Allen Elishewitz of Elishewitz Custom Knives The Knife Junkie Podcast (#45)

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the tip of the blade to the back of the handle everything's gonna flow everything's got to purpose this is one of the things i learned in architect classes that you don't waste space and everything has to have a purpose and incorporating all mine is from day one and welcome to the knife junkie podcast your weekly dose of knife news and information about knives and knife collecting here's your hosts jim person involved the knife junkie demarco junkies welcome to another episode of the knife jackie podcast i'm jumpers and i'm bob the knife junkie demarco welcome to the show episode number forty five of the knife junkie podcast now the interview show for you coming up today we'll tayo about our guest in just a minute what we have to look forward to but first we're gonna talk a little bit about a doug ritter knife byproducts of the or byproduct of the collection selection videos if you will then a little bit of nights news with the best technology so let's start with the with the doug ritter knifing little story or you wanna tell about that will yeah as you may have heard the couple of times i spoke with doug ritter here on the show we talked about his ritter grip billion which is no longer being made aide by bench made and now his RS k. one is made by hogue it's it's basically the same knife with some enhancements it had its first production run awhile ago and then you can get your hands on it's a knife works exclusive their online purveyor well they have it back and by the time you hear this might be gone again but i just happen happened to be trolling around knife websites as i'm known to do and saw that this was back in stock and it is basically the full size are as k. one is like the ritter uh-huh grip trillion the same blade except now with twenty CV steel it's got a beautiful and slightly differently shaped handle it's contoured g ten with at this amazing engraving in it and i i'm just really excited to have it it's a really great work knife i already de vine a giant pine tree in our backyard to slice through those vines like they weren't even there and then it was good to go so this twenty steel is knockout the geometry is incredible to get out into a rough and you i was like well doug ritter you always survival guy and this is what he would want me to do so i took it back and thrashed on it and it was like nothin' even so amazing knife very happy to have it is there's a little sentimental value to it now too okay cool wanna remind you about the knife junkies collection selection videos where baba's looking at all of his knives at he has a documented and kind of if you will and you can find those on the night junkies youtube channel just go to the knife junkie dot com slash youtube and you can find them all there and be sure to subscribe to the youtube channel so you don't miss any of the videos also hit the little bell notification shen and you'll get a notification every time bob drops new video but interesting little byproduct if you will of the collection selection videos who've been doing on and off throughout my life have thought about the different ways we remember things you smell a smell that you haven't smelled since you were a little kid in it it shocks you into memory and and the same thing with music think about the music you listen to in high school in those memories flood back well in going through my collection and making little videos about about them in and telling stories about how i got them some of them have some pretty interesting stores and just realized this is another way for me to remember things by knives i've been collecting acting on for so long i was looking in the case what am i gonna do today and i pulled out this old sog stingray it's like a old tactical folding knife from nineteen eighteen ninety one summer ninety one i got when i was in boston and all these things flooded back so it's just kind of an interesting you know if you hold your knives long enough to to have a collection that goes back you can access memories that you may have thought were gone just by picking them up and kind of carry them right the just been kinda cool from a great way to document those stories as you said kind of keep them alive the memories remember the the fun part of why you got that night for why he had that knife etcetera chris oh yeah yeah pretty cool before we get into our interview today we also want to cover a little bit of knife news now we're not always going to be talking about the new products being dropped or new knives out or those kind of things but kind of one that's near and dear to your heart kind of the small business guy you know the you know starting in the back somewhere and kind of making a little business or something but best technologies coming out with a new model this week from adam purpose yeah adam purvis i've been following him on instagram for a few years firefighter with that with a side hustle making beautiful mocking may and different kinds of titanium AM clips making beautiful clips and then he he crossed over into designing and making knives and he had two very successful nights come out over the past a couple of years called the primordial and the primordial mark to which i believe is a larger version but then the the third one he just came out with through best tech knives and it's a a a high value kind of selection best techniques amazing knives i've had a few and they're all within the ones i've had have been within the fifty dollar range in their outstanding so yet very cool sort of worn cliff blade and it just looks like a a great worker knife that's also handsome to have you know in your pocket but yeah like you mentioned i just like the fact that this is a guy who followed his passion step by step i mean i'm assuming