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Announcer [00:00:03]:
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.

Bob DeMarco [00:00:16]:
Welcome to the Knife Junkie podcast. I'm your host, Bob DeMarco. On this episode of the show, I'm speaking with Beren McKay of Pepperwool. Beren is a knife world design veteran who, a few years back, was at the forefront of a major knife world rebranding, creating designs that single handedly wrenched this company from the clutches of big box store design cheesiness. He's since left that company and is creating his own brand set to launch in the near often. He sent me a copy of one of the folders he intends to launch the brand with, and not only do I recognize his design language, but I'm very impressed with the charm, practicality, and ease of carry of this of his solo work. We'll meet Baron and talk all about the advent of Pepperwolf. But first, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, hit the notification bell, and, share the show with a friend.

Bob DeMarco [00:01:09]:
Also, if you wanna help support the show in a monetary fashion, you can do so by going to Patreon. Quickest way to do that is go to the knifejunkie.com/patreon. Again, that's the knifejunkie.com/patreon.

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Bob DeMarco [00:01:44]:
Beren, welcome to the Knife Junkie podcast, sir. It's great to have you.

Beren McKay [00:01:47]:
It's great to be here, Bob. Thanks for having me.

Bob DeMarco [00:01:49]:
My pleasure. I I wanna before we start, I wanna congratulate you on, your taking this step into the abyss and launching your own brand. Not only do I admire it, but, man, I I admire your work. So congratulations, sir.

Beren McKay [00:02:03]:
Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Bob DeMarco [00:02:05]:
Absolutely. Alright. So, in my introduction, I was a little, you know, mysterious, but, you really, really did with your designs. I'm thinking of 3 in particular, with your imagination and love of knives, kinda turned that company around, with the help of others, of course. Oh, yeah. But let's let's talk about that. What company am I talking about, and what are those models?

Beren McKay [00:02:29]:
You're talking about SOG knives. And I'm gonna I like to tell stories. I'm gonna give you a little brief story of kinda how a lot of the the turnaround happened because I think it'll help kinda illustrate a lot of where we go with Peppa too. I had this experience where I think it was, like, in 2016, 2017, where I doing a planning meeting with the the product development team. And I asked the team we're doing a whiteboard session. I asked the team. I was like, so what's, what's your favorite sock knife that you wanna carry in your pocket that you show your friends and everything else? I literally got silence as a response. And I remember, like, putting down, the the whiteboard marker and just sort of sitting there going like, you know, if if the people here that are designing the knives, designing the products, don't wanna talk about it, don't wanna share it.

Beren McKay [00:03:18]:
I was like, that's a huge problem. We gotta change that. And so right then and there, I was like, okay, let's just we'll just wipe off the board. Let's start from scratch. What do we want in a knife? What's gonna be something that we can, like, really care about and be excited about? And we started developing that knife, right? And that's really what became sort of the the turning point, I I believe, is at least the starting point of that that turnaround that you're talking about, with the company. And that that first knife that, that we did that with is actually the Terminus, Terminus XR. Oh, okay. So anyway and then yeah.

Beren McKay [00:03:48]:
You see as we developed into, like, you know, getting more kind of refined with the marketing and everything else like that with, you know, g's and with Jonathan and whatnot, we started developing, like, say, the brand new assistive technology with the Flashy, just Trident. Also, one of my, I guess, supreme pleasures in life was, coming up with a new OTF mechanism. Right? This guy, which was a lot of fun. This is something I worked on for years years years, and and during the same time period, it says we kinda bring this guy out. I love the fact that it doesn't wiggle. Right? But that was something else that that I had a lot of fun coming out with. And there was just a lot of great knives. I think the favorite knives I ever had at SOG came from that latter end of the period, from about 2017 on until, the company got sold.

Beren McKay [00:04:34]:
Right? So it it was a lot of fun. Great products, though.

Bob DeMarco [00:04:38]:
We we had Jonathan Wegner on the show a few years back, and, I know he was a lot on the marketing end, kind of on the the forward facing, side of things. And, for me at the time, I was so thrilled to see this because I'm an old time SOG lover, the the MAC v SOG, fixed blade, and and all of the, stacked leather handled, kind of traditional combat classics that SOG, has made throughout the years was what drew me in, but then there are folders, also. My my very first tactical folder was in 1991. It was a a it was a SOG from way pre these days. And to see to see that brand come back with your designs was really exciting because, well, because, frankly, to my eye, it went down kind of a, a very, a billboded kinda road. You know, everything kinda had a and it's very interesting what you say about that meeting where, kind of people are like, well, I just work here, in a way. Yeah. I I wanna get to the OTF mechanism because I I didn't know this we we need to talk about that in a second, about the no wiggle thing because you never hear that from anyone except g and g Hawk.

Bob DeMarco [00:05:55]:
You know? You're in for $2,000 if you want a no wiggle OTF. We'll talk about that in a second. But what what was your, when you had that whiteboard session and no one spoke up, what was your first thought? Where does this company need to go aesthetically?

Beren McKay [00:06:12]:
Well, I think the the the main first thought I had is is I I agreed with the sentiment. Because at that point, we've been building an awful lot of I I think that the push at the time was to basically make as much as we could, from a product standpoint and not really think about it too much, but just say, hey. Look. We got price points and pegs to fill. Let's just let's just fill it all up and just just get out there. It was a it was a crazy time because you had huge workloads and not a lot of kinda help to get the job done. And as a result, I think a lot of the things we put out it was amazing that we were able to put out as much as we did. But, you know, I think for me, I I I talked about this kind of internally with the team.

Beren McKay [00:06:53]:
It it just for me, it kind of lacked a little bit of soul, if that makes any sense.

Bob DeMarco [00:06:57]:
That makes sense.

Beren McKay [00:06:58]:
And it just made me feel like like you know, it's like I I wanna have something that I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna impart a bit of myself into, that I'm gonna be excited about, I'm gonna care about. And a lot of the stuff we were putting out at the time didn't have that. Right? And at least not for me. And so, that's where I think that the the big transition came, and we're like, yeah. Let's let's actually put something that's got some life to it. Right? Something that that means something. And, you know, when Jonathan came on board, I think, a couple years later, he really helped a lot with that. Like, he and I worked together very closely on trying to make a lot of these things happen, from the rebrand to, getting a lot of sort of the visuals.

Beren McKay [00:07:34]:
As you saw, the visuals changed quite a bit, the style of the knives. I got to explore a whole lot of, a lot of my passions I had at the time, which is like exploring better knife seals, improving lock mechanisms with, like, getting into sort of the bar lock systems. It was just it was phenomenal. I had a lot of fun with that. I even, like, pushing the boundary to what was possible from a sheath standpoint. For years years, people hated our sheaths, right, on the fixed blades. And, you know, being able to spend time and and energy thinking about, like, how could you make a better sheath? How could you get it slimmer and and smaller and more compact so it wasn't so bulky? It was just a lot of fun, to do a lot of that stuff. So I had I had a blast.

Bob DeMarco [00:08:14]:
Speaking as a daily fixed blade carrier, but in a discrete way, that that means a lot because oftentimes the sheath feels like an afterthought. And if you're creating, the sheath of a fixed blade like you're creating the handle of a folder, I think you're kind of on the right path. And, you know, because it it all has to fit in your pocket or your pants or whatever. So were you always a knife guy, or or a product design guy? How did that happen?

