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Announcer
00:05 - 00:15
Welcome to the Knife Junkie Podcast, your weekly dose of knife news and information about knives and knife collecting. Here's your host, Bob the Knife Junkie DeMarco.

Bob DeMarco
00:20 - 00:56
Welcome to the Knife Junkie Podcast. I'm Bob DeMarco. On this edition of the show, I'm welcoming back Tim Kell of T.Kell Knives to talk about the promising future of American knife manufacturing. As Tim and company come off their biggest year yet, and having heard firsthand of the trials and victories they both enjoyed and endured to rise to prominence in the knife scene, I wanted to get Tim's thoughts on what it might take to reclaim and keep more of the manufacturing of our favorite collectible tools right here in the 50 states. Because after all, the world ain't getting any nicer.

Bob DeMarco
00:57 - 01:24
With the perspective of a Marine, a machinist, and now a successful business owner, I felt Tim was uniquely qualified to enlighten us on the topic. We'll dig into that heady subject, but first, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, hit the notification bell, and download the show to your favorite podcast app. And if you want to help support the show, You can do so by going to patreon quickest way to do that is head over to the knife junkie comm slash patreon again That's the knife junkie comm slash patreon

Announcer
01:24 - 01:39
Adventure delivered your monthly subscription for hand-picked outdoor Survival EDC and other cool gear from our expert team of outdoor professionals, the knifejunkie.com slash battle box.

Bob DeMarco
01:40 - 01:43
Tim, welcome back to the show. It's good to see you, sir.

Tim Kell
01:43 - 01:45
Yes, thank you, sir. I'm honored to be here.

Bob DeMarco
01:45 - 01:56
It's my pleasure. I want to say before we get started, congratulations on an amazing 2024. I was along for part of that ride and watching the entire time. So well done, sir.

Tim Kell
01:57 - 02:01
Thank you. It's, it still astonishes us when we step back and look at it.

Bob DeMarco
02:02 - 02:09
Well, okay. Before we get into the topic we want to discuss here today, I also just want to mention right up front, you've got a giant drop coming. Is that right?

Tim Kell
02:10 - 02:32
We do. Yeah. We're getting back on track. We try to do quarterly drops so that we don't bog our machine shops down with running the same blade. So yeah, 15th in just a few days, I think 4 days from the time of this recording, we're gonna be doing our annual, I guess this will be our second time of trying to get everything dialed in for the winter drop.

Bob DeMarco
02:33 - 02:40
So January 15th, 2025 big drop coming. What are the models that people are going to be able to pre-order here?

Tim Kell
02:40 - 03:17
So we have the night stalker. I don't know if we can switch to our secondary camera or not you tell me if we're able to do that. So that's the night stalker and then the double edge version the CQC so the only difference in this 1 is the reverse edges are sharpened so this is the 125 thick steel and will be AEBL and ADCR v2. We'll also be doing the CG which is the combat grade. The only difference is it is 0.165 thick so about 40, 000 sticker. A little more machining all the way around.

Tim Kell
03:18 - 03:59
And it's a heavier duty. We had these contracted from the Marine Corps, asked us to do something that would handle the rigors of combat more so than the EDC version. So there's the CG and then the Nighthawk. So same thickness as the CG. This is in our combat grade line. This has been an incredibly popular blade. Kind of an aggressive Western style tanto, again in the 165 thick. The Combatant, which is 1 of my favorite revisions that we've done. So we're doing a secondary run of the combatant, AEBL and ADCRV2 in these. And lastly, the piranha.

Tim Kell
03:59 - 04:10
So we have not done an official drop on the piranhas in a while, and this is probably 1 of our most popular blades. So those are the ones, those are the winner drop.

Bob DeMarco
04:11 - 04:26
A really cool thing about that small piranha, it can drop in the pocket easily, it's very small, but also you sell the Guardian style handle for that. That's handle that mocks up a ring, it puts a ring on there.

Tim Kell
04:26 - 04:57
Correct. So it just replaces 1 side of the scale And we can only do these in black and the OD green right now just because that's a more durable g10 in the layer So you just remove 1 side and now we have the option where you can click to have us install that for you And we'll just ship you the extra part. So just remove 1 side with black and OD green And that's really cool. And it's still it's kind of surprising how it turns a little knife into a big full handle blade. Excuse me.

Bob DeMarco
04:57 - 05:15
Sure. And 1 other thing I noticed that you and I haven't discussed is for the adversary and the combatant lineup. You also have an aftermarket handle you're starting to offer. Tell me about that a little bit.

Tim Kell
05:15 - 05:17
I will, and I have 1 right here.

Bob DeMarco
05:17 - 05:19
Some people think the handle is a little small.

Tim Kell
05:20 - 05:51
Right so we've had that feedback for years and this has been in development for 2 years now. So what we did is and I don't know if it'll pick up on camera it's 2 handles like a standard scale but it extends here And then we push up into that second finger well to give you a full grip. So now you've got a full grip beyond your hand. And we use my same ergonomics so that it's comfortable both forward and reverse and added this recess lanyard loop so that you wouldn't have the lanyard so high up.

Tim Kell
05:51 - 06:37
So we're skipping the third hole that's still on the knife beneath it so you can see the screw orientation and then these are going to be black and olive drab too. We're gonna try to release these in more colors. Maybe my car will stand up to it as well. But it's very, very comfortable, incredibly comfortable. So I'm actually using The version for the EDC knife on my striker has been my carry So we have them for the EDC the Guardian which I know you have also So, you know for for 40 bucks you can add and have an entirely new knife So we'll have an extended grip for the piranhas are coming too.

Bob DeMarco
06:38 - 06:42
Oh okay so that that'll work on on the Guardian, the triple edged Warncliffe.

Tim Kell
06:43 - 06:55
Right that works on the Guardian, the Raider, the Taylor's Ridge, I think that's it. Yeah, that's it. All

Bob DeMarco
06:55 - 07:14
right, Tim, so this is gonna seem like a gimme kind of question or something so obvious, but why, speaking of American manufacturing, why do you think it's important to keep as much of knife manufacturing from American companies, of course, in the United States?

