Tim Reeve from Chris Reeve Knives The Knife Junkie Podcast (Episode 41)

Welcome to the knife. Junkie podcast your weekly dose of knife news and information about knives and knife collecting. There's your hosts jim person above the knife. Junkie demarco took hello knife junkies welcome to episode number forty one of the knife junkie podcast. I'm jim person and i'm bob the knife junkie demarco welcome to the show welcome to episode forty-one as i said of the knife junkie podcast they get bigger and bigger and better in better and bob. Who who do we have today that we're gonna be talking to or you're going to be chatting with today. Speaking with tim reeve of chris reeve knives. He's he's the son of chris reeve and he has taken over the company he along with his mother art steering the company into the future. You know there there. There are legacy brand that we all know and love and who's who's great to get to talk to him and just hear what it was like growing up around the chris reeve factory and you know always having a spends in his pocket to to now being a being in a position of power in being able to steer that company. It's really cool yeah. Go ahead and give a plan for the listener line after you listen to this this episode if you have any thoughts comments questions if you own a chris reeve knives and a knife and want to talk about it. That was what you like about it. Accent recall the listener line at seven two four four six six four four eight seven again. That's seven two four four six six four four eight seven bob before the interview with tom. We wanna tease this. One thing you have started daly. The daughter put any pressure on you. Keep going daily but collections selection videos on youtube. Yes yes so this. This was birthed out of conversation with austin epochs knuckle bunny with reducing refined and you know i keep bringing this up. Keep bringing it up. that's it's kind of the nature of my family. We just things into the ground but you've got the refined down. Get better so so i want. I really do want to lighten the thin the herd but before i do i wanna catalog everything. I have right now so i don't so i kinda don't forget and i kind of wish i had done that before. Four i sold off a number of had a larger z. t. collection. I got a bunch got rid of bunch of those before i started getting hinders and i kind of wish i took videos of them so i'm going go through and try and you know like i said no pressure but just go knife just a couple minute video and just highlight it. It's you know everyone can look. It's a little bit of you know knife tigra fee for a few minutes and then for me. It's a it's a catalog so that i have it in the future so remember what i have once. I've sold these way and have a bunch of sweet custom. Knives youtube is the knife junkie dot com just go to youtube dot com and search for the knife junkie and the reason i say that is because you can also try the knife junkie dot com slash youtube but we've been having some issues with the website and other kinds of things so i'm not sure the not junkie dot com slash youtube who will work at the at this moment if you're listening to it in the future hopefully it will but if you have any difficulty cisco direct to you too and search for the knife junkie and bob were hoping hoping hoping to get that fixed because it's just really messing up the website oliver stuff as well as our r._s._s. feeds for our podcast listeners listeners. That's the most maddening part for me but it seems like with the gentleman we have. should be fixed soon. Yeah yeah fingers crossed so yes. Timorese chris s. reeve knives that interview is coming up next subscribe to the knife junkies youtube channel at the knife junkie dot com slash u. two. I i wanted to mention to you you that i have one chris rock knife and it's a twenty-one that the black my car the handles and the cool part about this as something that's very it's something that i think is much loved about cr cain general is that you find out when it was made and mine was made on leap day 2016 eighteen so february kennedy day that comes only once every four years a few years old exactly it's going to age beautifully. This is the knife junkie podcast. I am a like a crazy sucker for knives n. k. I i'm a very good justify and that's one reason i will never ever get rid of my chris reeve twenty one if it came a time where i fell out of love with it which i don't see that happening i would always be like cabinet was made. It was made made on leap day. I love quirky stuff. Things like that and uh that's great. I didn't know i wonder how many we made on that day too. That's funny that would be interesting to find out and then i could create a support group or support group at the opposite so my my first exposure my first experience chris reeve knives was in in the mid to late nineties when i first moved to new york city and there's a place when when they passed this crazy city ordinance in and you could no longer by pocket knives anywhere in the city there was one place called paragon sporting goods during the reason you buy knives there is because they sold custom knives at the owner must have been a knife junkie to art knives yeah exactly and that was when i first saw actually what it was where the fixed blade chris reeve knives okay not not the bill horsey designed ones but the ones that seemed to be milled out of one yeah the one piece yeah just oh my god they they bowled me over and ever since since then you've been on my radar so after after thirty years what makes chris reeve knives the standard that high end production knives are compared to i think we just stuck around found in.