Beren McKay [00:08:45]:
Oh, man. My background's a weird one. So I, yeah, engineer by training. Right? And, I I first, got into sort of computer science and robotics and stuff like that. And so, like, my undergraduate work, was actually mechanical engineering, but it was a focus in mechatronics, which is a combination of computer science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering. And basically, I was, building sort of robotic structures and whatnot like that. I then, went in to do graduate work and I got a master's degree in what's called control theory, which is basically creating all the very complicated mathematical algorithms that would control, electric motor motion. Right? How it moves from one location to another one.

Beren McKay [00:09:30]:
And then I worked on a PhD in, also mechanical engineering, but it was focused on nano and micro, bots, basically. I was making, some of the the fundamental elements of, like, little nano nanites that you would see. And so, like, they've got research papers out there that talk about that, and and you can kind of I would work on the propulsion system mainly, of how do you actually make these things swim through the body or swim through something like that. So that's my my educational background. Right? Mhmm. But I had a passion for doing product development because while I was going to school, I was also working. I got an engineering job, I think, after my first quarter of of engineering school. I applied for an internship.

Beren McKay [00:10:12]:
I got it. And then they lied to me so much They said, hey. You know, work night and weekends and holidays. And I was like, great. I can make money while I'm going to school and pay for it that way. So I got exposure to a lot of, you know, product development work, doing that, and I loved it. I had a lot of fun with it. In that case, it was actually in the photo, like, it was the photo industry is where I was.

Beren McKay [00:10:36]:
The sad part about that is, of course, in the early 2000, you know, digital cameras became very prevalent, and so people stopped doing a lot of photography in the more traditional sense. Yeah. But, you know, I learned a lot from that and I got a real feel for that. So when I I was kind of ending the the PhD program, I I had this sort of crossroads where all of a sudden it was like, do you wanna become a professor, or do you wanna do something else? And I'm like, you know, I have a brother that that was a physics professor, and he and I talked about it. And he's like, do you wanna grade papers for the rest of your life and write research papers? And I was like I was like, you know, I could do it. I'm I'm good at teaching. I'm good at kinda interacting with the students because I've done some of that as a as a research assistant, as a teaching assistant. But, and I got great reviews from students, but I just was like, you know what? That's that's gonna bore me to tears long term.

Beren McKay [00:11:26]:
I was like, I'd rather be able to do something where I can learn about sort of people's problems and help solve them and really do it in a in a meaningful way. And I think that's where, like, especially SOG really, in the latter years when Jonathan got involved, where we were able to actually start interviewing, like, consumers and people who are actually using the product and really understand kind of what they what they were needing or what they needed from a from a product itself. Like, how do we solve the problem? How do we really get into this? And it was fantastic because, like, you know, you got into the psychology of it, you got into the functional elements of it, and and I really got to kind of explore. And that's really what I wanted to do from a art development standpoint. So I finally got to kind of realize or at least start to realize that dream. And I I'm glad I made the choice. I think making the choice, though, changing from, you know, the professor route to being, you know, just, design engineer was was a tough one, and it was it was a hard transition for me. But, once I got into it, I looking back on it, it was the right choice for me.

Bob DeMarco [00:12:21]:
Was there some, conflict between the relative theory of working on nanobot propulsion and, like, actual product design that might be made next year?

Beren McKay [00:12:35]:
Yeah. So basically transitioning from doing an r and d only to being, like, more development. Right? That's how I would kind of classify it. So in r and d land, sky's the limit. Who knows what's gonna happen? You're just burning through money, trying stuff out. You're trying to to push the boundary of what's possible and getting into you know, you're burning up debt for the most part. But hopefully, at the end of it, you created some new tech and that's fantastic versus, like, a more development role where all of a sudden you've got schedules, you've got people that need to have, like, timelines that you adhere to. It's like, hey, I've got a brand launch.

Beren McKay [00:13:05]:
We've got to do this. We've got sales. Will they have to get samples in at this date and this time?

Bob DeMarco [00:13:09]:
And, you

Beren McKay [00:13:10]:
know, a lot of project management goes into it. It is different. Right? Because now you have to be very regimented and kind of controlled versus before you're just like, yeah, I'm showing up. I'm doing my thing. I've got an idea. I'm gonna switch spaghetti on the wall and see if it sticks. You know, it's, it's 2 different kind of elements of of the same coin, really. But, one of them, you have to have a lot more kind of discipline than the other one.

Bob DeMarco [00:13:32]:
If you think about it, it's kinda like you went from designing the newest absolute newest tool actually, it's not even probably happening yet, but it's right in the offing. It's like a a new technology, and then you end up actually, you know, kind of finding yourself creating the oldest tool, a newer version of the very oldest tool. You know, you go from nanotechnology to blades.

Beren McKay [00:13:57]:
Yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:13:57]:
That's a that's a huge jump backwards but forward if you really think about it.

Beren McKay [00:14:02]:
Oh, the so okay. I have a lot of fun though with it because I like, during my time at Saga, I got to invent all sorts of really interesting things, at least things that I thought were interesting. And the fact that there was room in the space to create new technology was surprising to me because, like, you're right. It's one of the oldest tools of mankind. And yet the fact that, hey, I got room to really expand and and kinda push the boundaries of what's possible and invent something new was, it was exhilarating and a lot of fun too. Right? So, a kind of a fun thing, I I do have a I don't know if you wanna get too much into it. You can you can censor me on this one. Sure.

Beren McKay [00:14:41]:
No. But there there are some really fun little little inventions that I that I got a kick out of. Like, one of the first ones that I I had a a huge blast at at SOG was, I don't know if you know the knife called the Slim Jim.

Bob DeMarco [00:14:51]:
Yes. I know the I have a Slim Jim, the large one. Yeah.

Beren McKay [00:14:54]:
Yeah. So it's super standard. Right?

Bob DeMarco [00:14:56]:
Yeah. Mhmm.

Beren McKay [00:14:57]:
But that is a it's a brand new assistant technology. Right? So that didn't exist. That was something that I actually came up with and invented. I have, like, a proof of concept model actually here at my desk, of the very first thing that I kind of crudely put together to try and make it. Because the cool thing about it is that at least I think it's kinda cool from a mathematical or geometry standpoint, is that it just uses leaf springs, and the leaf spring actually pushes on the wrong side of the pivot. So if you actually take the knife apart and you look at it, you're like, that shouldn't physically be possible, and it has this kind of math and magic kind of element to it where all of a sudden, like, the blade closes and you're like, what keeps it shut? How does it do that? Right? And it's all captured with sort of a fancy bit of geometry that I put in there. Right? So it's it's things like that I thought were kind of fun and interesting because the challenge was, could you make something super thin and still be assisted? And that was something that Spencer Fraser actually kinda hit me with, when I was sitting in his office one day. He's like, hey.

Beren McKay [00:15:50]:
He's like, can we do, like, a really thin assisted knife? And can we do it, like, with just, like, one single piece of sheet metal as a handle? And I'm like, what? Yeah. Let me think about that for a little bit. Let's see if we can if we can figure that out. And, and there you go. You got it. Now it had some problems with it because, you know, I think the at the time, as you as you mentioned earlier, it was like push everything out the door as quickly as you could. Right? And we were able to kind of adjust a lot of those things later on in production. But, a lot of that time period is like, yes.

Beren McKay [00:16:20]:
Like, I would come up with these new kind of interesting ideas or creative solutions, And then, you know, maybe some of them need a little little more time, a little more refining, but, it was something that was new and different and exciting for me to play with.

Bob DeMarco [00:16:33]:
Well, from between the old days of SOG, like the nineties and and before that, to, the rebranding where we had all these beautiful new versions of old knives coming out.

