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[0:03] 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 DeMarco.
Welcome to the Knife Junkie Podcast. I'm Bob DeMarco. On this edition of the show, I'm speaking with Jake Sewell of Bravehawk Forge.
I had Jake on the show just a few months back on episode 440, leading up to the Texas Custom Knife Show, which Jake co-produced and invited me to be a part of.
Well, the show happened a little over a month ago, as you've heard me talk about probably endlessly.
And as we record this, that's how long it was ago.
I wanted to bring Jake back on to sort of debrief about an insider's look at putting on a knife show and see what it's all about, because there is more to it than what you see on the surface.
So we'll catch up with Jake in just a minute. But first, like, comment, subscribe, hit the notification bell, and download the show wherever you listen to podcasts.
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Jake, welcome back to the show. It's good to see you, sir.
Hey, thanks a lot, Bob. I appreciate it. Oh, you know, it's a pleasure.
I just want to congratulate you on the Texas Custom Knife Show.
You know, there was a lot of lead up to it for me anyway.

[2:01] And then going there and being a part of it and watching you hustle and watching you guys put that on was something else.
So congratulations on a job well done, sir.
Thank you very much. And I got to say, man, you were such a big help.
I mean, Bob was there on Friday, helping me set stuff up. And it's a...
It's an ordeal to put on one of these knife shows, especially a two-day event where you're really looking to have a bunch of people show up.
And anytime you can get somebody to help out, it's great.
And Bob was there every day, ready to work and ready to do whatever I needed him to do. It was great.
I told him he can come back anytime he wants.

[2:41] Yeah, yeah. That's right. You'll get some labor out of me. That's what you get, coming up through the independent film line of work when I was much younger.
None of those movies get made if people don't all pitch in. So it's a lot of fun for me.
And one thing I noticed, actually, this was an immediate thing I noticed coming from right outside DC here and always kind of living in more of an urban environment.
You get out to Texas, and the distances between things are vast. Okay.
Oh, yeah. So I have a day job.
I'm an electrical technician. So I do testing and stuff. And on average, I drive about a minimum of 600 miles a week over my job.
So yeah, I mean, luckily, that menu that we were at was five minutes from my house. So it worked out.
Yeah, yeah. Well, let's talk about that venue. Uh, getting there.
And like I said, being from out of town, it took me a second and then I found it.
And it was like this little, uh, oasis of, uh, knife nerddom and just, it was, it was great. Tell us about the spot.
And how did you decide on where on the venue for the Texas Custom Knife Show?
So the first Texas Custom Knife Show that Guy Harris and Mike Thomas, my partner, put on was at that event, was at that venue at the Lone Star Convention Center, the pavilion there.
It's called like the Equestrian Center, I think was its official name.

[4:09] So that was where the first one was. And I was just a vendor there.
And that's actually the day I flew out to go film for Forged in Fire.
So we, after that, me and Mike hooked up and started partnering up and we started doing it at the Seven Star Brewery.
And you know, they gave us a bit event space for free and it was outdoors in the grass, which you know, has its ups and downs. The previous year, we got rained out.
And the only reason we had anybody show up is because Doug Marcaida was there and people stood in the rain and 40 degree weather to get an autograph by that man.
And it was he was our saving grace that Saturday. Sure.
So we decided we were going to go somewhere where it was covered.
And, you know, knife makers are particular.
I actually had a lot of people tell me no, I won't come to your event because it's not indoors.
And I'm like, well, I'm, you know, I'm doing forging demos, and we're going to be destroying a bunch of ballistic dummies and this and that.
So I can't be indoors because, you know.

[5:06] It's going to be hot, or I'm going to have four forges running at one time and a bunch of machinery so I can do this competition.
So it's like trying to keep everybody happy and trying to get people to show up is the hardest part, knife makers included.
Well, that outdoor venue, just from, again, a Yanks perspective, it looked like something you would expect to see in Texas, because right next door, we were under this giant covered space that was basically an empty covered space, but right next door, there was like a stock lot, I think where auctions happen for steers and stuff.
And for me, I was like, man, I want to see I want to see that while we're setting up. I want to witness a stock.
You know, a stockyard, a Texas cattle. That seems like very authentic to me.
But the space itself was, was great for the kind of show you were putting on.
And you mentioned before that you were on forged in fire. And a lot of this, a lot of the Texas Custom Knife Show is based around that experience. How did that sprout?

[6:12] So like I said, Guy and Guy Harris, who's passed away, and Mike got together. Mike's a marketing guy.
Guy was actually on the pilot episode of Forged in Fire before they even really started filming seasons.
And then he was also I think on season one, episode one. So he was one of the first up and comers in Forged in Fire.
And well, he was well known in the knife making industry.

[6:37] Him and Mike got together and said, Hey, let's let's put on a show based around forging fire.
Well, it didn't work out as well as they wanted it to the first year.
So I called you know, since it was so close to my house.
I said, Mike, are you going to do the show again?
This year? I'll help out if you need. He's like, I wasn't going to do it.
But if you want to get together, I mean, you can talk about it.
And that's when me and Mike started partnering up and started doing the Texas custom knife show.
And it's only grown in size, in the amount of days that we do, in...
I don't want to say the amount of attendance because this year was extremely slow and it was extremely frustrating to put in the countless hours that me and Mike put in and then not have that many people come through the gate.

[7:22] We had, I think, less than 1000 tickets sold, which last... In previous years, we sold upwards of 1200.
So it had a lot to do with the opening day of deer season here in Texas.
It's like religion. So, but we only could rent that a bit space that weekend.
So it was kind of like a catch 22 kind of thing.
Like either we don't do the show or we got to, you know, not do it in November or, you know, it's, it's always something.
So, but it's only grown and we've only been able to get more Forged in Fire based, uh, entertainment for everybody to enjoy.
I mean, last year we had Doug Marcaida. This year we had Doug Marcaida and Jay Nielsen, which was a huge hit.
Both of those guys are just top-notch guys.

