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Announcer [00:00:05]:
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 [00:00:19]:
Welcome to the Knife Junkie podcast. I'm Bob DeMarco. On this edition of the show, I'm speaking with Tim Kell of Teekel Knives. Tim started TKEL Knives in 2020 and quickly rose to prominence in the knife world with his very carriable, capable, and I will say, charming tactical fixed blade knives. I became a huge fan of TKEL Knives when I started carrying its flagship Night Stalker ringed fixed blade half, if not most days. Then the Night Stalker and a few other classic blades from history inspired a design that I showed Tim, and the agent series was born. We'll talk about that collaborative process and find out what's next from Teekal Knives. But first, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, and hit the notification bell.

Bob DeMarco [00:01:00]:
And, of course, if you wanna help support the show, you can do so on Patreon. Quickest way to do that is to go to the knifejunkie.com/patreon. That's the knifejunkie.com/patreon.

Announcer [00:01:12]:
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Bob DeMarco [00:01:26]:
Tim, welcome back to the Knife Junkie podcast, sir. Always a pleasure to see you.

Tim Kell [00:01:30]:
Yes, sir. Great to see you. Great to hear from great to be a guest again.

Bob DeMarco [00:01:35]:
Again. Well, it was a it was great to be a guest at your table at blade show this year. It was really fun. The year before, you were swamped. This year, you were swamped, but I had a more personal stake in it. Yeah. Tell us about blade show this year.

Tim Kell [00:01:50]:
I mean, the biggest news was the release of the agent double o one. That was our big thing. And, man, I think it sold beyond mine and your expectations. It was yeah. Every year, we go on a blade show. I'm like, you know, the honeymoon's over. We're not gonna be as popular, and it's more and more and more each time. So the industry's embraced us.

Tim Kell [00:02:12]:
You brought an incredible blade design to it, and, man, you brought it to life.

Bob DeMarco [00:02:18]:
We'll we'll talk about the agent series in a second because, of course, that was a soft lead in. I was like, dang, tell me. What was the biggest news from, I didn't mean it quite like that, but, you have not been around that long. Teeqo knives has not been around that long.

Tim Kell [00:02:31]:
Right.

Bob DeMarco [00:02:32]:
But you're kind of, like, the industry name in carryable fixed blade tactical knives that you can actually carry. Why is that?

Tim Kell [00:02:40]:
Weird. I think that's what I was looking for when I set out to make blades. I always had a want for a good grip, low print. I just didn't wanna be able to see it, and I didn't think that you needed to have a full grip, like a big monster handle, to be able to have a capable blade that you can keep on you every day. I don't want people to see what I've got on me. If If I need to cut pizza or if I needed to go to work or if I need to defend myself, I just wanna be that undercover kinda guy. So that's really what led everything. And I didn't have stuff that I liked, so I just made things.

Bob DeMarco [00:03:19]:
You know what? I thought I thought it will. It's not only like the kind of low profile aspect of the knives and the handles. You know, a lot of your knives give you just enough handle, and that's what I love in a carryable fixed blade knife. But also, you specialize in the most slick and retentive sheaths ever.

Tim Kell [00:03:40]:
I I didn't know how to make a sheath, and I didn't understand why people made things the way they did, and that the handles are the same as the sheath. I didn't get, why don't we have a clip that clips this way? Why are sheath so thick? And I I didn't have to unlearn all the knives that I'd ever handled. I just didn't like them. So I set off on my own to create the it's the purpose driven. And that grip and that carry style was what designed the whole line because I couldn't find it.

Bob DeMarco [00:04:13]:
Well, I I love that. And that's like, what do they say? Necessity is the mother of invention.

Tim Kell [00:04:18]:
I just

Bob DeMarco [00:04:19]:
kinda flipped that around, but necessity is the mother of invention. And coming into it, you weren't necessarily a rabid knife collector.

Tim Kell [00:04:27]:
Yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:04:28]:
Obviously, we can tell from your background. You are now a collector of your knives, but also a collector of other great things, that we know and love, and you know how to put those things together, how to how to build these kind of things. Before we go on to the agent series and what's happening right now, just give everyone a little background on on your abilities to machine.

Tim Kell [00:04:49]:
I'm actually a self taught machinist. I started out hand grinding everything, and then it's funny story. I went to a local shop when we started to grow. And I said, hey. I need to make more than 12 knives a week because people want them, and I'm not selling enough to survive. I've heard about machining. And the guy looked at me and he said, if you're serious about this, you're not gonna pay this shop because it'll be crazy expensive. You'll buy your own machine, teach yourself the machine, hand me his business card.

Tim Kell [00:05:18]:
So that day, we had gone to Costco. I'm looking around, supposed to be getting my eyes checked, and I'm researching, you know, good starter machines, ran into Walter Sorrell's stuff on, Tormachs. Called him, got the thing, and 3 weeks later, it shows up in my driveway. And I called that guy who gave me his card, Jeremy. And if you watch our lives, you'll see he's on the lives as he's machining. But he said I said, Do you remember me? He's like, yeah. I said, Well, I got a machine in my driveway. And he's like, Are you insane? And I'm like, I am.

Tim Kell [00:05:55]:
And I said, Can you help me put this thing together? And he's like, I guess. So he came over, Camera wife and I almost had the battle of our lives as a married couple, rolling this thing down our hill on our property to my shop on 4 inch PVC to get it into the shop. We got killed each other, and he came and helped me put it together. And I tried to teach myself how to do it, and he was showing me stuff. He's like, you're crazy. I had to teach myself how to do CAD, CAM. He came over and did a few things and we moved it to the basement when the climate was just too bad. So just outside this door is the basement shop.

Tim Kell [00:06:38]:
And my wife and daughter would be flipping the blades on the machine and I'd be out in the forge heat treating and a bunch of splinters. And then basically we were growing too fast to be able to sustain that. So I called that guy like, hey man, I'm going to sell this machine. I'm just going to outsource it. He's like, Wait, wait, wait. So then he says, Let's put it in my basement of my townhome and I'll just discount the payment on the machine and make your blades for you. And he was still full time at that shop. And then here we are 5 years after that, he's bought a piece of property to put 5 machines in.

Tim Kell [00:07:18]:
We just broke ground on doubling that again. But this was in the middle of the woods and there wasn't even a house on it. I'm an electrician. I went and wired the thing and he was living in an RV. Sold his townhouse just because he believed in TKL. And then now he's built him a nice house and he's got this giant shop and here we are making these thousands and thousands of blades. And he's in Tennessee, and I'm in Georgia, and they're about this far apart on a map in about 11 miles.

Bob DeMarco [00:07:48]:
Oh, wow.

Tim Kell [00:07:48]:
That's cool. It's crazy. It's it's nuts.