Beren McKay [00:16:45]:
Yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:16:45]:
The Slim Jim was my absolute favorite, and I I have mine. It's a a 4 and a quarter inch. It's the large one.

Beren McKay [00:16:51]:
That's a big one.

Bob DeMarco [00:16:52]:
And, I love that knife. It's it's really probably one of the very few assisted knives I still have. You know? I I went down that snob lane where I was like, I don't need assisted, but I love that knife. And Spencer Fraser, just for people who, Fraser who don't know, he's the guy who started SOG. Yeah. SOG. The founder. There's some great interviews with Nut and Fancy.

Bob DeMarco [00:17:17]:
He did a great interview with Nut and Fancy many years ago. That's where I learned about him. But, that's to me, that's really interesting because you're coming at, like, this old tool from an from a new perspective, and, you know, you're you're you mentioned control theory. I don't know what that is, but, what is that?

Beren McKay [00:17:41]:
It's basically, if you were I'll put it like this. If you if you have like a like an arm like this and it has like a an electric motor on it and it moves, you are trying to, you're creating a mathematical algorithm that's going to control how it moves so that, like, if you just if you just normally turned it on and it just went, it would go like this and then it would start to shake probably, right, because it would clunk like that.

Bob DeMarco [00:18:08]:
Okay. If you

Beren McKay [00:18:09]:
want to have a controlled motion where it just goes like poof, like that, you actually put in, feedback loops and also feed forward loops or adaptive control. These are like algorithmic kind of ways of of mathematically controlling it. And you actually make a, you do a matrices is what you end up end up with. All the equations you can capture into a matrix, and that captures all the dynamics of what's going on with it. So you feed all that information into it, and you apply these mathematic algorithms to it to get it to move the way you want it to in a very smooth and controlled fashion. So if you're doing, like, like, if you're making, like, a CNC machine or something like that, all of the motors will have to have this type of, smarts in it to control the motion and to make sure that it's smooth and easy going. Or another thing that's interesting, like, if you're familiar with, like, a vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, like a VTOL That's

Bob DeMarco [00:18:58]:
so funny. Yes.

Beren McKay [00:19:00]:
Like, I I did that as I remember, one of my final problems, I worked on that with my professor at the time, nominal guy. He's like the founder of the feed forward algorithmic approach, really great guy. But he he had me work on this VTOL problem. And the thing that's fascinating to me about that one, it's a very complicated problem of how an aircraft can vertically take off and and go. Most people don't know this, but there's actually a certain, angle at which it mathematically becomes incredibly unstable. And so, like, mathematically, you should not be able to hear that. How you compensate for in the real world is you very quickly go through that angle. So as the plane is taking off, there's a certain point where if they stay at it too long, it'll just it'll catastrophically fail.

Beren McKay [00:19:45]:
So they have to very quickly transition from one to the other one to make sure that the plane can move.

Bob DeMarco [00:19:50]:
I I think that's why the Osprey and the and the F 35, Marine Corps version that has the VTOL and the and the, you know, the the, the Osprey, the the big propeller thing that turns from a helicopter into an airplane. That's why they had problems and and crashed so much and took so long to get to market is that that part. I only know that because I produced some military shows back in the day. But,

Beren McKay [00:20:14]:
what an awesome bit of tech. Right? Oh my god. So cool.

Bob DeMarco [00:20:17]:
It is cool. Alright. Alright. Let's talk about something else cool, and I'm holding it right here in my hand. And this is this is the knife that you are releasing, and, actually, I'm frankly, I'm not sure what stage of release this is in, but

Beren McKay [00:20:32]:
It's live on the site, so people can actually go and buy it right

Bob DeMarco [00:20:35]:
now. Gracious. I I love this. You sent this to me, thank you, by the way, to check out. It is awesome. It is first of all, I see your design language in it, and I really, really like your design language. That's what got me back interested in SOG. Frankly, I sort of gave up.

Bob DeMarco [00:20:53]:
And then I started

Beren McKay [00:20:55]:
keeping the

Bob DeMarco [00:20:55]:
new stuff come out. And from looking at this, I know you had so much to do with it. Tell us about this knife and the Merino series.

Beren McKay [00:21:05]:
Yeah. So, one of the like, remember how we talked about problems? Mhmm. One of the problems that, I always kind of notice after having, like, you know I've been in the knife load for about 15 years, and, 12 of that was with SOG. And, of course, the last 3 years I've actually slipped on a knife while I work with people. But I've seen a lot of amazing knives. I mean, really great knives. And you get them, you buy them, you, you love them, you put them in your pocket. And then, what happens with me is that, like, after a couple of weeks or maybe a couple of months, you know, you get the sore butt because it's in your back pocket and you're sitting in the car driving somewhere or, like, you know, you try and put your hand in your front pocket because it kept it there, but all of a sudden, like, there's not enough room and you're trying to get your phone out.

Beren McKay [00:21:51]:
You're like, oh my gosh. This doesn't work. And eventually, the sad news is that it would end up on my dresser. Mhmm. And, you know, the best knife you have is that you carry with you. And if you can't carry it with you, what good does it do you? Right? And so I saw this as a problem. I was like, this is a this is a major issue that I'm like, how do I make a knife that is super carryable? And if you remember back in SOG days, we had one, that I actually worked on from, it was the Ultra, this guy. Right? And, what came about with this one is actually had an ultra light hiker that was like, hey.

Beren McKay [00:22:23]:
Can you design a a knife that's, like, under an ounce and and, like, got an actual usable blade? And so this one came about. What I found though is that this guy I would carry this around all the time. And I was like, why do I carry that around all the time? How how is it that it I just never get tired of it? And the answer was it's it's super thin, it's super light, it just fits in the pocket and it disappears. And I was like, could I take a lot of the things that I have done with other knives that I love, like, you know, the Bar Lock, the Kick Deploy, the fact that it is is a strong reliable knife? Because this one actually is a little bit flimsy. Right? I mean, it has, like, kind of some some structural issues that makes it a little bit flimsy. Could I make all of the good things that I want into something that is super carryable? And that's where I was going with with that Marina line. It was like, could I do, like, a a family of knives that then solve that problem? And making something that that just seamlessly fits in your pocket, almost like a ghost where you don't even know it's there, but when you need it, you can just pull it out. And that's that would be the idea, that I had with with Merino.

Beren McKay [00:23:21]:
And this is the first one that I came out with it. It's the the micro sized one, right, this little honey one. And my idea with this is that, like, the ultimate carry, the ultimate thing that's gonna, like, be in your pocket that you're you're always gonna carry and and just never forget is if you could fit this in your 5th pocket, right, the little coin pouch. And so that's where where I designed this one. And it it actually fits nicely in in that pocket even in in girl jeans, believe it or not. My wife put it in and she was like, she's like, nothing fits in girl jean pockets. She's like, but this thing does. Right? And I'm like, oh, it's amazing.

Beren McKay [00:23:51]:
Right? So that was what the main idea was. And I and I also love, I love the fidget factor. Right? I mean, it's just it's just fun to play with, and it's strong. It's it goes up to, I think the last time I did destructive testing on this one, I was able to get it up to almost about a £1,000 before Woah. You mean to get

Bob DeMarco [00:24:12]:
against the lock? You mean, like, hanging the weight?

Beren McKay [00:24:14]:
So against the lock. So if you if you have it like this in a 3 point bend situation and you actually push right here at the lock, it's gonna take roughly, you know, a couple 100 like, 7, £800, something like that. You know, and it's it's amazing on such a small thin knife that you could do that. Right?