[8:11] I'm sure you got to talk with Doug. I mean, you got to do a demo, a martial arts demo, which was awesome.
It was awesome. And Doug was asking me, did you watch that? And I was like, well, yeah.
He's like, no, you didn't. I saw you running around working on stuff. I mean, I'm the host.
That's all I do is run around with my head frazzled. So, but it was awesome to see the video of that because I did get the video of that and watching you get to, kind of duke it out with Doug is pretty fun. Yeah. Just to be clear, we were not duking it out.
I would not be here right now if we were duking it out. We were jamming like musicians.
That's what he called it. And I like that because.

[8:55] Obviously he's like miles and miles and miles and years and years of experience above me, but we had no context.
So he wanted to find out what I knew.
And that was just great. That was so, and working with a guy like that, I've done a fair bit of it, so working with a guy like that, he can guide me, you know what I mean?
He can tell what I know, and then, so that was a- It's a pacer movement.
Exactly, it was a real honor for me, because he made me look good, and it was so much fun.
But yeah, a huge part of the show, you were talking about frustrations with attendance.
And never having been to that show, I was seeing something different because I was seeing Doug Marcaida and Jay Nielsen, judges and stars from Forged in Fire, doing a lot of.

[9:45] You know, they kind of marshaled a lot of attention and they did these great demonstrations, whether they were doing a canister Damascus or hosting the forging contest.
They were up there, their rapport together and telling stories, it seemed to really naturally fit.
And I thought they had already done that the year before. How did this come together?
So Doug, we reached out to before last year's show, we're able to get him on board and have him come down because he loves supporting the knife community.
And he's he's part of the knife community. He sells.
He sells his designs through his website and everything like that.
Doug Marcaida.com. Oh, yeah, you got one to mine's mine's in the room.
I got the I got the Falcon. No, I'm sorry, the Talon flip combat.
I cut myself with it the first day playing with it, wound up rubbing his autograph off of it.
And so I had to go to him at the end of the night and have him re-autograph it, give it to my wife so that she can seal it with clear coat nail polish.
Because I was playing with it so much, I rubbed his autograph off. And it was pretty funny.

[10:58] So we got Doug on board for 2022 show.
And then at, uh, there's a show here in Belleville called the Texas select custom culinary event, Texas select.
You can go to Texas left.com cowboy and Eileen to put it on.
Uh, they're out of Phoenix knives there in Belleville. And it's one of the only two shows I do.
I do my show and I do their show because I just have a full-time job.
I've got a family, you know, it's a lot for me to do a show.
Cause I do the Tomahawk growing and everything like that.
I want to do more shows. I just got to find more time. And if I could get somebody like an apprentice to come and help me make Tomahawks, I'd probably be able to have the products to bring to a show.
But anyways, they do a show there. And they had Jay.

[11:44] Well, Jay came to our show last year as a surprise visit, just to mess with Doug, because he heard Doug was going to be in town.
And Jay's new lady is here in Texas. So he's in Texas a lot now.
So he showed up and I was like, man, we'd love to have you in Belleville.
I was able to actually talk to him and kind of solidify things.
I'm like, Hey, we want you to come out. We want you to do a forging demo.
We want you to do some, some blade testing and all this and that. And, uh, It was pretty awesome getting both of those guys together because they are friends.

[12:15] They're not just TV friends, but they are friends. They work well together and they raz each other just like any other guys would do outside of work. So they're fun.
Yeah. They struck me as two guys who've worked together for 10 years and like each other.
I got a couple of those guys at work and we have a shorthand for humor and everything.
I mean, our producer right here, Jim, is one of them.
And yeah, that's that's the vibe I got from from those guys.
And it brought a lot to that show. It made it a real, you know, event.

[12:52] And it was it was fun to hear some of the inside baseball on the making of Forged in Fire, you know.
The Q&A is one of my favorite parts because, you know, the crowd gets to ask them questions that they're always curious about. you know, about the show and what got them into the show.
How did they actually get to be on the show?

[13:14] You know, and it's just fun for them to get to know them more on like a personal basis. And that's why we do the Q&A every year.
Well, just so in case people didn't listen to episode 440, tell people how you got onto Forged in Fire and how you got involved in the show, what that whole experience was like. So, I started blacksmithing when I was 12.
My grandfather took me to my first Houston area blacksmiths association meeting.
And I fell in love with it and I had a natural knack for it.
It was what all the instructors there said. So, I've dabbled for many a year.
And then in 2018, I started my business, Braypock Forge.
And with the sole means of wanting to make top quality tomahawks, I make a lot of custom knives.
But on my website, you really to reach out to me to be like, Hey, I want a custom knife made.
And I'm like, yeah, let's do it. And I can do any kind of knife there is.
I just, on my website, I mainly sell tomahawks.
But me and my wife were watching an episode of Forged in Fire shortly after starting the business.
And it was a railroad spike knife competition. And I was like, I've made hundreds of those. These guys suck. I could totally do it.

[14:26] Backseat driving kind of thing. So a Monday morning quarterback in it.

[14:31] And so I was like, I'm going to go and I found something online saying that they were casting.
So I filled out an application, went through the whole process of doing the Skype interviews and multiple interviews.
And they said, Alright, well, you're accepted. We're going to reach out to you.
And we'll have you come up. Like, Alright, cool. Please give me enough notice to tell my company because I have a full time job.
They called me on Wednesday saying, Hey, we had a bladesmith drop out.
This is after like, two or three months of waiting for them to call me.
Hey, we had a bladesmith drop out.
Can you come on Saturday? And that was the first day of the Texas Custom Knife Show. My first real knife event that I was going to go to.
And I was setting my tomahawk throwing competition. I had my best friend and his wife and my wife and my grandfather coming out to help me.
And I was like, Babe, can we, can I do it? like, can you handle the show?
And she's like, Yeah, let's just go and get set up.
You don't have to go to the airport until noon. So it'll give us like three hours to get everything set up and kind of get the kinks rolled out.
And I left it in there and went to the airport and spent three or four days in Connecticut filming.
So and it was right before Thanksgiving. So it was awesome. And then obviously, I got I didn't win. I'm not a champion.
Keep telling forging fire like, Hey, give me another shot because I want that champion title.

