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Transcript
[0:02]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.
[0:16]Welcome to the Knife Junkie Podcast coming to you from Blade Show Atlanta 2024. And as every year, it's been exciting, awesome, fun, not only seeing all the great new knives coming out and all the great products in the two big rooms over there at Blade Show. Well, big room and then the baller room, which is smaller. But it's really great to meet everyone. Again, it's been a year that I've seen these people, and it's fun to meet up with the knife makers that I've interviewed over the past year and, of course, meet all of you. I've had several people come up and introduce themselves, and I love that. So it's been great. This is the last day here at Blade Show. After we record here, I'm going to go over and see if there's anything else. Maybe something going on sale. Maybe someone wants to get rid of something before they travel. I'm going to be that guy there just waiting to snap it up. Well, I came here to Blade Show with very few knives because I don't like to travel. I don't like to tempt TSA to become a knife junkie in that way. So I didn't bring too many knives, but I brought a couple of special ones. So right now, before we get into the interviews here, and before we get into any of the stuff I've gotten, let us now get to a pocket check.
[1:40]Okay, so I'm calling this my pre-purchase pocket check. So I came here with this folder. This is the Civivi Synergy 4 Nice, big, beautiful Tanto made by Civivi You've seen me show this off before My strategy is always to travel to Blade Show With a folding knife that I could easily replace If it were lost And the past few years I've brought a Kubi Flash This year I decided to change it up And brought the Civivi And I'm glad I did I was looking at the Civivi booth I did not see one of these there But today I will I'll go back over and see what they have Because, well.
[2:22]Those are my wife's favorite knives, and she recently lost a Cinesys. That's a Sencut, and so I've got to see if I can replace that. But this has been in my pocket. It hasn't been touched because of what else I had, and this got touched a lot. That sounds funny. But I was carrying the Agent 001, which debuted here at Blade Show 2024 at the T-Cal Knives booth. booth and T-Cal knives just crushing it, killing it. Uh, they've been on the rise for four years now and, um, not to brag, but I'm going to do it. Uh, this has been their biggest knife release so far. So, uh, the knife came out to, uh, great fanfare and people have been snap, snapping it up. So, uh, they made 400 of them. They're almost all sold. Uh, so it's a great honor to be a part of the t-cal knives operation in this in this regard and hopefully we'll be doing some other knives together in the future i think we probably will um but i would pull this out i've been pulling this out all weekend and showing it to people because that's what you do a blade show you show off knives to one another and oh hey did you see my collaboration with t-cal knives and inside i'm like check this out uh so a lot of great response on the uh on the agent 001. The other knife I had, I know you know what this is going to be, also in my waistband, the Nova II.
[3:52]So this is a post-Blade Show release. I had a chance to hang out with a.
[4:01]With Matt Chase of Hogtooth Knives quite a bit, and we were talking about this and figuring out there are no changes to this knife. There are a few changes to the sheath, and we were talking about that, and Jim, I know, has been working on the purchase page, working on it. It's done, so we're going to be rolling this out, but this is another one I kept pulling out and showing. I feel like a yenta, you know, one of those matchmakers who gets people together for marriage. But for me, I've been having fun introducing knife lovers to knife makers and knife makers to other knife makers and that kind of thing. I just find great pleasure in it. So I'd be at the hogtooth knives booth and, oh, check out what he's making for me and pull this out and show it off. Not only to get people interested in this night, but to show off the width and breadth of Matt Chase's talent. And I like doing that with I like doing that because these are the people who are making the things we love. And I think that we should give them as much support, not only monetarily, but spiritually as possible.
[5:14]So that's what we got there. And, oh, Jim brings up an interesting point Thursday Night Knives, on the 20th We're giving away the Eutectic Trinity A clip point flipper from Liang Ma And I had a chance to see him too And he's got some cool stuff on his table And some cool stuff coming up, I gotta say, just having those Eutectics Has whetted my appetite for more Liang Ma knives Really like those designs eyes. All right. I think it's time to show off some of the stuff I got. Now, this is just a mere tease, okay? I'm going to show you just what I got. I'm not going to talk much about them because on the Wednesday supplemental, I'll have a chance to put them under the knife cam, get up close with them, and talk. But I just want to show you briefly what I got here before we get to these fantastic interviews that I recorded on the floor. It is a little loud, but that's the nature of the beast you know people are there they're excited uh so first state of the collection now i was mentioning this first item i was mentioning i was going to go to first going to go to their table first and see if they had it uh and it's not a knife it is the.
[6:28]Spooky pockets brass knuckles uh spooky pockets a brother of um john balatzis uh of copus designs designs, and he's doing all of these knuckle dusters and interesting kind of things like this. The reason I was looking for this one is because this is the same model that I have the 3D print of, and it fits my hands so well, and it punches so well with a full fist, as opposed to an opened up fist that you have to do on some brass knuckles, that I had to get it. So I ran over there and got these. They are awesome. And it's cool to have them in brass, the classic material. They are heavy, but I've been walking around with them in my pocket all weekend. Maybe that's not the wisest idea. I don't think they're the most legal things that you can carry around, but I love them. So I got the Spooky Pockets Brass Knuckles. Now, this is something that it's kind of in the same line. It's not a knife, but it's knife adjacent, and it's a self-defense item. And here, let me write down what I was going with my, oh, it's not a purple Sharpie.
[7:45]It's a purple Sharpie with a G10 tip. This is a Revenant Core. Let me go this way. Revenant Core Sharpie. So this tip here is not felt and it's not loaded with permanent ink. It is a piece of G10 that is sharpened so that you can stab stuff with it. So this is a great, great little implement to have on you. It's very low profile. while, it's kind of like having a ventilator pen, you know, taking a BIC and making it more like a syringe. This is kind of that kind of thing. And while I was buying it from the fella over there at Revenant Corps who does a lot of really cool G10 knives and NPE, non-permissive environment weapons, I was trying to pick out which one should I get, black, red. He said, get one that you don't normally use. If you're someone who normally uses Sharpies, which I am, don't get a black one or Or don't get whatever color you ordinarily use. So I was like, that's a good call. I will never look at this and think, hopefully I never look at this and think, oh, I got to write with this. I'll know.
[8:53]Bang. And plus, there's a little bit of cognitive dissonance that comes with a lavender pen that turns into a weapon. All right. Next up, I went over to the Rosecraft booth to introduce myself to Andy Armstrong. Because I'm dying to get him on the show. And I did. And he's a great guy. And he is going to come on the show.
