Vic DeMarco 0:00
when it hit the wood instead of burying itself in the wood, it glanced off the log and deflected into my leg. Okay? And it's like time stood still for just just a moment where I saw the metal this razor sharp metal hit my leg and I saw my skin well up right this is all in slow motion and then it kind of looks just like looked up at me like Sorry boss we're gonna split here

Announcer 0:31
Welcome to the Knife Junkie podcast your weekly dose of nice news and information about knives and knife collecting. Here's your hosts Jim Person and Bob The Knife Junkie DeMarco

Jim Person 0:45
Hello Knife Junkie and welcome to episode number 74 Knife Junkie podcast I'm Jim Person and I'm Bob The Knife Junkie DeMarco Welcome to the show. Welcome to the Knife Junkie podcast. podcast. It is the place for nice newbies and Knife Junkie to learn about knives and knife collecting here from knife designers, makers, manufacturers reviewers and anyone who loves knives and Bob that last phrase, anyone who loves knives or should I say blades? That's that's what we're going to be diving into today with our special guest

Bob DeMarco 1:17
Well you know this is the holiday season well they just passed it to sentimental time of year for me and I was at my ancestral home recently and hanging out with my my brother and a lot of people who follow this channel know that my brother's an awesome guy and he's gotten me so many knives and made me so many cool sheets and leather goods over the years that he is an integral part of the Knife Junkie journey, because I'm on a journey like everybody else. And so I just wanted to have him here because we were we were kind of reeling in the years and all these stories kept popping up remember the time you put yourself in remember the time and New York and so we decided we should do a podcast where we just have some life stories.

Jim Person 2:00
Definitely a different one for us but I think it's going to be a really fun one. But before we get into that I want to remind you that if you want to help support The Knife Junkie podcast Knife Junkie website, The Knife Junkie YouTube channel if you're going to be shopping on Amazon or eBay for a knife or anything, go to The Knife junkie.com slash shop Amazon or The Knife Junkie comm slash shop eBay and you can purchase whatever you want to purchase from there we'll get a very small commission it does not affect the price that you'll pay in the long run. But it does help support The Knife Junkie channel and if you want to find daily deals on Amazon but just go to The Knife Junkie comm slash daily deals so I don't want to wait any longer Bob I want to hear these crazy knife stories and and how you have cut yourself and numerous way so what do you say we we have the Bob and Vic show

Bob DeMarco 2:56
I would like to introduce my brother Vic Vic Welcome to The Knife Junkie podcast. Great to have you.

Vic DeMarco 3:01
Thank you.

Bob DeMarco 3:01
I will call you Vic Vito Victor. Those those names all work for my brother. So, Vic, not necessarily a Knife Junkie, but how did you put it when you said

Vic DeMarco 3:14
a blade enable

Bob DeMarco 3:15
Okay, so exactly what is a blade enabler?

Vic DeMarco 3:17
Okay, let me explain. First of all, I said I'm not a Knife Junkie because it's not, you know knives I don't like wake up and then go to sleep and think about nothing but knives in between. But that said, I love knives and I love the the heft of them the like the mechanical ism of them if you will like just how they operate. What they do, they're very useful tools. So I don't I kind of have a collectors heart anyway, in in most things that I do. So being that I do like knives, I tend to have a lot of them but I don't like check out the internet every night to see what's new in the world, that kind of thing. be enabled. Apart comes from the fact that my brother is a Knife Junkie. And I'm only too happy to support that hobby by either buying him knives, when I see something that I think he likes or by making a sheath for something that he either needs a sheath for or something that he has a sheath for but it's kind of,

Jim Person 4:19
you know, you use the word habit. I mean a hobby, I was gonna say maybe it's a more of a habit or addiction,

Bob DeMarco 4:27
a lifestyle, it's a way of life.

Vic DeMarco 4:31
But also the other thing is that like, you know, as someone who as a collector is hard, I know sometimes I want to get something but I really can't justify it. So I assume Bob is in the same position and so he'll buy me knives.

Bob DeMarco 4:44
So, Vic, why is it that you like knives, it's it's something that we've shared our whole lives. Were Men of a Certain Age at this point. And so it's been it's been quite a few years you and I've kind of shared this, this thing. Where did it come from for you? know, for me a lot of it came from you because you're my older brother. But so where did it come from for you?

Vic DeMarco 5:04
I've been thinking about that. And I think there's there's really kind of two places I think the primary place is grandpa. Okay, so our maternal grandfather was an artist and a craftsman and an outdoorsman. Yeah. He spent his whole life professionally and personally in that field, he built his own home. He had this absolutely amazing workshop, Bob, I don't know how much you remember about that. But it was like, it was just unbelievable. And it wasn't that big, but it had everything packed into it that you could possibly imagine that you would need for any kind of project

Bob DeMarco 5:06
All neatly and nicely.