I guess it's more flippant answer but we just kind of like the idiots they keep doing it and make try and make better quality than quantity yeah. That's kind of flip answer but i think that does go into why people search us out and widespread kind of become this like i say folklore 'cause that's not the right way to say but it's like a lot of people say the golden standard or the sedans is the standard industry just that we've we've been around doing the same the thing for a long time. We haven't tried to mix it up too much. I mean there's a a level of innovation in wind did bring a new product in in trying to stay with the times to a degree but at the same meantime we've picked what we're good at end we've been wildly successful at it so it doesn't give us a lot of opportunity on one hand to to to jump around crazily mhm but it's also been a pretty good model of stability. I could see that that that makes sense to me. Especially of from my perspective you have a core product line and then you come up with new things like the name is escaping me now the the the lock that crazy yes the time and and now those are i'm not sure if you've been producing those anymore but they are much sought after a they're going for stupid amounts of money and we discontinued them just a few years ago. It was a hell of a knife to make. I mean complicated to make it work right you know but yeah we like to bridge out and try a little fancy things like we just brought out a little a little innovation on the slip joint last year played yeah i was going to ask you about that yeah so what inspired the creation of a a slip joint and tell me a little about about that was a collaboration with bilharzia right right right so the running. My running joke at the pierre has been like this is the first time and we've we've hit a market trend on time since the fray walk wildly behind on something like oh chris you finally did that. so we've been talking about it for quite a while and then we've got big german market or a big big european market and for years saying hey i love but i have to knock thumb stud out or or it's just not legal because one handed opening knives aren't legal in germany. They can take a roman short sword down. The road. Owed can have a folding pocket knife. You know that that it's weird. It's like one-handed opening if it locks but if it doesn't lock it can be outta. It's it's it's weird anyway so to try and like a piece of that market. We thought hey let's let's try and discuss slip join or something a dedicated to handed opening knife bill and i had been talking about doing a knife for quite a while. He's been making slip joints since before the frame lock was invented sosa over around forty years or something like that so he was a great great person to say. Hey you know let's do a flip so we'd originally had an idea to do like a a french fit or a the call like a forty five lakh doc where's just kind of like a big dent on the bet on the tang of the blade and then it just like kind of like a i'd love that drops in and just it's real stout big almost like a backlog without a spring right right kind of like that but instead of like a square lug it's like a forty five degree angle and so it slips quite nicely but it's still that like you know a half stop and then into this real stiff kind of things very classic on a on a slip joint and i jokingly said hey built look if you make this spring so stiff that i wrote my thumbnail off every time to fit the tank the project and i think that might rattle around in his brain by shot show two two thousand eighteen so december two thousand seventeen. He came up with mechanisms says hey i think i got a stroke of genius. Check this out and that's where that little like saddle recur kinda low system tension differential that we came up with for the showed up. He gave me a working model. I took to the shop and we figured out how to . I basically just tried to make it a knife scaled down a little bit put our hardware into sandblasted logo on all that kind of stuff and and so we collaborated on that so what was the public reaction to that. Why the hell are you making a slip joint co. I mean that's an obvious question to answer. Yeah yeah yeah and i couldn't blame him for for that.

it was actually overwhelmingly supportive which was quite nice a lot of people saying well. It's not a so so why even look at it but that was that was the noise the signal we're always trying to separate the signal from the noise in the signal was we we struck gold the overwhelming amount of borders on it overwhelming amount of applause and and excitement for it. I've got one customer in in new york that was just over here here visiting me and he's got seven of them right now and i think right now he holds the largest market share on impending far behind getting out the door. I'd have to say just from a strictly weekly aesthetic . It's beautiful knife. I mean his designs of always resonated with me but no but there's an extra quality knowing knowing how it's built and seeing seeing how it's built that that that really makes it an appealing knife. Horsey knows how to design knives man oh yeah they're elegant beautiful and they look all business too. I mean i love the the hersey reeve fixed blades that mean to me. Those are those are gorgeous especi- especially the clip point can't remember what it's called. Yeah beret made the pacific has the clip point in spear points the the green brain okay so also what about the thirty one what were the updates on that yeah so the very small profile kinda sham for adjustments little things that i've been looking at for awhile saying hey what if we tweet this year what if we took that they're so like around the thumb a you know what you call the scallop that allows you to access the bingo that part like i played showing explain this i can't i don't have the nomenclature we kind of flared that just a little bit kind of shoutout back to the old classics angled the clip off the lock bar just a little tweak there. That's let's just kind of a nice. Modern thing. That kinda is nice. it makes your lock arms tension a little bit more accurate. I don't have another thing on and then we put the clock face in the lock bar so that's now everyone of our knives spare for the nundy. The little tiny guy finally has that mechanism which is quite a clever idea. Are you still making twenty anyone's or now. Have you gotten everything to the thirty. Well we discontinued the twenty one what i have i mean stupid amounts of to to still make from now until probably december to make twenty one's okay and those will not include these ceramic no no. We just how it is. Just how ordered it you know all that kind of thing and and then yeah hopefully i'm hoping december man. That'd be so nice to get get it out within the year but maybe it's january that we start getting thirty ones out. It's it's such a weird model that we're a. and people get so confused like he brings something out of blade. Show what you're only gonna ship. It like closer shot like well. That's that's not an uncommon phenomena. I mean yeah inspire fire. Fighter go just changed their whole release scheme. You know 'cause chacho show bleacher. They throw all these amazing knives. That wouldn't come out for another. Two years and people were banging on their door. Where's okay as like okay. Forget it from now on you. Impatient children were announcing that we're not the only one you know it's sometimes i don't get to pay good attention the rest of the industry i'd get a little bit in a bubble while it's kind of like the guy who makes pizza all day does not come home and eat pizza. You get you get a lasagna or something right. Thanks so i also noticed that the inlays look different so there's a slight aesthetic change too right yeah we we those another like shout or paints awesome to the old regular so this was kinda taken some things mash up some things from old sedans previous and then i'm trying to launch that into the newest generation and hopefully the next good run events like it can be made like this for quite a long time the very first thing i knew about you about about those your knives was the extreme engineering going into them. and when i started making the sa- benzes there weren't aren't any other knives made that way the tolerance is that was that was so fine or tight on even know what close tolerances is that the word just tight tolerances yeah so that's what i initially. That's what initially stood out about chris reeve knives to me. Is that kind of engineering where you rest your laurels yet. Yeah yeah and that's maybe the best way to to answer your very first question. we were kind of the just the first guys to start doing that. My old man was was the first guy to say hey. I'm going to tighten all this stuff up. I'm gonna make every knife exactly the same and when you get into real heavy collecting and get into look at the history of our knives yeah you can find a a little small nuances and differences but that was the basic like thought process and that's what we're trying to do. I mean nowadays. The industry has grown in the complicate the i there's a lot of advancements in knives in in you know i look at other companies like koenig knives or sheer gaurav or aw man.