Tim Kell
07:14 - 07:58
I mean, not to over-romanticize the point, but I've been a blue-collar guy my entire life. I do have some college education, but I ended up doing a skilled trade for aircraft mechanics. So I've always worked with my hands and I was 1 of the few people that didn't suffer a whole lot when those jobs kind of went away but I saw a lot of people. I was a boss in a company at the time when jobs were very very difficult to come by and that always struck a chord with me that I had defended this country but and it's not that I have any issue with outsourcing manufacturing or the peoples in those countries that do that.

Tim Kell
07:58 - 08:31
I just think some of the business practices are outside of what I morally accept. And also that we have an employment issue in this country and there are a lot of skilled people that need work. And it's just, it's more about that to me than anything, not an American exceptionalism or any of that. It's just that I see my neighbors, they have wives and children and homes and cars that they need to feed and provide for their families. And the only way to do that is to make the stuff in America.

Bob DeMarco
08:32 - 08:37
You talked about defending the country. Thank you as a Marine.

Tim Kell
08:37 - 08:38
Yes, sir.

Bob DeMarco
08:39 - 08:50
Do you think that keeping manufacturing, especially if something like this, but also of other things like microchips and other, do you think this is a national security issue?

Tim Kell
08:50 - 09:34
100%. I mean, if you look historically at world conflict, and we don't want to get too far into how near the world may be to that, but every time that happens, the countries internalize all of their technology and their manufacturing import export capabilities because it's a security risk to bring in Warring Nations products and they're keeping them for themselves to fund their machines. So yes, and from a technological standpoint, there's enough evidence that is not circumstantial that the people that mean to do harm to the American way of life and our abilities to live comfortably, that's in these electronics.

Tim Kell
09:34 - 09:57
So absolutely, it is a tremendous risk to the United States and it's not that we deserve to be the most powerful place or anything like that but I think it extends further into they just they don't want just their piece of the pie. They want us out. And we have to insulate ourselves as a people against that.

Bob DeMarco
09:57 - 10:18
Yeah, that's pretty crazy. Talking about knives, It's a little different than microchips. It's kind of all part of the same pie. Microchips, they have these back doors, you know, and they can hack into whatever we're using those in. Fortunately, you can't do that with a knife. You can't hack into a knife. That's

Tim Kell
10:18 - 10:24
good. You can hack into packages with a knife, but not. Exactly. That's the similarity.

Bob DeMarco
10:25 - 11:06
Well, here's as someone who's not a manufacturer myself, but I love designing knives, love drawing knives, and coming up with ideas. For me, it's somewhat fortunate that I'm not as interested in folders as I once was or as many others of my peers are. If you're making a folder, if you're designing a folder and you want that manufactured, it's a different question than me drawing up the Nova 1 or the Agent 001 and sending to someone such as yourself. It's a little bit different with a folder. I know you have recent folder experience. Would you say that's right?

Tim Kell
11:06 - 11:48
A 100 percent. We're just coming off of drawing, trying to do ourselves in-house, learning that process ourselves, and trying to find people in the United States to help us work through the issues and bring our manufacturing online to the point. It took 3 years and we're still not in the states manufacturing a folding knife. It is a completely different ballgame And we just don't have the ability to do stuff like that on scale. It is small boutique places to do it. And that costs money, tremendous amount of money. It was a nightmare. We've almost walked away from their projects so many times.

Bob DeMarco
11:49 - 11:57
Man, so it's a lot more engineering, I guess, and a lot more, well, micro engineering in a way because everything.

Tim Kell
11:57 - 12:19
Yeah, and the micro manufacturing. We are behind in the United States on that. To be able to manufacture the bearings, the small lock pieces, the spring pieces. We outsourced all that stuff many, many, many years ago. And people are doing it in small batches and that is it's expensive very

Bob DeMarco
12:20 - 12:23
like down in Texas tactile knife they do everything themselves and

Tim Kell
12:24 - 12:24
yeah,

Bob DeMarco
12:24 - 12:33
and I love this and and What they don't do they buy from down the street I think pretty much everyone's in Texas that they get their stuff from. Yes. Yeah. But that's what

Tim Kell
12:33 - 12:34
we're going to do.

Bob DeMarco
12:34 - 12:54
Those are not inexpensive knives. They are. So to do something like Civivi or Riat or something like that, it would be a lot more difficult here just due to the difficulty of manufacture and the limited amount of companies that can do that.

Tim Kell
12:54 - 13:34
Yeah, they've set up in the countries that these are made cities. So any fixed blade or folding knife comes from the same region in China and they are in the same industry like literally a few square miles so it is very simple for them to Just walk up the street and get this piece done for me Having to get something as simple as a bronze bearing made in the United States takes months Then you get most of the way through the process and they go Okay So we're gonna have these manufactured overseas and bring them in and sell them to you for a tenth of the price that you can make them.

Tim Kell
13:34 - 13:52
We just don't make them here. So then you start back at square 1. Yikes. It's it's and I've talked with Will and the guys over at tactile. They're great. And I really respect what they're doing. They are turnkey start to finish. And that's where we are trending is bringing the machinery and capabilities in our house.

Bob DeMarco
13:53 - 13:58
Well, okay, so TKell knives started, what is it 5, 6 years ago?

Tim Kell
13:58 - 14:02
I mean, you're- Almost 6 years ago. Okay. Which seems like a lifetime.

Bob DeMarco
14:04 - 14:10
Well, it seems like a long time ago that you first came on my radar, but it's not that long in the grand

Announcer
14:10 - 14:11
scheme things.

Tim Kell
14:11 - 14:12
Not in the ninth world.

Bob DeMarco
14:13 - 14:17
You started all in-house. And you've seen over

Tim Kell
14:17 - 14:18
the last- Beating them on

Bob DeMarco
14:18 - 14:19
an anvil.

