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. Welcome to the Knife Junkie podcast.

Bob DeMarco [00:00:18]:
I'm Bob DeMarco.

Bob DeMarco [00:00:19]:
On this edition of the show, I'm speaking with Yoni Wunderman of Compliance Edge Knives. Compliance Edge has been one of my favorite followers on Instagram for at least five years due to the super pretty super tactical EDC fixed blades that Yoni designs and builds in his one man shop in California. The knife that really got its hooks into me was the DCK Mark 1, a beautiful bayonet ground everyday fighter that can be had double edge, probably my favorite type of knife. Oddly, I do not own a Compliance Edge knife yet as I have always been slow on the draw for his monthly drops or poorly financially positioned if on time. What started as a whimsical attempt at knife making during recovery from a martial arts injury is now a full fledged knife business. We'll find out how Yoni got here and what makes him tick, but first be sure to like Comment, subscribe, hit the notification bell and download the show to your favorite podcast app. Also, if you want to help support the show, you can do so by sharing it or going to Patreon and seeing what we have to offer you there. You can scan the QR code on your screen or go to the knifejunkie.com Patreon and just a little note, if you sign up for a year at once, you save 12%.

Bob DeMarco [00:01:36]:
Again, go to thenifjunkie.com/Patreon

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Bob DeMarco [00:01:59]:
Yoni, welcome to the Knife Junkie Podcast.

Yoni Wunderman [00:02:02]:
Thanks for having me.

Bob DeMarco [00:02:04]:
Ah, it's my pleasure, my pleasure. Okay, so as I mentioned up front in my intro, I think I started carrying fixed blade knives probably about five years ago. I've always been a fixed blade collector, but kind of a daily carrier of folders. And then I started to realize wait a sec, I can do this. I can start carrying in my waistband and your your knives were some of the first that came onto my radar as a knives greatly positioned for that. Before we get into how you got started and everything like that, tell me how you got into the fixed blade EDC game.

Yoni Wunderman [00:02:44]:
Well I've always been a super into knives. Growing up, I was always collecting knives and it kind of just one day hit me like I could. I could try making a knife myself and just started kind of going for it. I had a buddy that was basically started doing a little bit before me and just asked if I wanted to come make a knife one day. And I was like, dude, I've been kind of thinking about doing this, and it all just kind of started happening that way. It was super random and just something I'd always been interested in because I'd had, you know, high school metal shop and always thought about it. But it was funny. I had like a feeling or a thought that I said, I don't know what I'm gonna do for a career because I was 21 years old.

Yoni Wunderman [00:03:30]:
I said, but whatever I do when I retire, I want to make knives and have like a dog and like work out of my garage. That'd be like a cool thing to do. And then I just started doing that and I said, why wait? Wait till retirement? And it all just kind of happened. So it was super random, man.

Bob DeMarco [00:03:45]:
That's a thought that I. I imagine a lot of the listeners I know, I certainly resonate with that. Yeah, when I'm retired, I'm gonna. But you went straight to retirement. I admire that.

Yoni Wunderman [00:03:55]:
Yeah, yeah. For better or for worse, I just said, you know, let's just try it now. And it was. It worked out. Got a dog pretty quickly after I started making the knives. And about that, that, you know, the rest is history. So it's been. It's been a fun journey.

Bob DeMarco [00:04:11]:
So you. I. I read an article from San Diego, some local article about you as a businessman, and you mentioned in it that you were kind of recovering and started doing. Recovering from a surgery of some sort or an injury, and started making knives at your Brazilian jiu jitsu studio.

Yoni Wunderman [00:04:32]:
Tell me about that. Yeah, so it was the guy my friend that did it was one of my instructors and. Sorry instructors, Matt Darcy. And I was recovering from eye surgery. I had like a PRK eye surgery, so I couldn't train for a year. And that was kind of when all this was happening, when I was like, oh, this would be kind of fun to do. And then we just started making them in the kind of back room of the jiu jitsu studio. And yeah, at that time, I was super, super into knives and gear like that.

Yoni Wunderman [00:05:02]:
Cause we were. We were doing a lot of combatives training. And so me and a couple of the other guys, we were just Playing around with different knife shapes. And it was just all part of the kind of experience in doing the training and it just all tied into each other. And some of the instructors, you know, they had like contracts with military and stuff. So I got to meet some really cool people that had a lot of like hands on experience and learned a lot about knife design from talking to people in that community in that kind of martial arts, military overlapping community. So it was, it was, it was a fun experience. But yeah, that was like 12 years ago.

Yoni Wunderman [00:05:42]:
It's crazy to think about. Wow. Yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:05:45]:
But be in Brazilian Jiu jitsu, like oftentimes. So I, I trained at a, at a jeet Kune do place.

Yoni Wunderman [00:05:53]:
Okay.

Bob DeMarco [00:05:53]:
We did Filipino Kali, so knife and then we also did Brazilian Jiu jitsu. And whenever those worlds crossed over, it was mayhem.

Yoni Wunderman [00:06:01]:
Yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:06:02]:
Yeah. Tell me about this.

Yoni Wunderman [00:06:03]:
Yeah. So like, for us, what we were doing a lot of was, you know, I wouldn't say it's anything like the Filipino, Filipino style martial arts. It was a lot of just training guys how to get out of a bad position and then get to their weapon. Really. It wasn't a lot of like knife fighting per se. It was mainly like, oh, you're on bottom and someone has a knife, we need to get you on top and get to your, you know, whatever you can get, whether it's your own blade or your pistol or whatever the situation is. So it was a lot of drills like that. It's definitely different.

Yoni Wunderman [00:06:33]:
I wouldn't really consider it like knife fighting or anything, but I've always been interested in that, in that stuff. I just, I've been dealing with crazy injuries for the last however many years. So I've been off of the mat for a while now. But yeah, it was, it was definitely a little bit, it was definitely different, I can, I'd say, than what most people think of when they think of, you know, blade course or combatives and stuff like that. Because it was a lot of dudes that had a lot of real hands on experience that were some gnarly guys. So it was, it was pretty cool.

Bob DeMarco [00:07:07]:
Yeah. The thought of a knife coming into any sort of grappling it, that's, that's terrifying and so very real. And that's probably how a lot of those engagements actually go down.

Yoni Wunderman [00:07:19]:
Yeah, I mean, I can't say from experience or anything like that, but just from the people we've, we, you know, I've talked to and a lot of it was, was like that.

Bob DeMarco [00:07:29]:
So, so what did you learn about knife design? And what, you know, kind of where you wanted to take your own design work in, talk to these military guys.

Yoni Wunderman [00:07:40]:
So, like, one thing that really sticks out in my mind was I sent a blade out with the sharpening choils and they took it on deployment. And the first thing they said was, you have to get rid of the sharpening soil. And I was like, why? And they're like, well, when we use it, it gets caught on, like, people's clothing and stuff and zippers, and it's. It's a snag point. And so there was a lot of things like that as well as they were telling me, like, oh, the skull crushers, they're like, that's just cutting our arm forearms up when we're carrying them. And they want to be able to, you know, if they. They want to be able to take the back end of the knife and push on it with their weight. So if you have a sharp thing sticking out on the back, you're just stabbing yourself in the hand.