There's a whole bunch of guys like we knives out in china. loads guys are are are putting a lot more than than even. We are in their knives. You you know you start throwing bearings in these little lock steal little far interface. Yes sorry it's been a long day here. Okay you know all that kind of stuff in dick. They're doing a lot more trick stuff than us to some degrees but what we know how to do or what we do. We know how to do really well and we and and we stick to it. we're holding real tarsus for for rather simple knife. Well i mean i don't get me wrong. I love we love riyadh especially i think they're doing awesome awesome stuff but you're talking about little tricks and tricking out the knife it immediately reminds me of dino the f four phantom jet from from the vietnam era yeah yeah okay so it's got a kind of it's a really cool design but but it also is crazy if you're if you're an engineer and you look at it. It's it's crazy and it was a bunch of fixes fixes thrown on a kind of a bad design or a faulted designs right like they can't win is yet and i've heard the whole concept of the lock bar interface that steel bar interface. I have heard people are. I don't remember where i heard this but the thought being well it's true that if if you start putting those in on your lock bars you will never get the stick because yet the super hard against the super hard but i've never experienced stick on your knife in there a couple the others that i have that like the spectacle spidey chef never experienced any stick on that and so the idea is you add that and there's a certain amount of laziness easiness in the engineering that can creep in and i'm not saying it doesn't necessarily especially with these companies but if you can always rely well we can put the lock face the the steel lock bar interface in there and cheated out a little bit and then tighten it down then you don't have to worry so much about engineering that the tight tolerances from the start deep. Do you think there's any validity to that a little a little bit of truth to that. I think rick hindered. I've had many conversations about. He's got his try way. Pivot system right super clever idea especially when he stuck in a mire of of fans that life once half of them like barings and the other half like washers and the other one's like like teflon or nylon or whatever and here you go you can have all three punching yea the the the gray hair on that on a kindle is always them anyway. We've talked a lot about how if you're in washers. You have to have those . Those handles have to be dead flat you you throw bearings with races in there. You're the handles can be all over the place to to a relative degree. I mean koenig and i've talked about that. Bill koenig night you can throw a barrington in and not have to have abbas handles his flat so it's a similar kind of thing to speak towards like the loc face thing. That's kind of funny progression where i think it was a bit of the curve served. If these new a lot of the new styles that were into you have a lot more wear resistant steels and a micro level year lock is gonna wear out especially if it's a heat treated titanium face or garbed ising or carbonized or whatever like all these different ways of doing this a normal titanium face titanium can only get so hard and it's a case hardening hardening and all that so you have to have we're watching a lot of loch where and that's where chris came up with like he said hey i don't want to screw around with like in a little tiny like inlay in there basically like a set screw or he was watching all these these lock faces come out and so he thought hey you know let's make our balls bigger in put a big old ceramic ball in there and that's that's really where that ceramic clock face came in a ninety seven rockwall ceramic ball is a a lot harder than that sixty rob hall late wow ninety yes ninety seven or go ou- so wait what knife did that. I come out on. Was that the twenty five or the zahn museums on in two thousand eight. I believe two thousand eight okay so give me a brief. Account of the birth of chris reeve knives cbs. How did it start. I know your dad who was a motorcycle racer. Is that correct yeah yes so he was a tool and die maker for thirteen years during even tool and die maker and a making molding dies all sorts of stuff and then started racing moto cheat motor g. p. bikes is a privateer on the side doing that thing and then. I think he's kinda. Saw like there's certain curve of motor g._p. Writers you know you hit a certain age like well. I can't do this i in my life and he was really good at it but just kind of different career paths started making custom knives he started so in kind of little real late seventies early eighties and by nineteen eighty-four he started crystal knives his sole proprietorship and all that kind of thing nineteen eighty six he met my mom she said hey you know like the money you're getting for those knives. You should throw it in the bank and you know instead in your pocket and like write down that you sold that knife you know the basics of bookkeeping and and then they just kind of shut off from there.