Tim Kell
14:19 - 14:29
What's that? I started out beating them out on an anvil. I mean, I started at the lowest you can get. I made my forge. I was using files and hand shaping metal.

Bob DeMarco
14:30 - 14:47
All right, well, take us then from, now you're in a different place. You've had a few years of really excellent success And and you've grown your company in a pretty savvy way Take us from beating out that first knife on the anvil to now how you're running the operation

Tim Kell
14:48 - 15:36
So what we've done, it's a little bit different Well, I'll back up so It I made a few because I was furloughed from the railroad and I was being paid by the railroad to basically wait to be called to come back to work. And I was kind of bored and CW said you could probably make this thing that she saw and I made it and we kind of went off to the races and we started selling a few at local markets and they were wildly popular and I I'm still trying to get some of my early work from people actually people recently gave me a couple that I haven't seen since the beginning but it all for me was how can I do better quality quicker but I'm still doing it?

Tim Kell
15:36 - 16:17
So it just I started developing a relationship to get larger quantities of steel which you know that brings your overhead down. Then I went from bandsawing stuff out to water jetting at a local water jet place to then ordering sheet stock to, I could make 12 knives a week, hand ground pretty much identical blades. And that wasn't enough to keep up with demand, but I always had this issue with what would I pay for a knife because I did not come from the knife industry. I've been blue collar and I've had to buy my own tools and I could not afford to go out and buy the best of the best ever.

Tim Kell
16:18 - 16:57
So I wanted to create the best in my own shop because I'm a tinkerer, but still be able to afford it. So switching from beating it out, 1, I'm in my mid 40s, So the elbows are not happy with that. And you have to, I don't know, I was kind of protecting myself from a physical standpoint, how am I going to do this? So I built a grinder and I quit filing and hand shaping on the anvil. And then I bought a grinder and then we just kind of stepped up the ladder to 12 is way more than any human can but at the price points we were selling I couldn't survive on that.

Tim Kell
16:57 - 17:32
So the end of my furlough period was coming up And at 80 bucks a piece times 12 knives that is not enough to pay for the house And that's my job So I went to a local machine shop and that Price point was more than I was charging for a complete knife. It's a machine, 1 blade. And then we, I had a conversation with that machinist and he said, you should buy a machine. And I did. I bought a stupid machine, called the guy and a week later I was like, you remember me? I just bought a machine.

Tim Kell
17:32 - 18:06
He's like, are you flipping crazy? And I'm like, yep. Well now He works for us He started Showing me how to do it just outside the door of this room my wife and daughters were flipping knives picking metal chips out of their hands and getting them stuck in their crocs and screaming at me all the time. I'm taking them off the machine, doing the heat treated things, shaping the handles. I mean it was this crazy thing and he, I got tired of doing all that. It was too big for me to do so I was going to outsource to a local machine shop the blade side.

Tim Kell
18:06 - 18:41
He offered to buy the machine and make my blades part-time. So he did that in the basement of his town home for a year. We grew too fast. He needed to put more machines and this is the fourth time we've expanded his shop. We just finished construction on that doubling the size of that machine shop and it's 15 minutes from here. And he now has bought a piece of property, built a shop, lived out of an RV for a year, built a house. Now he's expanded this shop and he did all this just for me.

Tim Kell
18:41 - 19:22
Quit his job in the place that I originally, I basically recruited him and he still does consulting work for those guys. And we're here now. And it's always been about, how am I gonna provide a higher quality the next time we do it, but at what I would pay for a blade. So we are very thin margins too, and we're not in retail because my margins are too thin. Most of the major retailers want 30 percent, and I don't have it. We're not profiting that much. If I cut 30 percent off and send them to 1 of the major houses, then we are literally paying them to take our blades, and that's not how you stay in business.

Bob DeMarco
19:23 - 19:33
So I wanted to get to this at some point, but you're mentioning it now. So your model in terms of buying, you know, plenty of people want your knives, they have to go to your website.

Tim Kell
19:34 - 20:21
Yeah. Yep. That's the only way. It's not for lack of request. We've had all of the major companies try and we just can't get there. And they get upset because they're getting the request and we can't keep up with demand but what my wife and I are trying to do is we're trying to grow this at a rate that we can guarantee our quality and if those 2 things don't line up then we can't we can't take another step and I don't know how I do not know how these people can give that much of a discount on their blades and make any money I cannot I can't get there because I know all the people in steel I know all the people in the machining world in the knives, heat treating, coating, I know them all.

Tim Kell
20:21 - 20:35
And I'm like, I asked him like, how are they doing this? And they're like, I don't know. I sell them steel at the same price I sell to you. So I don't know. Maybe we pay our people more. That's what it

Bob DeMarco
20:36 - 20:43
is. You gotta start skimping on that. No, I'm just kidding. That's right. Because really you do that, they're gonna go somewhere else and you're back to square 1.

Tim Kell
20:44 - 20:49
0 yeah. And there's Certainly not a lack of opportunity in the knife making world right now for production of blades.

Bob DeMarco
20:50 - 20:56
Well let's talk about that because we're talking about production of and right now for for sake of argument we're just talking about fixed blades.

Tim Kell
20:57 - 20:57
Yeah.

Bob DeMarco
20:59 - 21:29
This it seems like your model, the model you've sort of spearheaded in many ways, I mean at least in my mind and I've spoken with a lot of knife makers, seems to have caught on and it seems like there are a lot more opportunities if say you're a machinist or a designer who wants to have your stuff made here for that to happen in the States. How have you seen that take off?

Tim Kell
21:31 - 22:06
You know, there are some, everybody knows the companies that use that same model to bring the talent in house because it is incredibly hard and expensive to develop that talent. It's not a, you know, you can go to any 1 of major other countries other than the United States and get your knife made for far, far cheaper than you can here. So those people and that technology and that design capability and machine capability is not here. So when you get a guy, you got to start him off and unlearn everything that they know and teach them how to do a new thing.