i'd love to talk to him on the show but you know followed his passion action step by step and just by moving one foot in front of the other he's now accrued this portfolio of knives that he's had produced that people are excited about well a lot of empires are built with the side hustle as you said you've got to start somewhere so the passion for making knives designing like knives or any other kind of thing you know why not to venture out start doing it while you got a job that way you're not having to risked everything if you will but you know scientists can it becomes something you know the major hustle so i like those kind of stories to yeah in it'll be a grind and it'll be hard but not as gras not as hard hard as not doing what you want and still having be hard it's not it's never easy so you may as well make it something you wanna do right absolutely talking to myself it reminds you the knife jackie podcast is brought to you by the get upside app is a great way to get cash back for every gas purchase that you make for the motorcycle the car the truck the recreational vehicle but every drive get upside is an app you put on your smartphone whenever you need to get gas you just search the area your area you you are in for savings claim your discount fill up the tank then just take a picture of the receipt with your phone that's it you've got cash back into your account so if you'd like to help support the show joe and save money on gas go to the knife junkie dot com slash save on gas get the app and start saving again that's the knife junkie dot com slash save on gas bob another great interview coming up this week who you're talking to i'm speaking with alan alicia wits he is a elder statesman in the world of tactical folding knife design i've been i've been keyed into his work for quite some time and it was great to speak with him at he's he's got a marine recon on slash fine arts background and i love contrast chosen his work to interesting interesting i'm a nation that he said yeah well without without further ado let's get into it do you use terms like handled the blade ratio waukesha hair pop in sharp or tank like than you are a dork and a knife junky so allan thank you so much for coming on the show thanks for having me on my pleasure so before we started rolling we were talking about martial arts a bit and bikita tertia being a very direct form of kali and then you've got to talking about see lot what were you going to say about that a friend of mine's working on some some see lot that he got got from a professor jack in k.

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l. and it's his family system and it is from what i've seen it's it's fantastic i'm not a big salat fan but that see lot occupied down with it is i lost it all okay it's violence it's straightforward violent no extra fluff just in out damage they're they're they're empty-handed phenomenal absolutely phenomenal it is more movie barong did anything else look anything like see lot that you're used to seeing it is a more ancient thai boxing which is really barong which is awesome that's what i like so what was your path to becoming knife maker we'll we'll get back to the martial arts in just a second how did you start making and designing xining knives i have always been interested in edged weapons for for back remember i think living living in asia southeast asia was kind of the triggering over there you know TV shows over here we have the westerns over there there's comfort movies and a i guess a mythology movies just wrapped round kung fu martial arts and when i lived in may dan and in taiwan singapore i was exposed to a lot of the martial arts and so i was always interested in not just knives is but just weapon you know and so i'll make out of wood and whatever i could find and when i lived in thailand going to high school i started seriously designing a knives because there's a village a UTA outs on other side of the river used to be the capital it's a cutlery village and you can go down main street and they're you just stores and stores of agriculture knives swords in the back to sheds guys forging in conditions that i would it's not i would not work that condition you know and so i had my designs made there and when i graduate high school came back to the states and i had some of the customer life around dallas mix might designs and and they just weren't they weren't getting the i guess the feel that i was winding coming out of the knives you know the designer there the execution was fine the balance was there the edge geometry was there so oh i just started making is so one thing i know allen alicia with designs for his artistic touch to me i look at them in they're like art weapons they definitely are seemed like purpose driven tools in that purpose being you know utility but also weapon ability if you will but they all have an incredible artistic flourish how how do you bring arts in your love of martial arts and your love of knife making together without without high school one to architect mechanical drafter hands so i started on that path and the school in bangkok excellent program for architect mechanical drafters too bad the teachers turn me off the whole entire thing but before that a artist paintings painting i was trained by painter so you're not match took lessons probably out say maybe seven in years old and so being able to see forms and shapes and lines of i was very developed that you know from the classical art background i hold a degree in fine arts in taken the arts side same shapes in lines and and the mechanical drafting drafting being able to precision draw out my ideas on paper and just big around a lot of oh i guess martial art weapons knowing what i wanted a the the to do or the edge tool to do it was it was actually mind process of of going through the design stage our yo- okay one make k.