Bob DeMarco [00:07:52]:
We have, I I I have to give a shout out to someone who comes on Thursday night knives, Stephen Clayton Junior and his son, Joey. They are awesome. That guy carries, like, at least 10 of your knives on them every day.

Tim Kell [00:08:05]:
I believe he had 13.

Bob DeMarco [00:08:07]:
I know. He's an awesome guy, and it was really nice to to meet Joey. But, I mean, you have a rabid fan base. You're not just a knife maker who has people collecting your stuff. You have an actual fan base.

Tim Kell [00:08:21]:
That's the best part about it.

Bob DeMarco [00:08:22]:
How? Why? What do you credit, your quick success to?

Tim Kell [00:08:27]:
My wife. Just we would start out she said, look. People ask all these questions. Let's make YouTube videos to explain those things. People like being around you. I don't know why. And she said, let's just put you on camera and answer these questions because we're getting killed with emails. So it started that way.

Tim Kell [00:08:47]:
And the camera took to me and she would have to ring me in because of my crazy humor. And it just grew into this monster. And both of us really love people. So those things combined where in person, on camera, on the phone, in the shop, her and I are the same as we would be any other time. So that passion for the customer comes through in the the videos that we make and that's all kind of helped us grown helped us grown. We don't do English. That's not part of a prerequisite at all. But it's I guess we're personal and I don't I didn't you know this.

Tim Kell [00:09:29]:
I didn't know the knife industry. So I didn't know how you're supposed to act, how you're supposed to do things, how you're supposed to treat your customers. We just wanted to be stupid about customer service because we had been let down by companies. And from a standpoint of, is this the best fiscal decision to just replace this or bend over backwards and do what we have to do for the customer? No. But what's happened through that is that's turned those customers into repeat buyers and friends. And our our friend community has gotten really big and it's growing fast.

Bob DeMarco [00:10:03]:
Yeah. I mean, I think you did it right. I think, also, just a tip of the hat to camera wife, we'd probably all be cavemen without our our lives or many of us many of us would be. I mean, we have good skills. They have good skills. Put them together, and and that's the best, best way to go. And, you know, kinda my wife and I love to throw parties. We love to have we both have big families, especially my wife, and they live close.

Bob DeMarco [00:10:30]:
And and Our invitation came

Tim Kell [00:10:31]:
to get lost in the mail.

Bob DeMarco [00:10:33]:
Seems to have. But my point is, that that's what, being at the Tim Kellogg booth is like. I'm gonna say it's a dinner party because we're not chowing down, but we are, all there gathered around the knives. And you get and and you and your family back there and the people who work for you back there, like, give it a great environment and, I don't know. It's a it's a great feeling other than just having knives, and that's really what we all come for. It's so nice to have great people behind the count.

Tim Kell [00:11:03]:
That's what we enjoy. Just the people for us. And, you know, I don't know if no nobody else is doing that. I just know that we're always gonna do it that way. And people ask me, how how how big are you guys gonna grow? And I I say, you know, until it feels like we're not gonna be friends with our customers. And then that's it. It's it's not a number. It's not a whenever we buy our first Lamborghini because that'll never happen.

Tim Kell [00:11:31]:
My truck needs an oil gasket now. But it's just for us. It it's that community. Oops.

Bob DeMarco [00:11:39]:
So I started started carrying this, Tim. You sent me one of these. I ordered a combatant from you, which I love. I just changed up the carry on this. I I ordered a combatant. You're like, no. No. No.

Bob DeMarco [00:11:53]:
You do have check out the night stalker because I was kinda like, yeah. I like the night stalker. It's cool, but I'm not so into ring you sent this to me. This became an immediate favorite, and I'm showing it like this in the sheath because, with the DCC clip, I carry this. This is the first knife I ever carried legitimately, you know, right where my belt buckle goes. And I can drop a, a t shirt over it just like a a a little light t shirt, and this is totally hidden. And I started carrying it all all all the time. And then, I came to you with this design based on the dimensions of that design, because I I love I love the old, Loveless, double edged fighters.

Bob DeMarco [00:12:35]:
I love, what what do you call it? Like, bayonets and bayonet ground. I don't know. I wanted something that fit in the carry profile of this, that had your your language, but that had those those elements. So, I guess what I'm I'm trying to say is, we came up with this and you did a lot of engineering to make, the drawing happen, and you did a lot of redrawing of the handle. Tell me about what it was like, I I don't know, receiving the design and then where to take it because you're getting the design from a dude who loves knives, who likes drawing knives, and you're a guy

Tim Kell [00:13:11]:
who makes a lot of

Bob DeMarco [00:13:13]:
What's that?

Tim Kell [00:13:14]:
No. I get a lot of drawings like that. And the first time I saw it, I was like, yep. We're doing this. It, I love the blade immediately. Immediately.

Bob DeMarco [00:13:27]:
Alright. So you you get that design, but you see issues with the handle. I know, you saw the handle. You're like, oh, that looks a lot like the, there there are a number of knives, but the one that that resonated with you, it looked a bit like the, compliance edge knife with the with the thing on top. You're like, I think that's a little derivative. And then you said about it with with your skills. Like, how how did you go about, looking at the handle, and what were your prime concerns?

Tim Kell [00:13:57]:
I I think the way I like to design is I take my strength from these 3 grip fingers, and I think a lot of times that's forgotten about. And I wanna be able to get a pinky wrap, and I wanted to narrow that up. The easy way to say it, it just didn't look right to me.

Bob DeMarco [00:14:17]:
Mhmm.

Tim Kell [00:14:17]:
And I just I know dimensionally where my hand is gonna meet it, and we've tested so many nines with so many people that it almost comes natural where I go, we need to take here, take here. And then some of the ideas that I've developed in my design where you can back cut something to give you more room for your finger, but still have the full grip, that's that's really all it needed. Just subtle bumps in the back to push it into the the meat of your hand, that little radius to the inside of the hook so your pinky still tucks up in there, but you can shorten the grip. And I don't like the really aggressive hooks. Mhmm. I wanted something that was still comfortable, but it still felt like a trigger almost where you could really get that draw. So I borrowed that angle from the Sig Sauer p229 trigger because that feel That's

Bob DeMarco [00:15:08]:
so cool. Really? Feel it right here. This part right here?

Tim Kell [00:15:15]:
Well, you know, the camera's

Bob DeMarco [00:15:18]:
Oh, you can't see. I'm talking about the pommel.

Tim Kell [00:15:20]:
So I'm gonna point to this. Uh-huh. This angle here is the same dimension as when you pull.

Bob DeMarco [00:15:28]:
Oh my god. That's so cool.

Tim Kell [00:15:30]:
And you want a lot of finger room so that you still have a comfortable grip on anything. So when you get everything lined up properly, that that's a strong pull.

