that just spawned a a lifetime of wanting to be.
A knife person.
So I I collected knives all through my childhood, then got into kind of more practical blades.
And then as I hit like my.
My mid early mid 20s I started going into the what I thought was higher end at that point in time.
You know branching into Benchmade and Spyderco getting some of those steels that wasn't 1095 or just.
Blanket stainless from from Walmart and it just.

17:09
Snowballed from there, so Spyderco knives turned into.
Bench made turned into micro tech and marfione and then turned into Brian Brown and and all of the makers that we know and love today.
So then you decided it's time for me to design A knife or something like that.
How did that happen and and how did you come up with the first design, the gungnir?
Well, I started into the design and again that that's where the goal group comes in to play.
I was just kind of doodling at some point in time.
We were all talking about.

17:50
You know what we liked about certain knife designs, what we didn't like about them, how kind of.
Not throwing any kind of shade towards anybody in the knife industry, but how every knife kind of had a shortcoming in some way shape or form.
So if I wanted it for this task it didn't do this task.
If I wanted it for this one, it didn't do the other one.
And we we just kind of got into what's our favorite blade shape?
How?
How would it look?

18:16
And it was like a creative spark just kind of popped and I was sitting there with my grid paper and my protractors and my radiuses and drafting pencils.
And I just went to town drawing and a few hours later after being silent in the group that whole time I kind of popped back and I was like, hey, here's my.
Here's my rough draft knife design.
Everybody was looking at it.
We talked about it for a long time and a couple of them kind of sent me personal messages and we're like you.
You should really pursue kind of perfecting this.
Drawing it out, making it functional and and see where you can go with it.

18:51
And then that's where.
You know gun near started so I designed a knife that I wanted to for work.
I wanted something that was.
Hefty, I've got relatively big size hands.
I wanted something that fit in my hand.
Well, I wanted something that carried, well, a lot of times.
When you get into these bigger high end knives, you almost always have the the milled titanium clips and wire clips are kind of not a. Not an option on a lot of, especially the bigger knives and at the higher price points, right?

19:26
So I thought well I wanna offer something that has.
Multiple clip options and I know all the lefties out there are gonna you know, still be ridiculing me that they're not double sided.
They're not reversible yet.
But I I just kind of.
Designed the knife that I wanted to to work with on a daily basis.
Something that had a nice sheepsfoot design and a a large belly.
The hollow grind to make it nice and nice and slicy but still a nice durable knife that I could use with a pair of gloves I could use in the dirt and the dust and just really beat the beat the daylights out of.

20:09
Has the design lived up to your initial goal design goals?
Ohh yeah yeah I've I've been very, very happy with with the knife as time goes on and I kind of.
I have cut my chops on on designing and like I said I do have a background in in engineering so it kind of helps to.
To to make the base design, but there are so many nuances that you don't really think of as you're designing the first one and the the second knife designed in the third knife design.
They all kind of better themselves.
As time goes on so the the gungnir I, I carry it almost every day still when I'm not carrying one of my other prototypes I still use it constantly.
This one's in need of a good sharpening.

20:56
It's hard to see, but there's some chips in the blade.
I've been doing electrical wiring with it, drywall with it and now that we're starting work outside.
Cutting.
Cutting CTS pipe like underground airlines and water lines and all kinds of stuff your your job is is perfect.
Your job is perfect for testing out these knives.
Man because you know it's I don't want to say it's nothing about.
This is easy but but one could make a design that looks good.

21:31
You know easy on the eyes, send it to a company that you know is going to knock it out of the park and then just say here.
Here's my here's my hard use knife, but you're actually.
You know, taking it out and using it hard and it's and it's working out, and that's the that's a great way to test it, you know.
Oh yeah, yeah.
And I. I think that there are probably going to be people out there that that hard use it even more than than me, but this is a topic that I've I've brought up in multiple chat groups that I've been part of is that.
I've I've carried just about every knife maker out there and every time I pick up a new knife it looks mint for about 8 hours and then it goes to it goes to a job site or it goes to the yard and and a lot of those people on Instagram.
They'll see the kind of abuse that I'm putting a $1000 sheer girl of through and they're like kind of grimacing when they when they see the not necessarily abuse.