Yoni Wunderman [00:08:24]:
So those were like the two real things that stuck out to me, which is why on all my blade designs, you're not going to see, like, on any of my defensive blades, you're not going to see a sharpening choil, and you're not going to see any kind of skull crusher, because I don't want that snag point. And I want to be able to put that top hand in, like, put your weight on it if you need to. Um, so those are. Those are really the two main things that kind of come to mind when it comes to that direct feedback. Yeah, but those were some pretty big ones because I think you see those features on a lot of tactical knives. There's nothing wrong. I mean, I use sharpening choils I have on this lane. I mean, I still use them on things, you know, I try not to make them huge on.

Yoni Wunderman [00:09:11]:
On every knife, but on the ones I do, you know, sometimes. Sometimes they can be a little big. But so it's not to say that I don't ever use those features. It's just kind of cool to know and have that feedback and, and be able to put that towards the design. And. And when people ask, you know, why, oh, can we get this with this? Or why doesn't it have that you have an answer for them. So.

Bob DeMarco [00:09:34]:
Yeah, yeah, I. I love hearing about. Well, two things. The, the sharpening choil thing, to me is something I've heard somewhat recently. The past couple of years it's come up, and I thought everything had to have A sharpening soil just so you could have a perfect edge. And that's fine for an EDC knife, but I've. I've heard that feedback about it being a snag point and take. Just taking a look through my collections and.

Bob DeMarco [00:09:59]:
Or my collection and, you know, I like to design knives and looking at my designs, I always have these. These sharpening trials because the edge, you know, but in hearing that, it started to change my thinking too. Bring out the. The EDC knife that you just had out. The second one, the one that does have a choil, I noticed the way you designed it, it's still kind of a. The best possible option for not snagging.

Yoni Wunderman [00:10:27]:
Yeah, it doesn't really have a snag point. I mean, I have one I can show you actually real quick, the Copperhead, which, like this one has a massive choil on it.

Bob DeMarco [00:10:38]:
Beautiful.

Yoni Wunderman [00:10:38]:
And it just. It for me, I don't know, it's one of those things where sometimes you go form, verse function. And this was one that I felt just needed to have this big choil on it for the looks. But, yeah, the main. This one, the Vendetta, it's definitely this style of choice, a lot less likely to snag because the edge hangs out farther than the choil itself. So.

Bob DeMarco [00:11:03]:
Yeah, and it's somewhat shallow, too. There's not too much space for anything to get snagged in there.

Yoni Wunderman [00:11:09]:
Yeah, completely. So. And I mean, this one's less of a, you know, defensive style blade. This is more of a just a little everyday carry, you know, small, just EDC blade. So it's only like six, six and a half inches. I think it's pretty small.

Bob DeMarco [00:11:26]:
So that one's called the Vendetta.

Yoni Wunderman [00:11:28]:
Yeah, that's the Vendetta. That's kind of like my flagship model that I've been making for since I started making knives. So 12 years now.

Bob DeMarco [00:11:36]:
Hold it up one more time so we can take a look at.

Yoni Wunderman [00:11:38]:
Yeah. So this. And this one has the polished finish with the ultum scales, but I make. I pretty much make every knife in like a hundred different colors, so it's kind of whatever I'm feeling that week. But this finishes. It's pretty popular. I can show you one that I didn't grab from the thing, but I think you'll like it. I'll take half a second.

Bob DeMarco [00:11:57]:
Sure, sure.

Yoni Wunderman [00:11:59]:
Here's the same one. And this One is the SEAL Team 7 20th Anniversary Blade. So I did a run of the. These blades for the SEAL teams is on in San Diego over Here. So it has their Team 7 logo on it. It's pretty sweet.

Bob DeMarco [00:12:13]:
That is beautiful.

Yoni Wunderman [00:12:15]:
Same knife, just all blacked out and. Yeah, I think we did like 20 of these or so for all the guys that wanted them a few years ago. So this is. This was a really fun project. It's one of the. One of the few blades that I. That I kept from, like, you know, something like that.

Bob DeMarco [00:12:30]:
So what an honor to have that hands of those guys.

Yoni Wunderman [00:12:34]:
Yeah, it's cool.

Bob DeMarco [00:12:35]:
Something I was saying as you got up to get that was the other thing mentioned. Feedback was no skull crusher, no pointy pommels. And that's something that. That. That also comes with. I hate to put it this way, but either maturity or. Or any sort of practical sort of training with. With, you know, with training blades.

Bob DeMarco [00:13:01]:
And I used to design, you know, knives with all sorts of pointy back ends because you can kill on this side.

Yoni Wunderman [00:13:07]:
Me too. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's. It's kind of funny. Like, if you look at a Winkler, you'll see, like, everything is just so, like, smooth. And there's none of that Choils or school crushers or anything. And those are known as, like, the knives.

Yoni Wunderman [00:13:21]:
Yes. So I kind of, you know, back when I was first starting that the Winklers were like, that's what all those guys had and that's what everyone was trying to own. And those, like, they still are, you know, the coolest. But that was definitely, you know, one of those things too, where I was like, okay, maybe there is something to it, because this one huge company, all their blades are super simple. So. And I was, you know, something I like to do with my knives is just try to keep them as simple as possible.

Bob DeMarco [00:13:48]:
So before you held up the DCK Mark 1, and that's the knife I was talking about in the intro that I just absolutely love. Tell me about this design and how it came about.

Yoni Wunderman [00:14:00]:
Yeah, so this design was actually directly from my old instructor, Dave Kimmerer Lowe. So he had a contract with the military, and that's who was helping me get in contact with all these guys. And he basically. We were just at lunch one day and he drew it. Drew. Drew out like a first draft of this, and I made it, and then we sent it out, got feedback. That's when I found out about sharpening Choils. And I've been making it ever since.

Yoni Wunderman [00:14:32]:
So it really. The whole theory behind it was directly from him, more or less. And I just kind of made it to the specifications that he wanted, and he took it out the, the guys he was training and we get feedback. And then over the years, because I think I've been making this blade for close to eight years now, it's changed a lot. So I've kind of refined the shapes as much as possible. And so just recently I refined the tip shape and made them like a quarter of an inch shorter. It made the tip a little bit less pointy. If I show you, I have the ring version of it too.

Yoni Wunderman [00:15:11]:
Here's one of the ones before the blade shape was changed. So it's just a little bit pointier. We kind of hard. Might be hard to see on camera, but basically just made it a little bit shorter and a little bit more conical and that made the tip a lot stronger. So then I was able to push the grinds in a little more, get the edge a little thicker, thicker, make it a little slicier. So I, I mean I've been tweaking these things for years and just slowly like perfecting them or trying to. But yeah, this is definitely one of my favorite knives. It's one of the most popular ones.

Bob DeMarco [00:15:49]:
So you said there was a theory or that Mr. Camarillo, I think you said his name.

Yoni Wunderman [00:15:53]:
Camarillo.

Bob DeMarco [00:15:54]:
Yeah, you said that he was the one who kind of came up with the theory behind it. What would you say it is? How would you define that?

Yoni Wunderman [00:16:01]:
The theory behind that blade?

Bob DeMarco [00:16:04]:
Yeah, that design.