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is a combat knife or fighting all right we'll just take khimik combat knife or i will want this combat knife okay what's the lifeless ablation who's a four and so from there you start writing down all these criteria curious in the shape starts coming out to what you want to start designing to do me now are you let's say martial arts do you do more for call or sachse or ice pick or hammer grip you know so the blade shapes and length wolf will dictate that as well so what would you say is a signature aspect of your style across the board no matter what the intended purpose of one of your knives is what would you say a signature that's always there uh-huh has a tough one probably flow the flow design you'll never see a break-up in the lines it doesn't look look interrupted from the tip of the blade to to the the back of the handle air things flow everything's gotta have to purpose chris this is one of the things that the learned in architect classes that you don't waste space and everything has a purpose and that is what incorporating goldmine is from from day one so i know you've innovated some things in folding knives and the and the one thing i want to ask you about is the button lock detergent that you developed especially when married with a flipper a the i have a new hogue it's not a flipper but it is a button lock it's the three and i got it just by chance couple of weeks ago and i it it it's barely left my pocket and i'm really impressed rest with the all of my plunge lock knives are automatic so this is my first a non automatic and i'm really impressed by the action and how freely really the blade moves but how crisply it comes in and out you know the defendant so what's what's going on there i started baking but unlocks in fifteen seventeen years ago really longtime ago looked lock you know everyone's using putting lock for basically cheap autos and i saw moore there i saw a lock that was a safer than most other knives could yet come across across the theod handle it close it and blade will be in path of your thumb it's intuitive you look at the button you push it and it's i saw it can be stronger so back then the button lock was very small it had a flange on the top side there there's one company a speed tick that made a killer button lock it was all machined out of one piece a very well engineered is it looks like wow that's that's phenomenal jim jim young did a great job engineering it and it was extremely strong but i wanna go that route that was i i have to look at the also manufacturing that the metro manufacture ability of lock when you say you didn't want to go that route did you do you mean the integral handle route or one out of the way he made a button because button was most button locks is a post which is the button with the center post with another eh button this spring pocket in a back he actually had everything machine off to one side and that acted as you're stopping the close but just the the the bearing surface was massive it was phenomenal design but it was a lot of money to produce but you know and so i had to find out another way of welcome how simplify the the button lockwood i did was i blew it up made it bigger got rid of flange because really there's no need for the flange put a tape on the button it take the blade because back in the early days basically the tapers only on the but the blaze label just a machine crescent and so i put a tape on the blade in a button so they they both interlocked together and from there started making a lot of button locks i incorporated the deterrent within the the button itself the button was detect right so with all due to fall into a shallow pocket with a forty five degree champion in k and button would actually hold a blade place for manual knife it was okay for flipper i've found that it was just not not strong has popped like a liar lock alliance in the blade all the way to act quickly and and so about the same time i came up with the idea of just using you know what i'm saying you just separate detect hope came up the exact same thing and so what they did was they have a spring bar that's a adjustable which is really cool is way cooler than my idea you know my idealist was very simple cut cut a a diving board basically spring a spring bar in the liner in his football detect in it and machine the the the liner what they have is they have screws that could control the tension of the spring bar so if you want looser you want tighter you want to hire you wanna lower which is way cool got pat on it and and so i say you know what yeah why don't you use that one because that's way more flexible than mine you know but that's that's why the but that button locked fires off the ways detect a separate from the lock mechanism right right on the x five flipper or with amazing look well we'll get to that in a second let's talk about hook as i mentioned i got an e x oh three recently was a local five eleven tactical store which i'm shocked is there to begin with i live in major suburbia and and i'm i'm afraid it's gonna go away and i walked in i'm going to buy something today and they said everything's on sale i said knives to which is rarely the case and they said yes i ran right to the the hoax and so these are your babies i i look at i look at this ESO three and it's it is the the most i would say budget friendly of the line it does not feel that at all but i look at it and i see echoes of your amazingly artistic custom knives so tell me a little bit about hogue knives what what sets them apart aside from your