22:29
I'm just using it for what it is.
It's not like I'm taking it and using it like a pry bar, which is why I carry.
A prybar separately.
You don't cry with your knives, but doing just the standard cutting tasks and trying to to put that edge geometry to the limit to to see what it's going to do, and then figure out how comfortable it is to carry while you've got a a work bag on your hip or while you're carrying a toolbox while you're
carrying a ladder over your shoulder, just making sure that that functionality is is solid.
I think that's the huge paradox of.
Collecting expensive knives.

23:07
Really nice knives.
I tend to get precious with them.
Not that I have too much opportunity.
My job and my lifestyle doesn't call upon me to use my knives hard in the least.
Generally, I have to go looking around for things to do with them to be honest, but in any case you know you spend time stocking a knife or you know.
Hunting a knife down and then you you save up and you spend the money and or however you come by it.
It's it's usually a process, and oftentimes by the time you get it.

23:45
It's something that that ends up on the shelf.
The gungnir you know, because you want to protect your, protect your precious.
But but the gungnir is man it it's got from now I have not handled it, but from what I've seen in the many, many pictures and videos is that it is a premium and luxury creation in that it's titanium and micarta and M390 blade steel.
Really nice design.
And a really excellent hollow grind and and.
And yet it is.
It is perfectly at home, in the kind of environment you're talking about.

24:23
And I, I think for a knife like this, that's a really great balance.
Oh yeah, yeah, and.
You, as a designer, you want to design something that that kind of fits as many people as possible.
And myself in in knife designing with my first knife.
I really kind of did the absolute opposite and with a lot of people because they said you don't.
Maybe you should, maybe you should save the four and a quarter inch version of it for like your third knife run.
But releasing the big one to start off with was kind of something to prove to myself that the.

25:03
I thought if I could launch this one and be successful with the the big boy that there would be a little bit easier time doing the the rest of them.
So as I came out with additional designs that it would just get a little bit easier and I'd kind of get the the hard stuff out of the way at the beach at the beginning because a lot of people can't carry a knife that this big legally in some areas that they live and then a lot of the people that can
legally carry it don't want to carry a knife that's this big.
I was just trying to figure out I don't have anything much on my desk other than the left concepts of vaunt.
But there is a significant difference in the in the two sizes.
So it's wow.
It's not a small knife in any manner, but it is nice and thin, so I tried to make a big knife that would appeal to somebody that you know say had a maximum use case of three and a half inch or three and a quarter and three and three quarter inches that they would.

26:05
Kind of look at this and be like it.
It's it's manageable.
But yeah, that I figured that would be the hardest one to to launch.
Well, I think I think you're right about that because most people you know shy away from the larger blades, but it hasn't seemed to really stopped anyone from from getting that knife.
People seem to be crazy about it, and so I think you're right about, you know it's an interesting way to go about it.
Do the hard part first, and if that catches on, well, damn it.
I know, I know, everything else will.

26:39
That's old adage that you eat your vegetables 1st and you for last.
So yeah, when in reality that's kind of my dessert 1st at 4:00 and a quarter.
I mean I was like man it's over 4 inches.
Yeah yeah that's very pleasing to me.
So what else is pleasing is you went with a bolster lock and I have recently I've always kind of you know?
Yeah, but recently I've really been.
Recognizing the benefit of bolster locks because I tend to fat finger flippers, you know enough, and especially if it's something small and slim that is not the case with this knife but but in in many cases, especially with flippers.

27:22
Why did you go with the bolster lock?
Well, the the first reason is that that note into the classic knife, so if we if we look back into.
You know more classic lock backs or classic slip joints.
You see a lot of that.
Kind of bolstering imagery so you you would have a a slip joint and it would have the nice chunk of metal at the end and maybe a nice chunk of metal at the end and then you have that scale that goes in between.
So when I look at a bolster lock it.
It reminds me of a of a simpler time where we treated our tools a little bit differently.