Tim Kell
22:06 - 22:37
So we've taken a small pocket and we do a pocket here regionally where we can be nimble and just have a handful of shops where these people are experts, not in the knife industry. We've gone outside of the knife industry and really pushed designers and machinists to make knife parts that never did it before. And As more companies see that model working, they're very willing to recruit your people that you've invested all that time into.

Bob DeMarco
22:39 - 22:53
Okay, so offer more money, offer whatever it is to out-compete your competition to get the talent to come to you after you've trained them up.

Tim Kell
22:53 - 23:43
Yeah. We haven't had it happen directly from people in our house, but shops that we use, that's happened to. That's really personal when you've developed the relationship and you know I think there's too much of this maybe it's just this industry where It's just business. It's not because you're developing a relationship with that person and the TKL family is huge. We have a familial environment in our shop, with our customers, with our Patreon, with YouTube, and That really sours your attitude towards the industry if that continues to happen. And I think a lot of that needs to stop.

Tim Kell
23:43 - 24:03
I think that comes from really aggressive growth. And if you can build your team that is fiercely loyal to you in your house by paying them well and investing the time and treating them well, you won't have to go outside if you grow at a responsible rate. But, you know, It's just business, I guess.

Bob DeMarco
24:04 - 24:49
The whole concept of growing at a responsible rate is an interesting 1 because you want to grow however you can because especially in industry like knives, which is relatively small and it's not it's not something you go into to become a millionaire that might happen incidentally if you're 1 of the lucky few but it's a an industry of passion and so Responsible growth, interesting concept. But talking about T. Kells growth, I mean, so you went from everything in-house to beginning to farm stuff out. I think water jet was the first thing you mentioned. So how do you decide now?

Bob DeMarco
24:49 - 25:14
You just showed me all the knives you're going to be coming out with, the combatant, the 3 different versions of the Night Stalker, which is the 1 that just really got its teeth into me personally, I think a lot of people. Piranha. So that's 5 models of knives. How do you decide what you're going to farm out to other people? How do you decide who's going to do what? And yeah, how does that work?

Tim Kell
25:16 - 25:53
A lot of prayer, hope, you know, a lot of it is just trial and error. But what we try to be a quarter ahead. So whatever blades I want to pull from 1 machine shop, I'll do a similar model. So that's why you've got 4 on the same handle platform. They're coming out because it's a lot easier for us to just continue using that fixturing process and roll that through. So while they're doing the stuff for this quarter. Our other machine shop is doing stuff on a different handle platform that will be the next quarter.

Tim Kell
25:53 - 26:39
And we run into bottlenecks in sheath and grip production because there's only a few places in the United States to do that and all of the United States made material come from 1 of 2 places and if everybody is reshoring you get you get stuck so the decision is basically based on what can these guys do? What is their maximum high quality? There's a huge difference between maximum throughput and high quality throughput. So when you're trying these things out, of course you say, hey, the market demands this. We've added this many employees, so we need to sell this many more blades so that we can keep the lights on.

Tim Kell
26:39 - 26:50
I need you to be able to do this many. And I look at you and go, I can't do that. Or they go, yeah, I can do it. And they blast through it. And you're sitting on a bunch of garbage material that you can't use.

Bob DeMarco
26:50 - 27:10
Oh, well, oh man, that's a tricky and I mean, because the idea is for the sake of this conversation, the idea is to keep everything here in the states and to employ people in the states. What happens when you get stuff back and it's not what you were expecting?

Tim Kell
27:12 - 27:51
I can speak to this from some experience. I think I'm a Marine, so accountability is a big deal to me so I think in you when you establish that relationship in the very beginning this is what we do And this is what I'll expect from you and when they don't meet those expectations I don't think you fire them. Well, I know you don't you don't fire immediately. Just say hey look Let's roll 20 Here's the tweaks we're gonna do here and then you send that back and I think you're coaching and you're investing back into the community of knife manufacturing more when you elevate people's skills.

Tim Kell
27:51 - 28:04
So for me, that's always step 1, you know, establish the guidelines and then hold somebody to that. But you don't have to be a jerk about it. There's enough jerkish people in the manufacturing industry.

Bob DeMarco
28:06 - 28:46
So it's about forming the relationship and then coaching. Because maybe some other maker will find what you find unacceptable, acceptable. So you got to kind of bring that collaborator up to speed. And that's what this is. A lot of people talk about collaboration in the knife world. I collaborated with you on the agent series, on the agent double O 1. And to me, I always think of collaboration as a very creative thing. That's a big part of my job, my day job, creative collaboration. But there's also a business collaboration. And you know, for you, you've built up a certain standard.

Bob DeMarco
28:46 - 28:51
And if you're sending out a knife that doesn't live up to your standard, you are immediately going to lose a lot of customers.

Tim Kell
28:52 - 29:35
Yeah, and we want customers for life. We want family members and friends through this business for life. And It's hard to teach that to a vendor that I want you to look at this blade Like it's your name on this knife. Would you be okay paying X dollars and getting this and seeing that and that is That's not Manufacturing That is not what people do. They want maximum output, cheap as they can get, they don't really care, and getting them to learn that, okay, if I bought this, would I find this okay? And sometimes that doesn't line up.

Tim Kell
29:35 - 29:51
Sometimes what people expect to be paid for is not what I personally would put my name on. And then I mean, at that point, you're kind of at an impasse and you've invested all this time. You just have to start over.

Bob DeMarco
29:52 - 30:10
So you mentioned a bottleneck in the process happens with sheaths and grips. And I'm holding up the, the absolutely awesome agent double 03I love this knife, by the way. It is so cool. It's got the night stalker grip on it. Yeah. Night stalker blade on it.

Tim Kell
30:10 - 30:15
Your agent grip that we collaborated on and the night stalker which brought you to the company.

Bob DeMarco
30:16 - 30:18
It's a match made in heaven. I love that.