Bob DeMarco [00:15:39]:
Yeah. I I didn't realize you had that. That's cool. I I wonder if that, lends to something interesting about this blade is whoever picks it up, they're like, oh, that feels great in my hand. And it feels great in my hand, and I've shaken your hand. It's bigger than mine. This has gone in much smaller hands. It's comfortable.

Bob DeMarco [00:15:59]:
Lynn Thompson was like, oh, this is a great grip.

Tim Kell [00:16:01]:
That's a huge honor to hear that too. He told me I was like, wow.

Bob DeMarco [00:16:04]:
And his hands are, like, twice the size of mine. So how like, what's what's the trick to designing something that feels so ergonomic? Like, it feels like it was made from my hand, but everyone else seems to think the same thing. A trick to that?

Tim Kell [00:16:18]:
I I just get a lot of people to hold it and to test it. My wife has medium sized hands, you know, little I know small people, large people, and I just I'll constantly I did this weird thing where I'll close my eyes. I'll put a pair of gloves on. Like, okay. This is what it'll be like if my hand was big. It's just I do really stupid stuff to try to mimic different hand sizes, and I'll see how much room I need. And I'm like, hey, small guy. Hey, large guy.

Tim Kell [00:16:47]:
Check this out. And we, you know, we resin print so that I can get those right. And I've kinda I know the spacing of these and that hill and valley and this width that I've already figured out on the nightstalker, we noticed these dimensions are from that. Mhmm. So I know that radius in my head. So when I talk to my machinist or when we're going through CADCAM, I'm like, alright. This radius is this. This height is that.

Tim Kell [00:17:14]:
This bump is this. Remember from that knife where we did this thing? I wanna squish these together, and then it it's it's painstaking. There was not a lot that I needed to do, though. You know? I I

Bob DeMarco [00:17:27]:
think that the grenade grip, this this is one of your kind of signature, moves here on the handle of these little scoops

Tim Kell [00:17:35]:
Right.

Bob DeMarco [00:17:36]:
Off the I think that those also, say that this say that your hand is too small for this to be perfectly aligned. I think those little cutouts there, accommodate all different kind of hands, and they and they'll and they'll draw if your hands are smaller, they'll draw your hands into that as opposed to the swells on the

Tim Kell [00:17:56]:
on the profile. Exactly what those are for. And you'll notice they're angled. They're not just cutouts. Yeah. And I would tediously, before we started machining, I would touch those in and I would do that weird, okay, it's just enough. And when I got them perfect, I took them to my engineer, but I'm like, okay, this is it. And that depth, the rounding on those, the angles, and that's exactly what they're for.

Tim Kell [00:18:22]:
That's why on this portion of the knife, you've got one that's pointed this way and one that's pointed this way, reversing forward. And I think we had this conversation. I think the first ones I sent you were without the grenade grip. And that may have been somebody else I asked. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I said, no, it'll narrow it up and you'll get that full clinch once we put the grenade texture. And they started out where I would do a line down the center. So when you grind a line in this way with a half inch grinder, it looked like the pattern from a grenade. And I'm a marine, so the grenade terminology made sense.

Tim Kell [00:19:02]:
Love it. I

Bob DeMarco [00:19:04]:
mean, it it it's on it's on all the teakal knives, I think, at least all the ones I have. And, even even down to the the FLN, which I have learned to carry. This is I like to drop this in the pocket and use the awesome wrapping to to just tug off and this lands in your pocket. You got it in hand. Yeah.

Tim Kell [00:19:22]:
That's how

Bob DeMarco [00:19:23]:
I can do it. Jared Neeb.

Tim Kell [00:19:25]:
Yep.

Bob DeMarco [00:19:26]:
But but so, working working on the handle, one thing that was a cool addition, this this whole area here, like, I wanted the jimping, and you wanted this, glass breaker. And I think it all worked out so well because the original drawing didn't have either of those. And, for for me, the the jimps are perfect. The 3 jimps are perfect. And for me, each Yep. Each set here, this is, my wife and my 2 daughters. And here, it's the, the, God the father and the holy spirit right there. You know? So I I got all my I got, everything I need right there.

Tim Kell [00:20:04]:
Well, I like it even more.

Bob DeMarco [00:20:06]:
Yeah. And that's that's where that came from. So over here on the on the blade, let's talk about the blade because this curve here, I think this was a bit of a stymier. I just drew it. I didn't know that it would be difficult to do. But to to create this top, bevel, presented some engineering challenges. Right?

Tim Kell [00:20:27]:
Oh, yeah. That What? They they said you can't do that. I'm like, you know, look. And I'm really bad about exasperating my machinist and my CAD cam, my engineer, because I'll hand them a blade and I'm like, I just ground this. You told me when we bought machines. And then if I employed you, you could do what human hands could do, but with more detail every time. And that really bothers them because they're like, Well, you just can't. Because machine language and CAD CAM wants to round off and make sense of everything, But I'm literally out there grinding these things and just touching it.

Tim Kell [00:21:07]:
And I'm like, Okay, you can't do it. And I've been accused of being a little bit of Steve Jobs in that. Like, But I can. Look, I did it. We can do it. And it frustrated him. And then I remember him calling to go, We got it. I'm like, I knew you would.

Tim Kell [00:21:24]:
And they're like super celebratory. And I'm like, All right, cool. Onto the next. Let's make the blade. And I feel kind of bad, but it's I'm not rude. I just know that I'm like, we can do it. So we ended up having to do a new technique with these that we hadn't done. So we had to do instead of our traditional 3 d milling, we had to invert these and do 5th axis.

Tim Kell [00:21:47]:
So and they were really, really jazzed. And I'm like, yep. That's cool. Good job. I knew it. But it did. That was tough. But now some of the other later obviously, I like this design we did together because I'm I'm expanding the line rapidly.

Tim Kell [00:22:06]:
We've been able to use that coding that we came up with to make that sweep Mhmm. And and a couple of blades that are coming down line that are gonna be pretty special too.

Bob DeMarco [00:22:19]:
It's important

Tim Kell [00:22:20]:
though, that diamond shape to keep that blade where it's a diamond

Bob DeMarco [00:22:26]:
Yep.

Tim Kell [00:22:26]:
And push that tip all the way out, When I hand grind the knife, it's for purpose. And this thing had the danger of being really brittle at the tip.

Bob DeMarco [00:22:37]:
Yeah. We

Tim Kell [00:22:38]:
had to do that. We had no choice.

Bob DeMarco [00:22:40]:
But it's not. It's it's I I love looking at the knife from this aspect. Try and get it up to the camera. But I love looking at where the grinds meet the bevels. It's all perfect. And, you know, I I hesitate to use that word, but but I also can't find any fault with it. These things are, like, really, really well made. And before we get on to the rest of the series, because I have a double o two here, and I I need to catch up with the rest of them as they come out.