Vic DeMarco 5:20
All neatly and nicely. He had, he had baby food jars nailed up to the ceiling like joists that had all manner of different you know, bolts, screws, everything and he knew where everything was, and I you know, when we would go there as kids. I used to love going into the workshop and doing little projects with him. When I was very young, I asked him for a knife. I asked him specifically for an army knife. He gave me this slip joint, which I know y'all can't see but it's a it's an old rosewood handled or scaled or grip or whatever you want to say, slip joint that has engraved my name in it. That's called an electricians knife By the way, well, funny you should say that Bob, because he told me it's an army knife. It is absolutely not an army knife. But where he he engraved my name, you can see and I never saw this until many many until I was an adult actually, but you can see where he sanded off an electricians name. So he got this from electrician as like a giveaway kind of thing. Right? And you can see it says you can barely see the word electrical and then down below it says you know West Nyack, New York, blah, blah blah, but it You can't see it but you can see where he kind of sanded it away. So he told me this is an army knife and that completely fueled my imagination one one of the projects we did when I was a kid was actually make a knife and that's this knife here and I'll describe it what it is is basically it was a saw, right that he had an old saw and I remember I don't know what prompted us to actually embark on this project but I you know, I remember being in the basement with him in his workshop making this and he literally took an old saw and we shaped it he shaped it into this kind of knife blade and then you can see you know, he made this handle out of wood and we just you know, shaped it, finished it put it all together so the the the teeth of the saw acts as the saw blade on the back of the neck

Bob DeMarco 7:50
like a survival knife.

Vic DeMarco 7:52
During this whole thing, by the way. Were you there when we did

Bob DeMarco 7:55
Yeah, I remember all this happening.

Unknown Speaker 7:57
I was not making it...But then, to top it off, we had a sort of subsidiary project, which, which was to make the sheath out of leather. And I guess that was a portent of what was to be because later in my life, I would make my own sheets and whatnot, but it's got my initials on it. You know, it's just, it's really cool. And I still have it, and I love it, I cherish it. So there's that. And then we had a neighbor, a couple doors down, and they had kids that were basically the ages of Bob and me and my sister, and we would kind of hang out when we were really, really young back in the early 70s. And they had this big, big house that had this absolutely enormous living room. And it was the kind of living room that nobody was allowed. It was like a museum. Nobody was allowed to go into it. And it had like big shaggy carpets, think 19 Early 70s right

Bob DeMarco 9:01
Big porcelain leopards.

Vic DeMarco 9:04
leopards, it was just like it was like this Forbidden Zone we were not allowed in it. But on the far side of it was the father's den. Okay. And if we weren't allowed in, in the living room the den was like, we just weren't allowed to be there. So on the wall it was like a wood panel done and on the wall was a Chris dagger. And I remember as a kid just like, just venturing through that vast, like, museum space just gone. Oh, God, we're going to get busted and then like just quietly like sneaking into that room just to look at this at this tech yet.

Bob DeMarco 9:42
And it was just it was cool that dagger there was so there was a Kris dagger that was out it can't remember was in or out of the sheath, but we took it out of the sheet, and then there was a saber over it and then there's some sort of like musket kind of thing. And now that I think about it's kind of it's kind of interest Because knowing the man who's done that was he wasn't necessarily that guy but it was a cool adornment that men had back then well of course you put a sword on the wall. I like that that manly stuff. So one thing that I've talked about here in there is a toy knife you had when we were kids that I know I can trace a lot of my obsession back to it was it was about a seven inch bladed plastic buoy knife with a black handle and I always tried to play with it and you know you were a very generous awesome brother but you never let me play and that just fueled and and I so much so that I remember going to mom and complaining and and then the next you know next birthday I got I got a I got a toy, you know plastic knife, but it just wasn't as cool as yours.

Unknown Speaker 10:53
Yeah, yeah, I got that for Easter. Again. That was a Grandma grandpa's house. We used to go They're for Easter. And if you remember that little detail, I think the reason that it was so awesome is because it was it was actually built like a real knife so that the blade and the Tang were like doll silver plastic, and then the handle skills were were two separate pieces of plastic put together over where the handle would be. And then the sheath was like a remember this, but it was like a red plastic. Yes, kind of sheath. And to me that's just like, you know, shows it's a little bit of a sign of the times in the 70s. You could get stuff like that you can get like toy and sixteens and Troy and Tommy guns and they were giving away for Easter. Yeah, and you can get them for Easter. It was it was a thing of beauty. And actually, I was telling Bob this other story. It's not a knife story, but it's just another kind of sign of the time story. So in that era, we used to ride the bus to school, obviously, and this neighbor kid whose father had the Kris, he and I were talking to the bus driver once and she was you know, she was a woman. who heard if you think about the time her husband was a world war two veteran, and she was telling us that he had a hand grenade from the war. And he said, Oh, can we play with it? And she said, Sure. And so she brought this hand grenade on the bus, and she gave it to my friend, then the plan was he would get it for a week, then I would get it for a week. And then we had to give the grenade back. So he couldn't aid. And during his week, he was playing with it. He threw it up in the air and he caught it with his face. And so he ended up with a big black guy. And she got a little nervous and took the grenade back. So I never got my hair too soon. But the thing is, the only reason I'm raising that is because it just shows you kind of what a different world we live in today. That would probably never ever happen.