Tim Kell
30:19 - 30:20
Bob needs this knife.

Bob DeMarco
30:22 - 30:47
Thank you, man. But I'm also looking at the sheaths here. And I have the the first 1 I ever got was the Guardian. And it has a noticeably different sheath than the Agent Series. Talk a little bit about this sheath bottleneck you're talking about and what some of the changes, evolutions or improvements to the sheaths have been.

Tim Kell
30:48 - 31:26
So I didn't know what a sheath was supposed to be. When I started I come from a job where keeping your gear secure until you need it and it's staying in the same place every time you go to deploy that weapon and it needs to be robust. And sheets, a lot of them are crap. I mean, honestly, they don't retain. If you're jumping out of an airplane or jumping off your tractor or going as a law enforcement officer in pursuit or just being a regular guy that has to run to catch a subway train, you don't want your crap falling on the ground.

Tim Kell
31:26 - 32:08
And I think that people missed the boat on that or maybe they didn't. I just didn't, I couldn't find what I wanted. So again, you've got to reteach people that know how to do stuff in the thermoplastics industry or in a machining industry. And they go, no, no, that's not how you make a sheath if you try to go in the knife industry so you got it again then when you get a guy that's willing to go out on the limb with you and he goes man these are really cool he gets popular And it gets out and other people in the industry Want to use his services so then this guy and look he's an American.

Tim Kell
32:08 - 32:49
He's a business person You know you want them to be successful too, so you can't really fault them for Growing and but then you're like hey, where's my stuff? I helped you Can I please so then you gotta you gotta redo it yourself and it's I Didn't really care for what I could find So I just added little stuff here and there? So your guardian sheath, you may have the original welded sheath. That was a process that we came up with that way outside of the industry. And I still won't divulge that because we may be able to move back to that in some other processes, but I needed slim line.

Tim Kell
32:49 - 33:22
I didn't want people to see this giant boat paddle because all of the good sheaths look like an ore and that doesn't make sense to me. I'm not trying to go to the sabaro and get some mediocre food at the court and have this thing like rowing through the food court trying to get my knife out. So I didn't like it. So I made something new. But then they changed the composition of kydex and which is an American material by the way, that it wouldn't weld the way that it used to. It started getting brittle.

Tim Kell
33:22 - 34:02
So then I'm like, man, you know, we, we made our name on slimline concealable. So then I'm like, how can we do this? So we went to the micro rivets. Those micro rivets, as you can tell, are 60% less room than your standard rivet. But then I wanted to be able to mount stuff still and still get the same retention levels that we were having before. So we had to start over. And making molds for sheaths is expensive and getting the retention that TKELF Snap that we're known for, that's hard. And again, you know, They didn't make these rivets in black.

Tim Kell
34:03 - 34:26
So we had to have all these conversations for months. Like, man, this is what we need to get the retention and still get that slim line sheath. We sacrificed the 16th of an inch width versus the weld in the new 1. But then we had to go through the whole process of, all right, someone's got to make these damn things black because they don't make them in black. And that takes more. It takes more. They do now. Yeah, they do now.

Bob DeMarco
34:27 - 34:36
I'm holding up the sheath to the Agent 002 next to the sheath to the agent 003 and somewhere in there they started making them in black

Tim Kell
34:36 - 35:07
Yep. Yeah, so you got a proto run on 1 of them when we're trying to will the industry bear out 2 different colors of rivets. And then you try to tell yourself like, no, it's fine, man. It looks cool. You know, 2 tone. Everybody likes 2 tone. And then you're like, no, it looks like crap. You can't do that. So then, you know, sometimes CW is like, you're insane. Like, this is so hard. I'm like, it is. But then. It's got to look. It's got to look right.

Bob DeMarco
35:07 - 35:07
Yeah.

Tim Kell
35:07 - 35:36
Like you don't go buy a car in your driveway, well some people do but they're psychopaths that they hate the way it looks. I have to I have to like what I'm going to put my money into. If I don't like it, I'm not going to put my name behind it. It's like I punish myself, I think. It's like punching yourself in the face. We need new and It's going to be incredibly difficult. It's going to slow production down and it's going to be tough to do, but hey, let's do it anyway.

Bob DeMarco
35:37 - 35:45
Well, you know, it just shows that you care, man. I also like how you've put slots on both sides now, which really add to the lashing options.

Tim Kell
35:46 - 35:46
Yes.

Bob DeMarco
35:47 - 36:00
But it somehow has not really broadened it out. You don't have that boat or that paddle you're talking about. It's still about the width of a belt, of a standard belt.

Tim Kell
36:00 - 36:39
Yep. 16th of an inch was the difference between welded and that. And I was missing the boat on being able to use soft loops, so the internal pocket of that lower, I mean I've got a million sheets somewhere around here, but this pocket is the same width as The hardware so you can still use your same mounting hardware And you have just enough for the heads of those to sit flush, but you don't need all this. So I'm telling you, I don't know why I do these things. It's like torture.

Bob DeMarco
36:39 - 37:10
Well before we get off the sheaths, I want to say, yes, they do have great retention and they Have that nice snap and you can kind of shoot them off the blade with your thumb which I love But another thing I can't stand in in sheaths And I just got a great knife yesterday that has this issue is too much retention You don't want to be fumbling you want to be pulling your pants up around your midsection, trying to remove your knife. There's a very thin line between not enough and too much retention.

Tim Kell
37:10 - 37:35
It's like the scene from Napoleon Dynamite. You can't get the thing out. We get those videos. We just made a change of the piranha sheet to that where these have too little retention. Like okay I was hand forming a lot of those to fix the retention. Then we fix it through a redesign and then we get videos of people like damn it. You got to there's a middle ground.

Bob DeMarco
37:35 - 37:35
Yeah

Tim Kell
37:36 - 37:41
and that's heat. That's kydex thickness. That's how much you grab on the handle. It's how

Bob DeMarco
37:41 - 37:44
far it goes up the handle and all that stuff, I'm sure.