Bob DeMarco [00:23:09]:
But what I know that producing a bunch of these, is an issue or is not I shouldn't say it's an issue, but I know that you're a kind of an ever growing company and kind of every knife you put out is is a bigger deal and a bigger deal and a bigger deal. And as that snowballs, you need more and more people. Tell us a little bit about your shop and and where these are, being made currently.

Tim Kell [00:23:35]:
So right now, this used to be the the this is what we call the bunker. Now this was the shipping center, my office, in in our basement, and we made all the blades. We assembled in a room next to this, and then the grinding room was outside of that, and then our barn was where everything happened. So then when we grew, we moved the machine out, moved it over to our other shop that's close to here. Now we have currently we have a building 3 doors up from here where our offices are. It's a residential house. And then behind there, it's a 40 by 40 shop where we do all of that now with 5 employees. We really need 7, but man, is it hard to find people.

Tim Kell [00:24:20]:
So we're we partner with the machine shop, and then we've got another one in Ohio that helps us do the grips. And then we've got another 2 now since we spoke last, North Carolina and New Jersey.

Bob DeMarco [00:24:36]:
Ah, that's so cool.

Tim Kell [00:24:38]:
One of the dudes is super famous. Like, he's a he makes these awesome high end folding knives, and, he helps us make the combatants and the new adversaries. And it's to the community, our community has gotten bigger, but people have come to us and said, Hey, we like what you're doing. We want to be team TKL. I got extra machines and these guys have a name and industry standard. So my thing was they own their own business, so do I. My machinist owns his own business. These shops are American made businesses.

Tim Kell [00:25:18]:
I get all of my steel from New Jersey Steel Bearing Steel. They ship it to all these 5 different shops. All the heat treat is done in the same place the exact same way. All of the nickel Warren is done. So all this stuff pours in from the Eastern United States right now back into here where we do what we've always done. So we've been able to and I tell these partner machine shops, look, I want you to have part of the American dream too. You guys employ 12 people to make the machinist blade for us. So I don't have facilities big enough.

Tim Kell [00:25:55]:
So we have all these little micro pockets of people in these different spots. So that allows those guys that own their business to really champion their piece of the project. And then they pour back into me, and where we get go, no go. It's just a unique way that we've done it, and it's working for us for now. We can still keep that quality that we want.

Bob DeMarco [00:26:23]:
I I like that business model. I've seen it a couple of other times on diff on maybe smaller scales, but I really like the idea of, not only keeping it American, but also, like, kind of keeping it regional, like, tactile knives down in Texas. Everything they do, if they're not making it in their shop, is from Texas or down the street. What? Wingard Wearables

Tim Kell [00:26:44]:
small batch.

Bob DeMarco [00:26:45]:
Yeah. Yes.

Tim Kell [00:26:46]:
Because if 5 shops are making one small batch and they're perfecting the agent o one, they make that blade. We don't have them run all of our 30 different models. I wanted them to do like I did, hone that in. You know, we'll go do a shop visit and make sure everything is the way we want it done, and we still get them here each step of the way. Steel, beveled, profiled, heat treat, nickel bond. It it's handled in our shop.

Bob DeMarco [00:27:19]:
Alright. Let's talk about the future of the agent series. I have the double o two, which you very generously gave me at blade show. This is a prototype. I think you all you said you wanted to do differently with this was, chamfer the jimping jimping, which is work fine for me. But I want to tell you something. So all summer long, ever since I got the the agent double o one, that's been my on the on the waistline. This is my self defense knife, period.

Bob DeMarco [00:27:44]:
But this one would be a great self defense knife, but I've been using this all summer as a great work knife. And it happened quite by accident the first time, and then, the first impression of it as a great work knife besides an awesome tactical knife. It it it hardened itself in me, and so all summer long, I've been carrying this, like, when I have anything to do. But I use this pommel as a impromptu hammer. Not no. I should say an impromptu mallet. Yep. All day long, we're we're these saw these kind of plastic tiles.

Bob DeMarco [00:28:19]:
We're assembling this flooring, and we needed a mallet, had nothing, and this was perfect. And then this, of course, was great for all the boxing and cutting, tough rubber and everything with that wharncliffe blade. Talk about the double 2 and your idea to put this blade on the, for the double 2.

Tim Kell [00:28:37]:
Well, we wanted one that is it's it's a 3 inch. So part of the agent series, and you and I talked about this originally, was keeping that footprint down. Yeah. 1, I wanted the subsequent blades, some of them to be more compliant. So a 3 inch blade so that it can be carried in more places, a single edge blade that's more friendly, and I love a wharncliffe. And we have a couple of our wharncliffe with this profile, the Guardian and the Night Guardian too, but those are a fixed beefier longer blade, and then one's a ring blade. But this line needed 1, and I wanted to I like the handle so much, and it's such a useful blade in all the different grip forms that it had to have a one clip.

Bob DeMarco [00:29:21]:
Yeah.

Tim Kell [00:29:22]:
It just needed it.

Bob DeMarco [00:29:23]:
So, the very first knife I had from you was the Guardian, and, I love that profile. It's basically that profile. Obviously, a very different style blade. This is a cool knife. Very cool knife, by the way. But, that You're me. Yeah. Very unique.

Bob DeMarco [00:29:38]:
It's a splitter gouger terror nasty.

Tim Kell [00:29:41]:
Yeah, man.

Bob DeMarco [00:29:42]:
But that that profile is is perfect. That tip is perfect. It's it's great for precision cutting without, it's it is I'm talking about the 2 again. Yeah. That's it's great at precision cutting with that tip without being too dainty. Sometimes I have trouble with wharncliffe because I love them so much. I carry them a lot, but the tips can be very delicate.

Tim Kell [00:30:05]:
Yep.

Bob DeMarco [00:30:05]:
You don't have that on this.

Tim Kell [00:30:07]:
Yeah. I wanted that quick v to go up and shorter grind, and that's why I wanna use the same stock because of that. I want I like my blades to do dual purpose unless they're my double edged stuff. Double edged stuff, I just don't do anything but keep it for protection. But my single edge is like you. I'm gonna cut tile. I'm gonna pry stuff. So I wanted it thicker behind the edge so that we could still put a 20 on it, but keep it stout because that's one of the things.

Tim Kell [00:30:36]:
There's some some teachers that teach, run a wharncliffe. They cut better. When the tip breaks, replace it or regrind it. Don't worry about it. But I didn't wanna have to do that.

Bob DeMarco [00:30:44]:
Yeah.

Tim Kell [00:30:45]:
I wanted it stout. I love that v.

Bob DeMarco [00:30:48]:
Yeah. I'm a I'm a really big fan of this knife through usage. You know? Sometimes Yeah. Things, draw me in through looks, and this is a very pretty knife. But once I started using it, it changed everything for me. I was like, okay. This is a valuable addition to my it's not just, like, cool to have one because it's a teakal and it's part of that series. It's like a valuable addition of my actual work knives because I have ton of knives.