[15:53] And I got a very close second with my Nagamaki. And that thing is so cool. Yeah, it's just, It's the community itself. Once you're one of the Forged in Fire guys, like, obviously, the knife community itself, there's a bunch of really cool dudes.
But having that, like, hey, I was on Forged in Fire too. There's a lot of us.
I mean, there's probably 1000 or more. I don't remember what Doug said at the show, but he put he built it out a number of how many contestants were on the show.
And we're all like, Oh, yeah, me too. You know, it's like a brotherhood.
So that Nagamaki, it's a it's a gigantic samurai sword.
Basically, it's a huge blade and then an equally huge handle.
And it was really cool this to see it. I didn't get a chance to heft yours.
Bunch of people there were there were a number of championship blades there or you know, finalist blades there, they were amazing to look at and yours was Man, just gorgeous.
I should have handed you mine. Mine's only three pounds.
Yeah, it's like seven feet long and three pounds, or whatever it is, six feet long. It's huge.

[17:04] So it's interesting you say there are like a thousand of you or a whole bunch of contestants.
I don't know what number I would put it at if I were to guess, but it's a good concept for building a show around. Oh yeah.
So, okay, this is gonna sound crazy, but why would someone do this?
It seems like kind of a crazy thing to do to put on a knife show. Oh, it is crazy.
You know, I have the passion for it. And I like getting all my buddies together.
I mean, that's really whenever I have the downtime, like on Friday afternoon, Friday evening, when I'm done setting up all the booth spaces, and I can actually just hang out with the fellas.
Or, you know, end of the day Saturday when stuff is winding down Sunday, I got to walk around to talk to a bunch of guys, but it's given my fellow knife makers an opportunity to sell their product, to showcase and sell the product, even if they don't make a sale.

[17:59] At least get a chance to show their product to people that have come to see a knife show.

[18:05] That's, and I guess I'm a little crazy because it's a lot of work.
I mean, I can't, I can't explain how much work it is. It's ridiculous.
So countless hours, I mean the night before the show, So Thursday night, I was up until about midnight, one o'clock, doing stuff around my shop, trying to get stuff ready.
Friday morning, I was out there at 6am to open the gate for the guys that cooked us that awesome barbecue on Friday night, Twisted Creek Seasonings.
They cooked all day. We had a great time.

[18:36] Great amount of pork that night. And then Friday night, I stayed at the venue until about 11.45, trying to figure out some electrical problems so that I could run my press for the next morning's forging competition.
And then finally, I just threw my hands up. I was like, I got to be back here at 6. So I went home, showered, did what I had to do at the house, and then got four hours of sleep.
And I was back out there Saturday morning at 6am. So I mean, it's a lot that goes into it.
It's a lot of effort, but it's it's just a passion man That's that's all I can really say is I just have a passion to do it and I like getting all my buddies together and giving Them an opportunity to sell, Yeah, it's a great environment and that was really cool for me to meet and talk to a whole bunch of Texas knife makers not that not that they were, limited to Texas knife makers But I talked to a lot of people from Texas and I thought it was it was really cool for me It was a different, it was just a way to investigate a different part of our culture.

[19:36] Not just our knife culture, but our United States culture.
And it was really cool for me. But that shows, putting something on like that, it seems to be like it's gonna be an expensive prospect.
How do you fund putting together a show like this? I would imagine, well, and it's an expensive prospect.
You got a lot of people, you got a lot of stuff, you have a space, you got to rent, and electric, everything you got to pay for.
I would assume this is a sponsor heavy.
Oh, yes. Prospect. How do you go about it? And what are some of the challenges with securing sponsors?

[20:20] Sponsorships are difficult. Trying to convince somebody, hey, we have a nice show, we can advertise for you, we have a good social media following a couple, Yeah.

[20:32] You know thousands or whatnot Will give you these avenues of advertising for this amount of sponsorship money Mike really handles that he killed it this year on sponsorship.
I got maybe a couple small sponsors to help sponsor the awards and stuff for our award ceremony and sponsor the, Knife building competition stuff like that I kind of concentrate on more of the logistics part of the show.
And Mike handles the sponsorship and the advertising for the billboards, putting out radio ads, online stuff.
So that's why we kind of work together real well because he lets me handle the stuff at the show with input.

[21:14] And then I just let him handle the advertising because I didn't have time for it. Neither one of us really have the time for it. He puts in a lot of hours doing that.
But he killed it this year and got us quite a bit of like, a lot more sponsorship money than we've had in the past.
And we were able to really network.
And that's why we were kind of me and Mike were kind of disappointed on the turnout. But I told him it had everything to do with your season.
And a lot of the guys were a little upset, you know, coming out, they invest, you know, they paid money to have a booth space and which all goes into operating costs, every every penny we take for tables that we charge our guys goes into operating costs, because there's signs that have to be made and this and that, the dinner, stuff like that.

[22:02] So that's why we were disappointed when we only had so many people come out.
It wasn't anywhere close to what we were telling people we were expecting.
And the other complaint I got from knife makers was, you're having a knife show, but you have Doug and Jay on stage for 70% of the day talking, keeping the crowd at the stage, and they're not walking around I'm looking at nice and I'm all like.

[22:24] Doug and Jay are the reason people are coming. So what do you want me to do?

