The Knife Junkie Podcast is the place for knife newbies and knife junkies to learn about knives and knife collecting. Twice per week Bob DeMarco talks knives. Email Bob at theknifejunkie@gmail.com; visit https://theknifejunkie.com.
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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 edition of the show, I'm speaking with Joshua (Josh) Wolfe of Redbeard Blades. I first met Josh at Blade Show 2024, where I was drawn in by his clean, robust, fixed blade designs and his enthusiastic marketing team who are manning his booth at the moment. Josh is a combat veteran and outdoorsman whose knives are inspired by his military service and the broad range of highly specialized survival training he's received. We planned a podcast for last August, but he was pulled away due to relief work in the aftermath of storms that battered the east coast in the summer of 2024. We'll meet Josh and hear all about Red Beard Blades, but first, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, hit the notification bell and download the show to your favorite podcast app. That way you can listen to the show while on the go.

Bob DeMarco [00:01:12]:
Also, if you'd like to help support the show, you can do so by sharing it. That goes a great distance in helping the show, but if you want to help it in a different way, you can go to the knife junkie.com Patreon and check out the different things we have to offer you for your support.

Bob DeMarco [00:01:28]:
I will repeat that address again. It's the knife junkie.com Patreon

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Bob DeMarco [00:01:47]:
Josh, welcome to the Knife Junkie podcast, sir.

Josh Wolfe [00:01:50]:
Thank you, sir. I appreciate having me today.

Bob DeMarco [00:01:53]:
It's great. I'm glad we finally made this work.

Josh Wolfe [00:01:56]:
I am too. I again, apologize about that. Like, like you said, I had to go to work basically. So it was. It was a rough week.

Bob DeMarco [00:02:05]:
I got to say that's the coolest reason ever that I've had anyone have to postpone a show. So thanks for what you were doing there. I live on the east coast, though not in that affected area at the time. But also, thanks for your service. Army Ranger and three, three tours in Afghanistan. Thanks for your service.

Josh Wolfe [00:02:28]:
You're very welcome. I appreciate that. Thank you.

Bob DeMarco [00:02:31]:
Yeah, so knives, obviously, knives play a huge role in the stuff you were doing before you came back and started this business. But tell me how they played into your life in the military.

Josh Wolfe [00:02:46]:
Oh, I mean, I carried a knife almost every day of my career when I was in the military. I mean, from basic training to. To, you know, Ranger school, Ranger selection. I mean, airborne school, all the crazy schools that I always did. And then, I mean, all the deployments. I mean, from opening MREs to. I. I had to break some blocks overseas off of.

Josh Wolfe [00:03:14]:
Off of boxes from time to time. I had to try to open up, bust open doors with them before. And that's honestly kind of how I got started into making knives. I. I got hurt jumping out of an airplane, obviously doing stupid stuff, and I had a lot of time on my hands, and all of a sudden, I. I started watching YouTube one day, and I saw people making knives, and I'm like, man, I've never had a really good knife. I always tend to break my knives doing stupid things with my knives that you shouldn't do with your knives. And I was like, I bet I can make a really good knife that might not do that.

Josh Wolfe [00:03:50]:
Let's try it. And I mean, that's. I. The bug pretty much just bit me. From then on out, I was always like, I'm a pretty handy guy. I might be able to make a knife. Lo and behold, trying to make my first knife. Uh, I didn't realize that wasn't as handy as I thought.

Josh Wolfe [00:04:05]:
But 10 years later, I'm still doing it. So, I mean, I. I feel like I'm just kind of starting to figure it out and kind of get into my stride finally. Um, and hopefully everybody's is starting to notice that as well, so we'll. We'll see how it goes in the future.

Bob DeMarco [00:04:22]:
That's funny that you say you're. You're hitting your stride, because what I saw at your booth, especially the Midnight Patriot, I'm a huge fan of that knife. I think I saw one there. That's the one that you made for your dad, I think. But I. I love that knife. And everything I was looking at was. Seemed really refined.

Bob DeMarco [00:04:40]:
We'll get to that in a second. But I'm very curious. I've talked to a lot of. A lot of knife makers or former military, former Marines. And. And I know that knives are used a lot of the time for chopping holes in walls if you're a sniper or prying open doors and stuff like that. What was your experience while in the service in terms of the kind of knives you were getting and what you actually had to use them for?

Josh Wolfe [00:05:06]:
Oh. So honestly, the. Because I was in the army, and the army is just miserable at. At giving you knives. They. They're so bad at issuing anything that's functional For a knife. I, I got issued like three or four Gerbers, which is great. Like, there's a use for a Gerber, but I mean, the knife is like a toothpick for what we're, what we need it for.

Josh Wolfe [00:05:29]:
And I mean, I probably just opened MREs with that thing all the time. So I always ended up buying my own knives and, and using them how you should use a knife and also abusing them how you shouldn't use a knife. But, I mean, I did all sorts of things up to, I remember when I was in sniper school, we, we were doing a stock where you dress up in your ghillie suits and you try to, you know, stalk towards an objective and that get seen. And I ended up chopping a tree and basically replanting it in front of me. So I chopped it with that chopping knife and I dug a hole to replant the tree in order for me to pass that stalk. So, I mean, I've done all sorts of things you probably shouldn't be doing with the knives. And it works.

Bob DeMarco [00:06:17]:
It works.

Josh Wolfe [00:06:17]:
That knife is a tool to me.

Bob DeMarco [00:06:19]:
So that is really cool. So you used your knife to chop down a sapling or some sort of a tree, and you dug a hole and planted in front of you where you were, where you were kind of hiding, right?

Josh Wolfe [00:06:30]:
Is that what you're. Yeah, that's what I was doing. I was basically using it as a little bit of concealment along with my suit and a couple other things. But I, I, I was standing, which is funny, I had a tripod and everything out, and I, I didn't get seen. So it was a good day for me, probably a bad day for day for that knife edge. But, you know, I can sharpen a knife, so we're good.

Bob DeMarco [00:06:53]:
Do you remember what that was, what you were using?