Bob DeMarco [00:31:17]:
Many of them I don't press to work at all when the work comes up. Trying to keep this one, I'll go to town with. No doubt. Okay. So there's 3, 4 I mean, tell us about the rest of them.

Tim Kell [00:31:28]:
So I've got I've been daily ing my 3. So the 3, you'll obviously recognize that's the Night Stalker. Yeah. Same length, same profile. It's a CG thickness though. So it's the 165, so same thickness as the first two. But I wanted to keep that really aggressive jumping on there and that full length swedge. And this thing is absolutely nasty.

Tim Kell [00:31:55]:
It's a it's a hell of a piercer. So that's the 3. We just finished prototypes on 45. I've got the resin models, 45. I'll have these are done with heat treat, so it's hard to see against this background. But it's just a straight back, kind of a shiv. And again, this is that same really difficult curve that we had to do to get this to work. Mhmm.

Tim Kell [00:32:26]:
Just a little 2 3 quarter inch, kinda like a shiv, just a quick little Yeah. 4 is thin. So it's 125 thick. It's just a clip, high grind, kind of a utility steak knife skinning.

Bob DeMarco [00:32:42]:
Oh. Yeah. I like that. Clip point. That looks nice.

Tim Kell [00:32:46]:
Yep. So super thin, 125 thick. We are in the middle of deep treating these. Yeah. It's it's slicey. So that's 45. 6 is kind of a spear. So let me see if I can't get to biting a little.

Tim Kell [00:33:05]:
There we go. So it's a spear point, and you can see how the light hits that top edge. Again, it's got that twist.

Bob DeMarco [00:33:13]:
Yeah.

Tim Kell [00:33:13]:
So there's more meat here needs to get that diamond tip on the front end, and then it twists into back to 0. Same jimping style, again, in the 165 thick. So

Bob DeMarco [00:33:28]:
That is a very pretty blade. I like it.

Tim Kell [00:33:30]:
I like it. A lot of people are really, really excited about this one. And then 7, I'm sure you've seen mention of.

Bob DeMarco [00:33:40]:
Yeah. I think I saw a prototype of this at blade. Didn't you have this on the table at blade? Yeah.

Tim Kell [00:33:44]:
Right. So this is the final. We are doing this as a collaboration as well. That's

Bob DeMarco [00:33:51]:
can I say who it is?

Tim Kell [00:33:52]:
Yeah. Absolutely.

Bob DeMarco [00:33:53]:
Yeah. That's with Thomas of Tactical Tavern.

Tim Kell [00:33:56]:
Correct. He saw the blade, your blade, and it was super jelly. I went into a blade. He's so cute. I love that guy. He's such a good guy. But we he he had some decent input on the blade. I mean, but the the handle, I'm not gonna say it's perfect, but it's perfect.

Tim Kell [00:34:16]:
So we Hey. And then we're working on a recall.

Bob DeMarco [00:34:22]:
Yes. So we're That's an exciting

Tim Kell [00:34:24]:
up to 8. And I really am happy with the design of that one. It's sharp. Get it?

Bob DeMarco [00:34:32]:
It's a yeah. It's also, in collaboration, right, with another guy we know and love Yep. Who I'm not sure if I

Tim Kell [00:34:39]:
Yeah. Go ahead. Yes. Just David Everett. OG Blade Works. Reviews. Gosh. What was his other name?

Bob DeMarco [00:34:48]:
He used to be this old sword.

Tim Kell [00:34:50]:
That's right. That was, like, 2 days ago. I already forgot.

Bob DeMarco [00:34:52]:
That's cool. It's a it's a series with, input from from, not makers, but knife thinkers. Let's say luminaries in the in the knife thinking world.

Tim Kell [00:35:05]:
I love that. And people have tried to give me some flack until they see that it produces incredible blades. Yeah. A guy like you is is a martial artist, is in love with knives, and you've handled literally thousands of different blades. Why wouldn't you want that input?

Bob DeMarco [00:35:22]:
Yeah. Yeah. I I I agree. And as as Jim has up here on the screen right now, you've you've speak of a famous martial artist. You've collaborated with Steve Turani. I can't remember the other guy's name, but from frogman tactical. I follow him on

Tim Kell [00:35:36]:
Jason Pike.

Bob DeMarco [00:35:36]:
YouTube. Emery, who was on this show, who's just, you know, certified badass and and long time, you know, combatant. And Jared Neave, who is all of that, on on a on a different level. No doubt. And then, Thomas, I I think you have a lot of very interesting people that you've, collaborated with. What do you think you get out of it from that?

Tim Kell [00:36:00]:
Perspective. I think perspective and different use cases. Anytime you send me a sketch, I instantly love it. You've got an eye for design and that is based around your use case and your love from blades. So that really I'm not the best knife designer in the whole wide world. I think I do okay at my own stuff, but I really like other people's stuff. So why not ask people whose opinions I respect that have had experiences in different industries and fields and different martial arts backgrounds to make something that's not been done? I think I get more out of it than anybody because it's fun and it opens up your vision point. Instead of being stuck in a rut, this stuff ends up looking like something Tim Kale designed because my design influence goes into what we take from use cases.

Tim Kell [00:37:00]:
But I don't know. I just like that aspect of it. Collaboration.

Bob DeMarco [00:37:06]:
Well, I was gonna say collaboration is huge part of of my my my, my work life career. I couldn't I couldn't be successful without it. It's absolutely necessary. And and to me, working with you on the agent series was a lot of fun and felt very familiar because, you know, when I work with a cameraman, I asked that person his thoughts on light and and composition. Like, he's that guy. You know? And so I would be a fool not to not to work back and forth. And, well, I'm interested in something a little dramatic. Can you do that? So I felt like I felt like you and I had a a definite or or I should say, I feel like you're a very good collaborator.

Bob DeMarco [00:37:47]:
It's not just like you're taking someone's design and then just producing it and putting it out there, and you're also not. You didn't steamroll me in any way. No. We need to do this and that.

Tim Kell [00:37:56]:
Yeah. And you weren't a diva. We all know you're world famous. You know, you didn't you didn't play that card. Uh-uh. I'm I'm Bob. Yeah. This is how we do it.

Tim Kell [00:38:07]:
Yeah. Yeah. The ideas are the same, you know, back and forth. I there were so many things, like the jumping you mentioned earlier when you were like. And you were really careful because that was kinda one of the first suggestions that you had that you wanted to to see in there to to kinda feel me out of how I was like, yep. I love it. Let's do it. And then we backed into spacing.

Tim Kell [00:38:32]:
How do we wanna do it? How do we wanna execute it? Where do we want it? It just makes for a better blade if you don't have an ego. If you're just like, let's make something good.