[22:29] I try and hit the collectors up. But I mean, that's that's really who you want to come to a knife show somebody like yourself who's a knife collector.
You know, like to you like to look at knives, you like to buy knives, you like to collect them.
And that's a really hard market to nail down.
I mean, we put in knife magazine advertisements, we put in, you know, all the social media that has anything to do with knives we marketed to and just happened to not work out this year, but we're talking about next year already. Oh, yeah.
Well, you know, I mean, coming from my perspective, I, so much of that show was like, right up my alley.
As a matter of fact, all of it was right up my alley. And, and, and the thing I thought of was, oh, you know, like, more folder representation might might bring more people.
I wasn't actually thinking in those terms. But I'm thinking in those terms right now, because I saw a lot of what I love in terms of I am an 80 fixed blader, and I love big bowies and and all of that.
But folders are a huge market too. And there are a lot of Texas Mike makers I'm starting to learn.
So so the the folder market is huge. And the thing is, is those guys that make those folding knives.

[23:54] So in our show, we don't allow pre-manufactured knives. I actually had to boot a couple of people that I found out where they were wholesalers, I guess you would call them.
So they didn't make the knives. You have to make your own products at our show.
It states that on our vendor website or on our vendor signup sheet.
Everything has to be handcrafted, handmade or hand forged in the United States.
So we don't allow. I mean, Doug was kind of an exception.
He has his own line of knives, but I'm not going to tell Doug, no, you can't bring your own stuff.
I mean, they're made in Italy. That's okay. Speaking as a paisan.
Yeah. Right. So, so we, the folder, the folder market itself, the guys that make folding knives, those things are high dollar and they don't want to be in an outdoor event.
So that's where I, you get what I'm saying? So they want an indoor event.
And as of right now, we don't have that type of venue available.
We're looking into other venues and other options to try and get some of those high-end knife makers.
But those guys that are selling their blades for 1200, 2500, stuff like that, they're not gonna wanna come to an event where there's any chance that their stuff is gonna be, have any access to moisture.
In Texas weather, especially around here, you're looking at 60% humidity year-round, minimum.

[25:20] We've run into that multiple times, and it's just a hard battle to fight.
Well, actually, just spitballing, it seems like something that actually might happen organically, like Brian Malinsky, who I had on the show not too long ago.
He hit the guy who- How did you tell who's who? I know, exactly.
We had our names right here, so we could tell.

[25:44] He's a fixed blade maker who has been a very, man, a very talented guy making beautiful folders and kind of moving into that. So he had a lot of those.
He had a number of folders at the show. And maybe it maybe that's something that just happens organically. And there were there were other guys there.
The gentleman who there's so many people.
James Hughes had a couple. That's who it is. James Hughes.
He had some slip joints that were beautiful. He had a Stockman that I was, you know, ogling.
And so it and that's another cool thing for me.
I love slip joints, you know, granddad knives, and there were some very nice representations of that there too.
Because it's kind of a more country thing. It's kind of a more old fashioned thing.
Yeah, I, I've made a couple of folders. I've only really ever made friction folders. I've never made any slip joints or or any kind of locking, I want to get into it. I'm not sure if I have the patience.

[26:51] It's something else. You were talking about the passion before.
Something like folders seem just complicated enough, just enough of a pain in the neck that you need a certain amount of passion for that.
But you obviously have the tomahawk passion in spades.
But, yeah, the folder thing, that's another way to bring people in, but what I loved about the Texas Custom Knife Show was tomahawks, buoys, there were a couple of people there doing some kind of experimental stuff.
One of the guys who, I'm sorry I'm forgetting names now, but one of the gentlemen who was in the forging competition, which I want to talk about for a second, that was so cool to watch, but one of those guys, the gentleman who's, he just had some very interestingly shaped blades.
I can't remember his name. Well, we had Jonathan Sibley. It was a Sibley. Long beard guy.

[27:52] Now you put me on the spot. Who's the, it was the guy who's friend here. Chris Farrell.
Chris Farrell. Okay. He's the longer hair guy that wore the hat with a little pipe in it all the time. That's the guy.
That's the guy. He's a character, man. I love I've known Chris Farrell for.
Going on six, seven years now, and he's always a character, man.
He makes some awesome stuff.
Making some very unique stuff. In other words, it wasn't just traditional style knives there.
Some of your zombie killer kind of stuff. Yes, exactly. Exotic like Indian and Filipino knives meet zombie killer. There's some very cool, meet pirate.

[28:35] But what was I going to say about that? Oh, the forging competition though.
Now this was really cool. This is a part, this was the most obvious tie to Forged in Fire besides the personalities.
So you had four forges set up right in this cordoned off area near the stage. It was really well done.
I was very impressed with the amount of power you were to get to everything you had there. So that was well done. That was a hassle, man.
We had four grinders donated by Broadbeck grinders. They shipped them out to me.

[29:12] They set them up. But the problem is those grinders don't want to run off of the GFCI.
So of course, the generator I rented in order to run these four grinders is equipped with GFCIs.
So I had to run hundreds of foot of extension cord all around the building, just trying to get power to those grinders.
They were kicking off line during the competition.
But yeah, it's my favorite part of the show.
It's a lot of work for me because I have to get the foursmiths committed, find out what they're bringing, find out what I need to supplement as far as anvils, forges, hammers, tongs, grinders, chisels, you name it.
If they're not going to bring it, I have to figure out how I'm going to get it. And I try and get a lot of it sponsored, like I got the propane that I was running my forge off of that both Chris and Jonathan were using. I got that donated.
I pretty much take my entire shop apart with the exception of my big blue because that thing weighs like 2500 pounds and I'm not moving it.
I took my press, which weighs about 7-800 pounds fully.

[30:24] I didn't have to do my grinders this year, which is great. It's a real pain to take those grinders apart and put them back in right where they need to be, tune them up and everything like that. Yeah, right.
Forges, anvils, hammers, I brought everything that I think anybody would need.
And then these guys battle for four hours straight.
So you already created, you created four bar stock, four pieces of bar stock for them to start with.
So if you're a Forks and Fire fan, which I'm sure many people listening are.