Yoni Wunderman [00:16:06]:
So originally he was like, oh, I want. He called it an assaulter's blade. He's like 4 inch blade, 4 inch handle. And it needs to have a hook on the end so that it can deploy fast. And it needs to be double edge, but spear point. So completely symmetrical double edge. And so that's, this is kind of what he wanted. Gave me a little sketch and that, that's what I delivered.

Yoni Wunderman [00:16:32]:
I think the fur, you know, this one is now not 4 inches, but it's just under. And I think it's a little bit better like this. But yeah, his, that was what his theory was behind it was he wanted and as he called it an assaulter's blade for dudes to deploy with.

Bob DeMarco [00:16:49]:
And then the ring came about at some point. What, what was the need or like how did you identify the need for that?

Yoni Wunderman [00:16:57]:
So the ring came about just because it's one of those things where more options is, is better. And it was just a simple thing for me to do to put a ring on it. And it's probably at, at some point it's more popular than the non ring version. They kind of go in and out with popularity every, you know, week by week it's different. But really I just was like, okay, I'm going to put the ring on it because ring knives are super popular and let's see what happens. And, and people loved it. And I actually did a run of 75 of these for an entire buds class with whoa. Their bone frog on them all FDE blade handles.

Yoni Wunderman [00:17:43]:
So I mean, and I had no, no complaints. They. They loved it. They liked the ring. They. I will say that they all, they did all single edge. They didn't want any double edge and they said that they didn't want to like they're worried about cutting themselves with the double edge when I did it. So that was one thing that I found interesting.

Bob DeMarco [00:18:02]:
Yeah.

Yoni Wunderman [00:18:03]:
But yeah, and I figured it was almost going to be more popular for the civilian market just because I feel like rings are a little bit more popular in like the gear market, but sold well for both. And I've had a lot of people love this blade and haven't really had any complaints. So it's. It's a good shape. Yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:18:26]:
I used to be very resistant to rings on non karambits, you know, none. And, and then I've actually grown to really like them. Especially I like to carry a knife. I like to carry them kind of horizontally on the front and really makes it easy to. To grab and just to pull out.

Yoni Wunderman [00:18:46]:
Yeah. I mean you don't have to put your hand in the ring too. That's always tell people like you can use. Just grab it like this and pull it out fast. You don't have to be entangled with it. It's kind of just there as an extra little bonus. Really. So.

Yoni Wunderman [00:19:00]:
Yeah, it's funny. I mean I prefer the non ring myself, but anytime I make a knife now, I usually make a ring version as well. Okay. So people just like it. You know, more options is. More options is always a good thing.

Bob DeMarco [00:19:16]:
And. And you really illustrate that with what you were saying before.

Yoni Wunderman [00:19:19]:
You're.

Bob DeMarco [00:19:21]:
All the finishes you put on your, your blades. You know, you do a lot of make a lot of knives throughout the year and each drop seems to have a lot of different. Not only sheath options, but handle options and finishes. Tell.

Yoni Wunderman [00:19:39]:
Tell us about that. Yeah, so I pretty much every knife I do, I think I have nine designs right now, but I basically make just a ton of different finishes and colors. So whether that's blade finishes, you know, polished or stonewashed, or different kinds of cerakote or camo and then handle colors, handle materials. So I work with a bunch of different G10 colors, as well as carbon fiber Ultum, you know, just a bunch of. I try to keep it a little different and unique and make color patterns that not everyone's doing. So, like, I have the Tropic Thunder one, which has a Hawaiian Kydex sheath with, you know, tan handles and a stonewashed blade. And I, I, what I found is that basically big companies can't make a hundred different versions of their knife. And, and well, I'm sure they could, but for me, it's really easy to just, you know, I'm making small batches of four or five parts at a time on a piece of G10 or a piece of Kydex.

Yoni Wunderman [00:20:48]:
So really no different for me to throw in one piece of carbon fiber Kydex, one piece of Tropical, one piece of black, and then make four of each, you know, a Tropic Thunder blade, a Blackout one, and a carbon Fiber and have 12 of the same model but in, you know, three different options. It's, it's not any more work for me to do that, and it just gives people more options to choose from. And I found that that works really well for me because, you know, everyone has their own different taste and I'm, and it just, yeah, it's definitely helps the drop sell, I'll say that much. Just because there's such a big variety. Yeah, it's funny, I just don't see that many other companies doing it, but it's, it's an extremely easy way to like, sell a lot of knives is just change the colors.

Bob DeMarco [00:21:42]:
Yeah, it makes them, it makes them very collectible. And you know, us knife junkie types, you know, you'll see, you'll see people who collect one model of knife every single version they can get their hands on. Spyderco, great at that case. Knives is great at that. Just reiterating in, in different exciting ways. And if you really get hooked on one design, man, that's a, that's a great thing you're offering your, your, your customers.

Yoni Wunderman [00:22:09]:
Yeah, no, for sure. There's, there's definitely people who will message me like, oh man, this is my fifth vendetta or my sixth dagger, something like that. And yeah, they'll, they might just really like that one knife design and they might want to buy that knife in 10 different colors. So, yeah, it's just, it's. And it keeps it fun for me. You know, if I made, if I only made a black one and a stonewashed one, that would be very boring for me. So it's nice to get the wide variety, but it does make updating the website and product photography very difficult, so. Oh, yeah, I bet.

Yoni Wunderman [00:22:42]:
I'll say, I'll say that much. Every time you make a new color combination, it's a new photo shoot and a new product web page. So.

Bob DeMarco [00:22:51]:
Oh, man.

Yoni Wunderman [00:22:52]:
Gets crazy.

Bob DeMarco [00:22:53]:
That's. We're going to talk about the business aspect in a while, but I would imagine that that, that really takes a lot of bandwidth to keep up with that.

Yoni Wunderman [00:23:03]:
Yeah, yeah, definitely. It's, it's a lot of. It's a lot more work than probably people think just because I'm doing everything by myself. So it, it, that part can definitely drag. It would be nice to not have to do it, which I've tried outsourcing before and it just. The results aren't the same.

Bob DeMarco [00:23:23]:
Well, tell me about the outsourcing of drops I read about early on, you know, when, when you first started the company and you were, you know, that was, you know, the company in earnest. You did some OEM type drops and it didn't work out.

Yoni Wunderman [00:23:40]:
Tell us about that. Um, I'm not 100% sure remembering what you're referring to.

Bob DeMarco [00:23:47]:
I mean, did you, didn't you work with some large companies to kind of get some of your knives made early on?

Yoni Wunderman [00:23:53]:
Oh, okay, I see what you're saying. Yeah, no, I did. I did have some outsourcing. Some production. Yes. And what I found was that by outsourcing production, something goes wrong every time. No matter how big the company is and how good they are. It's just there's, there's so much that goes into making a knife.

Yoni Wunderman [00:24:17]:
And so every time I did a. The, the knife I did was the vendetta, this one that we've, we've showed. And yeah, I did a production version and just every time something would go wrong, the chamfers would be a counterbore instead of a chamfer or the swedges were ground completely like wavy one time. And it was like I'd wait three months to get these blades and then I'd do a pre order once I got noticed that they were shipped. And then all of a sudden I'd get them and they weren't usable and I'd have to send them back and wait another three months. So it was just like, it was really hard to scale a business that way. And I kind of just determined like, hey, I'm going to have to do this myself if I want to make these and, and produce more blades. I'm going to have to figure out this whole, like, seeing CNC thing on my own, because just relying on other people to do it is not.