Bob DeMarco [00:24:31]:
Well, it it's funny you mentioned, your wife and girl jeans because, this does fit perfectly in my 5th pocket. And, also, I find that 5th pocket knives when you sit down can be uncomfortable Yeah. Because of the bend of the hip and all that, but this is not. And I think it might have to be it might have to do with the thinness of it. You say it's about the width of 4 house keys or so. And, it is thin, and it sits shallow. I showed this to my wife when, it showed up, and she's like, oh. Oh, you don't say? And I'm because she's a she's a knife carrier.

Bob DeMarco [00:25:04]:
That's one of the ways we met. And, she loves the design of this and the size of this. I informed her that this is mine because it's part of the stable. But, it's I think the the okay. We have people like me who carry 3, 4 knives a day. I mean, some of the people, that tune into this show carry a lot more than that. But Oh, yeah. If you don't, and most people don't, you should still have a knife.

Bob DeMarco [00:25:34]:
This is the message I, I impart to everyone, including my my work friends and everything. I've got everyone that I work with over the last 14 years carrying knives. Everyone everyone's got a knife at my office, and some I know prefer something small and out of the way because I'll say, where's your knife? I don't see your clip. And they're like, oh,

Beren McKay [00:25:52]:
well, it's stupid.

Bob DeMarco [00:25:53]:
So a lot of people prefer the small, pocketable knife. This definitely does that. It's s 35vn cryo treated. It's, like, really nice steel so far. I mean, I I've done some stuff with it. Not nothing to I've not hung a £1,000 from it, but it is super durable. All of us knife junkies do all this and do the twisting and everything, and it seems super durable. I I think you've kinda hit on a little, on kind of a magic mean here because it's small but strong.

Bob DeMarco [00:26:26]:
It's got all, like, really excellent materials. Tell tell us about the selection of materials and, and and how you went about that. I've just to preface it, I've seen some of the research you've done on some of the larger merino I I think the SM, you call it?

Beren McKay [00:26:41]:
Yeah. Well, I've got a couple. So, I mean, I can I can give I can show them actually? I've got them here. Like, this this is the, this is, like, the DM. So is it the daily size? Yeah. Sorry. The, yeah, the the 2 letter acronym I've got is, like, manual micro or or it would be this one. This would be like the daily manual or the DM.

Beren McKay [00:26:59]:
And I have a series of other sizes. This one is super thin. I've got other ones that, I actually haven't physically shown to anyone, I don't think, but I can I can show you guys one of those? Right? You're you're all inside crowd. Yes. Yes. Exclusive. But like, you know, this one is is a big one. This is like a 4 something inch, but you can also see it's a lot thicker.

Beren McKay [00:27:15]:
So if you look at from like the the dimensional size of these guys, I don't know if you can kind of see that, but this is this is substantially thicker, but still very thin. This is actually probably thinner than a Spyderco still, but, like, this one, like, the the break freight brake force I got on the lock was closer to, like, £3,000. So it's it's a beast. Right? But the nice thing is that it's still super carryable. Right? And, it's a little bit heavier too. Right? I mean, like, you know, you get a little bit more heavy. But if you if you're someone who is demanding, who needs, like, a lot of strength, that's why I made something like this because then it's like, yeah, you can get the use out of those. So, yeah, it's a whole family of different, different kind of knives.

Beren McKay [00:27:52]:
Hopefully, if if things keep going well, I can release the rest of them. And I've got, like, I got a bunch of prototypes here too of other fun stuff I've I've been working on. I'm not gonna show you any of those things right now, but, like, hopefully in the future, I can because it's you know, there might be an OTF in the future. Maybe. Who knows? Right? We'll we'll talk about that. But there's a lot of other kind of cool techs that I've been working on that, I think is exciting and interesting and and will do do good things. Right? So, just to kind of give you an idea of of kind of the scope of of where I'm kind of going with it. But, yeah, I understand that, like, this might be a little bit too small for some people, and that's why I wanted to do these other knives that I think are are gonna be you know, fit fit the different niches that that people like.

Bob DeMarco [00:28:30]:
If I forget, I wanna get back to the OTF mechanism that you created for SOG because I'm feeling it might play into your, the stuff you're gonna come out with. But, I I wanna talk about, the materials here on the m on the it's so light. But, really, it's got a very solid feel to it, and, you know, I could I can see that it's got weight relieved steel, inset steel liners and stuff like that. Yep. Tell us about the materials, and how did you manage to get this so light even with steel liners?

Beren McKay [00:29:03]:
Yeah. So it has full steel liners in it, which is one of the nice things. And they are I did cut out some weight reduction in there. I had spent a lot of time kind of looking at sort of the structural analysis of a lot of knife handles and trying to figure out, like, how do I make something that, basically almost like an I beam of in a building. Like, how do you get the greatest strength with, like, the least amount of material going into it? And so when you look at the liners, you'll notice that they, they actually have that kind of structure. I I lightened up some areas of it, but I also add add the strength to others. I do use a very thin liner in there and mainly because, I use that a lot of the weight is reduced because a lot of the weight in a knife handle comes from the liners themselves. If you remember kind of back at SOG, I also came out with this idea of using a kind of carbon fiber liners.

Beren McKay [00:29:51]:
I don't know if you ever remember that. Yes.

Bob DeMarco [00:29:52]:
Yes. On the on the Kiku XR, I know you did that.

Beren McKay [00:29:55]:
Yeah. That one also had it too. And what you'll notice with that is that you ended up having a lot of the structural strength because the carbon fiber still gave it to you, but a huge weight reduction. So with this one, I was like, can I do that with steel? And and actually what I discovered is that if I pair it with g ten and I use a little bit of the structural integrity of the g ten, I can get that same kind of level of strength as I kind of combine those 2 together. So I I chose g ten specifically because not only am I using it as a nice handle material because I like the I like the feel of it. I like the the way that it kind of is super environmentally protective. Like, I mean, like, you can run g tensor just about anything that's gonna be super nice and and come out looking great. Right? But I also wanted it from the structural integrity of it because it's at its base, it's a bunch of fiberglass with some resin in it.

Beren McKay [00:30:47]:
Right? So that I can use as a composite material and I can get some strength out of as well. So the combination of the of the steel with the G10 handles produces that very strong handle that you need for the lock and for everything else. Could I do that if I change the handle to something other than g ten? It wouldn't be as strong unless, you know, I had some, like, titanium or something else like that. Right? But in this in this particular case, like, yeah, that's how I got a lot of the strength to weight ratio going. The

Bob DeMarco [00:31:15]:
No. No. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Beren McKay [00:31:17]:
You sure? Okay. The other things that I was kinda looking at too, like, you you commented on kinda like the the blue color. Right? It's a titanium nitride coating on the outside of that. A lot of that, people say, well, why why use that? I typically use it from a friction reducing standpoint and also from, like, the corrosion resistance. I mean, the seal itself is very corrosion resistant, but adding an extra layer is just kind of a nice thing. It adds a little bit of lubricity as you're kind of cutting through things. Are you really gonna notice it? Probably not, but I I like that as an element in there as well.

Bob DeMarco [00:31:47]:
I mean, I think you noticed the lubricity on the open and close. It it it's so smooth. But I what I was gonna say before is, so many companies have moved to and and rightly so. I I applaud this. But g ten only scales because g ten is a very strong material. Yeah. But when you do that, it's gotta be a little bit thicker, you know, and you can see that on a a cold steel recon 1. You want it thicker or whatever beefy like that.