[9:11]But as I was leaving, he was like, here, take this. And he gave me a brand new model here. And I will give you the details of it in the Wednesday supplemental. But I believe this was designed by the owner's son, the guy that Andy Armstrong started the company with, his son. It's a great front flipper and button lock. And it's called the Easton two ends Easton uh handsome knife I like the uh I like that clip and uh a saber grind so nice contour g10 scales nice action this is my first rosecraft knives, modern knife uh modern flipper or modern folder I've had I have a number of the uh slip joints as you know but it's nice to have this in hand seems like a great knife and I've used it to eat with so far. So he cuts sausage as well. All right, next up, I spent a lot of time looking for something for both my daughters and my wife. And for my daughters, I decided to get them the same thing. Just different colors, even though they're, they differ in age by four years.
[10:25]I kind of had to keep the monetary commitment the same. I don't know if you're if you're a parent, You might know that that instant, but I got them these little Cobra tech out the front daggers, got one in purple and one in blue. And, and, My youngest daughter, my younger daughter said before I left, please get me a dagger. And I'm like, oh, man, OK, I'll find you a dagger because, you know, both of my girls love daggers for some reason. The double edged thing, maybe I don't know, or maybe it's just the shape.
[10:57]But I knew that any any nice dagger is going to cost me too much and not going to give them a super expensive dagger or anything like that. And I didn't want to get them just a cold steel or some something just to get them a dagger so when I saw this I figured the the purple anodization and the action it's a dagger it's small and that action would be something that they would like so for the daughters Cobra Tech and I gotta say I was the Cobra Tech switchblades and automatics are pretty pretty nice a lot of them are not my taste in terms of how they're um how they look and stuff but uh the action seems really really great and they have a knife coming out i'm not sure if i can well they have a knife coming out from a very very famous old school designer and uh if you watch this show you know i've tried to get this guy on and he almost said yes and then said i'm too old for this oh but i had a chance to meet him in uh and i'll tell you who that is next show At Blade and it was a real honor to talk to him So.
[12:05]Keep your eyes on Cobra Tech. Next up for my wife, she likes little knives when she goes running. And she's had a Bastinelli diagnostic for a long time for that purpose. But it's D2, and when it's gripped in her hand, she sweats and it rusts. And every time she comes back from a run, I'm de-rusting it. So I got her this from Auxiliary Manufacturing. It fits in the sheath. I just didn't put it all the way in. This is the Broadhead by Auxiliary Manufacturing. Michael Jarvis and his lovely wife, I talked to them for quite a while at their booth. They're so cool. Great people making really awesome knives. And this is, as you can see here, a chisel ground, little chisel ground punch dagger. So she can hold this in her hand. She could even hold it like this with a cord. I mean, I guess if she felt really endangered with the cord on the other end and she could just pull it and have it ready to go. But otherwise, she can have it gripped in her hand or hanging around her neck on the ball chain. I'm not putting that all the way in because I got to work on the sheath. It's a very – if it goes in there, a little too stout. So I got to heat it up a little bit and loosen it so she can draw it easier.
[13:22]But that's how it goes when it's in there. Really nice – I think that's Fordite. You know that stuff Made from paint That is scraped up off the floor In the factories I'm not sure I'm not sure what that material is I'll ask Michael and I'll tell you on Wednesday.
[13:41]Next up Someone that you've seen here on this show many times, American Blade Works I went by American Blade Works And he was selling These amazing Little slip joints That he just started making I say he, I mean, Michael Martin. And he's.
[14:01]It's got sort of the same texturing as the model number two. And it's got this great wharncliffe, almost cleaver-style blade here. Or sheep's foot. I don't know what you call that. Sheep's cleaver. And nice action. And these were only $150. And, you know, $150 is not a small amount of money. But for a handmade, hand and machine made, homemade titanium and magna cut slip joint of this quality made in the United States, $150 is shockingly cheap and shockingly inexpensive. And he sold all of them. He brought a bunch of them, sold them all. And I got, I think, one of the last three. So I made it just in time.
[14:54]All right, next up, another guy who's been on the show, Brent Smith of Bald Man Knife and Tool. I was by his place, by his booth, and we were chit-chatting, and he gave me these two to check out. And I know that one of them I'm going to buy. I already know which one. But he was like, no, no, no, just take them. And so I'm going to take them, and I'm going to buy this one. This is a pretty cool – this is his Thicker Clipper. Sorry, Jim. I went to the thicker clipper first. It's a tanto. It's a quarter-inch thick and it's in his most popular line the clipper line and So this is a thicker clipper tanto. I love that extreme American tanto that is an incredible.
[15:40]Chisel working certain a working edge there and this is in magna cut also and I, It's capable of doing a lot. I was talking to a guy at his booth, excuse me, at his booth who uses this in construction and uses it to pound and chisel and open and pry and all sorts of stuff. So I love this knife. I will probably make that one mine. And then we're going to give one away, which is very generous of him. And I think that will be this Thicatross. So he does the Albatross, which is that same profile, but this one is in quarter inch. So he calls it the Thickatross. It feels really good in hand. It's got that great jimping on top. And just, it's got a nice, thick, melt-in-the-hand handle. And if I'm not mistaken, this is that G10 with alternating layers of thin rubber, like I have on my Nova 1, my Nova, my personal Nova 1. Really great material. It's not sticky or tacky like rubber, but you can just feel a little bit, it just adds to the grip just a little bit. And that blade is wicked sharp and nice and thick. These are great, great work knives and nice to look at.
[16:59]Okay, second to last here. This one, when this came out, I was so excited about it. But I was like, I'm just not in that mode right now where I'm spending a lot on folders. And we all have a different idea of what a lot is. And for me, anything over $200 is a lot on a folder And I realize I'm dating myself at this point But when this knife came out With Alan Alishowitz and Les George collaborating, I was like, I gotta get one of those And I didn't And then when I saw this in front of me at the show I had to get it Oh, God, I love this Okay, so this is their Eck Integral, Eck, John Eck was a knife maker maker. I believe he started during World War II, but it could be Vietnam. I'm sorry, I got to do the research. He made knives for commandos. They're very famous, the Eck knives.
[17:58]K-Bar has bought up the rights to those, and they're making the fixed-blade Eck knives. And then here we have Alan Alishowitz and Les George, two amazing makers. Les George is a dagger fanatic, and Alishowitz is just a genius. And so also two former Marines. So they got the handle down, the Eck handle, with the three screws and the divots on the side, and then this bayonet shaped blade so gorgeous and the action on this is incredible and i believe this is overseas manufactured i can't believe uh that it isn't and the reason i say that is because i was able to afford it somewhat it was an expensive knife uh but i feel like if this with the two men at the helm and it's integral i forgot to show you that my first integral knife all of this would cost a lot more made in the United States than what I paid for. So I'm guessing it's foreign made. Doesn't matter. It's amazing. I love it. So this is my big daddy purchase for the show. Last up to show you is something that Tim gave me, Tim Kell gave me, because this one is about to pop off. This one's about to be released. And it's the Agent 002.
[19:17]So you know, I know the Agent 1 has the double-edged fighting blade. Well, the Agent 2 is this really cool wharncliffe. And these are, I know he's got all of the blades back from Nickelboron and...