Bob DeMarco 12:49
Okay, speaking of a different world, you and I both spent quite quite a number of years living in New York City, and part of that time overlapped which was cool because we lived you know, Close enough to see each other on a regular basis. Something's happened, you know, now that I don't live in New York City, I can't imagine how long I lived there doing things that were just so illegal, just in terms of like, and I wasn't I wasn't intending on it, I was just a knife enthusiast, you know, live in my life and, and kind of ignoring the fact that I was in a very, you know, and permissive place like yeah, you know, I I had the attitude I kind of still have today, which is, well, I don't really get in trouble with cops, so I'm not gonna worry about it. I should be fine. I should be fine. Now, now I have responsibilities. And you know, so I'm a little less Cavalier but you know, you and I did experience a number of things in New York. But here's here's the side of things that I don't think would happen in New York now. I was I was on the subway and I had my, my cold steel four inch serrated vaquero in my pocket, you know, the alone, it's called. And that was kind of my everyday carry for a long time Yes sir. similar to this one except smaller too. So I had that in my pocket. I was getting off at 23rd Street in my bag. I was shifting my bag to put it on my back so I could get off the subway and and the bag just just grabbed the clip right out of my pocket and in slow motion. This big guy fell on the floor in front of everybody and you know, it fell on the floor and it opened up like Phil just in the right way that opened up so you can see this big shiny sensuous scary blade in it scuttled across the floor until it until it reached the gap and it fell through onto the track on the train rolls away and I had to get to work but I'm like I'm like this is worth being late for because it is I'm not going to come to the subway station you know for the rest of my my time here and glance down at the knife and or worse yet, you know, some kid would just jump out on the tracks and get it themselves

Vic DeMarco 14:57
so can't have that then you

Bob DeMarco 14:59
yeah I've given it away to a stranger. So I went, I got the station agent and they had to call someone from a different station to get like the grabber. And it took about an hour and I was late for work, but I just stood there, like, over it on the platform looking down, like no one is getting my nice.

Vic DeMarco 15:17
That's awesome.

Bob DeMarco 15:17
Yeah. New York. I used to carry that big six inch vaquero for a while, and I was like, I had this attitude, man. So everyone who's listening to this, don't take this attitude, especially in New York, you'll end up in jail. But I used to carry that big six inch knife and I was like, Oh, it's okay. You know, I'm a martial arts and I'm training in life stuff. This is cool. And I'm an enthusiast. Really, it's okay. But you know, I don't think the law would see it that way.

Vic DeMarco 15:43
Yeah. And that was that was a long time ago. Yeah, no, it was 20 years ago.

Bob DeMarco 15:49
Things were a little different. I remember being there. I was flying out of LaGuardia. We were going to go into the wedding of a guest of this show, actually, when drew was getting ready. buried up in Maine. We flew up there and I had my beloved Kershaw storm to in my pocket. And oh no, it wasn't in my pocket. What happened was, I packed it away with my suit, and my good shoes in my luggage. And then the last minute I'm like, Damn, those are good shoes. I don't want them to get lost. I'll put them in my carry on, forgot about the Kershaw storm to which was a big kitten onion, you know, almost three and a half inch can onion recurve cool knife for them. And you know, got to the gut to the TSA. I guess this was Yeah, it got to the TSA and they saw it and they weren't having it, obviously. So like this cop came, and a, an agent, a TSA agent manager came, and the cop saved me. He was actually pretty darn cool. He was like, he kind of looked at the TSA guy and said, kind of like this guy's mind. And the TSA guy backed away and pulled me over and he looked at me Sterling. He's like, These guys have such heard as like, okay, let's let's get let's get this knife to your destination. I'll see if we can pull your bag. So he actually helped me we went to the we went to the bag baggage agent, and it ends up the the bag had already been loaded on the plane and it was too late and, and I was like, you know, I'm not gonna I can't He's like, Well, you could try and mail it and I'm like, my wife is is already killing me. I'm not going to take the time to try and mail this thing. So. So I just said, Hey, you know you do a hard job. Thanks for looking after us. You take the knife, and he's like, I'm sorry, sir. I can't accept that knife. I you know, it's not professionally ethical. I'm like it. And I'm like, Really? You can't just like, you know, because I don't want to throw it in the garbage is like, well, if I were to find it on the floor, I could pick it up and it could be my

What do you know? Look at what I've found.

Vic DeMarco 17:52
Yeah, so that

Bob DeMarco 17:53
like, I probably saved my butt. You know, from hours of interrogation.