[30:52] You know, they start from scratch on Forged in Fire.
We didn't have 12 hours for the split forging competition, so Jake very generously, it was what, 10.95, 15.20?
I gave them a 139 layer Damascus billet that was about nine inches long by a half inch thick by an inch and a half wide.
So I gave them a billet bigger than they needed and they had to make an overall length of no greater than 20 inch blade, so 13 to 15 inch cutting edge.
And to do that in four hours, to have it handled, first of all, to hammer it out, grind it, heat treat it, put a handle on it, and then have it ready for testing within four hours is a feat.
And also knowing that it's going to be auctioned off at the end, you know, even if it doesn't survive.
So these guys want to put their best foot forward for sure.
And that was amazing to watch, four hours. That was amazing.
It's a very fast four hours that goes by pretty quick, especially if I'm, you know, as neat as the host, because I'm trying to, you know, get stuff done and trying to get the judges on stage to keep people up there to watch and do a Q&A while these guys are hammering out.

[32:11] Chris Farrell was actually, I called him on Wednesday before the show, just like the Forged in Fire called me and said, hey, I had somebody drop out due to an injury, can you fill in a spot?
You participated before, will you participate this time?
He was like, yeah. So we gave him all the four hours, but the other three competitors had months to make their handling guards ahead of time. So.

[32:38] At the end, Chris was unhappy because he didn't have as much time to prep like the handle and Don Halter, who was our winner this year, two-time winner, he made such a beautiful blade.
And then our second place winner, Corey Yates, who was our underdog, impressed me quite...
He impressed me a lot. He did a great job. And it was...
When it came down to judging, it was me, Jay Nielsen, Doug Marcaida, and one of our sponsors, who sponsors every year, standing behind the stage talking about hey you know this one tested great this one you can see that it's got a little rough spot you know in the handle it's kind of a hot spot and we went through it all just like they do on the show and then we're like all right well this one's four three two one let's call them up announce the winners and then we'll auction these blades off so not only do we auction the blades off but I had a picture taken with the judge I'm sorry the the maker of the blade and both judges and then I had I had my printer there, printed them off on photo paper and had everybody sign them.
And then I put it into a shadow box with a blade. So I mean, it was like a whole ordeal, like a collector's rules.
And we only had like 10 people in the day auction.
I was bidding on blades. My wife's like, I bid on one of the blades. And then I ran out.
My wife came up to me and said, you're playing a dangerous game, sir. I was like, okay, I'm done.
I'm out. You were pushing the prices up. I love that. I was like, oh man.

[34:07] The auction that we do is to raise money for the Operation Red Wings Foundation.
So it's a non-profit charity that helps veterans with their invisible injuries of war, PTSD and stuff like that.
Not only that, but they also bring out their families. So rather than just having.

[34:30] The veteran themselves come out, they bring their families and they all do counseling together.
So it's a charity that's real close to my heart.
And I'm actually in the talks of starting a charity of my own.
Obviously, not of that magnitude. But anytime I can help out a veteran, and I'm a veteran myself, and anytime I can help out a vet, I'm all about it.
What are you looking to do? What's your vision?
Okay, so my vision is to have a small group, three, four, maybe five vets come out to my shop, free of charge, and do a class, because I teach classes here at my shop.

[35:13] We can talk about what's going on with them, but I would like to explain my mindset on forging.
When you're forging, you're taking a piece of steel, right? It's just a bar, nothing special about it.
You heat it up, you hammer on it, and you form it into something that's beautiful.
And I always look at that method as a relation to life. I mean, especially in my own life.
Trust me, I've been hammered on a lot myself. And I am the person I am today because of that.
And there's a lot of relation, you know, there's a lot of crossover that we could talk about.
Okay, well, you know, now we're, we've got this thing forged out.
It's rough. Let's go grind on it. Let's go take away that, that excess that we don't need.
All right, let's go take it, take it away.
Now, now we're ready for heat treat. We're going to heat this up and we're going to, we're going to cool it off real fast.
And there's just a lot of things that I could feel like relate to veterans.
And there's, I'm not, this is, I'm not a pioneer in this. There's guys that do this already.
I just want to do it myself. And I want to get in touch with the Veterans Bureau around here, the Veteran Owned Business Bureau, who was one of our sponsors of the show.
I'm sure they would help sponsor me in that so that I could get these guys out here free of charge. I would also like having maybe a keynote speaker.

[36:41] The lady that cuts my hair is trying to be a life coach and having somebody like her or even like Jocko or, you know, Latrelle, you know, one of those guys to come out and hang out for the day with these guys and be like, hey, you know, it's rough, I know, but you can get through it. That's all I want.
And it's going to happen. I just have to.
Hammer out the logistics of it and get the networks going and stuff like that, so.
I've heard of people doing forging classes and knife making classes for veterans, and actually I did a piece for a work about a local knifesmith who was doing that and it's very impressive, I mean, and he related something to me that's interesting, but you said something I've never heard, and the gentleman that I interviewed, and I've heard this before from other people, are related to me that it's a place where, it's a process that veterans can lose themselves in positively because there's an order to things.
And when you're in the military, you're used to following orders in certain order and in doing certain processes that make sense and result in certain, yield certain results.

[37:59] But what you, and I like that because that's a function thing, that's like operating on, okay, these people are used to functioning in this way, so let's tap in through the function.
But what you're saying is very interesting because it's more of a philosophical parallel.
Like, okay, we've pounded it out and it's kind of roughly shaped, now let's refine it. Let's take off these things we don't need.
And to me, that sounds like a more philosophical approach. So it sounds like an interesting way of going about it.
And that's kind of what I'm looking at, because, I mean, I've had conversations, I guess, with myself in the forge, and this is the kind of conversations I'd want to have with a vet that's struggling, you know? Like, all right, we're going to hammer on this piece of steel.
When have you felt like you've been hammered on in your life?
And why? And while the steel is heating, because there's a lot of time where you're standing around waiting for steel to get hot, or you're standing around waiting for steel to cool off.