28:02
You know it was a tool, it was something that was used.
You picked your fingernails with it, you whittled a piece of wood with it.
You you cleaned out the.
The gunk from your tobacco pipe.
With it you know it was something that just was there with you all day every day, and it was like another finger attached to your body.
So when I look at a modern knife made into a bolster lock, it gives me that same kind of imagery.
It reminds me of that that classic Ness that manliness that masculinity.

28:35
And just brings home the fact that this is a a tool.
It's there to be used.
It's there to be implemented in any way that you can see fit.
I like that you're talking about the bolster lock in reference to or parallel to slip joints, and the bolsters on older knives that that didn't occur to me until you mentioned it right now, but I do remember early on.
When?
When Framelock knives became very popular, I remember thinking it they look incomplete.
You know, on the show side, they look great.

29:10
You flip them over and it's like ohh it's like the the whole the veil has been lifted and we're just seeing the guts of it and and my eye is used to it now and I like what a lot of makers do to the lock sides.
You know it's not always just a flat field of titanium now, but seeing you know, besides the utility of what I was talking about, ease of deployment with a bolster lock to see the bolster go all the way around it.
It makes it look like a more complete design.
Yeah, and.
You know, with only having a right-handed design, currently a bolster lock also really allows someone.
That's that's left handed to implement the blade, because if you think about it a lot of times that that lock bar is going to get in their way when they go to use that knife, whereas in a right-handed person it's it's completely open and and available.
You don't have that that issue with the with the fingers on the lock bar.

30:10
One of the reasons I don't carry my.
Sheer goroff is as much as because it's got that frame lock that's just blatantly open on that.
On that lock side, and every time I go to flip it open that first time and I slip my finger off and I think, well, that wasn't fun.
So then you, then you try again and it it deploys.
But there's always that first time when you pull it out of your pocket and you fail it and you just rip your finger down across that.
Knurling on the on the Flipper tab, and you're like.
OK, I don't like that.

30:41
Yes, yes, I'm going to change it in my own life.
So I want to go back to you have the design of the gungnir drawn out.
You've you've kind of gone through different iterations with with your group and, and then there comes a time where, like, oh, this is going to happen.
I'm going to pull the trigger on this.
Do you then learn?
Did you learn CAD then or do you?
Did you just get in touch with OEMs?

31:07
What's it like working with OEMs and and all of that?
Well, I did learn CAD originally in college, so I do have a background in in understanding CAD and how to do it, but it's been years since I've operated any CAD program, so I did have to relearn a certain aspect I did.
I did redraw the knife from the the analog, the graphite pencil design over 2 CAD and got the moving pieces altogether and and where I wanted everything and then.
Then at that point I started reaching out to to OEM's and and talking with them about how the process went because I made the mistake of not talking to any other makers that had already produced knives and just went like straight on like I'm going to blaze my own trail instead of using some
information and some knowledge from other people that had already had already done it.
So I I only reached out to to one OEM at the start and that was riot because I'd had dozens of riot knives and could see a pretty stark difference between, you know, ones like best tech and.
Ohh gosh, the Italian company which is the name just completely escaped me, but Riot just seemed to have the the pinnacle.

32:29
They're hollow grinds were on point.
They're micarta, their bolster transitions from scale to to bolster were phenomenal.
They're inlays were phenomenal and you could just see that there was.
Just a competitive edge there with all of their their work that they did, so I reached out to them first.
Got in contact, started conversations they asked for.
We signed an NDA both both ways so that I could send my design over and both sides were protected and it just kind of all fell right into place.
So I just reached out to them and that was that was it?

33:08
Umm?
Got everything together.
Pricing, timelines, sending the deposit to get the to get the ball rolling and then started the PR to get to get the pre-order started.
Once, once you got prototypes, was there any design tweaking or did they nail it right off the bat?
How?
How was the prototype process the the prototype process was was actually pretty pretty good, there's a. There seems to be like a a language barrier there.
You know you are talking to a Chinese OEM, and though they are speaking English, I think that there are some things that kind of slipped through the floorboards, like the cracks in the floor so.