They had a couple of people . My grandfather included working forum in their their house in south africa finally saw that country going downhill and said hey. Let's move to america there ninety percent of what what they're making. They're exporting to america so they said hey. Let's let's go follow that so they came to boise in nineteen eighty nine born here in nineteen ninety-one. It's kinda quick synopsis sir yeah no. That's that's that's perfect. So who is the customer back then i think now the customer is probably a wide variety of the people given the internet and given the growth of the of the knife industry knife fandom so it could be anything from a collector to cop to a whatever but but back then who is he selling the knives to. I think very much still the core base. That's the collects or bys are knives. Probably middle aged male like working males to have. I'm really yeah probably probably like anywhere between our around our our our agent but then over the years as the market's changed in as we've gotten bigger. It's just exploded in three sixty degrees around that but it was i think that's kind kind of what it was but then again he was making so many odds odd like little custom things on the senator who's making a lot paring knives for any of his like friends and like friends friends wives and stuff like that in you know so it's tough to say but i i think there is a lot of military a lot of law enforcement that would doug on like the one piece knives jobs and they're getting into the folders. I mean part of what put us on the maps. We were on the like one of the first three hundred dollar production folding knives. I was like wait what you want to pay you. You want me to pay three hundred dollars for that like well just putting her pocket and take it for a ride for little bit when people oh my god and it kind of went from there there is some psychology in that to you know if i picked up chris reeve knife benza like this i have my hands right now and you said yeah. Just give me you know forty five bucks for it. Mike my feelings about it would be different so i think it's a it's a smart way to go . When did you join the organization and i i mean i. I assume you were kind of a a part of it from the very very very start. The long running joke is my mom filled out my w. Two when i was born but i agro up in it you know i i i grew up eating titanium chips on the on the shop floor. I grew up. I spent every summer in the shop. You know if i got chickenpox. I went to the shop by you know. If i got a cold in my schooling days i went to work school nipples or breathe titanium on yeah exactly put to works sweeping the floor whatever you know but but i had a lot of fun going up in machine shop and then in my et late teens early twenties i i spent about eight years trying to stay far away from the company as possible ended up in retail sales and kind of doing like a lot of that world golden . I remember overhearing phone. Call my met my old man was. I don't know if you ever got to meet him. Reviewers seen him video or anything. It's pretty is quite a character. Everybody was like my son's just selling janis made shit. You know shoes or something like that. Maybe that bounce around my hat or something i know joyce and like the glasser family spider co date always give me a hard time like an real big encouragement about you know. You need to get in the company one monday what your were your parents have bill is as an absolute gem in one of a kind thing is definitely a lot of encouragement or around the industry but one day just clicked i used to go help out a lotta out of the show so i've been a blade show many many times since i was a kid i would go out to the germany show. Which is the the european show it's called the u._s._o. And it was coming back from there one time i was working guitar center and i was making my coffee in the morning. We've just gotten back from two weeks. In germany like basically i didn't really have to pay for anything you just go along with a business trip and like you beers paid for like wait what this drake beardsell knives and like like this is cool. You know and i said screw this. I'm sick of doing something. It's just a dead end corporate job and came back to the company. So what is your official capacity. Would we do everything and then try and get away. Get out of doing like some other things when it came to the company came back to the company about four or five years i i can't it's going so fast. Now i came in is to build a marketing department basically had no marketing apart where the marketing department was as as big says my mom on publisher making the brochure inter office so i made the instagram the social media type stuff's built a website to the product autocracy all that kind of stuff and so that's where i started then i just had this steady like this curve of coming into more and more responsibility more for more responsibility in taking on different things.

I've gotten more involved in the shop so now i don't even do hardly any like the the marketing stuffs like my girlfriend she. She runs basically all that she's finally taken over the instagram's. We've got a decent presence on their finally now and so now i run. The back of the shop shop is quitting. My mom is the she still signs my paycheck. She owns the company now. My ovation retired just before i came in and thirty years he i said hey i'm i'm i'm done i've done enough here and it's time to go play right and so they split and mom bought the company out from him and she runs the show and it's like the best thing that could could have happened really he was getting so burned out and thirty years in his industry on that kind of high octane octane level can really burn and it really burned him so he's super proud of me. He's super proud mom super proud of that the company and he's like i'm. I'm pretty much the only person that you'll talk knives with anymore. We'll watch together and and you'll tell me how do i do this elsie. I'll save you a lot of money. Every try that ten times as bad added you don't do that. You know that but no so my day can be anything from h._r. Problems to to working with machine gene tools trying to buy a half million dollar machining center to serve a customer service call. I'll hop on the phone some sort of issue in one of the girls that say hey do you want to hop on timorese here you go in and so anybody can call me at the company and talk to me shamanee grinding room trying to you know practice up grinding knives and and everything you were all the hats that you could possibly wary at that place and not be just sweeping the floors or whatever your you are running the things we received two floors on thursdays to play yeah well. That's that's the kind of thing i would imagine about your kind of operation. It's not a top down. It's it's kind of . I would imagine it's kind of well if you're walking the floor all the time and your mother is there all the time. It's not this sort of what's the word like disassociated kind of corporate environment where people just walk in sharpen their knives and leave you know i'm sure there's some of that but the point is it seems from the videos. I've seen of the shop itself. It seems like an intimate environment right and yeah. It's a very like much sleeves rolled up elbows in you