Bob DeMarco [00:38:42]:
Yeah. Yeah. I also remember with the with the jimping, part. Yeah. Your guys had just finished and they were so excited. And I was like, but we need to add jimping. You're like, god. They're not gonna like this.

Tim Kell [00:38:52]:
But I did. They did it.

Bob DeMarco [00:38:54]:
But they did it. And beautiful, beautiful job. Okay. I wanna talk about some other knives too because you got other things coming coming down the pike. Something I'm very excited about and still have yet to preorder but must is the new adversary, which is based on one of my favorites, the combatant. Tell me about the adversary.

Tim Kell [00:39:12]:
So here here's it, Inarazin. I I I don't have the metal protoz. We just changed some tool pathing on this this week, but we do have them done. So we'll show them in the wild soon. But this is gonna be more of your fighting wharncliffe where the o two is a utility Mhmm. Style blade. It's very, very thin. But I wanted to rather than put a a spine that raises like a lot of my other stuff, I wanna do a departure and drop that away.

Tim Kell [00:39:40]:
Because the shape of the combatant itself lends to this shape of your palm. So the whole thing aesthetically kinda curves away. So I wanted to be able to put my thumb in that same point and the combatant, like, you you and me are the same. I love the way the combatant feels in hand

Bob DeMarco [00:39:59]:
Yeah.

Tim Kell [00:40:00]:
And it carries so well. It does very, very excited about it.

Bob DeMarco [00:40:04]:
So so looking at the adversary, that is, what what what nerds would call a true wharncliffe because it it's got that that constant, dip down to the tip or constant arc down to the tip. But also when you're holding it in your hand and you're talking about the overall arc of the spine, which you also see in the combatant, with that straight edge, it really puts into sharp relief how it it cants the edge downward at an angle so that when you're cutting with the it's it looks like when you're gonna be cutting with the adversary, you're gonna be collecting the material in that triangle that happened in your your yes.

Tim Kell [00:40:38]:
Right. Yep. That's exactly why. And it it's one of those things where you ask me, how do you know when your eye sees it and from the use cases that we're familiar with, you know that that trap in that v, that's gonna be maximally effective.

Bob DeMarco [00:40:55]:
Yeah.

Tim Kell [00:40:57]:
It puts the tip just a little bit further forward.

Bob DeMarco [00:40:59]:
Yes. And and, also, it makes it handier for what, your your use case is 99.98% of the time, which is opening boxes, opening letters, whatever you're doing.

Tim Kell [00:41:12]:
That way you got a little more clearance on the blade.

Bob DeMarco [00:41:15]:
Yeah. So is is the combatant slash adversaries series something you plan on growing with different blades as well due to the Yeah.

Tim Kell [00:41:24]:
You wanna I'm a step off camera and grab the next prototype. Sign.

Bob DeMarco [00:41:27]:
Oh, yeah. I'd love to. Love to see it.

Tim Kell [00:41:29]:
So I haven't ground the pebbles in yet. Mhmm. So there's a ton, though. Nice. So it'll have that really aggressive lean that I'm kinda known for.

Bob DeMarco [00:41:41]:
Mhmm.

Tim Kell [00:41:42]:
But we've got it all 3 d'd out. This one, we watered it out just to make sure everything fit with the handles. So it'll have it'll be pretty similar to the o seven in grind. So there

Bob DeMarco [00:41:55]:
Okay. So a little bit of a swedge on top to thin out the tip and

Tim Kell [00:41:59]:
Yep. Exactly. So it'll and that angle is exactly the same as the Hawk. So this is the ringer, the

Bob DeMarco [00:42:09]:
Nighthawk. Yeah.

Tim Kell [00:42:10]:
So it'll look like this.

Bob DeMarco [00:42:14]:
Okay. What more difference? You need a subscription service. Like, I'm like I need all of these, and I need them showing up on a regular. I know you don't. That's, so I wanted to just mention here that you recently had a, I don't even know what to call it. A not a drive, but not a drop, like, 6 models. You're like, well, we're gonna be making these 6 models. The adversary was one of them.

Bob DeMarco [00:42:37]:
Right. And the the double o two and double o three and a couple of other models. Tell us about, a, what those models were that people can now sign up to get, but also, b, give us a little hint about your business model overall.

Tim Kell [00:42:52]:
We've tried to keep everything as a cash based business. And so we'll do a reservation. When we get to steel, we allow people to reserve those blades on a 3 to 6 month turn. We thought we were going to move away from that this year. And when we did, people resoundingly said, Nope. I like your way of doing it. So we'll sell enough of the steel to cover the manufacture of the entire batch. So if I sell a 100 blades, I'm making 400 of them.

Tim Kell [00:43:25]:
So that first 100 of a new blade one allows me to gauge interest, which one's going to sell out fastest so that I can immediately order more steel for subsequent batches, like with the agent l one. That thing sold crazy fast, 3 days, 500 something blades. So I I knew that was our most successful. I just I order reorder steel before we're even done making that subsequent batch. So it allows me to be more nimble and do smaller batches and to continue to fund because we don't wanna be owned by another larger company because we kinda like the way we're doing stuff. So we wanna call the shots on that. And for us to be able to do that, we do these reservations. So when somebody orders a blade, we physically have the blade in hand.

Tim Kell [00:44:14]:
So we're not selling the idea of a blade. I know some other companies have gotten theirself in trouble from selling a nothing.

Bob DeMarco [00:44:23]:
Yeah.

Tim Kell [00:44:23]:
Just a a a play set of knives.

Bob DeMarco [00:44:26]:
Knives. I think that was their ultimate downfall. They were making these incredible knives, but I think they were overextended. And, and not to bring up other other people, but I I I think they're a cautionary tale because amazing knives while I go.

Tim Kell [00:44:40]:
Convincing that. That's what happens. So if we don't have the steel, we don't sell a reservation slot. So effectively, you're just signing your name on that piece of steel that you get one. And if there is a enough steel for you to click buy, you you're going to get a blade within that time frame.

Bob DeMarco [00:45:04]:
It just has to be finished up and and shipped, and it's all custom. I mean, your knives are custom knives, and you offer all the different handle materials. You offer different steels like 8072 or Yeah.

Tim Kell [00:45:17]:
We were just gonna go to Alright. We've got 44 in black, and 44 in OD, and 44 in brimstone. But people are like, No. I like a la carte. I like picking this. And our new website that should be done this week is gonna allow for you to see a live picture. Select the blade, the screws, the handle, and it'll pop up each little piece that you change on the screen live, so you'll still. I almost made a mistake, but we listened to our fans.

Tim Kell [00:45:45]:
So we're like, okay. Sorry, guys.

Bob DeMarco [00:45:49]:
I I love the idea of being able to see a live picture of your custom knife. It reminds me my my dad I've told told this story before, but my dad, used to go on to the Bentley website. He's like, I have no plans on buying a Bentley. But if I did, this is what it would look like. And he would customize it and you could see it turn around. And after a few minutes, he'd be like, all right, I had my Bentley, you know? Yeah. It's the same.