Bob DeMarco [00:32:16]:
But for something like this, a little a a thin layer of g 10 next to a thin layer of steel seems like a very winning combination.

Beren McKay [00:32:25]:
Mhmm. And it is. I think it is, at least. So what about a lot

Bob DeMarco [00:32:29]:
oh. Wait. Wait. Hold. What about the carbon fiber liners? Why are we not seeing more of that?

Beren McKay [00:32:36]:
Well, I don't know. I mean, it was something that that I had a crazy idea on, one day at SOG, and and we did it and, tested it out, and it works beautifully. And we came out with a couple of different knives like you mentioned, like the Kiku and the Terminus. I think we even came out with the Pentagon that had a a carbon fiber liner and maybe the Vision. I had plans of kind of expanding that out to a series of other different knives, but, you know, I'm not there anymore, obviously. So, you know, who who knows what what's gonna happen next? You know, I I think if as PetPol kinda takes off, I'll probably revisit that and and look at that again as well, because I think that there's some merit to having that. While while other knife company don't do it, I don't know. That's that's up to them.

Beren McKay [00:33:16]:
It may be that they don't wanna have to deal with the cost of it or I mean, machining g ten or machining, carbon fiber is pretty nasty stuff. Right? I mean, it's very fibrous and, you know, maybe they don't wanna do it. I don't know. You have to ask them. I'm not entirely sure. But I

Bob DeMarco [00:33:30]:
I interrupted you before. Let me know what you were saying before. Were you talking about the liner, the the thin steel liner and the thin g ten handle?

Beren McKay [00:33:38]:
Well, something else that I did to kinda help hold it all together, you'll notice that there aren't any, like, exterior fasteners except for the pivot. Right? Oh, yeah. And one of the reasons I did

Bob DeMarco [00:33:46]:
that is because I wanted it

Beren McKay [00:33:47]:
to be really smooth when it went out of the pocket. That's also why you have like all these nice kind of curves on the edges. Like, if you put your hand in there, there's no sharp edges that you're going to get cut with. Like, I had that happen with some other knives where like, you know, you put your hand in the pocket and all of a sudden it just lays out from the back of your pinky. How old? And so if you look at the entire, like, kind of profile and the and the smoothness of it, even, like, the notch at the top, it's all there so that you get this very smooth, easy kind of experience going in and out. Granted, the notch, you can also kinda use it as a as a grip point if you need to to kinda get, like, that 3 point lockup that some people like with it. But, I mean, it's just a lot of little tiny details. I think the the what I'm gonna call the t nut on the back here is how I actually cinch the entire thing together, and that's actually solid steel as well.

Beren McKay [00:34:29]:
So, with the pocket clip, that's where I'm getting a lot of the strength from the pocket clip is that that t nut meshes in with the g ten and with the liners, to basically make this nice solid connection, which then provides you with that that good place for the pocket clip. So

Bob DeMarco [00:34:43]:
you're right. Wanna see if I can show that off. I didn't notice that until you just mentioned it, but

Beren McKay [00:34:47]:
Yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:34:48]:
You can see that little bit of metal popping up from the, the this this

Beren McKay [00:34:54]:
The back seat. Yeah. The tina in the back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:34:57]:
So you tighten that thing down and it pulls everything it draws everything together basically.

Beren McKay [00:35:02]:
Draws the whole handle together. Yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:35:04]:
Which is so cool.

Beren McKay [00:35:05]:
So I don't know. There's a lot of little fun things that I put in this in this knife, that kinda have that. I I really especially like how the pocket clip works. I spent a lot of time working on the pocket clip because I remember at my time at SOG, like, people hated pocket clips. I mean, they would always break or they, you know, tear up your jeans or all sorts of stuff. And so I spent a good, like, 2 or 3 months kinda working on the pocket clip to kinda get it to a place that I like it. It has a lot of neat little features in there that I think, you know, people might appreciate. Who knows? I like it.

Beren McKay [00:35:35]:
I mean, the fact that it's, like, flat, I did it on purpose so that it wouldn't, like, punch holes in, like, you know, your chairs or wherever else you're gonna be sitting. The the little kinda inset on the inside actually works to kinda hook, the seam. I did that so that you know how you talked about, like, when you sit down, sometimes it would like poke out of your pocket? Yeah. This actually will catch the scene for you, so it doesn't. But I also didn't wanna have something where it would like, you know, tear your pants up. And so, like, you can actually get your finger just underneath it and you can lift and then it just it just pulls out of your pocket easy. So there's a lot I mean, there's I can kinda go on for a long time, but there's a lot of little thoughts that kinda went into this where I was like, how do you how do you make a better pocket clip? How do you make something that's going to to really be good? You know? It's like something that that most people are like, well, it's a pocket clip. It's an afterthought.

Beren McKay [00:36:24]:
I'm just gonna put it in there. But I'm like, I want something that that people are gonna be, like, appreciate and be like, yeah. They thought about that. That's cool. Right? I like that.

Bob DeMarco [00:36:33]:
You're not at sound no more, buddy. And and another cool thing is that you look at it, it looks kind of like a sculpted clip and then you, turned it on its side and you can see that it's, more of a spring clip, which is what I prefer. I like the aesthetics of a sculpted clip, but the practicality of a spring clip. You've got all that there, and you have your beautiful logo, which, by the way, is really cool, on it. Maybe this is pardon me. Maybe this is a good time to ask you about the PREPAWUL name. What does that what does that mean? What does it signify, and, how does it relate to the knives you're designing?

Beren McKay [00:37:12]:
Yeah. So, it's it's also related to the logo too, so I'll I'll explain all of that. Granted, it's a weird name. I'll give you. Right? I mean, like, when people ask me, like, what the brand name is, I say, Pepperwool, and they kinda look at me and they're like, Pepperwool?

Bob DeMarco [00:37:24]:
No weirder than Spyderco. I mean, come on.

Beren McKay [00:37:28]:
But for me, it symbolizes, like, 2 kind of ethos that I'm striving for that that I'm working on whenever I'm designing a product. So, the elements of pepper, like, when I think of historically about pepper, I think of these guys that like like Columbus who are, like, literally circumventing the globe trying to acquire, this fruit. And why? Because, like, it can take this horrible, mundane food that they're that they're eating and actually turn it into something exceptional, something that, like, they wanna eat. And And so they're looking for that spark of joy, that spark of happiness. They're, like, they're looking for for the pleasure that they get from it. And so for me, I I envision that as sort of this, for me, innovation really, really, you know, checks that off for me. Giving them that sort of pleasure, that joy. Like, when I hand this knife to someone and they open and shut it for the first time, they're just like, they're like, that's really cool.

Beren McKay [00:38:17]:
Or they or they play with the pot clip or or I'm talking to you and you're just like, man, I I love that. Like, that's the joy that I wanted to be able to bring, sort of some of the innovative ways that I approach this and I'm looking at it. And that's what pepper really means for me. Wool, you know, once again, you go back to the the these sea flooring voyages. Right? Wool is this fabric that people have been relying on for, I don't know, millennia or more to keep us warm, to keep us safe. And so for me, that embodies, like, really solid engineered design. Right? Something that's reliable, that's capable, that's something that that you can really be like, yeah, I can trust this. This is good.