33:58
When I got the gungnir prototypes I had engineered this cut out to always be a cut out, and the prototypes arrived with this just being a a milled fuller on on both sides, and even though the knife still still worked, you could flip it.
Out just fine.
It was a lot harder to do.
It didn't have the the ease of opening like it does with the with the full cut through.
But outside of that, there wasn't much in the way of of changes.
We did a little bit of change to the the swedge on the back.
I added a captive pivot because when they when they shifted out, the pivot was one of the things that I did not design in CAD.

34:43
I just kind of put the screws in the places that they were supposed to be.
Did the exploded view so we could see like this is where the scale screws are?
This is where the frame screws are and then they did the the alterations.
After that so.
Prototypes came in with a non captive pivot and that was something that I really felt it had to have one at the price point and then two at the at the functionality space.
I didn't want somebody using this.
And having the the pivot back out because it's free spinning on both sides and have that kind of complication and breakdown maintenance.

35:21
Servicing all of that.
But other than that, the the process was was pretty easy for me.
Pretty OK. So with that captive captive pivot I just recently had that, well, an issue come up with it wasn't an issue, it just unexpectedly loosened the pivot on my SOCOM bravo, you know, Reich made SOCOM Bravo.
I really like the knife, you know, but it immediately because of course I got it and I flipped it a billion times and it like immediately backed up yet and and that was a little.
Surprising to me.
It's always kind of a buzzkill when you see you need to T20 torques, you know bits to tighten this up and get it and and get it down.
What besides the annoyance?

36:06
What you said in the price point?
Alluding to some sort of?
There's got to be some improvement in action what?
What about the captured pivot?
Besides annoyance?
Uh, were you looking for, or lack of annoyance to me personally, the.
Ease of use and ease of maintenance goes into how much I'm going to use a knife, so if it's going to take me a long time to take both of these pivots out.

36:35
Take everything apart, put it back together and then get these torqued down.
Get the blade centered.
You know you have all those guys that have YouTube videos out with every Spyderco knife and they're shoving tissues in this side and they're working this screw and they're working.
This frame screw and like this is how you get your knife centered.
If you if you just kind of have a solid design, you have that captive pivot, and when your knife is put together when the pivot is still loose, all those tolerances are together.
Your knife blade is centered, and that's kind of what you want, and I think that it's a little bit harder.
My personal thought it's a little bit harder to get when you have a pivot that tightens from both sides and then you have a collar on the inside that both of those pivot screws are are tying into and you're kind of making that battle of torque between the two.

37:25
To then get your blade centered where you want it tight enough that you don't get blade play.
And when you have a captive pivot, it's just you tighten it down and it's done.
Yes yes, oh man, that that back and forth trying to get it centered.
You know?
Oh, that can be madding.
That can just you know, that can just really bring you down or you loosen the wrong side so you're supposed to only remove that certain screw and that's the one that you always remove, but you've removed the wrong one.
Now you have to lock tight and let it sit for 24 hours before you tighten the other side.

37:57
That who wants to deal with that want to be able to just use your knife?
Service it and then put it right back to use, right, right, exactly and and the whole thing about.
Ohh geez, I gotta tighten these body screws 1st and then move backwards so that yeah yeah all of that stuff.
That's that's stuff of the past now.
Alright, so you held up another knife that is stunning.
Pick it up, tell us all about this one.
So the the God of mischief is actually my third knife design.

38:29
I decided to come out with this one before.
The second one that I had drawn up just because this one was such a stark difference from the gun near both in in size and general.
Shape, so we've gone from a sheep's foot big hulking Goliath of a knife to more of a streamlined kind of mischievous, hence the God of mischief, Wardcliff and with the design of this one, I also wanted a nice functioning working blade, so something that I had implemented on the the gungnir.
Was kind of this little.
Concave curve that comes up from the the spine of the knife so you can see if I hold it flat that this kind of curves up and then puts the jimping right up in a spot where it comes in contact with your thumb.
So if you're choking up into the choil or holding it like this, you've got good control of that blade.
And then with the God of Mischief, I kind of wanted to have that same thing.