Unknown Speaker 17:57
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I've been I've been pulled The side coming back from out of the country and not because of the knife or anything just because of immigration and it's a real hassle and you miss you and I miss my connection

Bob DeMarco 18:09
we suspect that you're with the mafia. Mr. DeMarco.

I have a knife cut story I want to tell you because this is also okay.

Vic DeMarco 18:18
I got a knife cut story for you too.

Bob DeMarco 18:19
Well, let me hear yours.

Unknown Speaker 18:21
Okay, yeah, I was gonna start with the time that you cut me. You want to start with that one? Let's do so this was 10 years ago, maybe maybe a little more. It was definitely like in our adult life. You got me this cold steel spike for Christmas. Yeah,

Bob DeMarco 18:41
that's the tanto

Vic DeMarco 18:42
by tantos. And the old kind of handle style with the rap. Beautiful, sweet little honey. You know, I like it. I love it. And so does Bob and so he gave it to me and then you know, I opened it up and under the Christmas tree and playing with it and he Pretty quickly got it out of my hands and he started playing with it. And within within an hour we were in our mother's kitchen. She's making breakfast you know, our lives are about doing whatever and he has them has the spike in commences to pretend to mug me and slicing the top of my head and I still have the scar you won't be able to see it on this camera but I still have this little scar there. And there is this whole dynamic where we both were looking at each other like oh my god that just happened and me going like oh my god that hurts. I got it. I gotta take care of this. But trying to hide that fact from our mother who's there making because we know we would both get in trouble and for some reason, I would know I probably would have gotten into more trouble being the victim being the older one being bill older, but they know so that's that's the time you got me and then this is this is my mother They're of all I cut myself stories because I've got a ton of those I you know, I handle knives in you know enough to cut myself relatively often. But this one is the time I cut myself with my se Jon list which you can't have it here we cannot see it obviously on the podcast but it's a big knife. It's easily like 10 adulated outdoor knife. Yeah. And it's it's heavy steel. And it's just it's a beautiful, it's a beautiful knife. And it's really it's really extremely sharp. And so this I remember this exactly. This was in 2000 in the summer of 2011. So almost, I guess, almost 10 years ago, and I had been watching videos on YouTube of nothing fancy splitting wood and I thought I could do that because we had just we had just had a couple of trees taken down and I had a lot of witness to deal with. And so I've Go out there and I get, you know, a suitable stick and I start buttoning through these, these logs and this thing, just cut through them, like butter. Okay, it was a thing of beauty to watch how this, you know, because it's got it's very sharp, it's got this, this thick, you know, steel blade and it's just, it's a monster

Bob DeMarco 21:24
It's like a wedge Kind of,

Vic DeMarco 21:26
yeah, cross that. Yeah. And, you know, some going going going about, after about like 10 or 12 logs, I'm like, I wonder if it's still sharp. So, you know, I kind of shave some hair off of my forearm and it's still like razor sharp. And I'm like, all this thing is awesome. Okay, so I keep going on. And finally get to a point where I feel like I need a break. I'm gonna go and get some water or whatever. And instead of putting the knife back into its sheath, I figured I want to put this thing through its paces and I wanted to see how deep I could barely into one of the locks that don't like

Bob DeMarco 22:01
a good idea.

Vic DeMarco 22:04
So I lifted up over my head and I didn't give it a lot of muscle but I just wanted the momentum of this awesome steel blade to dislike carry it in a full arc down into the wood. And when I bring it down, and when it hit the wood instead of burying itself in the wood, it glanced off the log and deflected into my leg. Okay, and it's like time stood still for just just a moment where I saw the metal this razor sharp metal hit my leg and I saw my skin well up, right this is all in slow motion. And then it kind of looks just like looked up at me like Sorry, boss. We're gonna split here fell apart. Like, like where the blade was. And then blood. The blood was like, All right, we're going and it just like started gushing up my guy. And I was like, Do so I pulled, I pulled my belt off and I put it around my leg. And I kind of like ran hobbled back to the kitchen holding, you know, holding the belt in one hand and holding my shorts up but the other hand my wife wasn't there, but my mother in law was there. Oh, good. Okay. And I'm like, I like Lana. She comes in and by this time I was like, I was literally like, kind of feeling faint a little bit and some on the floor in a pool of blood. gash, okay. And she starts screaming.

I'm like, I need this.

You know, call 911 or something I'm like, but I'm like, don't let, don't let Victor in here. I don't want him to see this, my son. And so just then my wife comes back. She assesses the situation. She's always kind of cool in an emergency. she disappears, comes back with a cane and gets me in her car and takes me To an urgent care thing, so I get to urgent care. I walk in the front door I got the Kenan one hand, and I'm I got the cane and I'm holding up my shorts of one hand holding the belt and the other hand, which is like keeping all the blood and I like looking like i like i like zombie walk up to the to the front desk, and I said, I need a doctor. And the lady says, you know what's wrong? And I tell her, I caught myself and as she's, you know, as she is taking care of whatever she's taking care of, I hear this guy in the waiting room behind me. And he goes,

you know that this guys going first!