Beren McKay [00:38:51]:
And so the marriage of those two ideas of having this sort of super reliable, dependable, well engineered idea combined with, like, innovation and and the the power of that is where I get Pepperwool from. And so I say, hey. That works for me. Now, hopefully, that resonates for other people, but for me, that's that's why I wanted to name it that is that combination.

Bob DeMarco [00:39:09]:
I mean, I I really like the name. I until I read your website, I didn't know that, and that makes me like it even more. But, I pepper wool. It just kinda rolls off the tongue. I think it's a nice sounding word, and you kinda have to have that too. It can't it it can't be just meaningful. It has to also I don't know. It it also has to be nice or fun to say.

Bob DeMarco [00:39:33]:
Spyderco. Pepperwolf. Yeah. You know what I mean? It it I don't mean to keep coming back to them, but you know what I mean. It's, it's unusual, but, it feels good to say, and it has meaning, and I like that.

Beren McKay [00:39:45]:
And to go a little deeper into the meaning, you mentioned the logo. So what I have with the logo is actually if you look at it, it has sort of like these cross fibers, which we'd have, like, sort of with, like, a fabric, like wool. And then the the flex that's, like, the the other points would be sort of like pepper flakes. So that's sort of the combination of the 2 of those and that's why I did it the way I did it. That's how I designed it. So it's a symbolic representation of the name, for me at least. Right? So like I say, hopefully other people I appreciate the fact that you do. I think when I was first telling people, they kind of looked at me and they're like, 3 years ago when I came up with the idea and I was like, Okay, this is what I'm going to do, they're like, Heck, cool? Really? They're like, that doesn't sound like a like a cool brand.

Beren McKay [00:40:28]:
I'm like, oh, like, oh, no. It's gonna be cool. Like, I I'm excited by this stuff.

Bob DeMarco [00:40:32]:
Well, L. L. Bean is a great brand. It's been around forever. Like, what does that mean? So, I wanna talk about oh, here's a great shot that, Jim just put up of this riding in the 5th pocket, and it looks like it does. And, by the way, I love your clip point design for the DM. Now that he's got it up, I'm all distracted. But I wanted to ask you about, you have this in both knives.

Bob DeMarco [00:40:56]:
Right under the flipper tab, you have that that divot, that little swale there. What's what's that all about?

Beren McKay [00:41:03]:
So I I I got to that a little bit, but I'll I'll explain some more to it. The main reason that I had that divot is because I was trying to reduce the kick height, Because like when you're putting this when you're putting your hand in, I wanted to be able to to reduce the kick height so that I could get like a a decent amount of motion in order to open the blade, but still get that. The other element that I was going for with this is that a lot of times you'll see knives that have like kind of like a thumb ramp or they'll have like really aggressive jimping or something so that you can really kind of gain purchase or gain sort of a what I would call a kind of a 3 point lockup on the knife. And what you'll notice with that notch is that if you kind of stick your thumb in there and and you can grab it, it actually really locks up in your hand. So if you have to do some sort of stabbing motion or anything else like that, this is something that really gives you that kind of locked approach. Now on a small knife like this, you know, unless you have really tiny hands, you're probably not gonna get a lot of use out of it. And so primarily, the reason I have it on this one is because I wanted to get that that reduced kick height going in. Right?

Bob DeMarco [00:42:00]:
That's funny. I was gonna say the exact opposite. I was gonna say, on a knife this size with that slender, with the slender width, that is very nice. I find that a reassuring spot because I don't have all fingers on it. It's not a full, 4 finger grip, and it's a place where I can, you know, find security, basically. But I could see how on a larger one, it's also it's also, useful. But I really like it on the small one because I say a lot on this show, if you're gonna make a small knife, it's gotta be real fat. But this one is not real fat.

Bob DeMarco [00:42:38]:
It's like real thin, but it's very secure in hand. And and I I think it's because of that for me.

Beren McKay [00:42:44]:
Yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:42:45]:
I you know, I really I really dig that. Now the one ding I gave this knife when I showed it off on my midweek supplemental, I'm a I'm a sucker for a fob or a lanyard.

Beren McKay [00:42:57]:
Yeah. And and

Bob DeMarco [00:42:57]:
what what I said is if you if you're a dork like me and you really want it, you're gonna drop it in your pocket that way, which I don't. This actually rides in my back left pocket with the clip, but you could always use the clip because you have a generous area there. You could definitely fit a 5 50 cord, thing there, and, lanyard fans are used to that. Some Strider fans do that. Other other knives, you know, you end up using the the clip for the lanyard if you have to have it. And it's not actually a ding, from my perspective, but, I like the option.

Beren McKay [00:43:33]:
So, I think my son must have taken, the one I had here. I thought about that when I was first designing these things. So I'm gonna I'm gonna share with you a little thing I was I wonder if I have one here. I did design a fob and, basically, laser cut out of leather. And then what you do is is you just simply you remove the screw and then you just pop, pop it down and you put the screw on and then you have this little laser fob. And, when I I've actually had this thing out for beta testing for about the past year. And the interesting thing that happened to me when I when I did that because I thought that everyone was gonna love the fob. I thought they were just gonna be like, oh my gosh.

Beren McKay [00:44:14]:
I gotta have the fob. Right? And so I was gonna include, like, both a pocket clip and a fob and be like, okay. You guys can pick what you want. The feedback I got from the beta testers though is that they're like, that's a cool idea. I really like that. But then as soon as they try the PineClip out, they never used the fob again. Mhmm. And so, like, when I was reviewing, like, the the feedback I got, they were just like they're like, it's a cool idea, but, like, once I use the pocket clip, I'm like, I I don't wanna use it.

Beren McKay [00:44:40]:
And I'm like, I'm like, really? And they're like, yeah. I'm like, I still think it's cool. They're like, like, no. I'm just you know? But I I still have them. I have, like, a collection of them. So if you'll have them

Bob DeMarco [00:44:50]:
send you can't please us nerds. We're we're just like, we'll never be happy. But, yeah. That's what I said. If you actually really have to have one, the clip is very generous for that. You know, you you have room for that if it's something. And for me, like, that's the first thing I thought of.

Beren McKay [00:45:05]:
Where's the blinder?

Bob DeMarco [00:45:06]:
And then I haven't even thought of it since the first time I popped it in my in my back pocket. I think that this has potential to be one of those gateway knives as well, and I think that's a very important role, as someone, you know, who's always trying to get other people to carry pocket knives. Sometimes you have to go small. Sometimes you have to go large. Here, check this big thing out or check out this. It's very discreet. You'll never notice it. And I think that this knife, because it's so useful and so easy to carry, could be one of those knives for people.

Bob DeMarco [00:45:44]:
What what do you what do you plan okay. So I know you have the, the larger one. You have this. Yeah. What's your overall kind of plan for the company in terms of, the kind of things you wanna bring once once you're up and running and you've, you can move your mind to other other designs? What are you thinking?

Beren McKay [00:46:06]:
I've got a number of different things. I actually have, like, the the next 5 years planned out. But I've got, you know, a collection of multi tools that I've got different ideas of of technology that I've I've had in the back of my head for a while that I wanna kinda explore that I think would be really fascinating. Things that are I guess let me start with this. Like, you know, with Merino, I had a specific problem that I wanted to solve. Right? The carryability issue. There are other problems that I see, whether it's in the multi tool space, whether it's in, even kitchen knives, whether it's in other kind of EDC carry things. There's a list of problems that I have is that, I have what I believe are rather interesting solutions for that I want to explore.