Yoni Wunderman [00:25:15]:
It's not the, like, it's never going to be the best way to do it.

Bob DeMarco [00:25:20]:
So learning CNC and CAD and cam and all that, that seems like an incredibly daunting proposition. What was that like?

Yoni Wunderman [00:25:29]:
Yeah, so it was. For me, it was probably worse than for anyone else because so what. What I did was I actually hired someone that knew that stuff, that was someone in the knife community, I'm not going to mention them. And I paid them like six grand a month to come into my shop and do all that for me. And I bought like a Haas mill, just, you know, we took out a loan for it. And so he was doing the cat and cam and running the mill for me for about a month, and then we had a huge falling out and then he left. And I had giant machine and a machine payment and no idea how to use it. So nothing lights a fire, you know, quite like that.

Yoni Wunderman [00:26:13]:
So I was like, all right, we gotta figure this out. So I took online classes, in person classes, talked to people, and it took me, you know, years to really figure it out. And now I have it down to a science. So when I want to make a new knife model, it's like boom, boom, boom. Super easy. My whole thing's just tight now. But, yeah, it was a. It was a miserable process, learning from scratch.

Yoni Wunderman [00:26:40]:
Um, so, yeah, that's. That was a lot, but it was worth it. Smart. Best thing I ever. Best decision I ever made.

Bob DeMarco [00:26:48]:
So were you designing on pen and paper?

Yoni Wunderman [00:26:52]:
Okay, Yeah, I mean, I had done a little bit of CAD stuff, but if I showed you a CAD drawing from my water jet days back when I would water jet a blank and hand grind it, I mean, it's the ugliest thing you've ever seen. So once I started working in Fusion360, I got way better at it and figured out how to make the designs nice and clean and constrain them. So.

Bob DeMarco [00:27:14]:
So are you as creative in Fusion360 as you are when you're just kind of drawing?

Yoni Wunderman [00:27:21]:
I'm probably. Probably more so now. So the last several knives that I've designed have been all through Fusion without any, like, hand drawing as a base. And I actually prefer that now more than drawing by hand and then tracing it over in Fusion. So it's just. It's just after years of doing it, it's become easier for me. But most of my. I mean, I really don't make that many new designs.

Yoni Wunderman [00:27:53]:
A lot of the stuff is just tweaking old stuff because the old, it's still selling well. And there's no point to, you know, for me making a new model. Even though it's easy, it's still over a month of work because I got to make all the fixtures, get, you know, everything prototyped. Then I got to send the prototypes out to heat treat, you know, test them, make sure everything's good, the blade geometry is good. So it's a huge process to do it. So I try to only do like one or two new knives a year. But when I do design completely new stuff, it's lately just been all infusion and not starting with any hand drawing. So.

Bob DeMarco [00:28:34]:
So you send your, you send your stuff out for heat treat. What does, does that limit the materials you use or how does that work?

Yoni Wunderman [00:28:44]:
Doesn't really limit the materials I use because right now I'm working exclusively with Magnacut. Yeah, I just have, I don't know, I like to use, I mean all my knives are pretty much very similar. Right. They're small EDC style knives. So there's not really any huge difference between them. Like I don't have a big chopper or anything like that. So for that Magnacut just does extremely well. And it's also one of those things where it's like, you know, when I was using 3V, every other email was can I get this in Magnacut.

Yoni Wunderman [00:29:14]:
So kind of got, you kind of got to give the people what they want and it's like you want. Yeah, I get it. It's, it's an awesome steel and it's stainless and so I just switched everything to that and heat treating that, I mean it's been really easy because you know, you just send it all out and they do it all in a vacuum furnace and comes back completely perfect, the same, same condition that it left in. And I'll send them like 120 or so blades at a time and they can do that way faster than I could to treat that and like an even heat oven or something.

Bob DeMarco [00:29:44]:
Oh yeah, big bag, lots of.

Yoni Wunderman [00:29:46]:
Yeah, it's just, it's, it makes way more sense if you're doing CNC machining to do that because you just can send them a ton of blades all at once. Just because with, with heat treating steels like that and you're on your own, you know, you're going to have to use the foil packets, which is super sketchy and time consuming. And I think heat treats, one of those things that the Bigger companies can do a really good job of it. And I know that when I was heat treating myself, you kind of lose about the same amount as they would lose. You know, you're going to lose it from warping or decarb and they're going to lose it from probably just, you know, warping or maybe damage the blade or something like that. So it's, it's not, you're not really getting any better results necessarily. Like you're still gonna lose three out of a hundred of every blades you send to them or do yourself. That's kind of what I found.

Bob DeMarco [00:30:40]:
Three out of a hundred, huh?

Yoni Wunderman [00:30:42]:
Pretty much those, those get turned into trainers.

Bob DeMarco [00:30:46]:
Oh, that's cool.

Yoni Wunderman [00:30:47]:
Yeah, yeah, that's what I do.

Bob DeMarco [00:30:49]:
Yep, you've gotten really good at CAD and cam and CNC milling. So much so that you're starting off on a new venture.

Yoni Wunderman [00:31:00]:
Tell us about that. Yeah, so I'm, I'm officially launching on July 9, it's the world's first CNC knife making course. I've looked for a bunch of other ones. I couldn't find one. I found one CAD course but that, you know, the designing isn't really worth anything without the manufacturing side. So yeah, I spending the last four months working on the first two classes. So the first class, I teach you my exact design process in fusion and how to design a blade with manufacturing in mind. Because you know, one of the problems is if you go on YouTube and type knife design fusion360, you'll find a bunch of stuff, but it's mainly made by guys who haven't actually manufactured knives and they're doing a bunch of things where if you try to like machine the bevel in the way that they're showing you to design the bevel, it's not going to work.

Yoni Wunderman [00:31:50]:
So you kind of have to design with manufacturing in mind. And there's a lot of stuff I've learned over the last seven years doing this and I just teach you how to design with all that knowledge already at your fingertips. And it's a nice, just step by step video guide that, you know, it's all hosted on my website and it shows you exactly how to design ready for manufacturing. And then the second class is handle manufacturing. So it's based around using a CNC router which is really, you know, you can get a CNC router for 5, 600 bucks on Amazon. Now a cheap one which will, you know, not going to make as nice a parts as a $5,000 router, but you'll get something which you can then use to make more knives, scale up and grow, which is what I did. So I'm walking you through how to take your handles that you design and then how to apply a template to them. So I give you my tool paths from a project as a template and you then, you know, download that and apply that to your own handles.

Yoni Wunderman [00:32:54]:
And I show you exactly how to, what to click, where to click, which button to change and make it work. And that way you can kind of get, get results and make money within like a couple of hours. And then later in the course I do like several hours of like deep dive, hey, here's why we do this. And really break it down so that people understand it. I actually do. I have a machine purchasing and financing guide in there. So I talk about which machines to buy. I talk about like five or six different ways to finance them and give my personal experience with financing machinery and how I purchase my machines.

Yoni Wunderman [00:33:31]:
So yeah, I tell you, like, basically I give you advice. Hey, here's which machines you should buy. Here's some tricks to how you should buy them. Because when I bought my machines, I paid $0. Basically I got them all by taking out loans and stuff like that. And did it in a way that it made sense. Like my repayments were a lot less than what I was making off the machine. So I just wanted to guide people through the same thing that I did.