Unknown Speaker 24:43
I'm that guy. You know who doesn't look a whole waiting room full of people with the sniffles right? And I walk in with this knife wound and long and short of it is things big got me in there. They couldn't handle it because it required like, I would guess you would say minor surgery because there were like two levels. You're losing. Didn't se homeless do this? Yeah, they, you know that it required two levels of stitches one like the tendon level and one at the skin and they just didn't want to. They didn't want to deal with it. So they sent me to a hospital. But while we were waiting, I was in the back. The doctors, you know, the doctors examining my leg and you know, this nurse comes in and says, to my wife says, Man, we need you to come out and sign some papers. And when she when she left, the doctor said, Do you feel comfortable at home? Do you feel safe?

Vic DeMarco 25:36
I was like, Oh, yeah, this is 100% you know me.

Bob DeMarco 25:41
feels safe. Well, I don't know I live with an idiot. I, the other day we were talking, we're going over the stories and you reminded me of something that I would never do now that I did. Then whatever that was This was the console it story when you live just happened I think the weekend of your wedding. Yeah. Okay, so so it was in New York City was on. It was a Midtown on the east side. So there are a lot of embassies around there and a lot of consulates in your old neighborhood there. So what I can piece together of this evening was that it was all fueled by liquid courage, I think. And I remember I was wearing a cool new jacket, it was a coat, almost knee length. And I just remember feeling you know, it was this weekend of your of your wedding and I was kind of dressed up the whole weekend. And I remember just feeling like James Bond walking around in my cool coat. And it was, at one point I was wandering around, it was over kind of by the East River, and I'm wandering around by all these consulates and I think I was probably stealing little sips of whatever I was drinking that night and just kind of wandering around how Having a city experience and I find myself on a walkway that's like a catwalk over the grounds of one of these consulates and I had my believe it was the Buckaroo Grundy again or the the alone break whatever I was playing with my knife as as as happens and it fell out of my hand. And it fell off the catwalk onto the lawn of this consulate. And for some reason, I think it was the Brazilian consulate because I remember thinking, Oh, we do Brazilian jujitsu and this happened and I thought that that was some tremendous coincidence. But anyway, so this this knife felt fell out of my pocket or out of my hand off the catwalk and onto the lawn of this console it and I was just courageous enough at that time to say Screw it, man. I'm in my James Bond coat. I'm in a suit. Cool Do I look. I'm just gonna get down here. I'm going to climb over that wall. I'm going to get my knife and and I did that. I got down And it had it had like brick and buttons and between it had like the big wrought iron kind of fence and it didn't have spikes on top it had like kind of flirted Leon on top. So I just grabbed it kind of in the corner where the brick meets the the iron is hold myself up and over and you know I was in much better shape do that with some ease. And I got the got the knife and I came back over and I remember thinking afterward like how cool I must have looked jumping off the top of that fence with my cool coat kind of blowing in the wind like a cake. So yeah, that wouldn't have happened if I didn't have butterfingers But yeah, but now I suspect if I if you if you attempt something like that. Now, this is this must be the back in my day show because back in the day, you could you could climb over a consulate wall and not get sniped and get grenades from your bus driver

Vic DeMarco 28:54
grenades from your bus driver.

Bob DeMarco 28:56
So Vica Did I ever tell you about the my 42nd birthday With the with the endora I don't think so. Was it okay 42nd birthday here here at the house. And, you know, my wife has a giant family. They all come about 25 or 30 family. And then and then we had friends from our martial art school, we had friends from the neighborhood, we had old friends, you know, multigenerational hang all day long. And, and, and Mario tells everybody, so this is Bob's 42nd birthday and he loves tequila. And yeah, you know, I like tequila. But she, she, I think she wanted to build up a tequila collection in the bar in our basement. So she said, is it tequila or everyone has to bring a bottle with so everyone showed up. Many people showed up bearing fine bottles of tequila. And, you know, I'm a I'm a magnanimous guy. So they'd come through and I'd be like, Oh, thanks for coming. Thanks for we have to do a shot. Welcome. Let's do a show. So I did that more than several times. And, you know, I just got three sheets to the wind. Then I remember I started trying to grill I had like 1000 sausages and Teresa's and Marie's uncle who's a great grills man comes over and he's like, is he's like, let me take care of this. When you go enjoy your party, he saw me teetering over the flames. He didn't want me to jack up the sausage. Anyway, later that night, I was found in the bathroom bleeding, and what it happened was all of those tequilas led to you know, I mean, just being ridiculous it's it's not responsible behavior, and I've changed my way is somewhat since then, but I had just gotten a brand new endora for my birthday. No, almost four inch full flat ground razor sharp Spyderco and I started practicing martial arts against the tree. And and I decided to to stab the tree and the endura doesn't have much Yeah the internet doesn't have much in the way of finger protection in a thrust and so my hand wrote up on the blade and it's just here's the great thing though people keep your knives sharp and and actually those kind of cuts they suck and they hurt but they don't hurt as much and they heal much quicker because the cut is so you know just comes back to get so I come in apparently Marie's auntI said that I was trying to get mosquitoes

But anyway, I

come in I leave a trail of blood and and my mother in law with gets involved also and she she notices the trail of blood and follows it finds me and then gets gets married and they tried to take me to the hospital and I'm just not having it. Because you know it's I'm not going to end the party by going to the hospital so it just bandaged it up, get it real tight and everything and I'll tell you what, that that wound which was deep and bloody, was healed in a week. That's a testament to two things Spyderco is awesome edge and my incredible genetics I'm like Wolverine.