[19:34]You know, back from that process and he's ready to handle them and sharpen them. And I know he's got sheaths in the making. So this is the second in the agent series and he has prototypes going up to six here and it's really cool. Uh, number three has kind of a night stalker blade drop point. Um, and then there, I can't remember what the other ones were, but hopefully I get to design 007. That would be cool.
[20:01]Uh, but, uh, here it is. this love that handle and look forward to this this is a great there's gonna be a great work.
[20:07]Knife great self-defense knife because of that wharncliffe shape all right so this is uh these are the things i've acquired i'm going back over today i might acquire a few more but uh you know i'm not made of money unfortunately oh i gotta show you this too it's a little off color uh but it's from steve collari customs so uh steve if you know him he's got a great and uh somewhat a bawdy sense of humor and I was over there uh talking to him he's blowing up um he's got he's doing so well it was great to see him and his wife but they also have shot glasses and I like to do a shot every now and again and we have a little shot shot glass collection at home this one Steve Calari customs there I don't know if you can see that there's logo and then you turn it around and it says balls so balls I don't know but I like it all right moving on so I went through the the show the baller room in the big room and did some interviews I did seven interviews and they're pretty awesome the first one is with Zach Wingard of Wingard wearables and this is their first time coming to blade show and they had such a great setup their setup super cool They had all the drawings All the mechanical drawings and sketchbook drawings Of all of his different tomahawks And stuff under glass And then all of the products on top And a beautiful sign A giant empress tomahawk It was great to see him.
[21:37]Great to talk with him And he had a lot of attention.
[21:41]At the Blade Show So check it out This is Zach Wingard You are at the best table at Blade Show I'm here with Zach Wingard of Wingard Wearables. Zach, how's it going, sir? Life is always good, but it's even better at Blade Show. So this is your very first Blade Show. How's it going? It's going great. We're high energy. It is all edgy over here. We've got lots of interest in these everyday carry comm ox. A lot of people hadn't heard of our brand before, so it's just been fantastic. What are you showing here this year that's new? The Sparrowhawk. This fits, blade cover under the arm, spike cover, pommel cover, and you wear this comfortably under a covering garment. You can wear this all day long. So that's new at Blade Show. Also, of course, are microfite mulfactules. These have been gone for a long time. So you've got static blade.
[22:35]Cover right this tucks into your pants and this is tethered to your body so when you draw this out the sheath comes out and stays behind because of that static line that's over 15 inches of steel you can wear in your waistband so it's kind of like a spear it is is like a spear you can wear on your body you got two and a half inch blade good for like cuts you got hammer face and you got all kinds of thrusty goodness this thumb pad here intuitive hand-eye coordination. You got two hands you can put on it for power-ups. You got your core in it. Very difficult to deflect a thrust like that with two hands behind it.
[23:12]That's what's new at Plate Show. And you can twirl it. It's so tasty, you know. It's fun. I noticed you have a couple of different sizes here of the Empress and the Back Ripper. What's that all about? All right, so this is our full-size Empress and Back Ripper. This is a slimmed-down handles, our MOLLE-compatible handles. These are slim enough to slide through molly house loops so you can wear it on your pack or your plate carrier Like it's great to wear Tomahawk in your pants like I feel fantastic carrying this but it's not for everybody Some people won't wear it on their backpack or just have it as a bedside implement. That's great, too These are our most adaptable Tomahawks for different carry conditions. They also carry well in shorts like remember Tom Selleck from the 80s He had really properly short shorts. You know, you want the MOLLE tomahawks instead of these longer handlebars. When you're wearing your Celic. Yeah, your banana hammock stuff. So if you look here, you can see that the pommel part is tapered. This makes it easy to slip between the MOLLE loops here.
[24:16]And then the length is shorter overall. Yeah, and I mean, the full size, this flat face here is handy for, like, light percussive impact. Like, we get bugs in our house. Big crawly, creepy spiders. Man, I've smooshed so many bugs with this thing. It's fantastic. Even swatted wasps out of the air because this is so light. You get that white face. That's way better than a fly swatter. You don't want to use a fly swatter on a yellow jacket. You're just taking that thing off. It's tomahawk time all the time.
[24:45]I couldn't agree more. Tomahawk time every time. Let me take one quick look at the sparrowhawk. Just tell me a little bit about this one.
[24:53]This is over a half inch thick. It's the thickest full tang tomahawk you're gonna see at blade show. It tapers down to under a quarter inch thick. We've got this leather wrap here to absorb the hand shock, like instead of having rigid scales that go down. And it looks a bit like a bird, and this is sort of bird nest vibes, the aesthetics. This is very comfortable for taking up the hand shock. This throws really well as it's going through the spin rotations. You've got a high probability of sticking and a concentrated impact and it batons really well because of that thickness. You can baton with the back of the bird head, the back of the bird neck. You can plant this on the ground and baton from the top to split up smaller pieces of wood. It's a fantastic tomahawk for bushcraft, combatives, throwing and it looks beautiful. It does. That blade is really sharp. I was feeling it before. Yes. Yes, we've had some customers tell us it's sharper than what they've handled before. They've come with some bandages, so you've got to be careful. Don't toss them and catch them like they are for juggling. Well, Zach, I'm going to let you get back to it. A lot of people come into your booth, and I'm just standing in the way. Hey, have a great blade show. Be edgy.
[26:07]Next up, in the baller room as well, this is a company I wasn't aware of and had never met, but I definitely want to work with them. I want to, well, and you'll see why. But this is Jared of Gunfighter Knives. Gunfighter Customs are, again, Marines, former Marines, at least two of them were. I'm not sure if the third one was a Marine or in the Army, but veterans making really cool knives. They have their own models, many of them based on Pikiti Tertia and other Filipino martial arts style blades. And then they also just do straight up customs. You come to them with a design and they'll work with you and make it, work with you on materials and design and make the knife for you. And I love that. That seems to be somewhat uncommon these days to have someone kind of do that, just making other people's designs custom as they come in.
[27:05]So, check this out. This is Jared with Gunfighter Customs. I'm here with Jared Franklin of Gunfighter Customs. Jared, how are you, sir? I'm good. We're having a good time at the paint show. I'm happy. I'd like to talk to y'all. Do you have any questions? Yeah, well, you know, your work is new to me, but it's so in my wheelhouse. I'd love you to tell me a little bit about the company and what you're producing here. Well, when I got out of the Marines, I found myself with a lot of free time. And my dad is a knife maker. He's Mike Franklin of Hog Knives. So I had been making knives as a kid. And when I joined the Marines, I stopped. I didn't have time to do it, of course. And I decided to start making again, and most of the guys I was making knives for were Marines. So that's how the name Gunfighter Customs came about, is I would make knives for Marines. They would just hit me up with an idea, and I would draw it out for them and make it up. So show me one of your signature blades here. All right. This is our E-Bit. This is Mike Elliott designed. That's his logo right there on the back. So every knife you see with that on it, it's designed by him. She ran straight to the gun. This is inspired by Filipino martial arts.