know get to work type thing and i know everybody obviously by name first name basis i mean we only have always say let's it's forty five employees plus or minus one given the week but you can't not know oh everybody's name at that point and some people. I know a lot better than some people. I don't know as well but because you do it. It's fun getting to know all the different types of people because you have some people that meant they. I love putting in a podcast in there working on this little thing and they come in they clock in when they clock in clock out when they clocked out they love it. That's all i and that's all they expect from and we have a good time. It's a high five and on the way but then other people man. I know their kids. I know they love doing on on their days off like we'll go out. Have a beer after work or we'll go camping or or whatever so we've got a really great crew and it's just absolute magic coming. It's it's pretty cool and i have to say like we've kind of gotten out some of the bad apples and we've got a real good high functioning crew well. It feels like a just in talking to you. It's it's the next generation obviously like okay so clearly the next generation also in terms of how your marketing how you're you're talking about. your social media presence. How do you think social media has worked in getting new customers younger customers. You're talking about the middle aged guy like me. What about the new guys come off jaded but god. I hate social media so much. I don't wanna sound pompous either in the sense that we don't. It's not like a big thing for us is to to harness in pump on time into kind of just show up to have a presence like i r i instagram post. When i started. The instagram was like a joke like hey we finally figured out the internet you know here we are thing like follows here and i've been on instagram personally like ages like kind of close to when it started but it draws new customer definitely younger guys but a lot more my age and i'm like i don't know how 'cause i can't even afford my own knives like too much money on like music year in like guns and hunting crap and you know that kind of stuff stafford our outdoor air if you will you know so but it's opened up a whole new world of of collector that's i i don't know i think there's a new emerging more to the collector world

I don't know how to explain it at all to me. It's it's by and large kind of an annoying vibe or taste that they put my mouth but but i hate i again. I hate to say that. I don't wanna make it negative. I think that it's an important way to reach people a and b. I just like to look at pictures of knives and if i like the kind of knives you have on instagram while i'm i'm at work and and i'm uploading something or downloading something or something's rendering. I'll pop on instagram. See what's see what's what and that's how. I've found a lot of knife makers that i love right. I i think that's a great platform for that. I wish like the comments sections of its knife. Instagram could just be turned off. We're looking at is but but then there's yeah no. I think it's great. I mean look. I follow a lot of knife makers on his graham so i like it too like to see it on that platform. I'd much rather that than other platforms. Do you think people take it too serious like not instagram but knives. Oh yeah you're talking about commenting way too seriously like we take knives way veasley well. There's a thickness to them right. I mean there's an appeal the same appeal that comes from a car or from. I'm a you know a beautiful piece of furniture or a nice looking house or whatever it is. It's the thickness of it and with a with a knife you can actually hold it and carry it around with you and keep it in rocket it all day and so some of us end up carrying three knives on them all day so they can check them out at guilty that all your or nine no not always . I usually have an almost always have one of my nights in. I love a large benza but i'll regularly carry other knives. I usually have a leatherman in on me. So what other knives do you carry out. I don't know if that's a weird sensitive topic for you know i. I shoot man. I was carrying a klotz lee knife. i've got a bill koenig mini goblin that i've been running around with a whole bunch yeah i gotta get into areas that i keep telling built like i just need one that like it isn't like all like pretty enhanced polish and all that crap so i can actually beat it up and use it like that's how i don't put a bunch of work in it man. I know how much you workout other stuff you need to be doing. The mic mean is man. What else am i carrying . I'm kind of going blinkering now. I love micro-technologies man. I love. Can i say mike attacks. They're they're beautiful too. I mean there's a it yeah you could go on and not but one of the things it's a little nerdy already here but that's what we're all about here but one of the things about the one thing about twenty one with the my car inlays that i don't like is there is not enough of canvas for snail trails because because it's covered holy by my car almost completely by my car too so they're only a few little spots for hurt to pick up honest where i love honest wear in the fact is i have too many knives and i rotate too often to get any real honest wear on anything. They don't live a very hard life where i'm pulling out my knife to like cut cables to save lives yeah. No i know what you're saying. Luckily luckily you've got these rule. sharp some people's standards forty five degrees campers that tend to pitino quite nicely has funny because i i was wondering if we would kind of bring the wear subject today. We're trying to get out of shop and i was laughing says like if he asked me this. I'm gonna tell him what i was doing with a knife. we're helping my girlfriend career ranging like our our web store and we've got these kind of like this metal bakers racks and they've got those little platte black plastic clips. You have to kind of push them up his cone chinos. They know exactly what's going to have a hammer around totally could ran downstairs and got yeah exactly trying to get these up and they've been stuck in there for a while trying to move the shelf down. I could downstairs and found a hammer hammer. Whatever so grab my knife and i'm i'm holding it. It's close but i'm us like the spine of the handle and i'm lacking backing. It is a hammer to like. Knock it back up. It was like man. I'm actually putting a couple little like scratches on these guys would probably get a kick out of that. I'm notorious in the shop for using my night for for dumb things as long as you don't use the tip for a screwdriver. I think it's all all fair charged or they're of a detroit to break the tip off when you know you know the limits of it but i've i've done it. There's places where i just don't have a screwdriver to use. It and i've actually purposely broken. The tip off uses a flathead and gotten home in sharpened it and moved on but i i understand not everyone has a choice every two inch grinder like ready to use or the skills to use it but yeah that that is pretty man. That's a that's a little perk of the job yeah could be. What's what's your favorite knife that your company makes. I'd say a large events at twelve thirty one. That's what i'm i'm carrying.