Beren McKay [00:46:50]:
And so with each one of the kind of product families I'm planning on on coming out with, each one of those is gonna address a specific span or a specific issue that I see or that I've noticed out in the market that I wanna say, hey. You know what? This is a problem that people deal with, and I think it's gonna be better. And it's like, here's how I'm gonna make it better. And that's that's what what I really want it gets for. It's it's got, you know, the the the gambit of of different kind of products. I've got kind of a broad list. My wife tells me it's too too broad. She's like, you know, maybe maybe in 20 years.

Beren McKay [00:47:20]:
Right? But she's like, dude, like, you know, for right now, it's like, you're good with Nas, you're good with multiple tools, kind of focus on those things, really develop that and kind of get that going. She's like, but all the rest of the things, like, if you really want to kind of branch out, go forward. So that's kind of where I'm focusing on right now is like, hey. This is a strong area for me. Work on solving some problems here and then eventually kind of expand out. It could be a much more kind of broader lifestyle brand is really what I'm going for. I don't think it's going to be limited to just knives and tools.

Bob DeMarco [00:47:45]:
I I like that. I like that because I can tell already from this design and from your past designs that excuse the expression, you're not a hipster. It's not a lifestyle brand, like, where where you're just trying to be cool. You're really trying to enhance people's lives and how they live them. But I have to ask you. What, because I'm not a daily carrier of multi tools, but I love my Swiss army knives. I love my Leatherman, and they they reside in my bag that I carry. But what are the problems you see specifically with multi tools?

Beren McKay [00:48:22]:
The biggest I think the the biggest kind of problem that that I'm I would say this, I wish they were easier to use, and I wish they were more I wish they were more designed for purpose, you know, because a lot of multi tools are very sort of jack of all trades. Right? It it it is the it's the best it's the best worst tool for the job that you can get. Right? It's like it's like think of this thing like the screwdriver. Right? It's a screwdriver. Does it does it work on screws? Yeah. Does it work well? No. Is it good in a pinch if you have nothing else? It's it's essential because if you have nothing else, that's great. But, you know, the the the pain of of using it is sometimes pretty awful.

Bob DeMarco [00:49:13]:
Literal and figurative.

Beren McKay [00:49:15]:
Yeah. Right? And so I'm like, you know, can there be improvements in that area where you actually are making something I don't know. I I think there can be. I I I'd like to explore that, I should say. I think that there's areas that that can be explored to to enhance the ability of of making it so that it's, it's better on on all fronts from, like, the the usability standpoint to the carry standpoint to, you know now granted they're extremely complicated. I mean, some of the ones that I got to do in Sog, they're difficult little puzzles. Right? I mean, you gotta fit everything in there together. It's almost like a little origami puzzle.

Beren McKay [00:49:47]:
You gotta fit everything together and then, like, kind of unfold it all to to make it work. So there's a lot of, space kind of limitations that you're working with. But, yeah, I got some fun ideas that I wanna I wanna play with in that area as well.

Bob DeMarco [00:50:01]:
Okay. I I can see already. I mean, this conversation has gone very quickly, and I don't want, our main listeners, our non Patreon listeners to miss out on this, so I'm gonna ask it now. You were talking about the OTF mechanism that you created for SOG and that you're you're still thinking about this and will possibly bring this forward, into pepper wool, especially as knife rights does their work. And I live in a state that now I can carry all this stuff, and and that's happening more and more. 37 states, I think, have a full legal, reign over automatic knives. So it's it's on people's minds, and we love them. But this idea of a no wiggle out the front has only really been approached and achieved by, 1st, g and g Hawk.

Bob DeMarco [00:50:51]:
That's a custom knife. You're gonna spend you're gonna pay dearly for that. And then Microtech has been talking about and showing off the the 3 or 4 units that they've actually made that don't wiggle, and I'm not dissing or calling out MicroTech, but I can't wait to see that finally. What is I'm not asking how you did it, but, tell me about the innovate innovation process and and how you hope to bring that forward.

Beren McKay [00:51:20]:
I was, I think, maybe a year or 2 into my my time at SOG when Spencer approached me with, with an OTF. And so that's what kinda started me digging into it. And, I remember after working on that one for, I think, about a year and a half or so, I finally get to got to the point where I was like, you know, no matter how precise we make this thing, it's always going to have a little. And it just seems kind of ridiculous to me that when you think about, like, every other folding knife out in the world, you've gotten to the point where you can have a solid lockup. And I'm like, you gotta be able to have a solid lockup with an OTS. There's gotta be a way to do it. And I remember just kinda sitting there and thinking about it for a number of years. I think probably maybe 5 years or so after that.

Beren McKay [00:52:06]:
And I went out for a walk, one lunch, and all of a sudden just kinda got a brainwave of of how to do it. And I was like, you know, I think it'll work. And so we built up a couple of prototypes, and it did work. And I was like, oh my gosh. This is pretty awesome. Now it's a secondary system is is how the, depending on OTF works. It's you know, the internals are fairly standard for the most part, but then it has, like, a secondary system which then tightens everything up, just sort of tourniquets it all basically at the end, which is great. That's cool.

Beren McKay [00:52:35]:
And, and it's neat. You know? I I got a patent in the works on that, which is is a lot of fun, and, it's it's a neat bit of technology. I think the the cool thing about it is that, like, you know, it deploys, you you sit there, you wiggle it. Actually, the more you wiggle it, the tighter it's gonna get in this particular model. Oh. I was really pleased with how it turned out. I think it it works really nicely. There was a couple of, there's, like, one kind of snafu where, you know, from a production standpoint, the blade edge rubbed, on a part because of the, yeah, the tolerance stack up when it was getting made.

Beren McKay [00:53:11]:
But that got fixed, I think, just before just before I parted ways with SOG. I believe there was a I left them with a fix. I don't know if they implemented it or not, but it's it was there. But, yeah, it's a neat little thing and it does what I wanted it to, which was that it's easy to use and it locks up tight. Right? Now is it as as tight as, say, like, you know, Gavin's side? I don't know. Right? I mean, if you wiggle it enough, it's gonna feel I feel like it's it's a pretty solid lockup. But, like, you know, there's some people out there that that that get it and they kinda wiggle. They're like, I can I really reef on it? I can feel just a slight motion.

Beren McKay [00:53:43]:
Right? It's like, it's true, but it's a heck of a lot better than anything else you're gonna get. You know what I mean?

Bob DeMarco [00:53:49]:
It it reminds me of a lot of, Andrew Demko's locks where where the more you stress it, the more it kind of, like an anaconda, just kinda locks in and and, and it gets tighter. But, the I am no engineer, but I I can see how someone such as yourself would. You might say, well, look at all of the automatic pistols in the world. You know, they all slide like this, and they don't have all this play. There's gotta be a way to do it. You know? And Yeah. And I don't know. To me, it's really fascinating how engineers think.

Bob DeMarco [00:54:25]:
I work with some engineers, albeit they're electronic engineers, but, just the way they think in terms of problem solving and bringing to bear everything else they've seen in their past to to solve a mechanical problem. To me, it's it's very interesting and, I don't know. It's exciting to see that it's not it that it's not out of reach that it can happen.

Beren McKay [00:54:49]:
Well, that's the thing is that, like, I think, you have to have that mindset, especially if you're trying to develop something new. Is that you gotta be like, you know what? All things are possible. Let's just give it a shot, and you gotta just try things. And that's what I ended up doing with this one is that we just tried a whole bunch of different things. Now granted, you know, there's also a lot of just kind of besides trial and error, there's an awful lot of thought and mathematics to go into it too if you're gonna do something complicated like this. Mhmm. But, you know, I mean, this from a physics standpoint, this is a marvelously complex little problem. I mean, like, from you know, you're doing a projectile motion and everything else, it's it's a wonderful thing.