[28:32]And it's a utility blade. All of them are meant to be used and used hard. So this blade comes with a lifetime warranty, lifetime sharpening. If you break it, I'll make you a new one, and if it gets dull, I'll sharpen it all the time. It's really beautiful. That looks like an antique micarta handle is there. Yes, this is vintage burnt orange paper micarta with CPM crew wear. Pretty good combo, I think. So what would you say is the overriding philosophy of Gunfighter Customs in terms of the kind of knives you make? I make a knife based on what the customer wants. Me, myself, I prefer a knife that you can use for self-defense, tactical, and bushcraft survival.
[29:25]All of my knives are meant to be used and abused hard. That's what I like. So on the Knife Junkie podcast, I've interviewed so many knife makers who are former Marines. I love it. What is it about being a Marine that leads people to making knives? Well, Marines inherently like weapons. And whenever we get some down time or whatever, we'll be standing around, everybody's got a knife in their pocket. So that brings up a lot of conversations, and a lot of Marines are big knife guys. And it just comes with the territory. All right, show me that sword you've got there. It looks like you're hunting. This is the gunfighter guy.
[30:11]Combat Warrior Academy in Unity. These, I make out of CPM 3D.
[30:19]It's got a 15 inch blade. The top can be sharp or dull, depending on what you want. We usually do a textured G10 on these. It's got a pretty aggressive punyo here. Oh, I love the punya. You can use your imagination for what you can do with that. What about the holes in the blade? These were just for lightning purposes. Okay, lighting up the blade. Right. And of course, like everything, this is meant to be used. We cut down trees with this, we split board with it, and we train with it. We do everything. So it's an obvious weapon, but it can be used as an all-arounder tool. Absolutely. He's made several videos that are on his YouTube channel, and the things he's done with these are just incredible. Incredible. How this deal holds up is amazing. All right, so as we wrap here, what do you want people to know about your company? What's a good way to get in touch with you? What do you want people to know? Well, I'm real easy to work with, real flexible on payment situations, and basically I want to make you happy, so whatever you want.
[31:46]He does. Beautiful. True custom knives here. Yes, absolutely. All right. Well, thank you, Jared. Thank you. Of Gunfrider Customs. Your work is really beautiful. Thank you so much. Very cool. Take care. Have a good one, y'all.
[31:58]Strolling around in the big room, I saw a table full of beautiful Kukris look up, and there's Jason Knight. Hey, how you doing? Jason Knight, he's a mensch, man. He's a really cool dude. I would like to have his vibe someday. He seems to be very zen, you know, just very chill. uncomfortable. And anyway, uh, talking to him, he was telling me everything, telling me about what's going on. So I asked him if I could get him on camera saying it. He said, yeah, come on back. And I got to go behind the booth. And to me, that's a huge honor and pleasure. I went behind the booth in a couple of places and that's really, it was really cool to me. Uh, anyway, so I went back there and talked with Jason Knight and, uh, uh, he, he showed me, uh, some cool stuff and, and especially this family sword, you'll see, but told me that making those kukris is not as easy as he makes them look. Check it out.
[32:53]I'm behind the table with Jason Knight. Jason, how are you doing, sir? I am well. How's your blade show going? It's going pretty good. All right, so what do you have new here? Actually, before we get to any of that, show me the family sword you were just talking about. Oh, the family sword. I recommend every family have a family sword. This was made by me and my son and Dale and Mark Winburn. So this is based on an Anglo-Saxon blade with the Chinese Jin-stylized guard and pommel. This is the sun, the moon, and the little sapphires that are laid in gold are the stars. That blade is beautiful. Let's get close on that. That's the biggest ladder pattern I've ever done. Biggest ladder pattern in Damascus you've ever done? It's got some nice chatoyance. Refracting light out of it. I see you have some of the kukris out. Can you show us one of those? Oh, sure.
[34:03]Okay. Let me get her. So, let me give you some quick background. When I was a kid, me and my cousin were looking in an old barn, and there was toolbox full of knives and K bars and mark twos and there was a kukri and he thought it was ugly but I liked it you know the traditional cookies to me have some some issues so as I began making knives I started to make them with what I was like the improvement I wanted on them you know I wanted the handle be different and I didn't want the blade to be so curvy Some of them are way too curvy. So this is kind of my latest version of it, but I've been making kukris.
[34:51]Probably since 2004 or 5 and they really got popular about 2010 and uh so far i haven't seen anybody else can forge them and grind them like this i'm gonna do a class on how to do it too you were just saying that this is a really difficult knife to make yeah even for you what's why just the grinds the grinds are tricky to grind so this is uh if you look down it this way it's It's a curve and it curves back. It's just a tricky. So when I make these, I grind this first, I grind that second, I grind that third. This edge is like a Scandi edge. It just comes down to zero. This is more flat. The convex is into sharp and then the point is robust again. It looks like it's double edged, but it's not. I don't sharpen the back. I like the way this looks and it reduces weight and allows it to pass through things. But I don't want to I don't like making these sure there's no real point in the future. Yeah. Yeah These are absolutely beautiful.
[36:00]So you got one new thing on the table that I did I recognize as new, There's a bunch of EDC's this is one that me and my son Tristan came up with it It's just like a quick in small utility knife I Americanized it by putting this coffin handle on it, which is kind of fun, and then the blade shape is, pretty simple. Pointy, sharp, robust. This is not sharp, and it just makes the point pointy. But I like having a knife I can carry every day, open boxes, open packages, whatever. Yeah, I was just holding that and it fits in all grips equally and perfectly. I like it to fit in your hand like this. You don't need a guard if you fit it like that. You can't get cut if you hold it in your hand like that. Yeah, butt it into your palm like that.
[36:57]All right, Jason, so what do you have coming up? Oh, coming up, we are working on a new folder design that will be hopefully made here. I'm going to see how that's going to go. Sometimes that's tricky. We're working on a new Hunter slash Utility Knight. We're going to do about a 500-piece run of them. They'll be available to dealers. trailers, and the Hummingbird XL, which will be released on Kickstarter, probably around November. Maybe sooner, but if you saw the little Hummingbird, it's slightly bigger. So we'll be doing that soon. So a robust combination of your own handmade Ford stuff and awesome stuff being manufactured elsewhere under your shingle. Yeah, I will say something funny.