Josh Wolfe [00:06:57]:
You know, it was probably a, maybe a Gerber, like a Gerber blade from Walmart. It was probably like 50, 60 bucks or bucks or something like that at the time. I, I don't remember the exact model. It was before I kind of became more of a knife nerd. Now I'm a knife nerd, which I'm perfectly okay with. I think it's a fun, fun community to be in at the time. I was so focused on military and being young at the time.

Bob DeMarco [00:07:27]:
All right, before we get to talking about your knives, one more question. You were talking about the different schools. You were doing lots of different special schools in military training, and you were airborne, so jumping out of airplanes. And I think about this all the time. I have, I have a huge collection of knives I love, especially fixed blade tactical and combat knives. Things that don't actually come into my suburban dad lifestyle, you know.

Josh Wolfe [00:07:55]:
Yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:07:56]:
So I always wonder, what's it like jumping out of an airplane with a knife? What are the considerations for sheathing and all that stuff that you have to consider?

Josh Wolfe [00:08:06]:
So whenever I used to jump out of a plane, my first thing was, is to put the knife in my rucksack. I had never actually jumped with it on me, on my person. The reason being is, shoot, you're doing a parachute landing fall. It's not like in the movies most of the time where everybody lands standing up. When you land a parachute landing for landing fall, you're crashing into the ground. And you actually go to airborne school for, I believe it's three or four weeks. And they teach you how to fall properly. So you don't, you know, break your ankles, knees, shoulders, any of any of those things.

Josh Wolfe [00:08:48]:
It's. I, I've been told that it's the equivalent of getting in a car crash with a car going 40 miles an hour every time you hit the ground. And me, I'm. I'm hacked be a larger individual. I mean, at the time I was probably like 220 pounds, six foot one. And that's still large for the military for what I was doing. So I used to fall faster than everyone. It was probably hitting a.

Josh Wolfe [00:09:12]:
Hitting 50 miles an hour for me. So.

Bob DeMarco [00:09:15]:
So you're injured, you're laid up, you just, you're watching YouTube, you decide, I'm a handy guy, I could start making knives. What was that first knife like? And, and how did you move from there?

Josh Wolfe [00:09:29]:
So it was more of a hunting knife. I grew up hunting and fishing outdoors. It's what got me into. It's essentially what got me into the military. I wanted to be a sniper just because I loved shooting guns. And so the first knife I wanted to make was a hunting knife because I had every plan to actually hunt that fall and hunted since I joined the military, just from deployments and schools and everything like that. So I was like, I'm gonna have so much time on my hands to hunt, I'm gonna make a hunting knife. And so it was essentially just a.

Josh Wolfe [00:10:06]:
It was a fixed blade drop point hunter, which I actually still make now. It's probably version 14.0 at this point, but the blade is still very similar. Actually, this blade right here, this is one of my models that I still sell. It's the Mako. Look at that. And so the. The blade is essentially the same from when I started making it. And it's just a simple drop point.

Josh Wolfe [00:10:35]:
This is about 3. 3.95 inches, give or take. It's 3:16 on the spine. So it's thick and heavy, but still, it's probably, like, 0:15 thou behind the edge. And this one actually has a textured G10 handle with Tiffany blue pins. Just for fun. I just thought it was gonna be a good contrast, but it's essentially the same knife. It's just the handle design has been heavily modified since I first designed it, so it's.

Josh Wolfe [00:11:08]:
It's much more ergonomic in the hand than it ever was when I first started making it.

Bob DeMarco [00:11:13]:
So what was the handle like initially?

Josh Wolfe [00:11:16]:
Oh, man, it was very blocky. Uh, very. It like to roll in your hand a lot. Um, it just was not a good knife. But it had a similar design, but instead of having this kind of curve going along it here, it kind of just went completely straight, and then you just had the drop. So it just. The knife didn't necessarily make too much sense because I had no idea how to design a knife. I couldn't even draw a knife, to be honest with you.

Josh Wolfe [00:11:48]:
I just did my best, and I kind of let the steel just take me where it wanted to go. And it's the functional knife. I still have it. I just do not show it to people so well.

Bob DeMarco [00:12:01]:
So 3. 16 of an inch thick, but it seems like a pretty broad blade, so it must be pretty thin behind the edge with that high, flat grind.

Josh Wolfe [00:12:09]:
Oh, yeah, yeah. It's. Shoot. I want to say it's close. Close to. It's definitely over an inch. It's probably close to an inch and a half from the spine. I couldn't tell you the exact distance.

Josh Wolfe [00:12:22]:
I'm not much of a measuring person, But I do know it's three 16thicks, for sure, but it definitely is thin behind the edge. And I always do, like, a higher, higher, flat grind, usually about 3/4 up the blade, which is my preferred grind. I think it has a good combination of making it a stout blade. It gives you a little bit of shoulder on the flats, too, but it. It's thin behind the edge, which, I mean, a knife being what it is, it's supposed to cut. So that's what I wanted to do first and foremost.

Bob DeMarco [00:12:57]:
Well, so how did you. How did you learn?

Josh Wolfe [00:13:00]:
Oh, man. First, I Learned off of YouTube, which I think is, like, the number one option for people to learn how to make knives anymore. There's which it's crazy how much stuff is out there on YouTube now. Like, there was. So there was a lot of stuff when I first started making, but it was almost like. It was like they would give you almost half of the pizza pie, basically, and leave the other pieces by themselves. So it was like they give you enough to. To want to get started, but not give you enough to actually finish anything.

Josh Wolfe [00:13:34]:
And so that was my problem. I would get essentially, like a rough shape, and then I would get to the point where I, hey, I need to grind bevels or I need to heat treat something, or any of those things, and I will just fail miserably time after time after time. And finally I was just like, you know what? I gotta reach out or something. I think I emailed a ton of knife makers. I messaged people on YouTube, but the videos I was watching, I did comments, didn't hear anything back. And then I finally found blade forums and I just put a message out there on blade forms and I said, has anybody willing to take on an apprentice? I lived in. At the time, I lived in Columbus, Georgia. I was a sniper school instructor at the time.

Josh Wolfe [00:14:22]:
And I finally got an email back from somebody saying, hey, there's this guy, his name's Dan Pierce, and I'm not sure if you're familiar with his work, but he makes awesome knives. But he's like, email that guy. He lives in Columbus, too. He's in the military as well.