leading their designs we'll tell me a little bit about that but also what sets them apart as a company family owned portion is owned by the whole family and hope to of machine a portion is owned by jim bruins and the the machine portion is what spearheaded all the knives in case so is it was actually the gym bruins idea to start making knives you know and i was introduced to the hose and jim bruins about out say twelve years ago by jim yong the founder speech it happened to be his birthday we were all together and we just kind of hit it off and it's a great family great budge guys they're all you know they're all super talented you know in their field jim jim bruins is a trained to dive master you know he knows plastic sets us that that ESO three dozen his that's his baby that's that's his baby he said alan i wanna make a polymer version of the old one okay but i wanna make it in one piece unlike dude you know there's mechanisms inside there a knock do it okay whatever you know go for it and sure enough he did well not not for nothing this polymer is amazing and i've i've never thought i'd say that but like compared to the the handle of a delicate for instance or it's not seinfeld it's tough oh man it feels like a rifle and actually feels like the stock of of a battle rifle so they came to you and you've been designing all of their nine is that right we we designed other knives but some of agent k's is aren't mine designs we do everything in house impossible in california so it's actually pretty amazing if you look at the pricing of of nive look at equality and that's american may you know we have not outsourced a anything nothing yet i'll note we will they really liked control to quality production of almost everything they're make you know like i said it's a great family to great business to make great products they are off to their word you're obviously very heavily involved volved with this amazing production knife company which is i really admire how it's all being made in house in the united states and in a state where you you can't even probably carry this tell me about the custom work you do i mean i was i recently saw a design collaboration you did with leong and it was a chris it was like a folding flipper chris that was just a wavy bladed monster it was beautiful so tell me about you are custom shop in your custom collaborations and k by custom knives i do submit techs and they are marked very differently a from my custom knives they look completely different to my customized by custom knives you could tell for for the past fifteen years using medallion so casey the medallion in the handle or somewhere around the knife is is handmade aunt it is truly completely handmade i'm they're cutting the material the band saw on profiling i'm greg i'm finishing it on heat treating everything in my shop so it's that little inset golden dot dot or or sterling silver dots yup so that that indicates one hundred percent handmade nausea that's cool and if you see anything that had like let's say laser or machined gened logo that's a midtech parts remain outside my shop i will do the final detailing the parts fit up sharpening any corrections i will do in the shop bar soap yes so when it comes to collaborating with someone like less george we had on this podcast awhile ago that was the knife you move how does that work do you decide who's gonna design the handle whose or do you both design the entire hire thing and then come to an amalgamation between depends depends on on which maker all i'm working with a zappa ticker knife v knife was designed i'm by both him and i and then he did the machining and then i did detail work detail work is another i i would say signature of the knives see especially the ones with the medallions the ones that you handmade like i would finish all the parts you know so he he gave me all these i hate to say raw parts basically they're all parts off the machine i may have to marks off sometimes something to be ground a re corrected because the mcadoo goes weird machining and the fed up deterrent sharpening just a whole tire pack put everything together let's talk a little bit about your design and production process do you draw things out by hand you use cad what's what has the i tried using caz about about twenty three twenty three twenty four years ago i get the feel of a feel without was does dry your fine artist by training right so so i went back to a paper and so i do is i draw everything one the one on paper and i'll do all the math i'll do all the engineering on it then at that stage might buy drawings or very precise i would say if you were going to measure their like plus or minus maybe seven thousands very protect my drawing that goes from the architect mechanical drafting background i will spend hours actually probably a week on design k then i take that design and i will blow it up to one or two percent from their redraw the whole entire knife double the size and that way i'm able to refine the design it a larger pattern and that i transferred that into two basic patterns for my pedigree what's what's a paragraph from santa graph is a duplicating machine where you have a pattern on one side you could trace it and he had a cut on your site it will cut whatever you're tracing okay it's the old fashioned milling machine mission CNC machine at one time machine shops used to have this rows and rows of these guys to sit there trace over patterns cutting out parts so i use that to make my master template from a to to the one ratio and it i used used also the transfer all the holes and so everything