39:39
But give you kind of a a spear point, or like a a spear tip.
Geometry here.
So you've got that same forward choke thumb placement, but the same if you anchor back.
And this one was just like a more refined, fidgety worker knife.
That would fit in the pocket of a few more people.
Yeah, so 3.3 inches and a Warren Cliff.
This is kind of in the exact place it needs to be for a great EDC knife.

40:15
I personally love 1 Cliff blades.
I love that straight Edge and three point 3 seems to be like just about exactly what people tend to like the most.
Yeah it it seems about perfect.
There's there's plenty of working edge.
In this blade.
And then there's plenty of room for this.
This forward choil to get your your fingers up there for some nice, intricate cutting at or just ease of use and comfort.

40:44
And yeah, the blade.
The blade's about perfect size really adds to the the action of the blade and it just feels perfect in pocket and just really disappears.
The gun near, uh, used uh the deployment hole in the blade.
Also a flipper tab, this one has a deployment hole but a top flipper front flipper.
What?
What are the design challenges of that kind of opening?
This is something that is still in its infancy.

41:17
You know in the knife world and it looks like you nailed it.
What?
What were the design challenges?
I'd like to think that that I nailed it and the.
The few people that have had the prototype in hand so far have given me given me positive remarks and then of course I've had this in in my possession for.
Eight or nine months now, so it wasn't too long after I had placed the order for gungnir that I placed the order for three additional prototypes of different designs, which I think I placed that order about February of last year.
Umm?

41:53
With designing a a front flipper, you want to have something that has functionality, but that also doesn't get in the way.
I don't happen to have any other front flippers here that would be a, for instance of get in the way they normally come in, and then they're right back out the door.
But I over the last year and a half, I've really fallen in love with how.
How the the front flipper functions?
How easy it is to deploy, how nice it is when you have.
So if I have like a big glove on in the middle of winter and I'm working, this front flipper is a lot easier to access in all manners of way.
So even if I can't get the tip of my finger on it, I can just roll the side of my finger and it opens, whereas on a a flipper tab, if you have a big heavy glove and I never had the issue on the gun near but.

42:43
You have that tab.
Sometimes gloves can make that a little bit complicated to to operate, so the front flipper, I think, helps with that.
And then it's just a fidget monster, so you you just want to kind of mess with it all day and try all the different ways to open it.
You know over the spine and and then adding the.
Cut out just kind of adds to that fidgety how many ways you can open it.
Play with it in any way shape or form and then pretty much any sized hand with a front flipper works because you're not stretching your finger out if you don't have much finger strength.
The front flippers a lot easier to operate the front.

43:26
For the finger flip is always there for for backup.
Back to your question, because I completely went off on a tangent challenges in in a front flipper.
So like if started you you don't want something there that's obstructive or sharp that when you jam it down in your pocket it stabs into you.
So you need to have some kind of rounding on it.
You have to have a geometry that's pleasing and doesn't create a hotspot on the thigh.
Doesn't create a hotspot on your thumb when you're operating it, but then also has.
Plenty of leverage.

44:02
And one of the guys that I chat with pretty often is Kevin, who is known on YouTube as knife nerd or knife nerdery.
He's always talking about the.
Kind of the travel range, the range of motion that you have contact with that Flipper tab before it disengages and you can see here that as I kind of flip.
All the way up to the top of that bolster, I still have contact with this flipper, so it's allowing me to really get a good amount of pressure or torque and follow that all the way through the the opening motion.
A problem that I find with a lot of those front flippers is they'll have a tiny little stub up here and you know you'll see people flicking their wrist to get that action because they want that torsion with their hand to add to the movement that they're doing with the the flipper tab.
But in my opinion, I'd really like to have something where I can just completely stationary hold my hand and open.
So you want to make sure that you have enough movement or enough contact with the tab, but you also don't want to have so much that as you open it that it hits your finger, which is a problem with some of front flippers.

45:18
They have such a big tab that you can't kind of choke up here to this point and open it.
Like I wanna be pretty close up by the pivot with my finger and still not be in the way of that Flipper tab.
So you you kind of have to get the perfect geometry on it, the perfect dimension so that you have enough movement to open the knife freely and without failure on a regular basis, but also not put it in the way of everybody.
What is your timeline for this knife?
Uh, this one is due in mid November mid November OK, so is this so you indicated earlier that you do things on a preorder?
Excuse me, a preorder basis and so are you doing the same thing for the.
God of Mischief, you just calling it the GOM, Yep, Gom is a dump in referring it to kind of the pronunciation of the acronym, But then the full name is God of Mischief.