Yoni Wunderman [00:33:56]:
Because, you know, I saw that there was a gap in the market. There was no one offering this service. There's a lot of CAD cam courses, but it's, I've taken those courses. And you're gonna learn stuff that is, you're gonna waste your time. Cause most of that stuff is for machinists making aluminum parts for automotive or medical or aerospace. And it doesn't really apply to knife making. So I just decided, you know what? I'm gonna do a course. I knew I was getting shoulder surgery.

Yoni Wunderman [00:34:21]:
I knew I was gonna have to take four months off, so I just said, let's, let's do it. And so this was been what I've been working on for the last month straight, just all day, because I had, I had my shoulder fixed a month ago, so. And yeah, it released, it's, it's releasing pretty soon. And then once that, once those first two classes are out, the design and the handle class, then I'm going to jump on the sheath manufacturing, which I think is going to be massive because these little fold over slim profile Kydex sheaths, I mean these take Me, like, four or five minutes to make. My system is just insane. And, you know, the fit on these, there was no wobble. They're perfect. Click.

Yoni Wunderman [00:35:04]:
Like there's literally nothing. They're locked in and they don't scratch. I have my tricks as to how to do all that, and it's going to. So the Class 3 will basically walk you through how to design the mold. It'll give you my exact numbers that I used. You'll get a template. So, like, if your knife handle is this thick, here's the offset you need in order to have the. You know, it's going to be total.

Yoni Wunderman [00:35:24]:
Like it's a total turnkey system, basically, with hands on video training and in computer video training. And then once that one's out, I'll go on to the blades because, you know, the process is the same process I went through, which was you get a small router. You can use that to make handles and sheaths while you're still water jet cutting and hand grinding blades. And then. I know when I did that, the first year I did that, I. I doubled my income right away just by using that little CNC router and doing handles and sheaths. So then I was able to get the money to do, you know, feel confident enough and pay for that mill. So it's.

Yoni Wunderman [00:36:09]:
I'm kind of just walking people through the same steps as I went, but it's a lot simpler because when I was doing the handles and sheets, I didn't actually know cad. I was paying that designer to just design stuff for me and send me the files that I could run. And I was paying him something like 500 bucks to design a knife, you know, another thousand for the sheath mold, another 500 for the handle file. And, like, my course is gonna be less than all that to just learn to do it yourself. So.

Bob DeMarco [00:36:38]:
That's so cool.

Yoni Wunderman [00:36:41]:
So, yeah, it's. It's. It's like my biggest passion that I'm excited about right now, obviously, because I can't. I can't make knives until September. Again, with my shoulders, I had a. They call it a bicep tenodesis, where they remove your bicep tendon from your. My labrum and then reattach it to, like, my humerus bone. Oh, wow.

Yoni Wunderman [00:37:01]:
Yeah, so. So I'm kind of. That was the whole, like, all right, I know this is coming and what am I going to do? For several months, I've been. I've been. People have asked me, oh, I'd be awesome if you could make a course if you could do a training. So I just, I'm thin and did it. So yeah, it's all, by the time this is out, it's pretty much going to be ready and released. But it's all up there on the website.

Yoni Wunderman [00:37:23]:
There's trailers now and some sample preview videos of like the actual course to see how it looks. So it's pretty cool.

Bob DeMarco [00:37:30]:
So people will go to your website and that's where you can find all the details about how to get involved in all that.

Yoni Wunderman [00:37:38]:
Totally, yeah, it's right there on my website. You just go to courses and you'll see the whole sales page and you can check out the videos and you know, you sign up right there and you'll get a, if you decide to do it, you get a login and it's all, all the videos are nice and organized in one place and you can have your downloads of the files that I send you. And it's just a streamlined process so takes the guessing out of it, man.

Bob DeMarco [00:38:04]:
I, I, I think you're going to be very successful with this, I gotta say.

Yoni Wunderman [00:38:07]:
Thank you.

Bob DeMarco [00:38:08]:
Yeah, well first, yeah, and, and I also wish you the best success with.

Yoni Wunderman [00:38:12]:
It, but thank you. Thank you.

Bob DeMarco [00:38:13]:
It's very generous to be just handing over your, your process and, and removing all of the obstacles.

Yoni Wunderman [00:38:23]:
Yeah, I mean it's funny because it's. Knife making is one of those things where people are either really willing to share information or not willing to share at all. And I've always been willing to share information, but at the same time it's like, I mean, this information, if you use it right, you can go from making 20, 30, 40,000 a year to like 400,000 here. If you, you know, actually get the machines and go through and build your brand up, there's no reason, you know, that you can't be turning this into an insane business. So I just figured, you know, let's put it out there. And yeah, it's not cheap by any means. But you know, people always say don't train your competition. And I just say don't train your competition for free.

Yoni Wunderman [00:39:13]:
So it's really.

Bob DeMarco [00:39:16]:
Right, exactly. And, and they're, they're, in a way, they're, yes, they're your competition, but at the same time no one's going to make a Yoni Wonderman.

Yoni Wunderman [00:39:24]:
Correct. Yeah. And, and it's like, you know, I, I think that there's a huge, I mean, I, here's how I personally really feel about it is that most of these guys are using Chinese production or something. Anyways, or even American production. And maybe they had a bad experience like I did with an American company or whatever. It's. They're. Now they're just going to be able to make their blades themselves and I'm giving you the exact blueprint and everything I use to do it yourself.

Yoni Wunderman [00:39:49]:
So it's not, you know, some people it's going to make them have more output, but for a lot of people it's just going to make them less reliant on overseas production, which is a great thing. Like we want to bring more manufacturing here, so. And you know, I just, I want to be able to. I don't always feel like I'm helping people when I make knives necessarily, especially like weapons. But it is nice to feel that, you know, potentially help people and help some guy go from his garage who might be struggling to all of a sudden, a couple years later, maybe he's 4, 5, 6x his income and he's going to be totally stoked and his life is completely different. And now the world has more awesome knives. And you know, I helped someone scale the business. So I think it's going to be only a positive experience.

Yoni Wunderman [00:40:39]:
I'm hoping. I think people are going to be super excited about it and I also think people are going to be very surprised when they see like how much work I put into it and the quality of the lessons and everything. So I really, you know, I made it as nice as I make my knives, so. Okay. Oh, nice.

Bob DeMarco [00:40:57]:
Which seem like I said I don't have one of your knives yet, but they, they just from, you know, at them.

Yoni Wunderman [00:41:02]:
Make sure. We'll make sure you get one. Yeah, well, yes, we will.

Bob DeMarco [00:41:07]:
But they look, they look so clean and they look so refined and, and even your website is so.

Yoni Wunderman [00:41:14]:
Your website is beautiful and refined.

Bob DeMarco [00:41:16]:
Yeah, it seems like your whole business, your whole process and the fact that you're still. Still or not, I shouldn't even say still, but that you are a oneman business is really impressive, especially with, with your output. Have you always been business minded or did you learn this as you went?

Yoni Wunderman [00:41:36]:
I've always been entrepreneurial in a sense. Like I've never had a real job.

Bob DeMarco [00:41:41]:
Good for you.