Bob DeMarco [00:14:40]:
Oh, wow.

Josh Wolfe [00:14:40]:
And he. He might be able to take you on. And I emailed him. He emailed me back in about 30 minutes. He said, come on to the house. I was there about two and a half hours later. And he asked me what I wanted to learn. And he showed me everything that I wanted to learn, basically.

Josh Wolfe [00:15:00]:
And he didn't even say, hey, you can sweep my floors or anything. He's just like, whenever you want to make a knife, come on. And I was. Think I was there probably about three or four days a week from that point on that point out. He probably hated every second of it. He only had one grinder, and he had to share with me at that point, whenever I was there.

Bob DeMarco [00:15:20]:
And I mean, we.

Josh Wolfe [00:15:21]:
We carried similar hours being in the military. So when he was off work, I would come over and just make knives. And he showed me. I think I made probably the first 10 or 15 knives I ever made with him. And he showed me how to grind knives. For the most part. He was. He showed me with a jig, and I don't use a jig anymore.

Josh Wolfe [00:15:42]:
I freehand grind now and showed me how to do the proper heat treat on certain steels. And he was a great mentor to have, for sure. Um, but then, you know how the military goes. I had to do a duty station change. And so at that point, I was kind of on my own, and I had to learn from then on out how to fix all my mistakes by myself. And, And I taught myself how to freehand grind from YouTube videos, like guidance, obviously. There was a guy, probably the. Whenever somebody asked me, how do you freehand grind? I tell them to go on YouTube and type in Ecom knives.

Bob DeMarco [00:16:24]:
Oh, yeah.

Josh Wolfe [00:16:25]:
And that guy made the best grinding videos. I still watch them to this day. Just when I'm like, when I'm sick, I'm like, I'm gonna throw on some old YouTube videos or something. And I actually got to meet him one year at Blade show, which was very cool, but I know he's not making knives anymore, as far as I know. But he was a very cool guy to meet in person.

Bob DeMarco [00:16:45]:
So that's always really sad when I hear that someone's not making knives. There was someone I had on the show here whose work I really admired, who was a great guy, and he just kind of stopped, made it public, you know, I'm done with this. I'm moving on to something else. And I was like, no, don't do it. So when you left Dan Peters tutelage, do you think you had. Well, obviously, from seeing what you're doing now, but did he leave you? Did that situation leave you with enough to kind of grow on your own? And would you suggest new makers seek mentorship?

Josh Wolfe [00:17:23]:
I definitely. He, he kind of gave me a really good base. I, I, at that point, I knew how to finish at night. I definitely couldn't finish it very well compared to now, which, I mean, that's 10 years of experience. But, yes, having a good foundation from somebody who knows what to do I think is extremely important, especially when it comes to grinding the bevels and getting good blade geometry. And, I mean, heat treat is super important, which you know that. I mean, if you can't heat treat the knife, I mean, you might as well throw it in the trash. You just have a piece of stuff, steel.

Josh Wolfe [00:18:05]:
It could be brittle, it could be soft. You don't know what it's like. And if you don't have the right recipe or the right procedure or anything along those lines, I mean, you got nothing. I mean, the edge isn't going to stay sharp. I mean, it might roll, it might Chip, you don't know what you have. And having somebody that, that understands the type of steel that you're going to use or understands how to heat treat in general is just super important. And so, yeah, whenever, whenever somebody ask me, like, even at Blade Show, I get. People come up to me all the time, like, and I'm an open book.

Josh Wolfe [00:18:39]:
They're like, well, how did you get this finished? How did you do this? I'll tell you everything that I do because, I mean, there's no reason for me not to. Like, I would love for other people to get into making knives and if they live in the Georgia area, they can come to my house and they can make a knife with me. I actually have a guy who, he bought a knife, one of the knives from Blade show this year. And he, he messaged me later that night. He's like, hey, if you're doing classes, I would love to do a class. And I'm like, never done a class, really. I mean, I've shown people how to do things here and there, but sure, let's do a class. That ought to be fun.

Josh Wolfe [00:19:12]:
So I'm looking forward to that. I gotta schedule that with him soon too. But yeah, I would definitely say it's always good to seek people out. Some people are better trainers than others. And I mean, I don't know everything there is to know about knife making, but I could definitely help people out. Sure.

Bob DeMarco [00:19:32]:
That's so cool. That's. I mean, you're embodying the spirit I hear of over and over again. People say how generous knife. The knife making community is for teaching and learning, and people understand. Like, I can, I can show you how to do something, but you're not going to be making Josh Wolf knives. You're going to be making your own knives. And I've just kind of shown you some of the process.

Josh Wolfe [00:19:58]:
Oh, that's definitely true. And that, that guy too, I mean, he emailed me and he said, I already have a design in mind. What do you think of it? Like, I told him my thoughts. I said, you know, we might want to adjust the things here, maybe adjust the things there. But I'm like, if you just want to make the, the blade first, I mean, we can do another class and we can adjust the design as you go. Like, use the knife for a couple weeks, see what you like about it, see what you don't like about it, and go from there. I mean, as God knows, my first knife is just terrible and I would love to throw it in the trash, but I Think my mom is the one who won't let me do it.

Bob DeMarco [00:20:39]:
Good for her. All right, so both before Jim is scrolling through your Instagram page, and there are a lot of really cool models I want to talk about, but before we get to them, I just want to ask, at this stage, the stage after you left, after Dan Peters was, or after you were assigned to a different station and such, and that mentorship sort of parted ways, what was the state of your shop and what did you learn about what you needed in terms of tools?

Josh Wolfe [00:21:09]:
Oh, I did not have a shop at all. I had to build the shop. I went from Columbus, Georgia to Hawaii, which was horrible for building a shop too, by the way. I don't think people ever realize how much shipping costs to go to Hawaii, but it's awful. And so I knew what I needed based off of how he taught me how to make those and how I wanted to make knives too. I wasn't super sure about the aesthetic that I wanted for my knives. I was still kind of doing some satin here. There I was doing some, I would call them two tone finishes where I would do ferric chloride and then do like a satin on the, on the actual bevels, which it looked okay, but I was still fairly new to what I was doing and I was just trying to figure things out.