Beren McKay [00:55:27]:
And I spent, you know, I think after I left a lot, I spent a good 6 or 8 months, like, doing a whole mathematical model of OTS and and creating this this very elaborate kind of system to kind of model every single element of it and kind of figure out, like, the whole of the tip. Like, I mean, something as simple as, like, the locking tabs that go back and forth, getting sure you get the mask correct with the spring so that the timing is right as it opens and closes. I mean, there's little things like that that I think most people don't really think about and don't even really kind of ponder. Right? And it's just for me, it's fun because you're you're pushing the boundary of what's possible. That's a lot of that kind of spark of joy that I was talking about earlier, and I enjoy it. I have I have pleasure from that, from coming up with something new and interesting.

Bob DeMarco [00:56:11]:
You know, it it occurs to me that people like myself, knife fans, or people who just ravenously collect, and I'm not saying I'm irresponsible, but, you know, peep I have a variety of tastes. We're like chimpanzees compared to you because you're like, you know, coming up with all the you know, I don't even know what the problem is, let alone what the solution is. So, I, you know, I I keep my faith in people like you, to to to bring these thing when you figure it out, I know it'll it'll become, more standard, and that's the kind of thing we appreciate. And if we start to we, meaning I'm speaking for the entire knife community now, but if we start to, wow, why can't they it's got too much wiggle. It's like, oh, remember, this is physics, Bob, and you know nothing about that. And this is mechanical engineering. You know nothing about that. Alright.

Bob DeMarco [00:57:03]:
We're we're before we go here, tell us about the launch of Pepperwolf and, what what your plans are, what we can expect, and what's, what's directly coming.

Beren McKay [00:57:13]:
Alright. So the brand is live as of now. I think it yesterday was my first day being live.

Bob DeMarco [00:57:18]:
Oh, man.

Beren McKay [00:57:19]:
Website's going. I've already had a fairly decent number of sales just from people I know, and I'm working on getting the word out. So that's kind of where I'm at right now. Hopefully, I wanted to do it so that, hey, if people want to get stuff for recruitment purposes or whatnot, they'd be available. That's going on right now as we speak. My goal is that hopefully, like, if things do well, I'll be able to rapidly kind of start releasing all of the other new guys that are part of the Moreno family in 2025. You know, I wouldn't be surprised if at least every 6 months, there's something new, maybe even faster than that. And then I've got a whole, like, cadre of extra kind of stuff that I want to kind of get out there as well that I think is kind of fascinating and fun.

Beren McKay [00:58:01]:
I'll be doing different kind of colorways too. So like, you know, a lot of people like the kind of blue and white. They thought it was kind of stunning and interesting. Obviously, you know, I don't think I've ever seen a knife that didn't use the blue tie dye before. This is kind of a, interesting thing for me to kind of work out on how to how to make that happen. But I have a a whole collection of other kind of different styles that will will be released in 2025 as well that you kind of get to see. So

Bob DeMarco [00:58:25]:
I was saying before we started rolling, it's way outside of my my taste to to even like something like with a blue blade. This, I think it's stunning. I love it. I thought it was Cerakote. You corrected me. It's tainai. It's beautiful. And then with the little green accents and the, Yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:58:44]:
The classy, just, all caps, pepperwool and the green. I I think it's very, very pleasing, and I love this. Also and and I I don't mean to be gauche, but these are all also within reach. I mean, they're not, they're not cheap, but they're not expensive. So these are things that people can go to your website and readily get and, give away for Christmas or or what have you. But I I would start before you give it away for Christmas, anyone who's listening here should just get one and put it in their pocket because, we're of like mind, and I love this thing. And I love we haven't even mentioned the blade shape. It's sort of tanto esque, tanto, American tanto shape, but it doesn't have the compound grind, so you're not dealing with different, cutting surfaces.

Bob DeMarco [00:59:37]:
It's it's really beautiful. I love it.

Beren McKay [00:59:41]:
So that that blade shape, actually, it's a modified tanto that I did, first on the on the seal FX that SOG came out with a number of years ago. And the reason that I did that is because, it actually goes back to the more traditional kind of Japanese style where the tanto has actually got a curve to it. And the reason I did that is because of the cutting elements. You actually get a much kind of a nicer belly with that with that kind of tip, so it actually slices a little bit nicer. But you still have the the thickness of it for penetration if you needed it. So it's a nice combination, I think, of a tanto. It's not the the the harsh angular kind of American tanto that you see a lot of, and I also think this is easier to sharpen, to be honest with you. But that's that's my own personal preference.

Beren McKay [01:00:21]:
I know that other people that have their own preferences as well.

Bob DeMarco [01:00:23]:
It's also got the the really useful third element of the just the straight.

Beren McKay [01:00:28]:
The sharpening choil?

Bob DeMarco [01:00:29]:
No. No. Oh, well, the sharpening choil is great too because you can sharpen this thing all day long up till the top of that because it's nice and thin and it's really the plunge grind is perfect for sharpening that all the way up to the top. But I just meant that, that nice little straight there,

Beren McKay [01:00:44]:
that's

Bob DeMarco [01:00:44]:
also very useful, for all sorts of of chores. I'm I'm really digging the merino and, I I cannot wait to see what you come out with next. Barron MacKay of Pepperwool, thank you so much for coming on the Knife Drunken podcast and Yeah. Telling us about your your your work. And those of you who are patrons, will get to hear a little bit more of my conversation with Barron, coming up here. Thank you so much, sir. I appreciate it.

Beren McKay [01:01:12]:
Thank you for having me. It's been an absolute pleasure, and I'd love to come back another time, so it's been great.

Bob DeMarco [01:01:16]:
Oh, you're welcome back anytime, sir. Thanks. Take care.

Announcer [01:01:20]:
Knife themed shirts, hoodies, mugs, water bottles, and more, the knifejunkie.com/shop.

Bob DeMarco [01:01:26]:
There he goes, ladies and gentlemen. Beren McKay of Pepperwool, a brand that just launched, based on some very, very deep legacy. We need big brains like this in the knife world. You know? And not only does he have a big brain, but he has a very, very good eye, design eye. So it's a real pleasure to meet him and to be carrying the pepperwool, merino in my back left pocket. Can't wait to get one for the front right, and I will do that posthaste. You can do that too. Pepperwool is now live.

Bob DeMarco [01:02:00]:
Go to pepperwool.com and check out, what he has on offer there. Be sure to join us next Sunday for another great interview and, of course, Wednesday for the midweek supplemental, Thursday night knives, where we all get to sit, hang out, and chat, and, let the week go and look forward to the weekend. I'm Bob DeMarco for Jim, working his magic behind the switcher. I'll see you next time on the Knife Junkie podcast.

Announcer [01:02:26]:
Thanks for listening to the Knife Junkie podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please rate and review at review the pod cast.com. For show notes for today's episode, additional resources, and to listen to past episodes, visit our website, the knifejunkie.com. You can also watch our latest videos on YouTube at the knifejunkie.com/youtube. Check out some great knife photos on the knifejunkie.com/instagram, and join our Facebook group at the knifejunkie.com/facebook. And if you have a question or comment, email them to Bob at the knifejunkie.com, or call our 247 listener line at 7244 664-487. And you may hear your comment or question answered on an upcoming episode of the Knife Junkie podcast.