Vic DeMarco 32:03
That's awesome.

Bob DeMarco 32:05
Well, anyway, there's another thing I wanted to get this in and it's realizing how one of one of the very early things for me that got me obsessed with knives, Vic, do you remember the knife that used to be in the garage with the stag handle? That came from Cole's farm? You remember that story? Okay, so the story is, we're at I was I was at the local farm with my mom in the 70s it was when it was like a other kind of farm you bring your kids to and you and they're they're like, rope bridges and pony rides and little.

Vic DeMarco 32:39
feed the cows.

Bob DeMarco 32:41
Yeah, and donkeys around and stuff. It was it was cool. It was fun for a little kid. And we're walking out onto to appear that goes into the middle of this lake. And I remember looking up and I was sliding my hand along the railing and I was just kind of absentmindedly looking at my head and it came to a screeching halt because mom like pulled back on my hand and I and I noticed that my hand stopped just shy of that knife. It was like a marbles hunting knife to write in the writing the mom was so she was furious that this knife was out in the open and I thought I could have cut my hand clean off. I was like, Oh my god, I came so close. You know, this was almost the end. But I remember she grabbed the knife, put it in her purse, and that knife lived in our garage for years and years and years. It did all sorts of outdoor work. It got all sorts of play got thrown at trees. And what happened to it? Well, I was just I was telling Jim last week while I was home over Christmas, I was going through they don't live in the house we grew up in but I was going through their stuff in the garage hoping to find it and it just it disappeared along the way. It's too bad. I remember one of us tried to sharpen it on that old grinding wheel dad had in the garage

Unknown Speaker 33:58
thing of beauty after that. Yeah. God, so But yes, good question. And we, you know, like I said before, we've exchanged a lot of knives over the years. What do you think is your favorite knife that I got you?

Bob DeMarco 34:13
Oh, without question. It's the pit fighting gauntlet and you didn't really get that for me. You made that for me. Okay, but I mean, appreciate you saying if I if I had to get rid of everything you've ever gotten me, the last thing would definitely be the pit. Okay, you got to say you got to tell you got to explain how this thing came into being?

Vic DeMarco 34:33
Yeah, okay, well

so the pit fighting gauntlet is if you all I'm sure most people who are listening to this have seen Conan the Barbarian and there's a scene where Conan is in his pit fighting years where he's got these two massive leather gauntlets with blades coming out the end. And so shortly after I got into To the hobby of making things out of leather. And I'll give a hat to Michael omak early, who indirectly kind of got me into that and inspired me to start looking at that because by the way, Bob got me a knife when he was on his honeymoon in Greece and it didn't really come with a sheet so to speak. It just had this plastic thing that went over the blade to prevent you from cutting yourself. And I wanted a nice leather sheath. So I figured after I saw Michael McCurley, making them on that 60 minutes episode, I thought, you know, I can do that. And so I looked into it, and I just got into it started making cheese and stuff like that. So Bob said, Vic, wouldn't it be cool? If you made a pit fighting gauntlet? Like the one in Conan the Barbarian? I thought Yeah, that would be awesome.

Bob DeMarco 35:49
We wait there's a part you're forgetting back.

Vic DeMarco 35:51
Okay, what is that?

Bob DeMarco 35:52
It started as a simple leather cuff. I just wanted a leather. Just a little leather cup with a belt. You know that next cool guys were on the wrist. And I was like, you know, it'll be like in case I get in a knife fight, it will protect my wrist because it'll just be a little, you know, two inch wide piece of jewelry basically. So how did it turn into the pit? Fighting gone? We started adding first I was like, Can you put a belt on it about two belts? And then and then you'd be like, what if I align it with Surely, like, Yeah, that'd be cool. Well, what if there's a blade?