Josh Wolfe [00:22:05]:
And so I had to buy a grinder. I had to ship it on a tugboat over to Hawaii and luckily they had a Home Depot so I could get an air compressor and I had a sandblast cabinet from Harbor Freight and shoot, that was about all I had. And I mean, you can make a lot of knives doing that, uh, with just that stuff. But I would send everything out for heat treat. I went to Peter's he treat a lot and they, he treated all my knives for I think first 50 or 60 knives that he treated for me. And yeah, it was just crazy. I, I, I didn't have 2:20 in my garage because I had an, a separate garage. So I had a, a dryer plug and I ran probably a 200 foot cord into my garage every time I use my grinder.

Josh Wolfe [00:22:59]:
It was, it was insane. And I've set up three different shops since then. This, this one I'm sitting in right now is my third shop and hopefully my final for a long time because I'm so sick of moving.

Bob DeMarco [00:23:12]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, that sending your stuff from Hawaii to Peter's Heat Treat. I mean, we all know Peter's is awesome, but that weight must have been murder.

Josh Wolfe [00:23:23]:
Yeah, I Mean, it was, I was only doing maybe like five to ten knives at the time. So it wasn't horrible. Um, but I mean it would take probably three, three weeks to a month and a half almost to get my knives back. But you know, it, it is what it is. But I, that's kind of why when I finally got the I shot before this one, the first thing I bought was a heat treat oven. Because I'm just like, I'm so sick of sending my knives out to other people. Yeah. And having to wait.

Josh Wolfe [00:23:56]:
I'm like, I'm not, I, I do this in my spare time. So I mean, I have a full time job and so people are going to wait as is. It's unfair to send the knife out when I know how to heat treat knives. Like just send, bite the bullet, spend the money, get a heat treat oven and start heat treating your knives in house. Which has been amazing because now instead of it taking three weeks to a month just to build one knife, because I have to wait for it to get heat treated, I can build it in a weekend essentially and be in and out the door. So everything I do is completely house at this point. Nothing gets sent out, which is great. I like it better that way.

Josh Wolfe [00:24:37]:
Yeah, yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:24:38]:
Oh yeah, I bet, I bet. I mean, especially because like you said, you can make a knife in a weekend and fulfill an order quickly and everyone's happy. You've got the order out, customers got their knife and you can move on to the next one. So you, you buy a heat treat oven and you obviously you learned some of that heat treating skill from Dan Peters. But what about the steel? Did you, do you use the same kind of steel and do you have a, a recipe kind of kind of dialed in for that or are you all over the place with steels?

Josh Wolfe [00:25:09]:
So it took me a long time to kind of figure out what kind of steels I wanted to use. The first knife I ever made, actually the first two knives I ever made were from 1095, which I don't mind. 1095, I think it's a great knife steel. I just don't really like to work with it too much. And so I went straight from 1095 to 3V, which was probably the worst idea. But the, the knives were great and Dan was, Dan peters was using 3D at the time too. So he kind of turned me on to it. And it's a great seal.

Josh Wolfe [00:25:44]:
I love 3D. But the only issue that I have with it is just the cost. The cost for it is just really expensive and then having to do the, the cold temper as well. So you got to get like liquid nitrogen or dry ice in a freezer or something like those lines. And that's just extra time added on. And so I was always constantly looking for something that would be, would play along with my aesthetic that I wanted, but also be almost as good a good performing knife seal as 3V, because I think 3V is a great performing knife steel. It's super tough, holds an edge really well. And then I think it was Jacob Peters, if you're familiar with him, or Jacob Peterson, excuse me, from the Preppers Bunker Outdoors.

Josh Wolfe [00:26:37]:
He's a good friend of mine and he kind of told, started talking to me about ADC RV2. Oh yeah. And he turned me on to ADC RV2. And I really never looked back from it because I mean, I've compared it with 3V and unless you're doing the most minute, detail time consuming reviews on it, you would probably never notice the difference between the two knots. I mean, 80C R V2 is a little bit less tough than 3V, but it's amazing. I mean, it holds an edge really well. It's a high carbon steel, so it's a little less, you know, stain resistant. But I do a black oxide finish on my knives anyways, which is part of my aesthetic.

Josh Wolfe [00:27:22]:
And so to me it doesn't, doesn't really matter. You're getting a little less performance, but it's very high performing knife and it's a great steel and it's easier to work with. I don't have to do a cold temper. It's just a straight up oil quench, which is amazing for me and it works great. And then I found an even better steel that I like to use more now, which is 8670, which I love to use on chopping knives. It's probably one of the toughest deals I've found on a chopping knife. And all really all my big blades, unless I get like a, a specific order for 80 CRV2, I do out of 8,670 now. And this, this one actually right here, this is the, the new Midnight patriot.

Josh Wolfe [00:28:07]:
This is 3.0 and this is 8670 and it's about 17,000 behind the edge. And I'm telling you, I have beat the crap out of this knife as much as I possibly could. I beat this knife up. I have. Sorry, it's. It's a big one. I appreciate it.

Bob DeMarco [00:28:28]:
If you're just listening this, he's holding Up a Midnight Patriot version 3. And it's, I mean, to my eye, it's just a beautiful recurve clip point or Bowie, but, you know, a chopper all day long with sort of a downward angle blade from the handle and really makes good use of that subtle recurve. That thing is beautiful. I held two of these in my hand at Blade show this year, I think. What, oh, don't put that away. Let's take a look at that. Yeah. And okay, so you've mentioned your aesthetic.

Bob DeMarco [00:29:03]:
You've used the word three times now. What describe your aesthetic? And I, I, I kind of have an intuitive sense because I've seen the knives you have on display two years in a row. But how would you describe it?

Josh Wolfe [00:29:18]:
So kind of the way I like to make all my knives and I, I mean, I like to make them to be a knife, to me is a tool. And I don't like it when, I mean, I do, I like it, don't get me wrong. But when customers tell me, oh yeah, I'm going to let it sit in my safe, I'm like, please just take it out and just do something with it. Like, you know, cut some boxes, I don't care. Like, give me some feedback on how it works and something along those lines. I build these things to be tools, but I also build them, I like to call them almost apocalypse survival tools. Almost something you could beat and abuse and, and it should keep on lasting for years to come. And I mean, that's what I pride myself on.