Tim Kell
37:44 - 37:45
Yep.

Bob DeMarco
37:47 - 38:21
So I'm interested in material, in materials and the challenges you might come up against with getting enough materials, American materials. You mentioned Kydex is a US material, but I'm sure there are plenty of cheap foreign options in that realm. Also, steel and G10 and micarta and that kind of thing, handle materials. What kind of challenges do you run up against keeping everything US based when it comes to acquiring materials?

Tim Kell
38:21 - 39:00
I think G10 is our biggest point of consternation where, you know, again, I've come up with all these stupid custom grips that everybody loves that take 8 weeks to manufacture. So and, you know, we'll put the orders in and then you know, you're 8 weeks, you got customers like, hey, man, I ordered this knife and you know, you said, you know, And here you are calling like, hey, where's this material? Oh, sorry, we're 6 weeks behind. So if you want to be on the cutting edge of making your own stuff and rely on United States manufacturing, sometimes you're going to have to wait.

Tim Kell
39:02 - 39:39
I mean, we could make so many knives. If we get the blades, or the grips produced, the GTEN material produced at the same rate we do blades, we'd make 4 times more. But we don't have the capability. We cannot grow to that point until we can wrestle that to the ground. There's 2 people in the United States that make G10. 2. 0, really? 2. Yeah. 1 on the East Coast and 1 in the middle of the country and if you want custom material you're gonna have to wait

Bob DeMarco
39:41 - 40:03
I might be mistaken about this but this you guys feature this burl g10 where it's layered 2 different colors layered but each layer contains both colors and it's swirled together and it's beautiful. You get a really amazing effect. I love the woodland burl and the gray man. Is this something you invented? Because I don't see it anywhere else.

Tim Kell
40:03 - 40:39
So I saw a sample of it at Blade Show after we're already using this G10 manufacturer. I saw a sample but it wasn't exactly that. They had used it in a different way. And I just kind of dismissed it because I'm like, yeah, that's, but then I was getting inconsistencies in the layering of my G 10 and they would kind of get this ombre or whatever look you want to call it. And I was like, man, that's pretty rad. So I called them and said, hey, you gave me these teeny tiny samples you sent me a couple years ago.

Tim Kell
40:39 - 41:08
Could you do this and this and this instead of what you sent me? And they're like, I think so. So They sent it to me and I got it and it was 1 of those, holy crap, this is freaking awesome. So now my weird brain or we take suggestions from our community of new colors, I just say, hey, can you do this? And they do it. Like this new 1, this is coming out soon. We just finished it last week. I mean, this thing is beautiful.

Bob DeMarco
41:10 - 41:15
Ooh, that's 3 colors on a mercenary, a knife I wanna talk to you about.

Tim Kell
41:16 - 41:47
Man. This is high vis and gray man, effectively. So it's a tri-color. But the high vis stuff is pretty rad. Let me see if I can. I was going to see if I could find my black light. But it lights up like fire under a UV light which if you if you hunt that's how you track animals and if you drop your knife on the ground or cleaning an animal that's pretty useful. Where's my thing? Oh well I don't have it. I had it earlier today.

Bob DeMarco
41:47 - 41:49
So it doesn't just look cool.

Tim Kell
41:50 - 42:09
Oh yeah, it's functional. But again, like an idiot, it takes twice as long to make. So we got it in, it was inspired by a color on 1 of my favorite rifle companies that we do some work with. And I just wanted to do it. And now here we are, everybody's like, wow, that's incredible.

Bob DeMarco
42:12 - 42:18
I see a sapper behind you. I'm gonna talk to you about that. I need to get my hands on a sapper and a mercenary.

Tim Kell
42:18 - 42:20
I know that you like big blades.

Bob DeMarco
42:20 - 42:21
What's that?

Tim Kell
42:21 - 42:44
So I know you like big blades. Yeah. Yeah, so that's the sapper, but this is generation 1. The new 1 has the jimping here and I opened this up and that's another 1 of those manufacturing things where people like it but then they give you feedback like hey I'd like to be able to put my finger in here and then you can really really make your machinist mad.

Bob DeMarco
42:45 - 43:30
So how important is it to you and TKEL knives in general to be, you know, you're growing and of course you want to get as big as you can while you're still putting out as a high quality knife as you're aiming to put out. But at the same time, you want to remain small enough that you can be nimble with that kind of thing. SpiderCo calls it constant quality improvement, which you put a little TM after that. And I love that. I respect that about them. They're not married to something they will change But they they're like a giant ship that takes a long time to change course Tell me a little bit about that.

Bob DeMarco
43:30 - 43:37
I mean you you have redesigned numerous knives. I'm looking at some of them right here. How important is that to you?

Tim Kell
43:40 - 44:21
I don't think we want to be a giant company. Actually, I know we don't. I don't really have any aspirations. My wife and I, we just don't. So I think we want to stay whatever size that is where we can be nimble and listen to the industry and kind of pivot a little quicker because I don't want to be married to something that is a bad idea. I might think it's cool but if the consumer doesn't then there's no point. I can hang it on my wall and go hey here was a prototype of nights I love and I don't understand why you people didn't like it but I'm not going to push it into production or leave details out that we could add for the sake of we have to make a million of these before we break even.

Tim Kell
44:21 - 44:45
So for me, it's all about the function. I mean, our name is on that and this is our livelihood. I want to be able to hand this down to our kids. And I want our employees to be able to work here as long as they want. And if we grow too fast and can't respond to what the industry or the customer wants, then that doesn't make sense to me.

Bob DeMarco
44:46 - 45:12
1 thing that I really like about your company that you don't see as much in smaller businesses is your appetite for collaboration. I'm holding Jared Neves FLN in my hand. You've collaborated with myself, Tomasa Lass, Emory Morgan-Stern, and Frogman Tactical, and I'm probably missing some, I think, Tear- Terani? Oh, I'm sorry?