I here's just a thirty one. It's a lot of people say hey what's in your pocket . It's whatever i'm working on so right now. It's still working out some of the the engineering and in just a little bugs in tweaks in that kind of stuff of the of the thirty one but even like less data. It's it's we're in the middle tooling tooling it up so we're looking at how we're going about cutting it and and and they approached the tool path approaches all that kind of stuff so i'm constantly pulled out like looking at like. Can you know do this and what did that. Look like again and like we're just the other day. I wasn't carrying it in cozy and i asked one of my guys in the shop who carries an co-stars working with i. I probably asked him twenty times to of course today to see that night. He's like bank. Just just hang your yeah exactly so you you know it's a lotta when i'm working on but i just love like the kind of sleek but still like nice big full-size handle a hand full full-sized blade the full site handle like that whole thing that thirty one or benza gives you a timeless life. I agree. I think it's funny. You used the word timeless because i've i've been asking people recently a special especially people that i've spoken with who review knives and who are critics of knives if you will on youtube asking them like is is it possible for something like a knife to be dated. You know it's it half the time people are saying. It's just a tool just chill. It's a tour eh but at the same time it's not just a tool. It's also an aesthetic well. It's it's also a piece of design that people buy for their aesthetic so you cannot go on a date yeah. I mean the ford f. One fifty four ninety five looks dated exactly yeah yeah yeah. I gotta say the first benzes with the with the . They look a little bit. I think that's the difference yeah but i mean even if you took if you took like a thirty one eight ignored classic or regular any put them right next actually each other. There's a little bit of database to it. There's there's a little more clunky nece in the old ones. There's there's just just always tried to refrain refine you. You know i think we knew that we struck gold. Obviously the the kind of the data's there to show that and so it's like it's not strip a good thing but let's let's tweak and refine it and that's something that my man was always notorious of doing was was tweaking refining constantly constantly so with the with the thirty one you mentioned the champion has changed. How has that changed just very subtly on the front and i'm i'm showing you here in the listeners can't he can't see it but like just around that finger. They're that little as flare fingered a little area where you says no why we don't yeah exactly and then i'd like the reflecting one on the inside of the lock arm where you put your thumb to disengage the lock and then the backside is well just little little places to tweak everything everything else is not the same the tail end of the night for the lanier would would kind of like the not on your lanier would like touch the handles being cozy has a in a twenty five had these kind of internal sham that just kind of let that not sit in their kind of nicely that so really didn't didn't didn't tweak much. I swear i could be crucified if i if i mess it this events too much well yeah. You can't take we made it a flipper and he's johny like a as as as some would love that others would hate it but you know we're gonna try and do what's good for the knife yet well yeah and and you you know people will always want that knife. So don't you know mess too much with. I remember when i when i got mine. it was definitely a i'm going to sell some knives to kind of scale up and or trade up if you will and i remember reading the little. I don't know there's a little little card inside. It was separate from the birth car but i can't remember all the things that said but it's kinda like this thing is a good thing and it's going to be with you forever. If you take care of it and you need to to work around the house you need to the your law enforcement and it mentions. If you ever need to like like fight somebody with it. It doesn't say fights. It's is like defend yourself yeah. Yes something like that and i gotta say man. I loved that. I loved reading that because well first of all i i am very i'm. I am a proponent of knives as a defensive tool. If you have training i've had a bit and so i think it's a worthy pursuit and i think it's a realistic . It's a it's a realistic option but i just like that. It was mentioned in there. It was basically here's a super classy super well-made knife that you can do all these gentlemanly things with but if you have to stick it in someone if they're being rude yet. You can still do that still right on yeah yeah yeah. That's probably the closest we've ever gotten to to advertising.

We've always said we've never advertised our knives. As weapons tools some some tools pokey your than others you know a yeah. It's it's a great thing and you want it to stop the thought process beyond like your handgun right clinton maintain it and all that kind of stuff so so that when you need it it doesn't shit out on the same thought process with your knife. You know make sure it's got a good edge on it. Make sure the mechanisms good so the lock doesn't unfold on you or it opens up locks nicely and all that kind of stuff so i think that was kind of what they're trying to say in that. I can't remember the words but the verbiage is on there. I think my mom wrote that. I really liked it because it just very gracefully. approached a topic. That's ugly but it needs to be acknowledged that i guess that's what i'm and i. I thought it would be nice way of doing it. The whole the whole the whole setup when you get it is nice you open it up and there's a thing and you pull that off and then there's earth guard and then there's the thing and the and it's the tool in greece are all nicely nestled in the body. You know it's it's a nice experience to open that knife up. Well good yeah. I had that experience once when i would love to have i'm going to get some point another sa- benza with the i love your tanto tobe leads. I just think they're so cool yet. It's a little different and i've. I've heard a handful of people out there to go. I hate tahoe blades but really like yours. That's like i mean what's the hate us about him. Yeah man what will hopefully get into a tanto headed your way at some point if i'm a good boy and i saved my shackles what what you see as the future of the industry. You told me that you've seen it grow in your lifetime. I'm pretty immensely right and right now. It's going through a renaissance of sorts. You know it seems like every day. I'm checking someone new out on on instagram instagram whether it's a small company or a maker or a bigger company. What do you think the industry. Where do you think industries go ahead shoot man. I hope it's not bitch about new blade steels deals but . I don't know i think i really think it's going to move back to a bit of practicality to to be honest honest. That's kinda. Why like getting back to the slip joint topic eight two thousand eighteen seventeen and eighteen was like big years for slipped wins coming. Now we bought ours out. There's a handful of the bigger companies that brought them out before afterwards and all that i saw that is a little bit of a the market going back to his as semi practical move in the sense that a lot of people said hey. I live in the city. I don't need to be working locking knife but i need pretty good knife that i can carry in my pocket probably deep in my pocket. I don't mind opening up two hands. I'd rather not like scare all fifty my office worker workers or like whoever i'm around and when i was in retail carried a little tiny of nundy i was opening guitar boxes or shoebox whatever i could open the knife and have it right under my finger and zip open a box talking to a mother buying her son her first guitar like little kids and they didn't even know i had a knife on me and i'm talking to them. Open up a box so i understand that that practicality in that sense and one side you get just like these real they call it like the custom tactical customize where there like like did he look like fruit loops oops and there's like all these crazy exotic materials that like i can't even word to buy you know there's that side and then you get like another tactic cool side. There's like is dripping and sarah coder or whatever and and not as know knocked us eric make a great product not hitting them but it's like there's sixty thousand angles on the blade and it's like re you can reverse grip four drifted sideways griffin and you're like what is going on here like i think there's a bit of a movement back to some practicality in the in industry . I don't know it's real tough. I i got a real hazy crystal ball if you will you know that's just my point of view is that's kinda. We're we're my perspective is always going to try and keep stay impractical stain like making useful knife and then kind of go out from there you you know we just had the first suspends a clear fifty one hundred bucks in an auction like a one off at blade show. I was dumbfounded. I was stoked to get like fifteen hundred bucks out of it because the heads fancy materials little bidding auction like at our booth collector wanted like that's absurd to me love the guy i know i know very yeah well in the superstock that he did that but like what is this offends a. Maybe it's not coming back to practical. Maybe it's expanding so much that that new people are coming into the into the interest or the hobby or whatever you wanna call it could be you know and and new people are discovering. Oh yeah pocket knives. My grandpa gave me one of those. There's a long time ago.