Josh Wolfe [00:30:05]:
And I like to tell people I kind of make the Toyota Tacoma of knives. I mean, they're, they, they might not be the prettiest thing in the world, but they're just going to keep going and going and going. So that's kind of the way I like to make them. And I always make them with this tactical feel as well, just to go back to my military roots. Whether it's a hunting or EDC knife, it's just the esthetic that I like. I don't like to see shiny things. The edge, obviously, but I mean, it's just my preference. And when people come to me to buy a knife, I assume that's their preference as well.

Josh Wolfe [00:30:42]:
There's a lot of knife makers out there that make, make knives and they make great knives. This is just the way I like to make. So I think they look cool.

Bob DeMarco [00:30:51]:
It's, it's, yeah, I think they look cool too. And it's funny that you say you make apocalypse survival tools because, yes, no doubt they are capable of, of that role. And you know that you don't want to hear that these things are living in a drawer somewhere. But at the same time, it's obvious to me from seeing it here, but also from picking them up and, and inspecting them that you take a lot of pride in their refinement and in their, I mean, they're how they look and, and how they feel in hand. It's not just a tool that you're going to pick up and, and hack through the apocalypse with. How do you, how do you kind of, how do you know when a knife is done if you're trying to make something that is really built for just rough and ready, but they're so refined and beautiful.

Josh Wolfe [00:31:44]:
So I like to tell people I do my best to make every single knife better than the last knife that I made. If I'm not doing that, then I might as well stop making them because I mean, every knife should be better than the last one. You got to try to perfect your craft. You're never going to be perfect. But I mean, lord, like seven, eight years ago, you should see my plunge lines. They're awful. And that's just the way it goes. And, but now when I pick up one of my knives, I can critique them all day still.

Josh Wolfe [00:32:15]:
But I know at that day when I was making that knife, that is the best knife that I could put out. And I mean, it doesn't leave my shop if it's not the best that I have on that on that day. Like, it just doesn't. And my wife likes to tell me that I'm a perfectionist with every knife because I will critique my knives till the cow comes home. But I mean, everything that comes out these days, I just am very happy with. The aesthetic is great, in my opinion, the aesthetic is great. The grind lines are great for, for, for me, basically. I, I'm just, I'm very happy with what's coming on my shop and I hope the, the customers are as well.

Bob DeMarco [00:33:01]:
Okay, so how much of this or how much of your development as a knife maker, as a craftsman, how much of this is due to your military mindset from your past life going into this?

Josh Wolfe [00:33:19]:
Oh, I would say every ounce of it. I mean, before I joined the military, I was very undisciplined. I was very impatient, very impulsive. And I mean this, this hobby that has turned into a passion at this point. And I mean, one day I hope to retire from my full time job and do knives full time and, and every ounce of it, me making a Knife comes from military training. Like, it's. All of it comes from, like, I don't have the patience that I have today to make a knife without being in the military. I don't have the discipline to make a knife.

Josh Wolfe [00:33:56]:
I mean, I. But probably if I tried to make a knife when I was 16 years old, I would have gotten to a certain step and just quit, and it would have sat in a drawer for the next 20 years. I mean, there was just no way. And now with the training that I've got, it's always helped me to be able to accomplish things and complete things. I mean, if I, If I have a knife that's incomplete right now, it just drives me nuts. And until it's done, and it, it needs to be done correct, and if it's not done to what I think is correct, then it's just not going out the door, let's put it that way.

Bob DeMarco [00:34:30]:
So one of, One of the very first guests I had on this show is a. A local man who teaches combat vets how to make knives, combat veterans how to make knives. And from his perspective, a lot of it had to do with the therapeutic nature of doing something creative, losing yourself in the process. But he discovered as he was doing this, that military men and women really responded to the order of things. You know, you do this first and then this, and then this, and then the result is this.

Josh Wolfe [00:35:05]:
Yeah, I a hundred percent agree. I mean, the military life is very repetitive. We kind of thrive on routine. And even still to this day, if I don't have a. Some type of routine, like I am stressed out and that's just the way I am now, I. I don't know if the military just trained me how to be that way or ingrained that into my mind, but if it's. I mean, making a knife just kind of calms me down too. I mean, it's just.

Josh Wolfe [00:35:37]:
It is so much work to do and it's so difficult to do, and it's difficult to teach people how to do. But I mean, I feel like the military mindset is kind of just. It's very easy to go from the military to kind of doing physical things or working with your hands. It's just, you get a certain type of people that will try to build things, whether it's a knife or a house or electrical work, plumbing, or anything like that. I mean, I feel like military people can kind of just leave the military and jump into something like that and learn it quickly. And it has 100, in my opinion, to do with The. The fact that they were in the military, they. They were trained how to do things, and, and they have that military mindset that helps them kind of adapt to any situation and adapt and overcome anything that they need to learn or anything they need to do.

Josh Wolfe [00:36:35]:
I think a blue collar thing like building a knife or plumbing or electrical, it just lends to people in the military.

Bob DeMarco [00:36:44]:
Yeah, I think the evidence points to that. So we've seen the Mako, we've seen the Midnight Patriot, and I'm not saying I don't want to see those again, but let's talk about some more of your knives. Let's see what else you've got and. And what, you know, what they're for and what you. What kind of response you hear from customers.

Josh Wolfe [00:37:03]:
So this one you should be familiar with. I was told to bring this to that today. This one is a custom Midnight Patriot. It's actually, I think it's the first version 2.0 of the Midnight Patriot. And there's a lot of mistakes that happened with this knife, and it turned into a very custom piece very quickly. Um, but this is probably the knife that I've learned from the most. Just building this knife. I learned a lot.

Josh Wolfe [00:37:35]:
Every. Every knife that I've made since this knife. I think I built it five or six years ago. There's a lesson in here somewhere, and it turned out great eventually. But I think it probably took me about 16 hours of grinding just to get this to where I wanted it to go. And it's got a lot of flaws still. But this is version two, and then you have version three of the Midnight Patriot, and you can just see. Oh, yeah.