Vic DeMarco 36:24
So the long and short of it is I watched the movie, I spent a lot of time freeze framing in that scene just to just to kind of get a sense for what it was, you know what it was all about? And then and then I said to Bob, I'm like, What do you want it like right handed or left handed? And he said, left handed, kind of like more as like a defensive kind of thing. And so then, you know, I spent before I even, you know, cut the first piece of leather I spent a lot of time thinking about like, Well, okay, so where do I get up? Play for this guy i'm not i'm not a metal Smith I don't know how to make these things. So what you know, how do I do this and I was thinking well maybe like a push dagger because that kind of has the same like the geometry you need handle relative to knife, but then it's, you know, not going to get a big push dagger, you know, and then I thought, well, maybe I could get a big knife and just like drill a hole through the hand on the stove and finally, it occurred to me, that bayonet that was manufactured for the Russian SK s rifle has like swings out so it has already has like a hole in the handle exactly where I needed it. So I found one and basically built the handle around that and then built the whole rest of the of the gauntlet around and kind of just like built it up around that. And then as I was doing this took this took some time it took at least a month or two or maybe even three by the time I was done. But you know as as I was going through and I can Thinking about what would be cool if it had this and then before you knew it, it was like adorned with spikes and it's got like some

like cowhide designs on it and stuff.

Bob DeMarco 38:11
Yeah, there was there was a there was a lot of back and forth on the design of this. It Okay, it has never been featured in a video this week without fail, I will make a video showing this thing because to describe it, it's it's, it's, it's not what you're thinking it's much bigger. It's not what you're thinking it's way better. But so the idea was if it's on my left hand, you know, in the fictional pit flight that I'm going to get into in the future I can I can wield a sword or an axe with my right hand my good hand and then be able to defend with the gauntlet but the cool thing is, is that that SK is banned that is about 13 inches. So so the overall length of this thing runs from from past the elbow to 14 or 15 inches past the fist and Enix comes, it comes off at an angle so that you can so that if you punch with it the bayonet comes off just at the right angle so I mean to meet you made me some incredible she's the she's from my, from my sword and Dagger from traditional traditional Filipino weapons. It's amazing you're working on a sheath right now for my attention to detail mercantile gentlemen spider Can't wait I just started it this week sweet. It's gonna it's gonna take some time because I usually take some time for me to kind of come to the actual design that I want. I just need to experiment with a little bit so so lots of cool other stuff from you over the over the years you made me that that giant apron with a with a big an apron for working with metal and it's got a lead plate wrapped in leather as a codpiece to protect me from flying metal. Thank you in my progeny, thank you, but but I have to say overall it is definitely the goal. So I'll make a video this week

Unknown Speaker 40:01
there's there's one thing one detail about it that I think I told you about it but the the handle of the like when you put your hand in there, the handle is red and black checkered leather read it Okay, braided I should say a red piece and a black piece. And those the actual leather that I cut those strips from were from grandpa's estate. So when when he died mom got a lot of his tools. A lot of his stuff I don't know I didn't get a lot of it too. I don't remember most of it went because they had moved to Florida and so he probably just liquidated a lot of that stuff himself but I got some leather making tools in from mom and some of his letter and now the handle is from

Bob DeMarco 40:42
his his leather hats. What I think I knew that at one point and had forgotten. That's cool. But but but before I end the conversation of the pit fighting gauntlet, I just want to say one of the things about it, that is so appealing is the overall aesthetic. It looks like something that's cobbled together by A pit fighter who's just like, you know, I'm going to put this piece of leather on because it will remind me of my victory when I, you know, when I grog and you know, in the spikes, some of the spikes are kind of randomly placed. And it's just a cool thing. So thank you for that. I know I'm gonna make a video and people are gonna want one. So I don't I think I think that was I think that was a time in a space in history that will probably not not see. Or, yeah, well, Vic, it's been it's been fun talking about some I mean, I like you I have endless I cut myself stories. But I think we'll I think we'll wrap it up. You know, I'll say one more. I'll say one more story. And people have heard this one before, but every time I think of it, it makes me laugh and it makes me feel a little bit humble. Okay, so I've done the Filipino martial arts for for a while. I've had periods of serious intensity with it where I've gotten really Good, and periods that are more fallow like now where I still have my skills but I'm not as you know, not as Spry until I start going back and training but from time to time have been a show off and I was at a party in New York. My neighbors have was a loft so that my neighbor's apartment and there were a couple of girls there one, one of whom was a neighbor, that was just a very, you know, I wanted to impress her. They were there and the party just started so there was a lot of room and it was just the core group of people. You know, one of whom I wanted to impress a few of whom I thought were cute or whatever. And the guy whose party this was was like, Oh, you like this Bob, and he brings out a sword King. It was like some anti, I was like, Oh, this is cool, you know, and so I, you know, I can, you know, pull it out and whatever, you know, I'm just yammering try to trying to be impressive. And then I start flipping it around like Oh, if this were mine, I could hold the cane in one hand and the certain the other next double stick Kali you know and I start showing up and then suddenly the the my right hand stops moving and the blade stops moving where is it I don't see it up in front of me and then I I realized oh, it's it's in my calf I jammed it somehow I snapped it about two and a half inches into my calf. Kind of almost parallel with the with the bone. And, you know, like you the blood waited for a second was like I can't I can't hold it anymore. And then

Unknown Speaker 43:27
let's start the trick.