Maybe i should get now that i have this nice job. Maybe i should get myself a nice little pocket knife. You know like i feel like maybe the market is expanding at the same time as this certain quests for practicality is arising. I think so too. I mean yeah i think you're on the right track and then and then i was thinking about the impending pinga. That's how you pronounce that makes sense. You got a new blood in and you have you see something that's on trend and you guys don't necessarily ever have to be on trend with the body of work you already have and i mean like you said those are classics. Maybe besides a couple of tweaks every ten years or so those things you know it's like a it's like a remington or a mossberg five five hundred you know how how am i going to change that. It's like an awesome design and that's what really so often. Do you need to change it even better. How often do you need to change. Do you need to change angel so that so that people buy it on anything without ball bearings now or easily ignored that for many years yeah. It's a tough question. the trend thing was was funny for us. I mean it just about killed. Bring out that damn knife. It puts so far behind. We've got people you know. People still waiting on order of people are always waiting on orders right. That's a typical thing but it was. It's tough for us to bring out new models. It was just like i don't know. I don't know maybe even looking back. It's like maybe that wasn't a good idea but it obviously is great idea and i'm glad that we brought it out but it's always kinda like insure response to bite off this big piece of steak so so basically what you're saying is totally re work the shop and get everything set up to produce this new knife life and also working out a possible problems or glitches with the knife to begin with it takes so much energy it draws energy away from your regular production action yet the stuff that you have to be re trying out if i if i had a zero backlog you know we could be popping out new models left right and center right tons of stuff in the hopper career great ideas for days but you know there's about but you can't just never bring anything new out my oh man you sit at all the time don't stagnate you gotta bring he stuff out and even if it hurts like you gotta push something out there sometimes and so you know we try and do that even bringing out the thirty one was super tough for us at the end of the day is kind of a consolidation and so it made a lot of sense even consolidated hauer like are approaching the tool in chopping everything in howard tooling and all that so it was a calculated move and i happen to work with the design and all that kind of stuff but it it i. I'm getting gray hairs fascinating. I can tell you that speaking speaking from the perspective of of a collector and just observer of the knife world it also shows that a company cares when they come out with new stuff now that can be taken too far. Sometimes i feel like like kershaw a company that i love z. T. i love but i feel like kershaw comes out with a million new models a year and they're all kind of like piddly but not all like a number of many of them are are cheap. Nice say concentrated down and make better not but that's not their market. I i don't know i. I should not be impugning in kershaw here. That's not my i know. Chris reeve knives comes out with something it shows that you care and you're interested in that like you not only only want to satisfy your customers but you also have a strive. You also have something that you're trying to do a problem that you're trying to solve or whatever it is and coming out with new models battles each time shows that you're interested in that and i think people gravitate to that i mean i've heard nothing but good things about the pizza and tilak i mean people are crazy about it. Personally it does not it does not appeal to me personally but it's i see why people would be into that. 'cause i love different mechanisms and you know often. I loved it when it came out great size wise but like do i carry it every day. No i don't it's just a cool mechanism and there's a place for concept knives some companies they hit two or the pendulum goes too far on that. We're bringing too much new stuff in it feels like they're pushing it down their throat and i'd always want feel wary of that if we ever got to that point point i just don't see that point on the prize just because we can't bring out those models but i i think a lot of times grow in the growth of the company. My folks folks have very flippantly said hey we've gotten here by moore asked in class and it's a very true thing we're just we just try and buckle down and get the best best product out every day that we possibly can and then and then kind of get ahead of water in like look and be like oh okay. Let's go that direction like head back down. He starts swimming again a bit of that and and so. I hope it's very encouraging to hear you say that it that it seems like we care because we're trying to fix a problem that that's both ours the end.