Josh Wolfe [00:38:03]:
The difference, in my opinion. I mean, there's. Not only is there a lot of grinding hours between the two, but there's just a big difference in ergonomics with the handles. It's kind of hard to pick up.

Bob DeMarco [00:38:16]:
Oh, yeah, yeah, I can see that.

Josh Wolfe [00:38:19]:
There's just a lot going on. And I mean, this was probably my third or fourth attempt to do a clip point, and it did not end up a clip point, but this. This one definitely does end up clip point at this point. That's. This. This knife is where I learned how to do it.

Bob DeMarco [00:38:36]:
So that. That knife, the one that you have in your left hand, this one here. So it has a, you know, kind of a very, very similar profile if you're just looking at it up against the sky, silhouetted, but when you're. When you're looking at the grind on the blade is very different. This has, like, A full top bevel. It's not, doesn't look sharpened, but it's a, it's a full top bevel. Whereas the 3.0 has a swedge more like a bowie knife or something. What, what were you going for with this full bevel on the top part of the blade on this?

Josh Wolfe [00:39:11]:
Um, so this was, is more of a specific request as well. My stepdad, which you met, his name is Jim as well, he kind of requested something to carry. He's got, he's very into the Scottish heritage, and he wanted a belt knife specifically, but he wanted something similar to this. And so I did my best to oblige him, but I kind of wanted to do it in my own aesthetic and appeal. And so I, I took a designed, which is. Was version 1.0 of the Midnight Patriot. I redesigned it completely into version 2.0, but I, I, he wanted kind of some special grinds to it. And this is what we came up with.

Josh Wolfe [00:39:52]:
I wanted. The top bevel was supposed to be a little bit shorter than this, but I think it turned out pretty well for the most part, especially because it was kind of still a very new knife to me. And honestly, I was still kind of new to, to grinding larger knives at the time. Most of everything I was doing was five inches and below. And this one happens to be eight and a half. Okay. So, yeah, this, it's a cool blade. It's really cool.

Josh Wolfe [00:40:20]:
I don't take it out very often because it's not mine, it's his. But he likes to show it off at the show because he's proud and supportive of me, which I appreciate. And honestly, I get more people ask me about this knife when it's on the table than most knives that are on the table now, which I think is funny.

Bob DeMarco [00:40:40]:
Well, that, that secondary bevel on the top is pretty striking. And it reminds me of two different knives. The first one is like a kind of a loveless sub hilt fighter where you've got a, you know, a double beveled clip point. But it also, it's funny because this, until you mentioned your stepfather's Scottish heritage, this didn't occur to me. But it's kind of Dirk like too in, in that it's got a somewhat symmetrical thing happening from top to bottom.

Josh Wolfe [00:41:11]:
Yep. I'm glad you mentioned that. Cause I was trying to figure out the name of the knife and he just. You just got it. That was the exact knife that he wanted. He wanted something in kind of Dirk style. I just could not remember the name right now. For the life of me, that, that is cool.

Bob DeMarco [00:41:26]:
So before you show me the next knife, I'm curious about your design process. Are you, are you designing things at the grinder when you have steel in your hand, or are you drawing? You mentioned you're not the best draftsman before. Are you drawing stuff out, or are you just kind of sculpting?

Josh Wolfe [00:41:46]:
So along with making, making knives, learning how to make knives, I've kind of developed better drawing skills. Now I cannot draw a landscape. I cannot draw. I can draw a stick figure really well, but the only thing that I can draw is probably a knife now. So whenever I go to go through a design process, I mean, I always have an idea of how I want the knife to look. And now, through trial and error, I have an. I usually have an idea of how I want the handle to be, which. Most of my knives have very similar handles for a reason, because of the certain ergonomics that I'm trying to achieve.

Josh Wolfe [00:42:30]:
But I tried it. I've always, when I first started designing, they were more straight. Like, the knives were more straight with a little bit of a drop in them. Now I'm trying to, I think it's more aesthetically pleasing to have more of a curve and everything. And I, I, I started using some drafting tools here and there. If you go to, like, Office Max or Office Depot or something like that, you can find drafting tools that'll help you draw with more of a curve in it so you don't have to freehand every single thing that you, you have to draw. So I always draw out the knife, and I'll do everything that I can to, to make it aesthetically pleasing on the piece of paper. And now I've actually started using kind of a 2D pad software, which has been super helpful because now if I draw, I always draw everything out first.

Josh Wolfe [00:43:23]:
But it's, it's called, dude, I can't remember the name of it right now. A knifeprint.com and, and for me, it's, it's great because, I mean, you can take a picture and just kind of. And take your knife design that you drew, and you can kind of draw it out with, with their 2D CAD. And there's so many functions. If you want to adjust any partial portion of the design, you can adjust it. And it's so easy to use. And it's such a, it's such a blessing because now I don't have to draw out the same knife three or four different ways. I can just kind of draw it out once Plug it in, and I can adjust things.

Josh Wolfe [00:44:03]:
And then from there I always make a. Some type of template. I used to use steel, which was such a waste, and then I'd use a scrap G10. Now I actually use fiberglass, which has been great to work with because it's thin, it's light. And I would take a fiberglass template. And that's the first time that I can feel something in my hand, which, which is super helpful. It doesn't have a handle, but I can kind of feel it in my hand and feel the very rough edges of the shape and figure out, hey, is this knife handle going to work? Or I can kind of know, hold the template up to the light and get the black shadow effect and say, hey, is this design esthetically pleasing? And then from then on out, I can adjust it on the template or I can adjust it on the grinder on an actual steel if I want to. So it's, I mean, knife design is just fun for me.

Josh Wolfe [00:45:03]:
I. I redesign my knives probably every day in my head.

Bob DeMarco [00:45:07]:
So are you taking that template on, the fiberglass template? Laying, laying it on steel, scribing it out, and then cutting it on like a band saw or something. How are you getting your blanks?

Josh Wolfe [00:45:17]:
Yeah, that's what I do. I. I've gotten some blanks, water jet cut before. I don't. Or I've forged in the past, but I don't forge. I had neck surgery when I was in the military. So forging for me is kind of out the window as on a regular basis. So I do everything, stock removal, but that's exactly what I do.