will get that steel pattern completely done it is basically half the size of that oh gee ten pattern and it's very precise are you a one man shop or do you have people so then you by hand knock that up so when it comes to you say working with our KT which you have in the past protecting bench made and all those companies you just kind of make some of these super precise drawings and send them i'm off to them or send a prototype said approach up i used to do just drawings and then things got really messed up through the translation and then i went two okay drawings and prototype so we are on the same page and then i started i did that with hogue with one knife the first night and i think the second ah also after that it's all drawings because they are so good they just they they copy exactly that drawings but sometimes i will send them a prototype sample and say look at this and you'll get ideas off this lex okay five yeah so in terms of modern manufacturing what what do you think these new processes these new machines and and high end production from china what what is this dumb first custom knife world in what is this done for just the knife world in general it's it's opened up a lot of new doors you know but there's two uh-huh let's talk about two things the chinese manufacturers like we react manager mickey phenomenal stuff on mandate just killing it you know they're just absolutely killing they're finished the three d.

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machining a secret was released my friend jimmy young's knife this yet the show he has said while while it was it's amazing amazing life you can't touch it's like three hundred something dollars you can't do it by hands in no way i mean if i was that night it would be you know at least two thousand dollars that's a lot of machine time and so because because they've entered the market place and here you could get yourself a a one piece handle s thirty five via d- blade with bearings airings frame lockwood inserts for two or three hundred seventy five bucks the midtech market is crushed where do you go from there for midtech the guys who are charging like six hundred dollars for midtech yeah so do you think the the midtech movement are trend was a a stepping stone or a bridge from the old motor production to the new mode of production of midtech would steppingstone for some makers to go from handmade to now semi production and having to customers except not k.

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and so oh we talk like this the whole segments but at one point you know most most makers made everything by hand all all make everything by hand and then so if you got bridgeport in his shop the whole knife industry just came unglued okay that's a manual mill and then then some make you started outsourcing bob cousy one you know he was one of the early guys outsource iowa's one outsourcing way in the early nineties laser and water jet wire you know how i got hammered pretty darn hard by by the knife life community and is a few years i went the other way you know everything by my hand it had sourness in for some the people that oh yeah this is the outsource it's not one hundred percent handmade the midtech allowed knife makers to get knives out to the public at a more affordable pricing at over time customer started accepting CNC made knives as a consumer it depends on what you're willing to pay for you know if you wanna fully handmade knife you'd better expect to shell out for three hundred bucks for midtech back that's acceptable in let's say you wanted knife maker XYZ's knife but you know what his average price thousand dollars it's just not in your bike but it also he comes out with this midtech that's like five hundred bucks at it's got the same cuss style slayer you know it's got nice materials but does it have the high detail finish like his customs okay now now now we're talking you know sure sure step by that that's what that's what's the midtech originally started as the health bridge the gap between in crisis and then it just kinda went off from there do you think now mid the mid tech market has evolved or at least shifted into to makers just sending designs to OEM's and having them just fully produced they're not getting their hands on it and feeling confident well if it's we'd knife or or riot it's gonna be a well produced thing that would be more collaboration i think the the midtech market of let's say i five six years ago i don't believe will ever see that again a guy there were heavy three hundred four hundred knives of one model being maize as as people just buying candies i don't believe we have that at the chinese was there for nominal live really has has crush that market you know what i'm seeing guys out doing is upping their their so called midtech his eyes at pushing the envelope of machining making it just phenomenal CNC at hand work and you can see it in like gus work you know GPC's willing is a great example some of the italians that uses the CNC within those they'll spend like another thirty hours on on finishing work they're making phenomenal stuff to two important questions where where do you see your knives going like what what do you want to accomplish in terms of design and engineering or innovation in the upcoming years more refinement just more refinement refinement finish refining machining the refinement designed everything refined if you if you my work over the years he's just a constant refinement in refinement refinement and find that very true in a life the things that i've done or lots of things that people