Bob DeMarco 43:29
And luckily I was I was one door away from my own place. So you know, I I guess I assumed everyone was watching me and really no gave a damn I

was just dude,

flip it around a sword cane while other people are just trying to like meet each other and get drunk or whatever. And and so I wasn't the center of attention. I hobbled out. I bandaged myself up and cleaned off the blade brought it back and discreetly gave it to him. And yeah, that was it. And I think that sometimes When I when I start thinking I'm, I'm all that.

Vic DeMarco 44:03
Yeah, that's funny

Bob DeMarco 44:04
you still do that kind of stuff like it with some regularity. Anyway, Victor, it's it's been a pleasure. Thanks for coming on The Knife Junkie podcast. Thanks for having me. Hey, thanks a lot, brother. Thanks. Awesome brother and

a terrific brother.

Yes, it is terrific. It's been real pleasure to talk to you.

Jim Person 44:22
I don't know if you want to adopt another brother because being a blade enabler, I you know, I'm all I'm all for that. But I guess I'll have to see, but I guess we'll have to grow a beard. Yeah, that's right. We record this with video enabled so we can see each other but it's hard to tell you two apart.

Bob DeMarco 44:41
Well, before I was saying before the ubiquity of caller ID our own father couldn't tell us apart on the phone, and he'd answer the phone. Vic, Bob. Bob, okay. Well, Jim, you're a brother from another mother, my man.

Jim Person 44:57
Hey, Hey son always works well.

Bob DeMarco 45:00
Hey son how much

Jim Person 45:02
that was pretty fun for me I was laughing the whole time you guys were talking I'm you know from from memories of granddad, that's always special but trips to the emergency room because of knife injuries to my favorite I think playing with hand grenades

Bob DeMarco 45:19
the good old days, the

Vic DeMarco 45:22
good old days. That was the 70s

Jim Person 45:24
Well, I hope you've enjoyed this podcast as much as I have. I do want to remind you that our podcast today is brought to you by QuickBooks self employed your year round tax solution. It's a must have for contractors, freelancers, anyone who is self employed, and if you go to The Knife Junkie comm slash qb 30 Knife Junkie you will get a free 30 day trial of QuickBooks self employed again 30 days for free at The Knife Junkie calm. This is episode number 74 of The Knife Junkie. You can find show notes and maybe we'll get some pictures from Vic and Bob for some of these knives. blades that they've talked about, we'll try to add them to the page at The Knife Junkie. COMM slash 74. Before we wrap up guys, one really quick word from each of you, as we as we wrap up this podcast.

Vic DeMarco 46:12
I I'll I'll just say that it's, it's fun taking this journey with you. I have a couple of knives that you gave me here, this broken skull which has gone up into the mountains with me for probably the last three years in a row. There's this clip that endora that you got me or that you gave to me after 911 which I really carried for a long time for years after that event. And then my absolute favorite, this is the knife that you made me and so I don't have a name for it, but but I love it. Maybe I'll call it as the bomb. But but it's, I mean the thing I like about it is the to me the bleach shade really kind of captures the aesthetic of your Your art I mean, I've seen a lot I've seen the shape in your art before and so it was really cool to get it I made a little kind of chintzy leather sheath for just because I haven't had the time yet to build a really awesome one for it, but that's common.

Bob DeMarco 47:15
Cool. Well, some of my absolute favorite podcasts here have been interviews with brothers, like the Todd brothers or the Williamson brothers, or father and son, Grant and Gavin Hawk. It's, for me, I really love hearing the how people share the experience of of having this interest in knives. And so it was really great to have you on Vica you and I can go on endlessly like this. And but we've kept it clean which is good to

Vic DeMarco 47:48
know I'm shocked.

Jim Person 47:51
So but there is a time limit, so we won't let you continue on too much further. But maybe we can have Vic back on again. And I think I know I've enjoyed and I think our listeners have enjoyed it to hearing some of these stories I'm sure there's many more that we could get into yes there are and Bob mentioned some of the past guests the brothers the father and son You can find all of those past episodes of the Knife Junkie podcast if you go to The Knife junkie.com slash listen all the podcast episodes are right there on the website so for Bob The Knife Junkie DeMarco I'm Jim the knife movie person. Want to thank you for joining us on episode number 74 of The Knife Junkie podcast.

Announcer 48:34
Thanks for listening to the Knife Junkie podcast If you enjoyed the show, please rate and review it review the podcast calm for show notes for today's episode additional resources and to listen to past episodes visit our website The Knife Junkie calm you can also watch our latest videos on YouTube at The Knife Junkie comm slash YouTube check out some great night photos on The Knife Junkie. com slash Instagram and join our Facebook group with The Knife Junkie dot com slash Facebook and if you have a question or comment, email them to Bob at The Knife Junkie calm or call our 24 seven listener line that's 724-466-4487 and you may hear your comment or question answered on an upcoming episode of the Knife Junkie podcast.