Josh Wolfe [00:45:37]:
I'll take my template and I'll scribe it on a piece of steel and I'll go ahead and I'll cut it out. I have a mellow metal cutting band saw. I think it's 1946 model, something along those lines. And it's been converted from, you know, I think it was a single speed, very fast speed bandsaw. And the gentleman I bought it from, he was a machinist by trade, and he converted it to a metal cutting band saw. So it's got all these crazy pulleys on it that he put on there, but it runs super slow. And I've had it for the last eight, nine years. And I love that thing.

Josh Wolfe [00:46:13]:
I've kind of semi restored it, but it's got this, the same like 19 layers of paint. It's probably got lead, lead paint in there somewhere, but I'm, I'm not touching it as long as it Runs. I'm going to leave it alone.

Bob DeMarco [00:46:27]:
I love old tools. My grandfather had the ultimate set of tools and some of them came my way. But yeah, there's something to be said for those great old non Harbor Freight, non Home Depot tools that were built to last and until now. I mean, from the 40s till now. So when Jim was scrolling through your Instagram feed, I saw a knife that I don't think I saw in person, or at least I don't remember. And it's kind of a Wharncliffe. Do you have one of those handy or can you tell us about that?

Josh Wolfe [00:47:00]:
Unfortunately, I don't have one handy. Those happen to sell out at Blade show. Right on. Which is awesome. I was very happy about that. That's the new ish model. I had one. Well, I had more than one, but I had that, that model come out a couple years ago, Adelaide show as well.

Josh Wolfe [00:47:19]:
And that was on the screen was version 2.0, which, man, I love how that knife turned out. And it sold out really quickly. Thankfully, I only had four at the show and everybody that picked them up loved them. It's crazy sharp. It's very slicey. The Rockwell hardness is about 61, 62, but it's 12,000 behind the edge. It's sharp. It is a very sharp knife and it's designed to be an edc, but it's a hard, hard use edc.

Josh Wolfe [00:47:55]:
It's not super small, but it's probably about a three and a half to three and three quarter inch blade. And it's a little bit smaller of a bevel than like say the Mako or my Bravo 4 model, which usually have a very wide bevel. This was a little bit shorter, but it's, it's ground very thin. And that's why I wanted to have a higher Rockwell basically in order to maintain level sharpness for a little bit longer especially. I made them out of 86. And yeah, so it, it's a very cool knife. I'm definitely gonna make more in the future. Actually.

Josh Wolfe [00:48:34]:
Just put it on my website to order today. Oh. So hopefully people will start ordering more of that.

Bob DeMarco [00:48:41]:
So is this the first time you've gone from the more traditional drop point or clip point to a straighter sax or worn clip style?

Josh Wolfe [00:48:53]:
Yes, it is. And it was kind of weird to do, especially when I first started drawing it because I'm so used to drawing a drop point and my, my inkling is always to just draw a drop point. But I, I kind of just wanted to do something different and I'VE always been kind of into like a sheep's foot or, or a sax. And to me, it's kind of a cross between the two a little bit. Um, I mean, people can fight and argue about that in the comments if they want to, but, um, sure, someone will, because everybody has an opinion about knives. But it, it was. Once I finally got the design dialed in the way I wanted it to with the first version, I loved that knife, and it sold pretty well the, the at the first Blade Show. But I kind of wanted to shelve it and redesign the handle a little bit to make it a little bit more ergonomic.

Josh Wolfe [00:49:53]:
I wasn't super pleased with how the handle turned out. And so when I sat down to figure out my lineup for Blade show this year was like, I am going to figure this out, because I want to take these to Blade show. And I had a very certain thing that I wanted to do. I think Jim showed that on the screen was that textured G10 handle with the two colors, that sort of green. That one was gray and black, or green black, whichever one it was. But I just wanted that. I thought with the, with the casual black oxide finish that I usually use, usually dark and antique, if you give it something with a little pop, I thought it would, it would look really good, and I was very happy with how it turned out.

Bob DeMarco [00:50:42]:
So, you know, I think I speak for all sort of knife junkies like myself is that I love the concept of your designing, redesigning, refining a design. Because the way I see it is if you've created a design that I like, if you keep working at it, it's going to be a design that I like even more, that I, That I love. And it's cool to see someone kind of continually change and update and refine. You know, it's, it's still got the spirit of the, the original blade, but this and that are made better. But wait, tell me about the black oxide finish. I really, really like the finish of your blades. What is that?

Josh Wolfe [00:51:26]:
So it's, you know what ferric chloride is. So it's very. Excuse me. It's a very similar concept. This one is actually one of. This is my number one selling model. It's the Bravo 4.

Bob DeMarco [00:51:39]:
That's beautiful.

Josh Wolfe [00:51:41]:
And this, it's named after. When you graduate sniper school in the, the. The Army Sniper School, you get the designator Bravo 4. And I originally started making this for the Army Sniper association, and that's kind of where that name came from, but the black. This. All my knives come with this finish and what it is, it's, it's, they use it in tooling a lot when they have, they use steel like high carbon steels or anything along that, that is easily susceptible to rust. And I kind of took that idea and I'm definitely not the first person to use this. A lot of knife makers use it got from, from, I can't, couldn't tell you which knife maker I got it from.

Josh Wolfe [00:52:26]:
But they're like, if you want to use that finish, it's called Caswell black oxide and it's, it's similar to ferric chloride. You have to dip, dip the knife into a solution and it's looks blue, it looks like blue Kool Aid from back in the day. And definitely don't drink it. And so you stick it in there for a few minutes and then what I do is I'll, I'll go ahead and I'll take some double out steel wool and when it comes out, it comes out super black. Like super black. And in order to get this kind of antiqued finish which turn it's very kind of dull gray, I rub it with some double steel wool and it gets that those oxides off and it comes out with this finish. And then there's an oil that you stick it in. It's basically, it's a penetrating oil basically.

Josh Wolfe [00:53:18]:
And it penetrates the grains of the steel and helps keep it from rusting even more. So it's a great finish. It's super durable. I haven't touched these knives since Blade Show. These have to go to customers that ordered these after Blade Show. But my, not if you've seen my table. My knives have these magnetic displays that I put them on and they're just made out of wood. And people just keep slapping them on the displays, which it's not their fault.