[37:48]Folder maker to go oh i don't make knives like you i'm like no kidding you know no kidding i don't know why folder makers always think they're i mean i make folders too but i don't i don't mass produce them myself i have somebody else to it but we make knives by forging by grinding by cnc by other people grinding also do classes and teach people from all over the world i've I've had people from Taiwan, Alaska, Switzerland, and even Tennessee come to my shop. All right, Jason. Thanks for talking to me, man. I appreciate it. All right. In the state of the collection, you saw the two Baldman knife and tool knives, the Thickatross and the Thicker Clipper Tonto. Well, while I was over at Baldman knife and tool speaking with Brent, I pulled out the camera and asked him if we could find out what's been going on with them lately. because last time I spoke with Brent, he had two models, I think, and he was just kind of gearing up. Well, he's blowing up now, and it was exciting to see. Here's Brent Smith of Bald Man Knife and Tool.
[38:54]All right, I'm here with Brent from Bald Man Knife and Tool. Yo, what's going on? Brent, how you doing? Doing great, Bob. How you doing? Good. Good show? It's a great show. Great year. You're in a great spot this year. Great outrun. So, since you and I spoke last, you've been up to a lot. Show us what you brought here this year. So, we'll start over on this end over here with the little guys. These are my Cicada knives, it's a little fifth pocket knife, very kept part in design. Just shrunk down five inches overall, two and a half inch blade, two and a half handle. Sheaths so you can drop it right in your pocket or your bag or your purse. To move over here, I have a mini albatross, we've got some sabre ground, full flat ground, these are all 3-32nd stock. So there's the sabre and there's the full flat. We've got 3-32nd stock, super comfortable in hand, you can still get a full hand grip, two and a half inch blade, so it's a real usable blade.
[39:57]And then we'll move over to the thick stuff, right? So we got the thick stuff, guys. Let's come on down here. We have the Thickatross, right? They're the same profile as the Mini Avatross, but we bump it up to a quarter-inch thick stock, so it's really beefy.
[40:13]Again, they feel great in hand there with that extra heft on them. Got a few models of that. And then the thicker clipper line, we've got some drop points and we have some tantos. Now these thicker clippers were your kind of inaugural knives, right? Yeah, the thicker clipper was really like kind of a flagship knife for me. And I offered the two different versions, traditional drop point and an aggressive tanto. Because who doesn't love a tanto with a sweet, thin hollow grind on the main and a big, fat one, too. Let's see that. That's one of these here. So these are the tantos here. You can see it does have a thin collar brine there on that main bevel with a flat tip on there. I love that chisel tip. That's really taking the American tanto to its max. It's a great, I love these knives. I love all these knives. So how has your process changed since we were talking last? It seems like you're really up to game. Yeah, so a few things. On all the thicker series, I now machine those bevels in-house. So those thicker knives, the thicker truss, the thicker clippers, we machine all those in-house so that gives a clean bevel. We machine those pre-heat treat, so once we go into heat treat, some of these knives, you can see the heat treat patterns on them. We're able to leave that flamed finish, is what I call that, so it turns out really cool.
[41:35]And all these processes, just over time, we just improve, make minor little improvements over time, so everybody enjoys these knives just a little bit more. So how's the experience here been as opposed to other years man this year is a great year in general blade show is proving to be no exception to that rule and it's just been great seeing everybody meeting everybody and getting to talk to all the other knife nerds like us it's just killer so uh what can we expect from bald man knife and tool in in the next coming year man i've got a few other things i'm working on with bald man knife and tool again i'm going I'm going to keep cranking these knives out that everybody loves, and I'm continually trying to find time to add more models that fit in this design language. Awesome. Well, Grant, it was awesome to see you. Bob. Congratulations on your success here. You've got some really beautiful stuff in your rolling. Thank you. It was great talking to you. My pleasure. Let's go on.
[42:30]Also blowing up is Steve Kalari of Steve Kalari Custom Knives. You know, you maybe remember him as Super Steel Steve back in the day, but he has fully transitioned into a full-time knife maker, and he is killing it. He's got distributors, and he's got a lot of loyal customers, yours truly included. As a matter of fact, I have a knife he just finished that he did not bring with him to Blade. He spaced it, and he was overly apologetic. I told him, send it to me in the mail. It's better than traveling with it and worrying whether TSA likes kitchen knives. So he'll be sending that to me. Check it out. This is Steve Collari of Steve Collari Custom Knives telling us what's going on with him. He had a great spot this year. Went from the baller room to the very front of the big room. And, well, check him out. All right. I'm here with Steve Collari from Steve Collari Custom Knives. Steve, how's it going, sir? It's going great, man. It's good to see you. So this is good to see you, too. This is your second year showing Steve Pilari custom knives at blade show and you're in a fantastic spot in my awesome.
[43:36]Bigger now we're one two three rows from almost the main engine. So it's wild It's it's it's yeah, it's a lot of people so show us what you've been up to since last week So what I got left over here is obviously still got kitchen knives over here This is a seven inch bunk up probably my most popular, kitchen knife, and then I believe I've got a 6-inch chef right here is about the second most popular. I flexed it a little this year. This is an actual traditional Yanagi book, a sushi knife. So this is chef cut high carbon steel, 65 Rockwell. It's got a custom on it. So it's a saber ground on one side, and it has a triple hollow grind on the back. So it's a very complicated grind to pull off. And then we got some like 3,500 year old Bago bolster, brass liners, vintage mosaic pins, and a Boinia burl handle.
[44:33]Wait, you just said a triple hollow grind. What in the hell is a triple hollow grind? So there's a triple hollow grind on these traditionally. What it is is it's done with two small wheels and then a larger wheel. So the top and the bottom here are a three-inch hollow grind, and then it all gets kind of blended with a big eight-inch hollow grind. So I decided to make my life even more complicated than just kind of an eight-inch wheel because, you know, I'm channeling the Japanese masters. So we know that you're a chef by training and former career, and we also know that you started with Chef's Knives here, but I see that you've expanded your line. What are you doing now? So now we've got EDC Knives. So I had a lot of guys ask me for EDC Knives because everybody knows I'm about performance, performance grind, performance heat treat, so now I'm into EDC Knives. I've been selling a ton of them. I throw them up. I usually do everything through blade binge. If you guys are looking for a drop, I put them up on blade binge, and they're gone within a couple minutes. I've got a couple. I've got four different blade shapes, a traditional drop point, a wharton cliff. So we've got let's see right here is a traditional drop point then we've got my wharncliffe down here we've got kind of a sheepsfoot guide and then I have one other over here.