Yoni Wunderman [00:41:43]:
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, no, it, it's felt pretty natural. I just kind of surround myself with good people that have a lot of experience and yeah, it's, it's, it's weird. I, I guess I never really thought of myself as an entrepreneur. I've always thought of myself more as a craftsman. But now I'm Definitely starting to feel more entrepreneurial and business minded. I think part of that probably is being in California and growing up in the Bay Area.

Yoni Wunderman [00:42:13]:
I think. Yeah, I mean I grew up in the Bay Area of California which is, you know, like all the Google, Facebook, all this stuff. So you're just around a lot of kind of mentality and. Yeah, so it's, I think it just kind of rubs off on you. But I don't know if. Yeah, I haven't. When I was younger, I never had any kind of business mind and I think it didn't really happen until semi recently just because, you know, I mean I'm not technically the best businessman I've been. You know, I could.

Yoni Wunderman [00:42:43]:
I should be hiring people and putting them behind my machines and making way more knives that way. But I'm too much of a perfectionist and craft craftsman to want to let go of the control. So every time I've tried to do that like a couple weeks later I'm like, this isn't working. Yeah, because I just, I have too much.

Bob DeMarco [00:43:01]:
That also seems to like make your knives more valuable in a way because each one of them's gone through your hands.

Yoni Wunderman [00:43:07]:
True. Yeah, no, for sure. I mean it makes it. So there's, you know, I make a, I probably make. It's hard to say but I make a good amount of knives for a one man shop. But yeah, I mean each one passes through my hands which I think that that's why you get stuff like the really nice edges and the really nice G finish. Because each sheath, you know, I still bend each little tab and I still adjust the retention and get everything just right. So that's just enough pull.

Yoni Wunderman [00:43:38]:
Well when it pops out and I mean sharpening is a huge thing. Like if you look at my edges, they're all very straight and even on both sides. And I think that that's just the first thing I notice if I look at blades that are sharpened by employees versus owners. Yeah, you can usually tell nothing wrong with it. It's not, it's not sharp. It's just that usually when these smaller companies use employees to sharpen. Can kind of see it not so much with the really big like the microtechs and stuff because those guys are like all really good craftsmen. So you'll see those straight edges on something like that.

Yoni Wunderman [00:44:15]:
But yeah, I mean that's just one of the things is like I think guys, if I look at the reviews that I get on my website, I'll. I can tell that people trust me because they've bought from me before and they know that it's going through my hands. So they're not. There's no, like, is this gonna be nice? Is this not? And they'll even write that on reviews, like, oh, you know, I've bought from companies before and sometimes you get a good one, sometimes you get a bad one and they're like, not here. You get the same thing every time. I mean, dude, the amount of times I've taken a knife from here in my house and then said nope, went back to the shop and like resharpened it or touched it up or took out a little scratch or something and brought it. I mean, I've spent, I probably spent more time taking out a scratch in a knife than making the knife itself. Just because I was like, if someone opens this box and they see that scratch and they paid 400, if I was them, I'd be pissed.

Bob DeMarco [00:45:09]:
Yep.

Yoni Wunderman [00:45:09]:
So like my, my what I let out and like my surface finishes, I'm just, I'm so OCD with it right now, which I didn't used to be. My first draft CNC stuff was like super rough. But what I found was that if I charge more money and make the best blade I can, it's better for everyone than charge less money and make a lower fit and finish more.

Bob DeMarco [00:45:32]:
And I think most, most people, most collectors or most people who rely on them. Yeah, I am a collector. I don't rely on them, but I think they're in the same boat in, in that way they would rather spend the extra 50 bucks to have something perfect then, then get cut a break and, and not. And just speaking of the sharpening, I, I know what you mean. Like I, especially on a double edged knife, which I have a, a lot of double edged knives, they're just kind of my favorite. The, the Dck with the, with the bayonet grind. I love that. That's like one of my favorite, probably my favorite type of knife.

Bob DeMarco [00:46:09]:
But what I always do and also with daggers is look at the very tip where those four edge bevels come together.

Yoni Wunderman [00:46:17]:
Yeah. You got to look at it straight down this way.

Bob DeMarco [00:46:20]:
Yeah.

Yoni Wunderman [00:46:21]:
Like take a look this way and see how it all lines up. Yep. Yeah. No, I, when I machine these bevels, I, I, you know, when I get, when I get it all set up originally with the fixture. Yeah. Because in, in the cad, like in computer, I did everything perfect and then what happens is it doesn't come out perfect. And I think with a lot of production blades, no one's checking It. Whereas with me, like I'm actually checking it and going like, well, yeah, the computer said it was going to put that line perfectly in the center, but it didn't.

Yoni Wunderman [00:46:53]:
It's a little off to the right or to the left, which means we have to push this face in a little more or move this face out a little bit. And so, you know, I'm micro controlling each bevel to like.0005 inches, making tiny incremental changes so that I can get that line as perfectly symmetrical as I can. And sometimes it's out of your hand, sometimes it's like, you know, weird vibration or something. Just weird stuff happens. Like sometimes the machine makes a part that like, where'd this come from? But for the most part just taking in like you know, a day or two to balance in those bevels and like really get everything even on both sides. It's worth for me taking a full day, one to two full work days just doing that and making micro adjustments. Because once it's set, we're going to run this thing thousands of times. So it's like, let's get it perfect.

Yoni Wunderman [00:47:47]:
Let's spend the time and make and do it right. Which is like, that's why I don't take free orders because it's like, dude, I don't want to be on a deadline. I'm going to take my sweet ass time, make this as nice as I can and then you guys can buy it when it's ready. And I think that that's the best way to do it.

Bob DeMarco [00:48:04]:
Well, that, that, that brings me to your drop system.

Yoni Wunderman [00:48:08]:
Yeah, how does that work? So the drop system is basically it used to be every Friday and now it's kind of more like monthly or it has been. And I just make as many knives as I can and then release them all at once because it's makes more sense than you. You know, I only have to do product photography and videography and hit make my emails for my email list one time. I don't and just put it, you know, out there as one giant batch shipping. You know, you do shipping all at once. So it makes the most sense in terms of getting them physically out. Like it's the way that I can manufacture the most knives. If I were to not do drops, I would make less knives.

Yoni Wunderman [00:48:54]:
So a lot of people think that it's like you're trying to create something, some kind of scarcity, which is really just a byproduct of the system because the drop system is the most efficient way to make as many knives as you can as a small shop, because you're just not doing every task every day. You're not shipping every day, you're not doing photography, you're not updating your website. You're just going to do. Just make knives. And then, boom, one day in my photo studio, I'll shoot everything, spend an evening drafting emails, get a nice pretty email out there, do a drop, sell the knives, and then I wake up at 4 or 5am the next day and ship them all. And by the time people wake up, they've got a notification in their email that their knife was shipped. When like, most of the other small shops are like, hey, pay us now and wait six months, wait three months, wait, whatever. So, I mean, you just see the biggest companies doing it, like, not the biggest, but the companies that are growing the fastest, like Montana Knife Company.