[39:02] So there's a way we can bring the conversation into, like you said, the format of forging something out.
And we can relate the two things together to where I can get them to open up and maybe think about it.
Think about it in, like, internal to their, you know, internal, like, hey, I never thought of it that way.

[39:29] And maybe if I could help one guy out of 10, I'd be happy.
You know what I mean? And that's where I'm trying to get to.
And they're gonna, there's also a trust there that would be immediate with you because you've been there.
Yeah. As opposed to someone who might just be teaching them, but you've been there. Yeah. So I had a class this weekend.

[39:53] I had my Christmas party on Saturday and then turned around and had a Tomahawk class with three gentlemen who bought a gift certificate last Christmas.
And they just finally been able to schedule it for the second time.
They had to cancel it the first time.
But anyways, one of the guys was a Marine.
And he said something about coloring books.
And I was like, Oh man, I better not catch you eating crayons in here. It's just an automatic.
He's like, Oh, you're military. What branch? And I told him I was in the Air Force and he's like, Oh man, you must be good at golf.
And you know, like, which I suck at golf.
So, so it's, I feel like it'd be good.
Like you said, I'm a vet. I wasn't, I was never deployed.
I was actually a jet engine mechanic in the Air Force. I lived in Japan for two years.
I worked on the AWACS. So my, my, my job was mission critical.
We spied a lot on North Korea.
Well, not spied, but we kept track of them. Uh, because you know, they're always popping off at the mouth and, uh, they, so that my job was technically mission critical.
So anytime they needed to be in the air, we were on standby.
That is, if that plane comes down, the other one's going up and it has to be fueled up. Oil's ready.

[41:10] Everything's tip top shape. Cause I mean, those, those jets are from the 50s. So yeah, right.
Those are old airframes and they're constantly in the air. Right.
I mean, if one's not up, the other one. Yep. you, 24 seven. So it was, uh, I never had any combat experience or anything like that.
So I would like to hear those stories. I, you know, I'm, I love watching the movies and, and listen to the stories of the combat vets that I've talked to, uh, cause those guys are.

[41:39] There's no, that's one of the reasons I want to help out because I, I understand And what they kind of what they went through, as far as just seeing and hearing these stories, and how it can damage you internally, you know, all those Vietnam vets and stuff came back not right, and still not right.

[42:01] Some people can handle that kind of stress, and some people can't, I just want to help those people.
So yeah, but you also understand in that you voluntarily basically gave your life. People like me and my family and others, you know.
So whether or not you were deployed is, well that's another, that's a whole other dimension, but whether or not you deployed is almost immaterial because the fact is you already made the sacrifice. You said, I, you know.
And that's why a lot of people like myself say to people like you, thank you for your service, and I'm saying that right now, because you kept those beautiful AWACSs in the sky and kept the eyes down on the ground for us And so I think just making that initial sacrifice is is enough for other people to look and say, OK, I'm going to listen to this guy.
Yeah. And, you know, all the branches razz each other. I mean, it's constant.
We love it. You know, the Air Force gives crap to the Coast Guard and everybody else. It goes up from there.
You know, so like it's always the Marines at the top that are talking down to the Navy and the Navy's talking down to the Army and Army's talking down to the Air Force. And we just give it all back. So.

[43:10] You know, it's fun and it's all in good fun. No branches.
If I was in Dire Strait and some Marine was standing there, he would step out and help me in a heartbeat. I'd do the same for him. Oh, yeah.
The brotherhood is not just to your branch. It's to the entire Armed Forces and honestly, to our country.
So I'll help anybody that needs help. And I've proven that more times than I can account.
And my wife is from Northern California. And she's got brothers that were both in the military.

[43:42] And she understands that. And that's why we get along so well.
Because if anybody needs my help, I'm going to do whatever I can to help them.
Unless they're, you know, I can drop you off at the like, rehab. That's all I got for you.
That's all I got for you, man. You speaking of your wife, she was so cool.
Very nice to meet. And she did a lot to seem like she did a lot at the show as well.
I think a lot of people I've spoken to on this show, almost to a man, have had someone like your wife behind them helping them out in one way or another, making the business or the venture successful.
I couldn't do it without her. And I say that all the time. And I'm not just saying that because my wife and she can probably hear me.
But we're raising a two-year-old and any parent out there knows that that's not an easy task.
And I have my son. He is my doppelganger. So he's a wild child. And he's a handful.
Go, go, go nonstop until bedtime. And even at bedtime, you got to hold him down sometimes.

[44:51] So before that, she was in the shop with me. She was grinding on stuff.
She was helping me keep the shop in a much better order than it is now that my son is born. Because she's never out there to help me clean it up.
But she would grind with me. She would forge with me.
And she runs the books. She does all the books for our company.
She helps me with the packaging and stuff.
She couldn't help today. I've packaged up the past two days.
I packaged up 14 orders for Christmas. Because I have this guarantee that if anybody orders something by November 10th, I will have it shipped out in time for Christmas.
So normally my production time is about 8 to 12 weeks, is what I request.
Like, hey, give me two months, you know, I have back order, but if you get it in by November 10th, I will ship you your product, at least like today, I shipped it out.
So that's 13 days until Christmas Eve.
And I think the post office will deliver up until Christmas Eve is what I believe, what I read. But your order was in there and I had orders go to Montana.