[45:42]Which I don't know if that's ram's foot, wharn foot, something foot so yeah all of these are 130,000 stock these are a CPM crew wear at 65 Rockwell those are CPM Magna Cut at 64 Rockwell Well, all of them are under 5,000 behind the edge because we care. So super thin. Yes. So these are knives that cut? These are knives that cut. This is what we do. How do you pry? Yeah, yeah. There's no pry. Yeah. We make knives that cut, cut for a long time. So speaking of pry, my prying eyes see that. Is that a new blade shape? So this, here we go. This is going to be fun. So this is actually a collaboration between me and Neve's Knives. So this is a fixed blade that I did. Even though I brought it here, I just showed it the other day. So this is the prototype. so they might be a little bit different, but this is Jared's design. It's kind of this double-poom, warney thing going on. It kind of, if you look at his new folder, it kind of has a similar, it's kind of his design style. We've got carbon fiber, bolster, Tiffany liners and the divider, and then a cross-cut, natural micarta scale with Tiffany pins. This one right here is in MagnaCut at 64 Rockwell. We're still playing around with it, whether we're, I.
[46:57]I want to show up to Chai Combs, and I want to do it in K390 and run it at like 68. I think Jared wants to do the same. It'll either be a MagnaCut or K390. We're going to play around with it. Or maybe 10B. We'll see. I'll push it for that because I want to show them up with their lackluster K390. I love you, Jared. We can almost count on Steve to take it to the Chai Combs. I'm going to take it, yeah. And again, these are all going to be ground super thin, 5,000 after the edge is put on them, so they're going to cut for days. The stock thickness on these is only about 100,000. so these are going to be laser views yeah so do these edc knives come with sheets yes sir these all come with i have these sheets right here i got them in three different colors these are uh handmade in kentucky and i'm working on i got a buddy uh his name's uh kiano uh maybe i'll shout out his name i can't remember what his name is on instagram but he's a custom uh sheet maker and i'm trying to get him to make the sheets for this so kiano make my sheets but yeah Yeah, these are USA made. They come with drop leather sheets. So you've done a lot over this past year, and you're doing that, but what else is coming up for Steve Fillory?
[47:59]After I get done with this, I've got to go home and start working on this. So I did the Hawk, which was a collaboration with Blade Binge and the guys over there, Eric, and we're going to do a version two, and I've got the prototypes of that coming soon. I'm actually working with Chris Reid-Knives. Tim's a good friend of mine, and he's helping do some of the water jetting and the hole drilling. So everything's going to, going forward, everything's going to be really, like, really precise. So those are all getting water jetted through, laser cut through Niagara. And he's going to be doing the milling work and the hole drilling on them. So they're all going to be just ta-tas. Those are going to be, I believe, in MagnaCut, 64, 5-pound, the whole lot. And those are going to be with, if everything goes right, camo carbon fiber, teal, and black. It's like they call it Brittany blue Scales, so those are gonna be a blade binge and I'm it's last one You did I think 20 25 and they sold out like 10 minutes of this We're gonna I'm gonna make a hopefully a bunch more and so have some for for everybody. So that's coming up and I.
[49:02]I'm trying to remember. Something else I'm forgetting. I'm on two hours of sleep. Well, maybe we have another interview. Yeah, we'll do another interview. But that's on the definite horizon. So filling my vendors back up with chef knives and then working on that blade binge project is the next step. Steve, it's such a pleasure seeing things take off for you, man. And your work speaks for itself. It's awesome. As I mentioned before I started rolling, your two knives that we have are the only ones that get used. And we've got another one coming, so I'm psyched. Making memories in family's houses. That's right. We'll leave Steve in your house. Good to see you. Yeah. Next up, Tim Kell of T. Kell Knives. You know, I've been talking about him quite a bit because of the Agent 001. I had to go over and get his take. Now, I went behind his table as well, and it was not as good for shooting, you might see. Next year, my camera girl will be my older daughter.
[49:51]She was going to come this year, but had too much partying to do at the beginning of June. So next year she'll come and the video will be stepped up a notch. But here is Tim telling us all about not just the Agent series, but everything else. You'll see all these great prototypes. Here's Tim Kell with TKEL Knives. I'm here with the great and powerful Tim Kell, TKEL Knives. Wait, Tim, look at that setup you've got here. That's my name up there. That's crazy, right? So, besides the agent, well, you tell me. What's new this year? What's going on? How's your show going? The biggest news is the agent has been going insane. We'll show it because we have to.
[50:38]So we dropped these yesterday at noon, and we have about 30 left, which is insane. So this is the double-edged version, and this is the single-edged. And this will be a good teaching moment. So you see we left more stock here On the reverse and forward edges so that we could thicken that tip up But we wanted to be able to cut deep here. So we've got thinner here And here and thicker here and thicker here That's what we did on those single edge double edge Now, you know so So, they're going to be in two stills, two different runs. And we're selling the shit out of them. I mean, this is our biggest single blade launch in history. What was that? The biggest single blade launch in history. The ages. And we did them with one guy. The camera guy. Bob Martha of the 9th Ducky Podcast. Well, I'm flattered and thrilled about that. But what else have you got? I've seen some really cool stuff on the camera. So here's the second one we're going to do on the Agent series, that's Agent 002.
[51:49]And that'll be out i was going to wait until we sold out of agent one but that's going to happen tomorrow so we'll probably drop these early so we can get started back on agent one and then this will be three we'll always release four five i don't know who's going to get trouble soon i think that should be you.
[52:12]So that's the two the three and then these are uh Uh, resin prints of the four and the five. That top is wicked. No. Wicked. We got something else on the table that is super exciting. Which one? The folder. Which one? This guy? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm talking about the folder. This one? Yeah. Where's the peanut butter folder? I brought it over to you. It's gone. All right, look. So this is the folder. This is our first attempt. And it has its roots here. So this is the M2. Which is the mini mercenary so I love this grip platform I've got to make it combat style because that's what I do but it's roller bearing black titanium vg-10 ambidextrous so you can switch the clip around and these will be done very soon you got the grenade grips right so this is the first our CW platform which is camera wife who is now world famous you guys saw her a minute ago she was a little bit embarrassed. There's camera wife. She's going to kill us. I love it. I mean, it's just. So this is called the M, what do you call it? M2. M2. Mini mercenary. The M squared. Here's the peanut butter.
[53:33]This, this is really exciting because not everyone is into carrying a fixed blade. Really great action on that. Thanks. I mean, it is, what, three years? Yeah. Yeah. I've been, last year that blade, you would do this and it wouldn't open. You'd have to push the button to get it open. Now we defeated the lock. So are you making these? No. We're outsourcing most of this. What we're trying to do is get the internals right, and then we're going to pull it back and hop. So we're going to fund the ability to build a factory to make these out of this project. So it's called Mission EDC. It's our mission. Makes sense? It does indeed. Well, what else you got in the offing here, Tim? I see a bunch of cool stuff. This one is going to be nice. We're taking boats. So this is a DP-1, and that's named after Cameron White's dad, Donald Pace I. So I made this knife for him 10 years ago and he told me this is the favorite blade he's ever made. And I just never finished it. Everything else took off and.
[54:43]This is an homage to him, but everybody has picked this up at Blade Show. So we're doing that. We just started. Before you move on to that next one, I just got to say my impression of this is it's got the standard thickness of one of your knives, but it's two fingers, and that standard thickness makes this a real good in-the-hand tiny knife. That is coming.