Tim Kell
45:15 - 45:16
We did Steve Terani.

Bob DeMarco
45:16 - 45:25
Steve Terani, and a lot, and I know I'm missing 1 and I'm trying to, forgive me.

Tim Kell
45:26 - 45:27
Anyway.

Bob DeMarco
45:32 - 45:59
Yes, yes, thank you. So you can do that because why? How are you able to do that? I know like Boker and these giant companies do a lot of that, WeKnife and Riat and that kind of thing, But you're a much smaller operation than those companies. And yet you have some of the greatest finest collaborators there are. How is that? How do you like how that works?

Tim Kell
46:00 - 46:38
It's really, it's another 1 of those things that I love other people's perspectives on things. And when somebody shows something I like, I'm like, man, I wanna do that. So that's exciting to me. And if I get excited about that, I think the customers would too. But from a business and knife making standpoint, it's not really that smart because if you're constantly coming up with something new or onto that next collaborator, it makes it more difficult to produce high numbers of your staple products. So it's just, it's fun for me. I think it's fun for the consumer too.

Tim Kell
46:40 - 47:26
And I just have really patient people that work with me because I'm creative. Like, You know, you sent me a drawing of a knife a while back and I just, it's been in my head until I can get that thing made. But there are plenty of our other blades that people love that we really need to focus on. So this year we're doing less collaborative work. Release this anyway, I'm still designing those blades with you and others in the background but we have to be it's hard to do it really is the given take is easy the design process easy it's hey new sheath new grip new blade new processes let's go And then you push all your resources and then you're like, hey, where the hell are my night stalker?

Tim Kell
47:26 - 47:29
Like, well, you pulled me off to do this other thing.

Bob DeMarco
47:29 - 48:08
Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly what I was gonna suggest. Like the Night Stalker, which really puts you on the map, I would say. Would you say that's still an amazing 1 of your best, I mean, they're all the best, but this is 1 that you're gonna have people, knife junkie logo, you're going to have people coming back forever. As long as T-Cal knives is around, this is a staple. People are always going to want this knife. So it's interesting as you bring more models in and create more collaborative relationships, you still have to manage this. You still have to

Tim Kell
48:08 - 48:44
manage it. And I'm bringing elements from those collaborative efforts or new things that I learn, and I'm backing into those knives. So we do a new knife and I'm like man I really like this feature that we did on it and I tell our team I'm like hey we need to go back and do this on the combatant. We need to go back and do this on the Nightstalker. So that is to say that this year, we're bringing some of those design elements that kind of set the bar higher, we're backing into the Nightstalker so that it will be design wise fresh, but still the Nightstalker.

Tim Kell
48:45 - 49:13
So We're just adding the elements of people go man. That was really cool I wish you would do that on fill in the blank and I go well, you know what we will which is a whole lot easier When we we back into like some of the design elements that we you and I did on the agent I'm pulling those ideas into the other blades, but they'll still be the same sheath, the same blade platform, just little refinements to that. And I'm pretty excited about that.

Bob DeMarco
49:14 - 49:49
Well, something that comes to mind immediately, and I'm holding up the Agent 003 next to a Night Stalker from, I don't know, maybe 2 years ago, and there is a substantial change in the thumb ramp on the Agent version of that knife. You've added this fantastic jimping, And in the older version, or in my version of the Night Stalker, there's sort of indexing jimping. It's there to kind of let you know where your thumb is, but it doesn't have that same grip. Is that sort of an example of what you're talking about?

Tim Kell
49:50 - 50:30
Yes, so we're adding that more aggressive, more functional jimping. And that style of jimping came from there's a slight curve on water jim. So when your sizes or blades are different, and in the beginning we didn't know as much as we know now about machining and fixturing and holding those things down, so we couldn't put those really identical every knife every time in because water jet's not perfect. So now we're gonna start machining the entire profile of the knife stalker like the CG, put heavier jimping in, and add some other yet to be announced features from some other blades into that.

Tim Kell
50:30 - 50:37
So yes, that is 1 of the things because that jumping on the agent is great.

Bob DeMarco
50:37 - 51:08
Yeah, it is. All right. So I've spoken to a lot of knife makers and American knife makers who are in various stages of their business growth, what advice would you give, maybe without giving any of your own secrets away, but what advice would you give to companies that are coming up and really want to remain USA-centric companies? How do they grow? What do they do?

Tim Kell
51:09 - 51:51
I think you just have to do what you know is best for the customer. And it's going to cost you 3 to 4 times more to do it in the States. And you have to reconcile that in your head that there are people that are not gonna spend their money that way. And that this is not a quality question. This is, if you really wanna make something in the states and invest in your neighborhood and and the capabilities of many United States Reconcile that your stuff is going to be different than the guy that can undercut your price by 60% and just leave it leave it there.

Tim Kell
51:52 - 52:37
And just say I want to design this I want to do it and just be creative in how you go about those things and I almost hate to say this but 1 of the biggest blessings in disguise for me was that people didn't want to tell me how they were doing stuff. Even the US manufacturers, they don't want to say, well, when you go to make a blade, you need to fixture it this way and you need to use this tool and you need to clamp it out and I get that you know that's their proprietary way that they've done it they don't want to tell you how to do it don't be afraid to be creative and come up with a new way to do stuff because I can tell you I have seen a lot of knife manufacturing and TKL does not do it remotely the same as anybody else.

Tim Kell
52:37 - 53:21
We just don't. And I think that lack of people being willing to show me what they were doing and my lack of not exactly caring what so and so was doing and I didn't copy their designs and I don't copy their manufacturing style, so my stuff doesn't look like their stuff. Then just be true to your designs and be creative. Calling the number 1 knife heat treating place in the country and the number 1 knife manufacturing place in the country and wherever your Google search finds you, what's the best coding for knives? Well, just find the best coding for whatever it is that you want to do and figure out a way to put that on a knife.