do in the early years of knife making hours just so eaten up on innovation discontinuation you know what's new i was hungry i was just like i had all these great ideas to me out so is innovation and then over the years i found the innovation listen slowing down refinement i wanted to refine it more in it's like a training in martial arts or a training firearms or archery victory at the very beginning to learn all the different techniques but dead over like you know twenty years of doing this what you finding out is that you go into the safe taking over over again and because that is the go-to techniques do they work every time and what you do is you refining it you're finding the timing refining the distance you're finding the understanding of it that's my goal just refining the actual art of knife making so to me nothing says the raw exercise of refinement find more than making watches what is about you making watches i had this dream of becoming a watchmaker maker i actually looked in at a watch school in switzerland talk about twenty two years ago i was going to basically drop everything moves switzerland and become a watchmaker in my opinion it's like the ultimate precision the ultimate quest for precision and i and refinement they say the it's perfect you can't see it on your ten power loop and so the swiss swiss watch often street is the epitome of of precision in my and it was a challenge and that's why i started making watches and pens thanks to you also make pens the pins case the pins and the watch it depends depending rings was actually kind of funny yes i did make watches i'm sorry rings and pins that was the train me on my life to make watches right okay yeah because i know a lot of late work so i need a lot of time so okay let me start with pins they let me do some rings and let me get more complicated pins and then all right here we go i'm a trial watch you know bringing bringing it back to knives how important to you is the aesthetic of knife versus or not verses mrs but at what cost of the function i will never sacrifice the function never when a craftsman sacrifices function for aesthetics and looks it's just a bad product what do you think of the abundance of new knife makers about their work or them necessarily about out their work or even necessarily them there's some amazing work coming up it's just i guess i'm a little shocked i've i've been i've been collecting knives my whole life and just been aware of things and and it seems like in the last five years there's been an explosion an absolute explosion it makes me feel like why do not why do who i not have a knife line i should have a knife you're right you're right five years i would say that the knife industry on these custom knife or or the knife manufacturing side has probably doubled you know exploded and you have a lot of new knife makers i look at their work i've studied their work there are some that that stand out the a guy named patrick doyle he is freaking good i know oh him personally he drives himself crazy over his knives that's what you want as a collector you want someone that's that's obsessive over what he's doing and up 'cause he's he's poured his soul in there a lot of the other ones i hate to be negative just not seeing it you now i'm on the other side of the table i hear things that customers don't here and they don't have the love for it they're enfor they're in it for the money might be shooting my foot some enemies budget i've always been known to be what a talk the truth well yeah i think think in any pursuit there's going to be a certain section of of any given population that's on the other hand there are easier ways to make money johny disability with cad the ability to to design things and then send them off and have the made is pretty pretty amazing this i mean you know i know guys that don't even have abilities and and so what they'll do is they have a design and they'll get somebody to ingineers up putting chad and they will shop at around and have it built in presto the guy's knife makers shows the shows with knives it's a wonderful world so where do you see it all going where do you see the knife world headed in the next say let's give it ten years where do you see it going in ten years that's a hard question i mean you know in the early days i had a great crystal ball i could see it clear day now very murky more cad more CNC you know just more and more which is fine you know i have nothing gets it out like i said i was one of the earlier guys to use the technology analogy with back the other direction of not to duct previously but just i prefer will do i see i don't know i i that's one thing i cannot answer i think there's a change in attitude i think when you started when you came on the scene there was much more of a focus of pocket knives as weapons tactical knives being a a self defense implement as well as a as as a thing of beauty beauty and i feel like that has changed a lot they're all there are also i mean there are all there will always be tactically marketed knives i don't know if that's right but you know what i mean but it seems like with the expanding community there's been an expanding the purpose of knives that are being made there's there's such an emphasis on everyday carry sort of small smaller size i prefer larger knife personally but smaller size and maybe later duty and i think maybe it's headed in that direction even more you know if you go way back in case you're old school collector hewlett seek trends back in the seventies and eighties of it was like okay here we go we have we face in k.