[55:05]We just got the steel, and you are a fan of the Combattant. So this is the Combattant, and like I always do, I expanded the line, and this is the warning that's coming. We just got the steel from New Jersey last week, so we're going to start cutting these next week. So it's got a little drop. I don't know if you can see. A little bit of a thumb drop, a nasty little one-cliff, super high ground. I'm really excited about that one. Most people are going crazy. I was going to do the Tonko, but nobody really cared. So we decided we're going to say nobody cared. nobody loves him so we're gonna push the DP one further ahead of schedule for that this one's pretty red this is our skeleton Skinner it'll come with out but you'll get the scales in the box this has been a whole lot of work so it's super thin so it'll be 90 super thin we're gonna do first run in 3d so I'm I'm very excited about that one too. So you'll be able to run it ultra lightweight. Maybe the Skeleton Raider, cause it's a Raider blade. That one's coming. So the 800 pound gorilla in the ring.
[56:25]Here it is. So, finally the hatchet. And we need feedback on this. It is stipulated to be under an eight and a half by 11 size piece of paper. We can't really divulge whom is inspiring and commissioning this design, but there are three letters, and they wanted it to be able to fit inside of a folder. It's like a trapper keeper was the word they used, so they dated themselves with that. But this is, we started resin printing everything because I irritate my machinists by making a tiny little tweak up here, and we've made it in steel. So now they bought me a Risen Printer and said you're a deal. So right now it's 187, so 316. What we may grow it, maybe 200, Bernadete texture.
[57:22]Outstanding i can't wait tim thank you so much man absolutely not not only for talking to me here but also for believing in the agent and going for it beautiful i'm so psyched about it thanks bob thank you last up is a longer interview uh but you'll know why when you see who it is it was with lynn thompson of you know lynn thompson uh i had the pleasure of having breakfast with him and his associate richard at our hotel you know we were at the same hotel and uh he was getting breakfast at the same time. I just walked by him, said, good morning, Lynn. You know, I wasn't, you know, not trying to, not trying to, uh, horn it, hone in on anyone's, you know, quiet breakfast time. He came down and sat with me and we, we had an hour and a half long breakfast just talking and it was great. You know, I eventually I had to peel away cause I was worried about not, you know, I had other interviews to do. And, uh, so he said, well, let's talk later.
[58:17]So I met up with him over at the Demco booth and we sat down on the couch and talked knives and other stuff. And he's going to be coming back on the show. Cannot wait. We're going to talk about American manufacturing, but a whole bunch of other stuff. Here for your listening enjoyment, Lynn Thompson. I'm here with the great and powerful Lynn Thompson here at Blade Show. Lynn, it's such a pleasure. Thank you so much for talking to me. It's my honor to be here. I'm really enjoying the show. So you've been coming to Blade Show for years and years and years. How have you seen it change from your perspective, from a knife maker's perspective?
[58:52]I came to the first show, I believe it was 1980 through 84. I think it was in Missouri or Kansas. And that's where I met Master Smith Dan Maragni. So that relationship with him that endured for so many years and benefited me so much was directly responsible because I went to the Blade Show. So I'm grateful to the Blade Show for the opportunity to come and meet pretty talented knife makers and see all kinds of cool stuff. If you love knives, this is the mecca of the knife world. No kidding. No kidding. Now, it wasn't always like that, you know. It went through, I would say, a slump in the 80s. Some years we came and some years we didn't come.
[59:36]But about seven or eight years ago, I metamorphosed into a real must-attend show. And they persevered for a number of years, and I have to give them credit. You got to give credit where credit is due. They had this business and I think it struggled for a while and they kept at it, kept at it. Now it's a huge success and now you struggle to get into it. So, congratulations to The Blade Show. Well, so I'm walking around here. It's almost stressful because I want to see everything and talk to everyone and there's no way to do that in one weekend. What do you see in here? Are you seeing any trends, anything prevailing that you're noticing that's interesting to you? I've brought a few of my ideas, that there was a few of them there. I've identified some trends that I think could go, but I'm not really willing to name them here and help all my competitors. Yeah, I've been there. I'm doing a lot of studying here, and I do a lot of preparation before I come, and I know what I'm looking for.
[1:00:49]The quality of work is really good. I love the fact that so many more people are open about making martial knives. In the 80s you know I was an outcast because of my interest in martial knives and even into the 90s and now everyone's doing it it's fully accepted and I'll take some credit for that because I feel like I was the icebreaker. The ship that went ahead and broke a lot of ice to get martial and tactical stuff accepted. Yeah, like the tanto, the American tanto, your tanto, did a lot for that, and then everything after that. Well, it's the first commercial knife that sold for more than $130 ever. So every commercial maker in here that's selling a knife for over $100, they should write me a check.
[1:01:33]I saved up in 1988 when I was in high school to get that tanto. And yeah, I remember 130 bucks or so. So I was like, wow, I can't believe I'm paying this money. And I steal my bedside knife. Awesome. Well, I spent a lot of time explaining why it's worth it.
[1:01:49]What makes this knife worth $130? Well, I had a whole list of reasons why I think it's worth it.
[1:01:56]So everyone knows about Cold Steel's sale to GSM a few years back. And we see the videos. We know that you're still involved with Cold Steel. But are you designing knives and still pressing forward with your own personal projects? I am. I tried to get Cold Steel to adopt some of the stuff with, I would say, very modest success.
[1:02:20]And, you know, when you sell a company and you get paid, they can do whatever they want with that company, and they are. And I try to keep influencing the direction that I want to go, but I can't force anybody to do anything. Thing but so I I'm still designing things I'm still making things I'm still researching I'm doing a lot of training uh lately I've been walking two hours a day besides my regular training I'm trying to get in better shape and to get even faster so to that point you're a lifelong martial artist but in many many different arts um with the skill and abilities you've accrued over those years, you might, one could say you probably have your own style at this point. But what, I know a lot of men watch this show and, you know, men of a certain age, certainly, I'm 52 and a lot of my peers watch this show. What kind of advice would you give men, especially as they approach middle age, in terms of staying a force to reckon with as they grow older? Never stop training.
[1:03:30]So I used to train sometimes three hours a day. Now I train two hours a day or two and a half hours a day. I used to take no days off except Sunday. Now I go shooting on Wednesdays. So I used to take Wednesdays as I only walk and Sundays I take off entirely. But I would say that as you get older, you have to work harder or you'll lose it. The body renews itself. I read a lot of books on aging. And one of them was how to be 80 when you're 50 and they maintain that you have to work out two hours hard every day and if you do that your body will keep renewing itself and stay young until your natural clock runs out. So a lot of people when they hit 40 they started going on this decline. I don't see my handles. They go on this decline like this physically until they crash out. If you work out hard all the time and you eat right and you get enough sleep, you'll find that your decline goes much, much slower. And you can be in pretty darn good, formidable shape into your mid-80s. And like my teacher, Guru Dan Inosanto, is 87. I wouldn't want to fight him. Not in a million years. And he's 87 years old. I'm not fighting him.