Yoni Wunderman [00:49:49]:
And it's like, it works for a reason. And it's a great, It's a good system. So if you're not able to make more knives than people demand, it's the best way to do it, I think, because I just, I can stay focused in my shop and not worry about the stuff selling, not worry about pre orders. You know, people that do pre orders. That's insane to me. I mean, I tried it, but it's. You're just matching up, oh, which scales go with this blade? And this guy has an engraving and this. It's like, like, you're gonna make half as many knives than if you just go, I'm gonna put on music and I'm gonna make as many knives as I can.

Yoni Wunderman [00:50:24]:
Not worry about anything. And, you know, you don't have to worry about emails. Cause when I was doing pre orders, you get. Every time your phone goes off, you're like, is this someone asking where their knife is? I'm late. You know, shit, what's going on? So it's like, I can turn my email off on my phone, on my phone. I know that I don't owe anyone a blade or anything. I can just relax and, you know, make as many knives as I can, take that extra time, make sure there's no scratches, no blemishes, whatever, and then release them when they're ready. And for.

Bob DeMarco [00:50:53]:
For a buyer, that also seems like a great way to go about it or a great, you know, a great situation to be in. Because if you follow Compliance Edge on Instagram and you kind of. And I think you have a newsletter where you let people know. Well, you just mentioned that if you kind of just Stay in touch. That way you'll kind of get used to the rhythm and you can prepare yourself. Yeah, yeah.

Yoni Wunderman [00:51:17]:
No, and I actually, I'm probably the only person that does it, but I have a thing on my website when I. On a drop week, I have like a cut the line thing. So you can pay like 50 bucks and I'll ship your knife out like any day leading up to that drop. So if I'm advertising the drop three weeks in advance, that thing goes up it. You don't even have to wait for the drop. You just pay a little bit more and you can get it. And I found that, like, it's. It works really well because, I mean, they're expensive, so most people don't want to pay more.

Yoni Wunderman [00:51:45]:
But going from 400 to 4:50 isn't like a huge gap. And it's like, now you don't have to miss out. You don't have to wait for six months trying to get the drop. It's just like right there. Yeah, it's. I. And it's. It doesn't.

Yoni Wunderman [00:51:57]:
I only put 10 passes up for every drop. I only have 10 spots that do that, and I don't sell out all 10. Even. So I think it's kind of the perfect system because it gives everyone the chance to do it.

Bob DeMarco [00:52:09]:
Yeah. And it's great if you're fiending and you're like, I gotta have this thing and I don't want anyone to beat me. And it's also great if you are law enforcement or military and you're about to be deployed or, you know.

Yoni Wunderman [00:52:20]:
Well, usually if someone hits me up and says they're going to be deployed, I'll hook em up. Sounds cool. Yeah, I'll do. I'll do the best I can. I can't. No promises, but I always, you know, I'm like, oh, yeah, I got one of those ready. I'll just sell it to you. Boom, you go.

Bob DeMarco [00:52:36]:
So show us the knives. We're coming up to time here, but some of the knives that you have out that we haven't seen yet.

Yoni Wunderman [00:52:43]:
Okay, let's take a look at the SVM. This is one of my SVMs. This one's also polished with carbon fiber handles and it has the matching carbon fiber Kydex sheath. And yeah, this one is probably one of my favorite nines. So it also kind of has the hooked, kind of curved. There's a ring version of it as well, but I haven't kept one yet. This one's super tight and people really like it because you can see, like that sheath profile. It's just so minimal.

Bob DeMarco [00:53:15]:
Yeah.

Yoni Wunderman [00:53:15]:
I have pretty much no wasted space on these sheaths. The way they're designed is to fit with five different belt clips. So, like, I. I figured out I could put a slot where the sheath is right here. And that makes. All of a sudden, that makes your possibilities for mounting almost endless, because when you have just holes, it's not gonna always be spaced out. Right. But if you add one slot in the middle, all of a sudden, now you can mount almost any clip on the knife because things don't have to line up perfectly with it.

Bob DeMarco [00:53:44]:
Just a side note, and don't put that knife away. Just decide note. I got a. A knife. I won't mention what it is. I absolutely love it at blade show, but the damn holes on the sheath have me frust. I have got a million clips around this room, and I've. I've been trying, and it.

Yoni Wunderman [00:53:59]:
I think I need to drill more holes. Yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:54:02]:
So that slot is.

Yoni Wunderman [00:54:03]:
Is. Yeah. So I do. I do that on every one of my shoes now. It's just standard. It's. So the first three holes are, like, based off of a tech lock alignment, and then you get the slot, and then the next two holes are based off of a discrete carry clip. But with that slot, you can pretty much mount anything because it's.

Yoni Wunderman [00:54:18]:
It doesn't have to line up perfectly. So the slot's been really cool. I don't know why more people don't use it, but, yeah, what I will say is that most people, even though I have instructions, like a video in the box, I still get people that are like, the clip doesn't fit and they're not utilizing the slot. So there is that. There is that. It definitely adds a little bit of emails, but I think once people realize that they can use it, they're like, oh, this works great. Because it's. Yeah, it's a simple little, little hack for trying to line up holes with everything.

Yoni Wunderman [00:54:50]:
This one's the henchman. So this is probably my most popular model. Very similar to the SVM in overall shape and size, but it is, you know, straight. And then this is the only one in my lineup that doesn't have a swedge in it. So you're going to get, like, a little bit more robust tip without that swedge. This one's pretty cool. It was designed by my buddy who's a SWAT officer, like, ex special forces dude, and wanted, like, a little blade for his vest, and I made him a handmade one years ago. And then 20, 21, when I started doing CNC, I was like, this is gonna be my first blade I designed myself with cnc.

Yoni Wunderman [00:55:34]:
And I was like, hey, can you take a picture of your knife that I made you? I'm gonna start mass producing them. He's like, sure, but mine's still the best. I'm like, yeah, of course, you know, and then he still his. But his. One of his SWAT buddies bought one the other day, and he was like, mine's still the best, right? And I'm like, you should see the new ones. They're pretty. They're pretty slick. So.

Yoni Wunderman [00:55:55]:
But, yeah, it's a. It's a cool blade. So it was like, he. He's about my size. It was kind of molded off of his hand. And what I found is that a lot of people will be like, I was hesitant at first when I bought it because of the finger grooves. And then almost like 95% are like, dude, this thing fits like a glove is crazy. Like, it's crazy how well it fits.

Yoni Wunderman [00:56:18]:
So of the reviews for this knife, I get so many compliments on the fit. Very little returns because of it, but obviously, you know, here and there. But yeah, so it's. It's just a cool, simple knife, like, very simple, Nothing crazy about it, and just feels great in hand and really popular. You know, when I first came out with it, they were a lot less expensive than they are now, so that was probably partially why they were so popular in the beginning. But then just being able to put so many out into the market and get them into people's hands, it definitely helped, like, build, you know, interest around the blade. So for a while, it was a bit of a loss leader, unfortunately. It.

Bob DeMarco [00:57:00]:
It seems like the most. Least weapony, let me put it that way, obviously.

Yoni Wunderman [00:57:07]:
Yeah, a little bit. I think it kind of. It just depends, right, because there are a lot of weapony. Like, this is kind of similar in overall look. Do you know the rat knife? Yeah, kind of similar in a look. Like it's a similar blade shape. It also has finger grooves. They're not anywhere near the same size as each other.

Yoni Wunderman [00:57:24]:
A build, but it's. So it's similar in a way where, like. Yeah, I guess it does kind of. They both kind of could be like a paring knife, but then they're also, you know, the guys that are. I mean, I did also, for a BUDS class, we did some of these as well.