[46:03] Utah, Idaho, Illinois, Tennessee, New Jersey. I mean, I ship stuff everywhere today.
And at the end of the year, it's always a struggle for me because I have the show.
So before the show, I try and clear my board.
I try and get all my orders fulfilled before the show so I have time to make products for the show.
And then I have the Christmas rush. So it's always like, go, go, go, go, go.
And she's so cool because, getting back to my wife, because she's able to understand that, hey, I understand you have to work all the time.
We're trying to grow this business and we're doing it together.
And although I can't be out there in the shop with you all the time, I'm doing my part in the house, taking care of the kid.
Because it's a struggle.
It is, but it's the best struggle there is.
Man, I love that boy. He's me. I can hear him back there, raising hell.
Oh, yeah. So do you expect to bring him into the fold someday?

[47:13] Yes. Yes, I do. He's not going to have a choice. So I did chores my entire life in the house, right? Didn't get an allowance.
And I asked my mom about it one day.
That's not fair. Why don't you have to do this." And she says, this isn't a democracy. This is Cuba and I am Fidel Castro.
Something I'll always remember. So that kind of stuck with me.
Yes. So he's going to have to do chores in the house.
But I want to teach him how to work. I don't want him to be one of these young people that are growing up these days that don't want to have a job.
And I refuse because I have such a work ethic that if it doesn't rub off on him, I got it from my mother.
He's going to get it from me. He's going to get it from his mother.
But what I want to do... My plan is... This is before he was born.
He's going to work in the shop and I'm going to pay him to work in the shop.
At first, he'll start out sweeping. It won't be that much money.

[48:13] But from the money that we pay him, we're going to teach him how to save, what taxes are.
We're not going to tax him right away.
But we want to teach him that stuff because as a young adult, I didn't know how to manage money. When I was in the military, I blew almost all the money that I made on...
Let's just say military things. So I want to... Me and my wife...
My wife was taught very at a young age to save.
So I want to bring him in, pay him to work in there, teach him how to save. Okay.
You got to save at first 50%. For every dollar you make, you got to save 50 cents.
And then let him put that money into savings so that when he's a young adult.

[48:57] He can have like a couple of grand to buy his own vehicle or Something like that, that's, we just wanna, he's gonna have no choice in working in the shop is all I'm trying to get at.
I hope he has a passion for it.
Not only that, but, okay, couple of things. First of all, those are cooler chores than washing dishes.
And B, it's gonna teach him a usable skill, and whether he ends up going into knife making or tomahawk making or working in a shop or whatever, he's gonna learn valuable skills on the abstract level, and then he might learn skills that come in handy in whatever his vocation or job is.
I think that's awesome when people have, you know, as you know, here I talk about a lot of knife makers and a lot of family businesses, and I love the thought of bringing the child in because there's always the question at some point of who do I get to help me with my knives?
My knives are my knives and they're like perfect how they are and how am I going to entrust?
But you bring in blood and, you know, First of all, you hope some of the talent is in the blood or some of the same, whatever, thrill for making, but also close enough, you can really show them, speak a shorthand and all the rest of it and bring them in in a real way.
I had an apprentice for about a year and a half.
We did an apprenticeship and it was an unpaid apprenticeship.

[50:26] I mean, I know his mother and stuff like that. I got introduced by another acquaintance, and then we became quick friends, me and his family.
And a good kid named Christian, he was actually helping my buddy do the Forge Your Memory, which I think you did.

[50:41] You did the Forge Your Memory, not Forge Your Memory, where you made a little horseshoe knife. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got it right over on my wall.
Yeah. So he was helping him. He usually helps me at all my shows.
But I trained him up and got him where I was like, all right, man, I'm comfortable enough with you making my tomahawks that I'll be able to sell them with my name on them because it's, I had to like really drill that into them for like a year. Like, Hey man, this isn't good enough.
You know what I mean? Like you're not meeting the standards that I'm trying to set for you.
And I can be kind of a dick, excuse my French, but I was trying to be cool with them.
And, you know, but after telling you the third time, like you're doing this wrong.
This is the third time I've told you, no, this isn't going to work." Well, finally, he got through his apprenticeship and tested to where he made 10 tomahawks.
And we inspected every single one of them. Me and my wife scrutinized them to the T.
All right, man, I feel comfortable enough to where I can start paying you.
He came like, I don't know, 10 days after I was like, yeah, I'll start paying.
And then he just quit coming.
I was like, so I wasted a year of my life training this kid.
And now he doesn't come anymore. He only comes to the shows to do the tomahawk going and stuff like that, which is a big help. Still love him. Good kid, great family.

[51:59] But I'm like, damn, I spent so much. So now I'm like real hesitant about pulling on an apprentice.
Like, I don't want to invest that kind of time in somebody and effort because it's stressful for me, to have to teach somebody something like this and make sure that they get across that my standards will not dip with you working for me. Yeah, I've built a reputation.
And you're going to uphold my reputation because you're working under my logo, my name, my business.
So I understand what you're saying about, Bladesmiths not wanting other people to make stuff for them.
Yeah. And your son can't just stop coming.
You live here, dude. Yeah. And he seems like he has a passion for it.
He's only two. So he likes to be out there in the shop when I'm out there.
And I gave him a hammer and he hammered on the anvil. I haven't given him any hot steel yet. My wife's like, no, but... Yeah, yeah.
Girls night, you can bring out the...

[52:58] Let's just hammer on something, buddy, and he would love it.
Anytime I'm out there, he wants to be out there, but obviously, we can't have him in the shop because he's too little and he's too into everything.
He'll grab something hot or he'll get slag in his face.
Yeah. When he's in the shop, you have to spend a 100 percent of your attention on him. Yeah, 100 percent.
I bet that's a blast for him to see dad, to be with dad, but in a space like that, like that's a real, I'm not saying it, like I know a lot of artistic women and stuff, but that's kind of a man's space with all the fire and the hammers and stuff.
So I could see how a boy would just be like, yes, let's go to the fort.
I mean, and what little boy doesn't like knives?
Like. They all do, you know? Exactly.