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and then we have our tanto face dagger phase out art night i phase tanto phase when i started sliding into the cutlery industry and then the liner lock face k.

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started and it was all these colorful lilacs and in the early nineties the tactical folders started trickling out you know and by about about maybe the mid to late nineties it was in full force at so with a lotta people realize that all these little phases of knives like a dagger phase yard art phase of the santa fe they came and went within like maybe a couple years couple few years then were on the something else the tactical knife life a craze or movement and lasted for like thirty years so can i see knives like going to a smaller e.

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d.

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c. maybe a more modernized joint style where some of these guys are doing slip joint looking is that are actually frame locks yeah you know i mean tactical knives have taken a long ride for a long time you know so i could see it maybe losing some of its momentum well hopefully they never go oh anywhere 'cause they're my favorite kind of same allen alicia it's i want to thank you so much for coming on the knife junkie podcast i think there's a whole lot lot more we could talk about so maybe some time we'll get back together and talk some more but i just wanna say i love this x. oh three and i look forward to getting more are you knives i gotta say for having me on it was great for sure as my pleasure thanks visit the knife junkie at the knife junkie dot com to catch all of our podcast episodes videos photos autozone bore and we're back on the knife jackie podcast episode number forty five and bomba interesting interview there i guess as we always do you kind of what hits you what what stuck out key takeaways i guess i really resonate with his artistic temperament you know he's a he's a person who has always been in a fine artist and but he also found his inner and i mean this is the best way inner monster through martial arts and through the military and so he's got a very well balanced you know he he's in touch with his sensitive side through the arts and he's in touch with his masculine warrior side through his martial social arts and his military background and i just think it it creates an amazing balance in his designs is his knife designs and not for nothing his tomahawk design design he in the in the weeks since recording this interview alan sent me a one of the tomahawks he's having made with hogue it's called the hoagie x t o one and it's a thirteen inch tomahawk that feels like a knife in your hand it's balanced amazingly and i'll make a video about it i'll talk about it but but it's an incredible innovation not only the design of the thing and and how it feels when you're when you're using it but also how it mounts to your body when you're not using it it's pretty the amazing so anyway you've got the you got the innovative artistic spirit and then you also have the the knowledgeable know-how side that knows how to actually use those tools and i think it comes together in a in a nice balance well that's going to wrap it up for this edition of the knife junkie podcast one thank you for listening up these remember to subscribe on your favorite podcasts the player app whatever that might be in that way you can catch it every week's episode of the knife junkie podcast for bob the life jockey demarco i'm jim i won't say thank you for listening thanks for listening to the ninth junkie podcast if you enjoyed the show please rate and review review the podcast dot com for show notes for today's day's episode additional resources into listen to past episodes visit our website the night junkie dot com you can also watch our latest videos on youtube at the night jokey dot com slashing youtube check out some great night photos on the night junkie dot com slash instagram and join our facebook group at the knife junkie dot com slash facebook and if you have a