46:21
So yeah, either ones perfectly acceptable.
What I did with these ones.
I've been trying my best to shorten the pre-order timeline, and that's that's probably one of my biggest complaints right now with a lot of the OEM's is they're pushing out farther and farther and farther, and you know the gun near was.
I think ended up being 10 months, either 10 or 11 months from my pre-order date until I physically receive them in the mail, so once the Gunners came in and everything was was kind of done with them, I placed the order for these, which would have been around February of this year and then just a
couple of Saturdays ago the pre-order went live for the GM's and even though I've placed my order in February.
Riot still kind of looking at that that end of the year, so we're still kind of on like a 10 month timeline for for any.
Production knives that are that are coming in through that company so are they is this?

47:29
Is this a an issue of a lot of knives, knife makers and knives and companies going to Riyadh and the other OEMs?
Or is this a supply issue?
Or I think that it's probably a mix of of a lot of things you know following the news recently China is getting hit with some pretty decent COVID lockdowns which are kind of putting a halt to a lot of supply lines, so I'm sure that not only are the factories.
Happened to close down on certain certain times or certain.
Peaks in in COVID, but every time Riot closes down everybody that they use to produce the titanium to produce the screws to produce whatever else they're closing down as well, which is then putting their timelines out at the same time.
So it's kind of a a compounding factor, where I think that they're getting a ton of knives.
New designers are probably coming into them, existing designers.

48:26
A lot of people that were making knives in house are doing runs with with Riyadh, Investec, and and all of those.
So it's it's kind of just a perfect storm of of things.
Kind of hitting them all at the same time.
I think the thing that is would be the most concerning to me is how.
Public taste shifts and it.
I I don't I I can't say I have a number for the knife world.
It seems like things turn over every couple of years.

49:00
People like the major movements of interest kind of shift that is such a beautiful knife man.
I'm just looking at Jim is Jim is growing.
I really really.
I mean I, I think it's a very nice looking knife and looks mean a lot to me when it comes to knives.
I have to be honest and yeah you nailed it here and but I'm sorry what I was getting at is.
Uh, you design A knife and then you have a say you already have a relationship like you do with Riyadh, but you got to get in line.
There are a lot of people who have who are, so there's got to be a little stress about.

49:39
Yeah, people love this knife right now, but in 10 months when it's manufactured, am I going to even love it because I know with the creative stuff I do, it takes me like an instant to move on and be like?
OK, that's my old thing and now I'm working on this thing.
So does that time lag?
Bring undue stress, would you say?
I can't say that I've had that stress I could.
I can definitely see where that would would come from.
But that also bears in mind one of the the reasons why I designed the knives the way that I did with that more classic, or what I felt was that the classic look with the the bolsters and the scales.

50:21
Anytime that you're doing something in business, you kind of look at at trends so you know take the the stock market.
For instance, where we've had that kind of catastrophic dip in the in the past few weeks.
But if you look at the stock market as a whole, it's it's always kind of trended up, maybe more slow at some periods of time, but always kind of of trended up and you have to do the same thing in in business.
So when I'm buying handkerchief material I'm planning right now the handkerchiefs that I'm going to be dropping in October.
So I'm I'm buying the fabric.
I'm planning stitch color.
I'm planning all of that stuff and I may find out that I get to October and maybe orange wool isn't in at that point in time, but there's a pretty decent chance that orange wool is still going to be in around the October when when the pumpkin Spice crowd comes out.

51:14
So you you just kind of have to to weigh tolerance.
Way the changes you even have to think when you're looking that far out and you're working on the the preorder model.
How is the economy going to change because you've got a knife that somebody's paying up front for and you're looking at at being out seven to to 10 months?
Well, what's the financials going to look like at the end?
I have a preorder for this many knives, but I ordered this mini knives.
Am I going to be able to sell those so?
I can I can see where a lot of stress would probably come.