Josh Wolfe [00:53:47]:
The magnetics are very strong. I need to get those remade. But they slap them on the, on the displays and they slap the knives together just because the magnets are crazy. And I mean these, these things have no scratches, nothing on them. So I mean it's a super durable finish. Will patina over time, which I think is, is nice because I mean, no patina is the same and it customizes the knife to you and it goes along with the aesthetic even more. It makes it look more apocalyptic and survival like. And to me that's super cool.

Josh Wolfe [00:54:21]:
So yeah, I love this.

Bob DeMarco [00:54:22]:
So, so your shoes are Kydex, right?

Josh Wolfe [00:54:26]:
No, they are leather sheaths right now.

Bob DeMarco [00:54:29]:
Okay.

Josh Wolfe [00:54:29]:
I, I, I used Kydex for a Long time. And when I say a long time, it's like a couple years. And I was so bad at Kydex that I was like, I cannot make any Kydex shoes for a customer ever again. And so I started contracting it out to kind of. They, they weren't, I wouldn't, don't want to say amateur Kydex guys, but I contracted it out to Kydex makers who were doing it as kind of like a hobby as, as well when I was doing first started out doing knives. And that was great, but they just couldn't keep up with the demand of what I was kind of spitting out to them. And so it took me a long time to kind of figure out what I wanted to do with sheets. There was a time when I didn't even offer she.

Josh Wolfe [00:55:15]:
And I just was like, you know, go to your favorite sheath maker. I got three or four I can recommend. And you'll be better off, I promise, because you don't want me to make you a sheath. And so I, I finally figured out who I wanted to use as far as sheets were concerned. And I, I kind of got down to like three different candidates. And I knew that I wanted to go with leather, um, because mainly at the time, because when I was making the Kydex so much, I. Every time I would try to make one, I would always end up scratching the finish on the blade from dust or debris or, or Kydex, like clippings that would get stuck in there. And that, that was probably mainly my fault.

Josh Wolfe [00:55:59]:
Cause I was so bad at making Kydex that I was just like, I'm just gonna do leather. Cause then I don't have an issue with it. I like leather sheaths anyways. Yeah, I, most people like leather sheets. So I, I, if you're familiar with Joe, who leather sheaths, or excuse me, Joe Leatherworks, he's actually one of the. At Blade show. He's one of the biggest tables that sells leather sheets. He's got hundreds upon hundreds of leather sheets.

Josh Wolfe [00:56:27]:
And he makes all my leather sheets now. And funny enough, he actually lives like 25 minutes from me. Oh, that's perfect. It works out great. I give him a call and I say, hey, I need this many sheets. And he gets them done for me in a week or so. And he does it full time. So he's great.

Josh Wolfe [00:56:46]:
He makes knife sheets for, I would probably say about 75% of the knife makers at Blink Chip.

Bob DeMarco [00:56:52]:
Yeah, I mean, to me, it's leather is so appealing. I like Kydex for Small EDC blades that I tuck in my waistband, but for larger knives and for knives I cherish the most, yeah, I definitely love leather. So, as we wrap here, Josh, tell me what's in the. In the future for you and red beard blades and where you would like to go from here.

Josh Wolfe [00:57:18]:
So for me, I kind of want to. I mean, as we've talked about already, I. I want to continue to refine my current designs and whether or not that's not the actual design. But like we talked about, I've gone back to using more G10. Now. This is another Bravo 4. It's different than the one I showed before, but this one's got G10, and it's got that textured handle finish from that picture of the Goblin that you saw earlier. This one's just a tan and black, basically, and it turns out super cool.

Josh Wolfe [00:57:54]:
I actually don't particular like the finish of G10 that's been hand sanded because I think it's. It's too slick on your hands. And being that I make kind of tactical survival nines that doesn't work for. For my stick, I guess. So. I like to texture the G10 now, and it. I think it comes out with a pretty good finish on the handle, and it's. It feels better in the hand, and I think it's.

Josh Wolfe [00:58:24]:
It's pretty cool. But I'm kind of gonna try to come out with more stuff like this for now and kind of do whatever I can to make my designs a little bit more appealing. I tend to kind of lean towards stuff. Stuff that's just very tactile and military. Like, to me, this. This is very cool because it's just black on black almost. And. And like, I like to hide my pins when it comes to stuff like that.

Josh Wolfe [00:58:54]:
And you see kind of the ergonomics of the handle shape there. But I like to do stuff like this, but not everybody thinks like me, so I want to start just doing more stuff that's appealing but kind of still has my style. So that's kind of where I'm going with the colorful G10 these days. And everybody seems to like it. I've had 4 or 5 orders since blade show. People wanted to order G10 kind of in that style. That's awesome.

Bob DeMarco [00:59:25]:
Josh, thank you so much for joining us on the Knife Junkie podcast. I can't wait to see what you have coming up next. And I, you know that that Midnight Patriot is just. I mean, to me, that's. That's the show stealer. But, you know, me. I like big recurve clip point blades and that. That definitely delivers on that front on.

Bob DeMarco [00:59:45]:
So thank you so much sir. It's been a pleasure.

Josh Wolfe [00:59:47]:
I appreciate it. Thank you for having me on. This was great. Honestly, this hour went by very quick and we can definitely talk about getting you a Midnight Patriot in the future. I would love to get one in your hands. So awesome man.

Bob DeMarco [01:00:00]:
I appreciate that. Well, thank you sir.

Josh Wolfe [01:00:02]:
You're welcome. I appreciate it. Y' all have a good one.

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Bob DeMarco [01:00:26]:
There he goes ladies and gentlemen, Josh Wolf of Red Beer Blade. Red Beard Blades. Such awesome knives and so great in hand. And by the way, his display in his booth was a pleasure to be at. So definitely check them out next time you're a blade, but both before then check them out on Instagram and you'll be glad you did. All right. For Jim working his magic behind the switcher, I'm Bob DeMarco saying until next time, don't take dull for an answer.

Announcer [01:00:52]:
Thanks for listening to the Knife Junkie podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please rate and review@reviewthepodcast.com for show notes for today's episode, additional resources and to listen to past episodes, visit our website, the knife junkie.com you can also watch our latest videos on YouTube@thenifjunkie.com YouTube.