Tim Kell [00:46:12]:
Exactly.

Bob DeMarco [00:46:13]:
To be able to see it in brimstone or to be able to see it in, I mean, you have you have all these, like, super cool burl g tens. You know, it's not just black and blue, it's black and blue burl. So each layer is a swirl as opposed to separation of layers. I I just love how, you can personalize your stuff. I feel like I'm being your salesman right now, but I I just love how

Tim Kell [00:46:34]:
might. Leo, go ahead.

Bob DeMarco [00:46:36]:
And and but also the nickel boron coating, that's a USP for you guys, unique selling proposition. You also have the blackened blades. Sometimes you can get, stainless or, or, high carbon that's near stainless, and then you have the boron coating anyway. It may as well be as far as I see it. I don't know.

Tim Kell [00:46:54]:
Yeah. Nickel bond's super slick and very, very hard.

Bob DeMarco [00:46:58]:
So lots of stuff going on, but there's, one thing I wanna talk about, and I saw on your, thumbnails from this past week's live, and I've experienced them. Let's talk about the folder.

Tim Kell [00:47:11]:
The folder. And they these have a special marking to them, the aforementioned camera wife. So if you can see, these are gonna be from her line. If I can get this thing to not be crazy, we can't see.

Bob DeMarco [00:47:28]:
But Oh, there we go. We got that.

Tim Kell [00:47:31]:
There it is. So that's the CW logo. So the CW for camera wife, and then there's a little TKEL logo. 1 of our patrons designed this logo and then the tea kettle on the side because we do everything together. But I was really trepidatious to do a folder, and this this particular this batch is going to fund our 100% American made folder. So

Bob DeMarco [00:47:57]:
So is that to say this is a foreign produced folder and it's kind of the first one where you're kinda working out the r and d and such?

Tim Kell [00:48:03]:
Exactly right. That is why it's taken so long to come out. So Man, that's cool. Yeah. It's a neat premise. I don't think anybody's done it. It's it's mission EDC is what we're calling it. So the mission is to have an EDC folding knife, and this is called the m 2.

Tim Kell [00:48:23]:
It's a the mini mercenary, so we can I don't know if you have a mercenary?

Bob DeMarco [00:48:28]:
I don't. The mercenary and the sapper are two knives that, sadly, I don't have yet.

Tim Kell [00:48:34]:
I shouldn't have worn a black shirt. But so this is the mercenary. If you'll notice, the grip is the same grip and this the same swedge on the blade as well. Yeah. So it's a shortened version of this. Originally, I wanted these scales to fit on this knife, but we just couldn't get that execution done.

Bob DeMarco [00:48:53]:
Oh, that's interesting.

Tim Kell [00:48:55]:
Yeah. Yeah. The pivot wouldn't work. So if you notice, it's got the lashing screws too, which was another thing that drove the engineers crazy. And you can switch the clip. It's ambidextrous. These are in VG10, and these are black titanium coated. And they're on bearings, so they are crazy smooth.

Tim Kell [00:49:16]:
So the first two colors are gonna be peanut butter and chocolate, I guess. It's too

Bob DeMarco [00:49:23]:
dark for 2. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm all about that peanut butter and chocolate. That's

Tim Kell [00:49:26]:
Man, so good.

Bob DeMarco [00:49:28]:
What? So, what is I know that you suffered a suffered. You, you went on a journey, let's say, of engineering, figuring out how to how to do a folder. And I know that the lock type was a sticking point for you.

Tim Kell [00:49:42]:
It was

Bob DeMarco [00:49:43]:
It was. You a while to to figure out what you wanted to zero in on. Tell us a little bit about that that process.

Tim Kell [00:49:50]:
So I'm not much of a folding knife guy because I've broken so many. So it was, 1, a departure for me to do something not battle tough so that I could take the job site and just stick in a door and try to pry it open. So that's why I went with the mercenary 1, but then I wanted a lock that was really strong and I really had to rely on the community to suggest to me what was going to be strong but still functional that's not going to fail. You know? So everybody voted on the button. And that's kinda how we do on our Patreon, as you're probably aware. We vote on everything. So button lock was what we chose. This is the one I made.

Tim Kell [00:50:35]:
And so here's the problem. It won't open unless you push the button. That's my lack of knowledge. So we originally this is nickel boron, AEBL, all of our stuff made in house. So we went to a designer and said, Hey, we need help. We cannot get this thing and I asked and asked and asked and asked. Somebody helped me with this stupid folder and nobody could give me any direction. And everybody told me the same thing.

Tim Kell [00:51:06]:
If you want to make a folder, you got to make it overseas. And I didn't want to do that. So, we sent the button out to have it engineered. And they sent back an entire knife and said, Look, we can do this for you. And that's kind of when the wheels started turning like, Alright. If we buy X number of these from you, just give us the buttons and we'll throw the rest of the stuff away. But that didn't make a lot of sense, and the quality was so high, we asked our patrons and they said, Hey, we'll buy those to help you find somebody in the States. So we're like, all right.

Tim Kell [00:51:41]:
I agreed to that.

Bob DeMarco [00:51:42]:
That's so cool.

Tim Kell [00:51:42]:
And then that was their idea. And then we have worked it out with, Recman. So we're gonna that's who's gonna make our American Folders. They've already reverse engineered and engineered a better mechanism into the production line, which I am incredibly excited about. So those will be That's right.

Bob DeMarco [00:52:04]:
Who who did you say?

Tim Kell [00:52:05]:
Brickman.

Bob DeMarco [00:52:06]:
Brickman?

Tim Kell [00:52:08]:
Rec, r e c. R Where is that?

Bob DeMarco [00:52:10]:
Oh oh, Riversedge Cutler. Got you. Got you. That's right. I remember. They were right across from you.

Tim Kell [00:52:14]:
That's how that happened.

Bob DeMarco [00:52:16]:
That's

Tim Kell [00:52:17]:
He walked over. He's like, I see you. You've got a folder. I'm like, man. And he's like, we make folders. And I'm like, I need a person to make folders. He's like, your boots has been crazy. I'm like, I'm sorry, guys.

Tim Kell [00:52:27]:
We're clogging up the aisle. And he's like, we can do it. I'm like, how come you didn't pop up on my radar? And he's like, I don't know, but we wanna do it. So we started talking. We've already exchanged all of our 3 d files, and they're working on it now. So as soon as we pull the trigger on, we get these done, the the prototypes, and we're going to get all the feedback that we need, any tweaks we need to make. So it's kind of a neat premise of it's crowdfunding, but you get an actual blade that you can use and give us feedback on.