51:50
Come from that, but you just gotta do your math and then be confident in yourself and.
Where you see the trajectory going and as long as you've got that confidence, you just stick with it yeah, and and you also have to be confident in your design and you as a knife lover and a lifelong user of knives and someone who uses knives in his daily job, you are naturally going to have a good
idea.
Uh, about what other knife users want and also you know what's good, you're not gonna be doing crazy quartermaster designs if you're if you're, you know, just trying to get a knife out and get it in people's hands because that's crazy.
And in a month people aren't going to like it.
It's it might be a flash in the pan, but you better have it on hand to sell that moment.
So what what do you?

52:44
What are you looking to do with renegade EDC renegade Provisions company in terms of knives?
I know you have a lot of other stuff you're going to sell, but the knife division.
How do you plan on evolving that?
Well, I think that the the next step.
So like I said, I do have other models other prototypes which a lot of these haven't seen a whole lot of a lot of spotlight yet because I've been way behind the buck on kind of advertising them.
But you notice that this is a gun near, but not not the same size as this one, so this is kind of what would be.
The consumer gungnir so compared to the GOM you can see that they're very similar sizes.

53:33
I think now that I've kind of cut my chops and and got the the big boy released and shipped out and and people like that design kind of launching more of those will be the next the next realm in the the knives and then.
I've I've always been a. A maker a builder.
So when I come into anything, making the handkerchiefs making leather goods, I've got a lot of history in metal fabrication contracting work used to build houses, remodel houses, things like that.
I think that the the next trajectory that I'm heading for is in shop manufacturing and I've got building kind of in the works and materials picked out.
And it's just waiting on on time to be able to start construction of the shop area.
Get endmills, get grinders in place and I've been.
Kind of soaking up some information from some local CNC and metal guys to kind of get back into that realm, so that's going to be production knives I think are still going to be a staple of the the renegade provisions code lineup, but I'd really like to start getting into in-house making,

54:54
fabricating customization, so I think that's next probably within the next.
12 to 15 months.
Damn, that's quick.
That's very, very exciting.
That's I mean, to me it's very exciting that Someone Like You who's got a vision and some ideas for some good knives and other products.
But for good knives that you can have them produced by a, you know top of the line manufacturer and sell them.
To me, that's very exciting.

55:22
That's something that you know is relatively new.
It's only been happening for a few years, but what's even more exciting to me is hearing that.
You are not only dreaming about, but you're actually making it happen that you'll be able to make them yourself.
And like you said, I'm sure you'll have a bunch of you'll have OEM product too to fill the the pages of your website, but the fact that you are starting and will most likely grow manufacturing here is is really exciting.
I think a lot of people bring that up.
You know, a lot of people are kind of like, yeah.
You know, have this great design, but it has to be made in China and and I think most of us knife guys are are, you know.

56:06
What we're more interested in the highest quality knife you can get, you know, and and and not so much about.
But we all you know, love where we come from too.
And it would be great to see the hometown, the home team winning on on that angle so it's exciting to hear that you're that.
I think that just about everybody that's in the production knife sphere right now, at least in the group of guys that I'm chatting with on a regular basis that have made production knives.
They're just itching for for somebody in the US to to start doing it at a scale or at a point that is scalable to someone like riot or bestech.
And if there was an option out there for me to do, say a smaller run of the gun near at $50 more per unit or whatever it may be as from a US manufacturer.
I had jumped all over it and I did some research to try to see if I could find someone out there and you find on forums where this maker has a rumor like, uh, I used American production company and yadda yadda, but I can't share their name because they don't want to be blown up with business.

57:22
I'm just like, well, where's this Unicorn manufacturing facility that I that I can't find?
So I've heard a lot of rumors about there being.
Being a few companies that are working on raising the money to to get some of these big water jets and CNC machines to be able to to print out, you know 300 unit batches or 400 unit batches of knives and a relatively decent timeline.
And the market is there.
If there's somebody out there that's willing to to do it, they're gonna probably be overrun with people wanting them to to manufacture their knives.
I think you're right.
I think that.