[1:04:50]So you know maybe his he lives pretty long in his family you know his his lifespan might be 100 you know i'm praying god to give me 105 good years my great grandmother on my dad's side died at 106 and she had all our marbles my grandmother on my dad's side lived to be 99 his his brother died at 100 his sister at 101 so we live a long time on both sides of the family so if i don't get killed there's a good chance i'll get killed because i do adventures of stuff and i take risks so i'm I'm prepared for that, but failing that, I think I'll probably kick along into my late 90s or 100s. There's an old saying that if you give up all the stuff that makes you want to live to 100, you won't live to 100. So you can't stop hunting. No, it's like my wife says, I know you're tired. Why are you going into the gym? And I said, I got to back up my bullshit. In other words, yes, you guys know me. You know that one of my failings is I'm not humble, but I don't have a stingy bone on my back. I'd give you the shirt off my back. I don't always think about it bragging because I can do what I say I can do. And I'm constantly striving to maintain that and to exceed it.
[1:06:02]So this pops into my head. But it's work. Oh, yeah. You know, I find I need nine hours sleep now to recover. I get a massage every week. So I put some effort into my recovery. That's funny you say that. I used to be able to live on four and a half hours of sleep every night for years and years. years and now I'm starting to, it's not like that anymore. If I could give another piece of advice is to get a minimum of eight hours. If you're going to train hard, you need eight, nine hours sleep. Now the NBA did a big study about their athletes and when they had their professional basketball players go from eight hours sleep to 10 and 12 hours of sleep, they saw a 30% increase in performance. 30%. That's great. They tracked them. How many more rebounds they caught, how many more baskets they shot, all of that stuff. and their performance went up exponentially by the amount of sleep they got. They also gave them all CPAPs.
[1:06:54]So you're getting 100% oxygenation of your blood all night long. So even though if you don't have sleep apnea and you want to be a really good athlete, get it anyways because it's going to force air through your nose all night long and you're going to get super oxygenated blood, and that's going to help your recovery a lot. Almost every professional athlete uses one. And I know they're making them smaller now. they're not as uh well getting back to the knives real quick i this is something i wanted to ask you when i had you on the show and by the way people uh lynn will be coming back on the show we're excited about that i am too i love the show thank you but but a question i have is um you've done, with cold steel you did so many amazing designs based on historical examples some from your collection, some that you admire. What knife, before you hang up your spurs that you haven't made from history, would you like to embark on?
[1:07:53]I'll probably make a Yadagon. The Yadagon? Wasn't that sort of an influence for the... Vaquero. Vaquero. So I read Sir Burton Richardson's Book of the Sword a long time ago, and they said the Yadagon was the perfect cut-and-thrust weapon. The curves, accentuated cutting, but lined up for the thrust, so it was the best compromise. And so I used that idea to design my Vaquero blades. So this is directly influenced by the Turkish Yadagon. Love that. You know, I always assumed it was, because we first saw the Vaquero on the El Hombre and the Vaquero Grande back in the 90s, I always assumed it was based on the Navaja, but it never quite looked like a Navaja to me. So it's really cool to know that it's a Yadagon and I gotta say I really hope you do make one because your swords are great and your knives are great so I think that's the perfect combination right there. So you're gonna see other Far Eastern influences in some of my designs that I've admired for a long time.
[1:09:05]That was my interest in the Chris. you know I studied the switchblades I saw a lot of flame blade or crisp blade, switchblades and I wanted to make one to go in a tie light and I think it's been pretty successful yeah the serrated one is badass I mean it's that's a scary knife so suddenly it slips my mind having to do with the well anyway the All of your short swords I'm in love with. I love all of the Filipino stuff and the influences you have. Before we wrap here, do you have your engraved XL? Yeah. Yeah. Check this out, guys. What? Tell me to rock it if I need to so you get that. Yeah, that is something else. Can you flip it around? That's the side I remember with all the cowboy sort of flirtily stuff. Gorgeous, gorgeous knife. Is this the one you have on you? All right, before we go, actually, I've got to do a pocket check. What is everything you have on you?
[1:10:20]That's almost everything they don't show all my knives yeah this is these are the ones for public consumption look at that look at that that's amazing i love it two two vaqueros i encourage everybody to get one of these broken skulls you can still find them they weigh about three ounces, and they got a lock that holds over 200 pounds they go into your shirt pocket like this and you You forget about them. Yeah. I used to carry one in my waistband every day. So handy and no weight. And it's great for all kinds of utility stuff. What I love about it is I can cut apples. If I'm around kids, I'm always cutting apples up for them. But in a pinch, it also works as a great self-defense knife. It'll work that way too. And it's really sharp.
[1:11:16]Yeah. Yeah. Man. So, they're pretty easy to ... I use a Spyderco SharpMaker all the time on this. Yeah. Very easy to sharpen it. Keep it sharp. Well, Lynn, I want to thank you so much for this brief interview. We'll do another one coming up soon. Anytime. It'll be my pleasure. Awesome. Thank you so much. You bet. All right. Have a great show. Thanks. Well, that does it for the Blade Show 2024 edition of the Knife Junkie Podcast. I hope you enjoyed hearing from Zach, Jared, Jason, Brent, Steve, Tim, and Lynn. It was certainly a pleasure for me to talk to them. And it's one of the best parts about Blade Show. Yes, the blades are cool. Yes, the blades are sweet. But really, I was running around, not looking for knives, running around looking for people all day.
[1:12:06]Because they're the great ones who make this awesome community. So, if you ever have the druthers and the means, I highly recommend a trip, a pilgrimage to Atlanta to check out this fantastic show. I bet Texas and Blade Show West are equally cool. I got to check those out myself and make that journey. So, well, that's it for this edition. Be sure to join us on Sunday when we talk to Dawson Knives. Dawson Knives making incredible stuff. John Roy, one of the three main figureheads there. So be sure to 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. Thanks for listening to the Knife Junkie Podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please rate and review at reviewthepodcast.com. For show notes for today's episode, additional resources, and to listen to past episodes, visit our website, TheKnifeJunkie.com. You can also watch our latest videos on YouTube at TheKnifeJunkie.com. Check out some great knife photos on TheKnifeJunkie.com and join our Facebook group at TheKnifeJunkie.com.
[1:13:20]And if you have a question or comment, email them to bob at thenifejunkie.com or call our 24-7 listener line at 724-466-4487. And you may hear your comment or question answered on an upcoming episode of the Knife Junkie Podcast.
[1:13:36] Music.