Tim Kell
53:21 - 53:58
And we need more diversity in blades in the community. And I think the more people that will be willing to go out on a limb and kind of do small batch and explore different technologies, I think the industry will be better and strong for it because variety for me is I like, I mean, On the walls behind me are 50 knife maker stuff that make incredible stuff and 15 firearms manufacturers. So I'm not married to 1 thing and I just use inspiration from everywhere.

Bob DeMarco
53:59 - 54:06
Yeah, the nickel boron coating that you feature on your blades is a perfect example of that.

Tim Kell
54:06 - 54:43
Yeah, it is. I mean, there's nothing wrong with the other coatings that people use, but what I wanted out of a coating wasn't there. And I knew about nickel boron from firearms. And I accidentally fell into finding a place that would do it. And they're like, I don't know. It's never been done. So I'm like, well, I mean, if you can put it on a piece of metal, can you put it on a piece of high carbon metal? They're like, Yeah, we could probably do that. And I'm telling you, that's another 1 of those expensive, time consuming, almost walked away from completely own recipe for doing blades things.

Tim Kell
54:43 - 54:52
But I think it's a unique offering and it's a high speed, high durability coating. I just stay the path.

Bob DeMarco
54:53 - 55:28
I think your not being a knife guy before you got into this, I mean it was apparent to me at the very beginning when you were doing videos out of a different room in your basement, at your shop, it was really apparent to me that you were doing things differently, that your knives were different. And I just hadn't had 1 in hand, so I couldn't tell if these good knives are not. But I knew from what they looked like, first of all, and how you were describing them in use and also in how you were making them, that you were doing something different.

Bob DeMarco
55:29 - 55:44
And now 11 knives later, and many conversations later, I absolutely am convinced and love your stuff. And I think a big part of that is you're not a knife guy. You're not steeped in in the dogma

Tim Kell
55:45 - 56:22
And the guys that come to me for advice are knife guys. So how do you look at this guy and go, well, first, don't be a knife guy and then make cool shit. Like, how do you, how do you tell somebody that's already coming to you for advice like man my path is I mean it's up down sideways multi-industry accidental blessed by God Incredible support system for my wife people like me. I don't get that How do you how do you teach that like I say? All right. Are you a car guy? Are you a gun guy?

Tim Kell
56:22 - 56:40
Are you an electrician? And you know, like I worked on aircraft that cost millions and millions of dollars. I mean, it's tough. I guess you have to be a little bit of a creative nut job.

Bob DeMarco
56:40 - 56:42
And a little bit of a bulldog, I would imagine, too.

Tim Kell
56:42 - 56:50
Yeah, there's no secret in the industry. I can be a little bit of a go-getter and I just don't stop.

Bob DeMarco
56:51 - 57:20
Well, okay, as we wrap here, I just something you mentioned early on and we don't talk about this much on the Knife Junkie podcast, but I think it's an interesting thing. You said, it's my job as a man to provide. So you had to figure something out when the chips were down and you did. What do you think about that? How would you say that you accomplished that mission and are currently every day doing so.

Tim Kell
57:20 - 58:22
I mean, you know this and we know this about each other. I believe in God. So 99% of that is help from my faith. And I've always believed that that's provide and protect so I feel like I'm uniquely capable to do those things and I did this for years and years and years. Well, I can't say years and years and years. We've only been doing it for almost 6, but still it felt like years, lifetime, but by myself. And it grew and grew and grew. And The way our marriage works and the way our family works is that we kind of see those things in each other because we're each other's best friend and she just came to me and said You need help and I can offer this help and I'm gonna do this and you're like wow Thanks, You know, so there's not really a secret to how I figured it out.

Tim Kell
58:22 - 58:49
It's just, I'm uniquely blessed with the best wife in the world who recognizes her strengths and where my deficiencies are. And we have some wonderful children that are the same way. And it's almost magic, Bob. I can't really tell you how we figured it out because it's just, I really don't know. I don't know. Well,

Bob DeMarco
58:50 - 58:52
it's working. Whatever it is, it's working.

Tim Kell
58:52 - 59:55
I know. It's hard to give that answer to somebody. How did you do that? Yup. I remember we hired our first employee who recently left the company. I only hired somebody because I was drowning and I didn't know that was going to be a business. I didn't know that it was going to be a thing, but I was nearing my furlough time where I was going to have to go back to the railroad or pursue this thing and I simply couldn't make the knives and ship them and then he came on and the 2 of us couldn't make the knives and ship them and then my wife Suzanne she goes you need help and then she took that over and then she got overwhelmed with it And then she became her own YouTube personality and huge part of the company now my daughter does the shipping and customer service stuff, so I guess look to your family to help you, because nobody's going to care as much as the people that live with you.

Tim Kell
59:57 - 59:58
Beautiful. I mean.

Bob DeMarco
1:00:00 - 1:00:22
Well, Tim, thank you so much for coming on and divulging, you know, not that you're divulging secrets, but really giving us an inside look at how you've managed to make a great American company, especially in a climate that has not been friendly to that. And I'm sure we all appreciate it. So thank you so much, sir. It's always a pleasure talking with you.

Tim Kell
1:00:22 - 1:00:26
Yeah. Well, thank you It's an honor to be here. I value our friendship and our collaborations as well

Bob DeMarco
1:00:26 - 1:00:29
as do I sir and the honor is all mine Take care.

Tim Kell
1:00:30 - 1:00:30
See ya.

Bob DeMarco
1:00:45 - 1:01:18
Be sure to check out their drop. Go to their website, tkellknives.com. They have a big drop coming out, some of their most amazing knives, but they're all that, if you ask me. January 15th, 2025. And then of course, keep your eyes peeled on their Instagram, their YouTube. They have a great live show every Sunday, and you'll get as much information as you can possibly handle on that show. That's a great show. All right, everyone, for Jim, working his magic behind the switcher, I'm Bob DeMarco saying, Until next time, don't take dull for an answer.

Announcer
1:01:18 - 1:01:55
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