Bob DeMarco [00:57:37]:
So I guess what I mean is the least incriminating looking, you know.

Yoni Wunderman [00:57:42]:
Sure. Yeah, it's the least, probably. Maybe the least scary, but in. Definitely in terms of, like, function. I've had people from all walks of life use this blade and love it. So I think. I think it's. It's a cool one.

Yoni Wunderman [00:57:53]:
It's one of my favorites. It's grown on me over the years.

Bob DeMarco [00:57:56]:
The Henchman. Good name.

Yoni Wunderman [00:57:58]:
Yeah. It's one of the only names that it has, like, a legit name. Unfortunately, I learned the hard way. When I was first making folders, I called the folder the Infidel. And Benchmade has a registered trademark on that. And I was like 20 years old. I didn't know what a trademark was. I was working out of a one car garage, and all of a sudden I got like, a lawyer hitting me up in the.

Yoni Wunderman [00:58:21]:
In the mail, like, cease and desist Benchmade eyes. And I'm like, oh, my God, I'm gonna. I'm gonna go to jail. I'm gonna lose the. The $5. I've made off selling these, you know, like. But they were actually really cool about it. In the end, the president or vice president reached out to me and was like, hey, man, He.

Yoni Wunderman [00:58:40]:
Our lawyer kind of does stuff on his own, and he just sends those out because a bunch of companies knock us off. But we see that you're like a small garage maker. We're really sorry. If you ever want a tour, come by. And I was like, oh, that okay. So in the end. In the end, it worked out. But it was a lesson in naming things where, like.

Yoni Wunderman [00:58:59]:
So that's why now most of the knife names are acronyms. So, like, the DCK Defensive carry Knife, like, it's not, you know, anything crazy. Crazy. So the Henchman was the only one. I looked up if there was a trademark, and there wasn't, and I just said, okay, I'll go with it. And I don't know, trademarking is so weird with knife names because it's like, no one's gonna buy my night my knife by accident because it's the same name, but. Right, right, right, whatever. Yeah.

Yoni Wunderman [00:59:28]:
So I just try to, like, I try not to use cool names, but that one got a cool name.

Bob DeMarco [00:59:34]:
Show us before. Before I let you go. Show us the large Tanto again.

Yoni Wunderman [00:59:39]:
Yeah, this one's the Copperhead. Copperhead. So that's just a snake. So I. I think that that's pretty safe in terms of naming. Sweet. Yeah, this one is really cool. Yeah, all these I designed back in, like, 2000, between 2013 and 2015.

Yoni Wunderman [01:00:01]:
Really. I've just been making new iterations of them over the past. You know, getting all my old handmade designs and slowly getting them into cnc. It's just a long process when you're trying to make everything really nice and perfect, But I think it pays off. Like this knife itself. I mean, this part of the handle, like, compared to where the blade is. I maybe did like 10 different iterations that were all like 10,000ths of an inch different and was like. Just looked at, like, 10 different knives that were.

Yoni Wunderman [01:00:32]:
No one could have. No one could have told them apart pretty much. But I'm sitting there with, like, putting numbers on the back side and then putting them down and mixing them around and being like, this one's my favorite. Mixing it back up. This one's my favorite. Okay. Yeah, that's the same knife, all right. That's the one.

Yoni Wunderman [01:00:47]:
We're going with that one. So the design. My design process is just really insane like that. So that's why. But that's why they end up looking cool like this one. So. So we have really nice. Really nice.

Yoni Wunderman [01:00:59]:
Like, the line from. The exact front line of the handle is perfectly centered from the tip to the rear of it. So a lot of. A lot of time into the design process with these to make them look nice. So I feel like making a knife function is actually pretty easy, but making a knife. Knife look nice is actually pretty difficult.

Bob DeMarco [01:01:19]:
So, yeah, just to have you. You look at it and your mind knows that it's. That everything is balanced and everything looks great.

Yoni Wunderman [01:01:27]:
Right. So there's actually like a theory kind of behind that, and I teach it in the course. I'm like, I'd show you how to achieve that. And it's. It's pretty simple. But I won't. I won't spoil it. But yeah, it's a.

Yoni Wunderman [01:01:38]:
It's part of. It's part of the design process. When I do it, there's like a couple simple rules that I follow, and you end up with something that looks super clean every time.

Bob DeMarco [01:01:45]:
Well, Yoni, thank you so much for showing this stuff and. And tell everyone how they can a buy your knives.

Yoni Wunderman [01:01:54]:
Sure. Be.

Bob DeMarco [01:01:55]:
Check out this. This first ever CNC knife making course.

Yoni Wunderman [01:02:00]:
Sure. Yeah. So all my knives are sold through my website like we talked about. I do drops, and if you go on my website, just on the front page at the very top, there's just a countdown timer that's always there and it'll say, hey, you're. Here's the next. Next drop. Here's a date countdown timer and a button that just says, notify me. You can click on that, put your email in.

Yoni Wunderman [01:02:22]:
And once I make more stuff, I usually promote for a week out. So you'll start getting those emails knowing that there's a drop coming. You don't wanna wait for the drop. You can pay the early access fee. So it's, it's, it's actually pretty simple. Um, so it's all through the website, but again, I just, I just had shoulder surgery. So you won't really be seeing anything from me until about September most likely September, October, because I'm just still healing up. And then the course, it's also on my website, you'll see it's pretty much front and center right now just because that's the only thing I'm really trying to promote at the moment with my shoulder.

Yoni Wunderman [01:02:55]:
But if you just go in the dropdowns, you'll see, you know, courses, blade drops, it's all right there and you'll, it's all gonna be neatly organized and it'll walk you through the whole purchasing process for the, for the course. So everything's right there on the site. Great.

Bob DeMarco [01:03:12]:
Well, I got some more questions to ask you, but people will have to become patrons to hear that on Patreon. Yoni, thank you so much for joining me on Junkie podcast. It's been a real pleasure. I love your work. Yeah, I think it's beautiful and I can't wait to get my hands on one.

Yoni Wunderman [01:03:27]:
Thank you for having me. Yeah, I'm definitely going to make sure that, that you get one. So I'll have to think. I have two dcks in my personal collection. I can definitely wants to figure it out. Yeah, we'll talk about that. Yeah. All right.

Bob DeMarco [01:03:40]:
Thanks so much, Yoni.

Yoni Wunderman [01:03:41]:
Yeah, thank you.

Advertisement Announcer [01:03:42]:
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Bob DeMarco [01:03:55]:
There he goes, ladies and gentlemen, Yoni Wunderman of Compliance Edge knives. Also just be sure to check out on July 9, the world's first CNC knife making course, soup to Nuts. And you will see Yoni's entire process and, and with. With all the obstacles along the way shaved out for you.

Bob DeMarco [01:04:17]:
So definitely go check that out. For Jim working his magic behind the switcher, I'm Bob DeMarco saying until next time, don't take dull for an answer.

Announcer
Thanks for listening to the ninth Junkie podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please rate and review it. Review the podcast.com for show notes for today's episode, additional resources and to listen to past episodes Visit our website thenifejunkie.com you can also watch our latest videos on YouTube at the knifejunkie.com YouTube.