Maybe the customers with a knife. It's like yeah yeah when i say fix a problem. I just it just shows that you're thinking about knives. We have this new problem. I just probably make for yourself to fix and it's like oh. We need to come up with some cool kind of non folding knife because that's where the that's where it's that's where a large portion from the industry is going. I think it's a nimble way of . So where do you aim to take the company in the future just just forward and on. I mean there's not not not a a big wild like hey we're going into you know the cutlery market or the culinary market or or or to make the world's best new hunting knife or something like that it's just forward and on i mean we've got a bunch of different designs throughout the board that we that we'd love love to bring out these little paring knife design. We'd like to bring out but i do have a couple like this next year. I'm hoping the next year instead of bringing another folder for quite a while. I've got three fixed blades. I'd like to bring out. Settle kinda like step in that world and some current designs get cannibalized kinda fled the they wash downstream and the river of time if you will so so be it. That's just kind of what happens but yeah. I mean just onwards and upwards. We're just gonna keep making you know as far as our perspective is the world's best night well. Tim reeves. I i concur with you. Make you make some of the world's best damn night at their thank you in the preparation for this interview has been carrying my benz of the past couple of days and it's it's awesome. I get distracted away to other knives but this knife is amazing and and and and here's a little thing think about this i'm sure you have so i don't mean but in eating see fixed that you can fit in your front pocket in some cool kind of pocket tape sheets. That'd be awesome interesting yet. Yeah mic drop a quick little assigned to that. I found rummaging through drawers vans. I found and i actually have it in. My in my might range bag is so the little pro soldier that knife that we made little skeleton handle designed by artsy. We had a friend that works for the u._s. Border patrol role and he asked chris fruit for a leather sheath with the square and that literally fit that bill n._c. Could stick in your pocket was a little too big to kind entity that practically but hey man i keep it. All keep that up here are tim. I just want to thank you for coming on the knife junkie podcast. It's been a a pleasure speaking with you about while your legacy and you're in the legacy of chris reeve knives and your plans and everything and thanks so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate. She didn't think you guys man. This is this is great great great podcast and as a myself and a couple of other podcast knife podcast guys out there said this is the the golden golden age of knife podcast so would have such a thing would exist right yeah so well. Thank you my pleasure. My pleasure take care of you. Know your knife junkie. If you plan your vacation around the next knife expo welcome back to the knife chunky podcast which is sponsored this week by the get upside app. It's a great way to get cash back on your gas purchases. Get upside is an app that you put on your smartphone. Whenever you need to fill fill up the car the truck the motorcycle just search your area for savings clanger discount. Fill up your tank. Then i have to take a picture of the receipt with your phone that's it you've got cash back. If you wanna get it and i can't imagine anybody that doesn't want to save money on gas visit the knife chunky dot com slash save on gas to get the app and start saving today again cashback for spending something that you gonna do every day getting gas. That's the nine junkie dot com slash save on gas. Ask bob another great show this week interview with tim read chris reeve knives a lot of history there and the great conversation yeah. Jim was really impressed with tim's trajectory projector with the company. Chris reeve knives. He's looking forward to the future and the present you know how can we draw in a new new client base from this huge and growing knife community with social media and with new products and such but he's also holding onto the tradition of the knife of that knife company that was built by his father before him and that is he's continuing to build and i just like the way he's combining tradition with this new reaching forward so what's your collection bob chris reeve knives currently in the future. I mean what are we. What what's your take on christmas eve. I i have one one. I've twenty one to classic knife. It's got the black mccarter inlays and it's you know it's one of my it's one of my favorite knives. It's like the knife. I'll put in my pocket. Get on my daughter's birthday or on christmas or something yeah. I i really i liked the way it feels and it. It has very little flash to it but it's it's it's got solid history and you can feel it and i really love how thinly hollow ground the blade is but yeah that's my single chris reeve knife of course course i'd like to have more i would love to have eight tanto blade of theirs whether it's the the twenty one or the or something like that.

They're all cool. I like like their interpretations that blade shape well thanks to tim for joining us and maybe some more from chris reeve knives in the future as you're looking to uh to thames mom yeah yeah yeah it would be really great to to get a perspective of someone who was there as the as the thing was being created and as the company itself was in its genesis. I'd love to hear about that and also not for nothing. I'd also like to add to my slip joint might right considerable and growing slip joint collection the piazza the the new chris rock knife designed by bilharzia whose lives are so beautiful but yeah. I'd love to have that little sucker in my pocket too but that's an expensive little sucker so for now. I'll have to wait well again as i mentioned in the intro to have of a chris reeve knives or any thoughts about them what you like. Maybe what you don't like or just general thoughts about today's punk ass or anything called the knife junkie listener line at seven two four four six six four four eight seven and let us know about the knife junkie demarco. I'm jim. I want to thank you for listening to the ninth jenky podcast. Thanks for listening to the ninth hunky podcast. If you enjoyed the show please rate and review it review the podcast dot gov for show notes for today's episode additional resources and to listen to past episodes visit our website the knife junkie dot com you can also watch our latest videos on youtube the ninth jokey dot com slash youtube checkouts great night's photos on the knife junkie he dot com slash instagram and join our facebook group but the knife junkie dot com slash baseball and if you have a question or comment email them to bob that the knife jokey dot com or call our twenty four seven listener line at seven two four four six six four four eight seven and you may hear your comment or question answered on upcoming episode of the knife junkie podcast.