Bob DeMarco [00:53:00]:
That's a great idea. I love that. And it also, you know, I like the idea of kind of working things out. Yeah. I don't want to say on the cheap, but, you know, there are certain places that are used to doing that. So it costs less for them to do that kind of R and D and to do that kind of production. You get what you need. Your your loyal patrons buy it.

Bob DeMarco [00:53:20]:
And and by the way, that's extremely collectible for them, because that'll be the one time probably that you do that, and they'll have that collectible first first

Tim Kell [00:53:31]:
The hardest part of getting those guys to wait. They're like, I want it now. I'm like, no. Let us get all the bugs worked out because these are these are our final prototypes on it, and it's been gosh. I think we took that first prototype that I showed the the multicam on to Blade Joe 2 years ago. I scrapped the entire project, and then somebody reached out and said, hey. I know I've seen pictures of your folder, but you never came out with it. We can help.

Tim Kell [00:53:54]:
Like, really? But I wanna make my stuff in the states. Like, we will help you design it. You can buy the lock design for me. And I'm like, hey, that might be a good idea because we overengineered it. It just it's a lot harder than you think.

Bob DeMarco [00:54:09]:
To me, the button lock, seems like a really hard one. I mean, it the the interface is awesome. We all know it's fidgety and it's fun and all that. But, but it also is a challenge to make a real stout one. I know you ran into it. I know other companies run into it and it takes, you know, it takes some doing it. You know, it's not just I don't I don't know. I know that button locks have had a a speckled past until they locked it in.

Bob DeMarco [00:54:36]:
Now it seems like everyone knows how to do them, and that's great. But getting there, I don't

Tim Kell [00:54:41]:
know. The guys at River's Edge. I said, hey. You know my use cases for these things. They gotta be they gotta be battle tough. If we gotta scrap the button, let's do it.

Bob DeMarco [00:54:52]:
Yeah.

Tim Kell [00:54:53]:
Really? I'm like, yeah. This is what you guys do. You know? You make folders and locks, and if we're gonna put a TKEL logo on the thing and guarantee it for life like all of our stuff, you come to me and you tell me, hey. We gotta do something different. I'm gonna listen because I don't know how to make a button or a folder or a lock mechanism. I like cool stuff, so we're we're kinda giving them carte blanche on it because I don't want just fidgety. I want fidgety and strong. And I don't want just a decent opening.

Tim Kell [00:55:26]:
I want it on bearings and all these things. So we kinda threw the gauntlet at them, and they're like, yep. We got it. No problem. And the end result of the the produce that we have now, they're super good.

Bob DeMarco [00:55:39]:
Again, that is the that is to me the best of collaboration. That's the best approach to being a collaborative, creator because everyone I mean, you're you're Tim Kell of Teekall Knives. You want it to be a great knife that people talk about. You want it to be profitable. You want it to be profitable for everyone and it to be a net positive. And, you know, so to collaborate without ego and to say, hey. You got yeah. You do that, and we'll take it.

Bob DeMarco [00:56:10]:
We'll buy it from you, and we'll incorporate it. That is absolutely the way to go. And and so as we wrap here, I'd you have been handling a lot of fast growth over, you know, 5 year period of time, at most 5 year period of time. You've done amazing things, grown incredibly, have created so many, really memorable knives that you keep producing. I think you've only retired a few models here and there.

Tim Kell [00:56:35]:
Yeah. Just a couple, which will probably end up coming back.

Bob DeMarco [00:56:38]:
So what do you what advice would you give people with small companies or companies that they, want to grow in terms of balancing handling growth, but not overcommitting and endangering yourself? Is that is that a balance you gotta come up with?

Tim Kell [00:56:56]:
Yeah. I mean, for us, we were very prayerful about every step, and I can't recommend that more than to listen to your customer base and to wherever you center your faith. That's been the magic to us. Most of it out from the outward side is kind of keeping our finger on our customer. If we do this, what do you guys think? And listening intently to feedback, input, and after all, your name is on something and if you're gonna take pride in that, you want the end user to use it. So you can just, like we keep saying, the ego thing, if if it's not gonna grow, don't force it to grow. Do what the customers suggest. Not be pulled in a 1000000 different directions.

Tim Kell [00:57:49]:
That's not what I mean. But as far as, well, hey, if you guys start making your blades completely overseas, we're not gonna buy them. Well, listen to that. Don't do that.

Bob DeMarco [00:57:58]:
Yeah.

Tim Kell [00:57:58]:
You know? If they say, have you thought about this blade on this model and this and that? And I think responsibly growing I'm probably talking in circles. I'm making absolutely no sense. I wish I knew the secret to my success, but we just have listened. We're very My wife and I have a heart for people, and we really wanna make good stuff and caring about what you put out and not doing more than you can handle without keeping that same level. I guess I could suggest that what I always say, we wanna make as many blades as we possibly can at or above our current quality level. And that's it. So master where you're at, figure out how to make more at the same level, and then just keep stepping up. And if something falters, take it don't be afraid to take a step back and just get that down.

Tim Kell [00:58:53]:
Okay. I I can make 12. I wanna make 24. How in the world can me as one dude make 24? Well, for me, it was getting help from my wife. You know? Put the right people in the right places that are better at stuff than you Mhmm. And do it right every time.

Bob DeMarco [00:59:13]:
Love it. Thanks so much, Tim. Thanks for coming back on

Tim Kell [00:59:16]:
the show.

Bob DeMarco [00:59:16]:
I really appreciate it. I've been talking all day about what a great collaborator you are, but you are also with your crowd, with your with your fans, with your weekly check ins. I I can imagine that that's got to be one of the most valuable, parts of your marketing scheme.

Tim Kell [00:59:31]:
I think we got for that, we wouldn't do it.

Bob DeMarco [00:59:33]:
You guys are awesome, and it feels like family when you go to your table. And, so, everyone, check out teakal knives. I know you probably already have if you're not living under a rock. Check out teakal knives. Everything he has coming up. Tim, thank you so much, man. I appreciate it.

Tim Kell [00:59:47]:
Bye.

Announcer [00:59:50]:
Do you carry multiple knives then overthink which one to use when an actual cutting chore pops up. You're a knife junkie of the first order.

Bob DeMarco [01:00:00]:
There he goes, ladies and gentlemen. Tim Kell of T Kell Knives. Always so cool to have him and just good to talk to him on the phone sometimes because, the man knows what he's talking about, and it's, I always get a vicarious buzz hearing about all the different challenges and, rewards of owning and running a super awesome knife company right here in the United States. Alright. Be sure to join us tomorrow night for Thursday night knives. Oh, no. Wait. That's Thursday night for Thursday night knives.

Bob DeMarco [01:00:25]:
Wednesday, of course, the midweek supplemental, and check out the videos and shorts as they pop out. For Jim, working his magic behind the switcher, I'm Bob DeMarco saying until next time. Don't take dull for an answer.

Announcer [01:00:37]:
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