[53:50] Even the ones you don't think they do, do. Yeah. But okay, so in wrapping up here, something something like a common theme here, and and it's common in the show, because I saw it firsthand and experienced it, but is it's the interaction thing.
One of my favorite annual latest, you know, past three or four years, I love going to blade show, blade show Atlanta. It's like, it's amazing.
There's 50 billion knife makers and 50 million things to see and you can be there for three days and never exhaust them.
And that's great, I love that show. But coming to the Texas Custom Knife Show was different for me.
It was an interactive experience.
There were knife makers that I had never met before or seen before, and it sort of opened up my eyes to the fact that you could probably go, Texas is a unique place, no doubt, but you could probably go to any locality in the United States and find a knife show in that region.
And you'll meet people and see knives You've never, oh my God, it's such a huge world.
But a real thing that I think separated the experience of the Texas Custom Knife Show for me was the interaction, not just with the Forged in Fire, personalities and the Forged in Fire competition, which was awesome, but all these other things, the tomahawk throwing, the knife I forged myself.

[55:20] Forged myself with the horseshoe and all of that.
Like it wasn't just looking and buying, it was experiencing and becoming a part of the experience.
How do you want to grow the Texas Custom Knife Show? How do you see that kernel expanding?
So the entertainment, like I have complaints from the guys that come there just to sell knives.
I understand where they're coming from. You came here, you bought a table, you want to sell a knife.
Not complaints, just like, hey, you know, anyways, we'll move on.
It's an entertainment value for me. When I go somewhere, I'm not a shopper, first of all.
My wife will tell you firsthand, I will not walk around a store just to shop.
I go to a store for a certain particular reason, I get it and I roll out.
So to me to come to one of these events, I want something to entertain me.
The forging competition, having the opportunity to throw tomahawks and possibly win one, having the opportunity to forge out a horseshoe knife, stuff like that brings in crowds and that's my mindset at least.
And anything that you can do to entertain.

[56:27] Your fan base or your customer base, and keep them there longer is just going to make the show better.
So in asking how do we expand that kernel?
I've got some ideas. I don't want to divulge at the moment just because they're just ideas.
And I've got to talk them over with my partner.
But we will be growing it and we will be doing bigger and better things.
And bigger, better events, more knife makers, and hopefully more people coming to the show.
So that's what we look forward to. Well, I like hearing that you've got the ideas and that you're gonna talk to Mike about them because that just means that hopefully I'll be coming out again next year. Bob, you are always invited.
I love it. And you always got a spot here, man. We loved having you in.
My wife, I told her that we were doing another interview.
She's like, that guy was so nice. I love that guy. and I was like, yeah, you know, so you made a very good impression.
And with everybody that I've talked to about you, Brian, your doppelganger is, is probably jealous, just because you're more handsome than he is.

[57:38] I'll take I don't know if you I don't know if you told your listeners, but Brian Malinsky entered a knife into one of our competitions and one into our word competition that we do on Friday, just for the knife makers.
And he walked up, And I was like, Bob, I didn't know you made knives, man. I thought you were just a collector.
And he's like, it's me, Brian, who I've met like 50 times.
So it was quite funny. It was hilarious. And then every time I saw one of them, I was like, that's Bob, that's Brian, that's Bob, that's Brian.
So the whole weekend we had a good time talking about how you guys are so much alike, so.
I think I've got a picture on my phone or somebody has a picture of you guys standing next to each other. So I'm glad you did a show with them.
I'm gonna have to check that one out.
If either one of us were more nefarious, we could figure out a way to like really work this. Profit on it.

[58:29] That's just not me. Hey, Jake, thank you so much for coming back on the show.
It was really cool to talk about the experience. We talked about it leading up and I also had Mike on the show leading up.
I was so excited to be invited out there. But having been out there and experienced it, it was really cool to just kind of catch up with you and, and find out what it was like actually putting the event on.
One last thing before I let you dip here. And that is, if there are people out there listening who, who are interested in starting a knife show, or doing something like this and getting a group of knife, like minded people together, what bit of advice would you give them?

[59:10] Um, I would say don't do it, but that's just me.
Um, no, you got to have a plan and you've got to know people, obviously you got to have a, uh, be able to network.
You got to be able to get the knife makers to come out.
Um, having a plan and executing it is crucial.
Um, and get all the help you can get.
Well, I can say, I mean, anybody that offers help, let help you because it is a lot to put on.
And weeks coming into the show, my wife is always like, I hate this part of the show. You're always stressed out. You don't sleep.
You're super irritable. And then once the show's over, she's like, see, now you're back to normal.

[59:54] So just know that it's not easy, but if you have the right help and the right plan, you can get it done. So, and be a success. It doesn't hurt to have a great theme too.
You guys have such a good theme.
But I would also venture to say that Texas is part of the theme.
It's so cool being down there and it's such a part of, it was such a part of my experience, like actually being right where we were.
So, come. Barbecue and knives. Barbecue and knives, indeed.
Well, sir, thank you so much for coming back on the show. It's been great talking with you, Jake. Talk with you soon. You guys have a good night.
I appreciate it. Thank you.
A man without a knife is a man without a life. The knife junkie dot com slash life.
You know you're a knife junkie if you plan your vacation around blade show.
There he goes ladies and gentlemen, Jake Sewell of Brave Hawk Forge and the Texas Custom Knife Show.

[1:00:49] Like I said, it was a real honor to be on the inside of that for this brief period of time I was and it was impressive to see Jake and Mike put that thing together.
What a blast it was. And I look forward to going down there next year.
All right, be sure to join us on Wednesday for the midweek supplemental.
We're going to be doing a knife giveaway very soon of a pro tech Malibu. Yes, sweet.
And also Thursday night knives for the latest in knife conversation for Jim working his magic behind the switcher.
I'm Bob DeMarco saying until next time, don't take dull for an answer.
Thanks for listening to the knife junkie podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please rate and review at review the podcast.com.
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[1:02:08] Music.