58:02
The first, the big hurdle is the you know economics of it and then and then once that's squared away, we talked to Josiah DeMille of Millet knives.
Here a couple of times, and you know, brought that very thing up.
You know you've got this OEM manufacturing capability.
Why are you not?
Then why are you not the Reyat you've got the reputation he's like, dude, you know, like.
You know he was very gentle about it, but he's like.
Look at the economics man.

58:32
We can't.
We can't do it.
Riyadh does not.
Millet not right now, but hopefully you know in the future people like you and and and others you know make that happen.
The manufacturing prowess is definitely there in in America, on our soil.
The the one part that I really see Riot kind of pulling pulling a rabbit out of the hat.
You know making a magic trick happen is you think about how many people.

59:04
Are just bringing them designs.
It may be a 2D design, it may be a fully hatched out 3D CAD drawing, but somehow they're taking all of these people that are making these random designs and making functional knives out of them.
You look at American fabrication.
You look at places like bench made.
You look at Spyderco Koenig knives, hinderer knives.
They're pumping out large and large amounts of knives.
But how many knives does konick produce?

59:32
Like different knives, just a couple they've perfected just a couple.
And that's.
Again, that's not shade or anything because I I love my conic knives.
They're absolutely fantastic.
I love my hinderers, but they have a lineup that's this big of knives that they have done really, really good jobs of milling and then you have riade who's taking 100 different designers, creating all of their knives and getting very decently close to the manufacturing quality of these US makers
that are making 3 to 7. Knife designs not hundreds of knife designs, and there there's some kind of magically that's going on there, whether it's from their their cat engineers or from their milling perspective, but there's just something different.
Kind of hitting home over there in their manufacturing that's allowing those.

01:00:31
That plethora of knives that come through and be functional be smooth, be fidgety, be drop, shutty have good tolerances.
That's a monolithic task of engineering, and I think it's possible over here.
But there there's just a little bit of magic that needs to come in to to make that work.
Wow, what a point.
I I that has never occurred to me.
Yeah they make a million different designs and they knock each and every single one of them out of the park like they've been making it for years.
All all of it different geometry, all of it different.

01:01:07
Lock up all of it, different that that is pretty astounding.
They they say that China graduates more engineers in a year than we have engineers here, period.
So you know it could be just a a human error.
Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly so Chris.
I wanna continue this conversation for a few more minutes.
We'll let the patrons listen in, but we're just about to wrap up here.
I, I think, uh, what you've done with the whole business is very interesting.

01:01:40
I I like I'm starting to look at how people are coming out with their knife businesses and the ones that that have.
Well in your case, more going it for more, going for it than just knives or more going for it than just one model seem are are very interesting to me because you're you're seeing a whole branding process take place across a across a range of products.
And I think that that's that's interesting and A and a solid way of going about it.
It's it's almost like you're in so deep that that one knife, whether it does well or not, isn't an issue in, in a sense, because you've got all this other stuff around you.
In any case, I think it's a two beautiful knives and I have to say the gum has captured my heart and then just seeing it in in motion tonight was very cool.
I think your designs are are are quite beautiful, so nicely done there.
Sir, thank you, my pleasure.

01:02:43
Well it's been a pleasure meeting you and talking to you and well thanks for coming on the show.
Thanks for having me.
It's my pleasure.
Take care Sir.
Have a knife you want featured or reviewed called the Knife Junkies 24/7 the listener line at 724-466-4487 and let us know.
Eating your vegetables 1st and doing the hard stuff first?
Uh, we could all learn a thing or two from Chris about that.

01:03:11
Very interesting conversation.
Go check out Renegade EDC renegade Provisions company for beautiful Hanks really cool leather work and some brass work.
But of course I'm sending you there to check out the gorgeous knives, the.
The Gungnir you can.
You can get now and the and the pre order for the gum is now open.
All right that does it for this edition of the Knife Junkie podcast.
Be sure to download us on your favorite podcast app and listen while you do the stuff you have to do.

01:03:44
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I'm Bob DeMarco, saying until next time don't take dull for an answer.
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01:04:08
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