Knife Freak Show Podcast - Episode 31

J: What’s up, Knife Freaks, sharpness geeks, and purveyors of stabby goodness? Welcome to the Knife Freak Show!
My name is Jonathan McNees, and my co-host, Mr. Chase Boatright, is in person today.

C: How you doing?

J: I’m good. I’m good. This is a nice little change up here.

C: Yeah.

J: So, we had some stuff going on and worked out that Chase was able to come down to do the podcast and we’ll be filling you guys in on what’s going on, the real reason behind this very soon. So, it’s super exciting. So, just hang tight for that. But as it is, it worked out that we were able to do this.

So, the tradeoff, I guess, is that today we don’t have a ton of time to sneak this in today. So we’re going to try to keep this one kind of short and sweet. And I believe Chase has got some questions that you guys have been asking. We’re going to do basically a short and sweet question and answer session. So, for sure, let’s jump right into it.

C: Yeah. So, all these questions are from Mr. WL Ray, a very good listener and supporter of both of us and I got to meet him at Blade Show this year and always appreciate his input and you know, questions and that sort of stuff because they’re always very well thought out and stuff like that.

So the first one — there is much discussion everywhere about HRC. What do y’all think is optimal and just how important is it for routine daily use such as opening packages and other light cutting tasks?

Also please discuss your favorite steel and why. I suppose y’all can beat this to death. We could. So first off, as far as what is optimal that all depends on the steel. There is no magic number that is optimal for every steel out there. Just wanted to go ahead and put that right out in the open. Any thoughts on that?

J: No, 100%. So look, there are a ton of different factors that go into how a steel performs. And all the different steels are essentially different recipes of combinations of materials, right? And so what an HRC at one number, say 63 on one steel might be close to its optimal, you know, and I say that with air quotes because even that we’ll get into it, but there’s even more factors than that. And what might truly be close to optimal for one steel might be horrible for another steel because they all have different traits, right? Some steels have more toughness. Some steels have more wear resistance and different things like that and stain resistance, all that. And when you start playing with the temperatures, which is what results in the HRC, yeah, it changes those traits. All right.

And so in other words, one steel that might perform great at say 63, if you heated a different steel to 63, it might chip on you the first time you use it, right? There’s a lot of them that would. It’s only been in recent years that we started getting some of these steels that actually performed well at the really high hardness levels like that. I mean, for years, guys, like 59 to 60 was a hard knife blade. This 63–64 stuff that we’re seeing now with MagnaCut and some of the other ones, that’s pretty new. And because if you would have heated those other steels, some of those you could have gotten to that hardness, but if you did, you were having the trade-off of it was more than likely going to be too brittle on most of them.

C: I mean, a lot of steels have what they call a working hardness on the data sheet. And you know, that doesn’t mean they can’t get higher, but that’s sort of where that cross-section of toughness, chippiness, edge retention sort of starts tapering off in one direction or another. And so yeah.

J: It’s not a case of more is better. Definitely. Even with the steels that, you know, even like MagnaCut, they all basically have a sweet spot, right? And that sweet spot is determined by basically trial and error figuring out the right balance. But at the same time, the right sweet spot for one person and for one task might not be the right sweet spot for the next person nor the next task.

Because it depends on what you’re going to be using your knife for. You know, if you’re using a knife that’s heat treated to say MagnaCut at 63 to 64, that’s a pretty good all around. But maybe you’re somebody that uses your knife a lot. Maybe you use it to cut up a whole bunch of cardboard. Well, MagnaCut has good edge retention at 63 to 64, but it’s still going to dull, especially cutting up something like a bunch of cardboard. And so it kind of depends on your skill level and your equipment level and all that on resharpening. You might prefer that it actually is a little less wear resistant but easier to sharpen, while the next person might be great at sharpening or love sharpening or have the right equipment to do it pretty quick and easy and they might not pay that much attention to it and they just want it to have the most wear resistance that it can possibly have. And so all of that stuff is a factor in it. I mean the end use of the knife and the end user are a big part of it.

And again not all steels are at all the same. And they’re all a recipe, a very specific, thought out recipe to get them for whatever. For MagnaCut, it was specifically thought out and come up with to be what Laren Thomas thought would be the ultimate properties for a knife steel essentially. And then my understanding basically is he’s where we got the sweet spot, that from all of his testing and for all the different features that he wanted it to have, the testing resulted in that sweet spot of like 63 to 64. But other steels, like I said, if you took them to 63 to 64 would perform horribly. That would not be their sweet spot.

C: Or they would perform poorly at, you know, they may perform great at a given task like cutting Amazon boxes open all day, cool. But you take it out camping and try to do anything against wood or hard material like that and you all of a sudden have lost, you know, a quarter size chunk of your blade, right? Because it’s too hard. It’s not tough enough to withstand that sort of use.

J: So, yeah. No, that’s exactly. I mean, it all depends on the task. It depends on the steel and they’re just not all the same. So, there definitely cannot be a singular HRC that is the best across the board at 100%. And you might have one steel whose sweet spot, say, MagnaCut 63 to 64. You might have another steel whose sweet spot is 59 to 60. And if you put those steels up against each other and started testing them, they might actually test pretty close as far as their performance results. Despite having a three, four, five degree discrepancy in the hardness, that doesn’t really matter that much as much as it being in the sweet spot for that steel to perform the task that you’re wanting to perform for it.

So you want to, you know, again, think about it like this. If you’re out here at the local drag strip running a car and you’re trying to win a drag race, you need a specific type of tires on the car. You do not need those same tires on the car if you’re going down here to the local mud race and you’re trying to run your 4x4 through a mud pit. Yeah. Two completely different tasks. That would be like saying, “What’s the best tire for racing?” Well, depends on what kind of racing you’re doing. Yeah. If you’re racing, and same thing, drag strip versus NASCAR, two different kinds of tires are going to be on there. So there’s not a one perfect solution for everything. It just depends on the steel. In other words, depends on the car that you’re putting it on, depends on the task that you’re going to be using it for. Same thing with the knife steel. Depends on the steel that you’re using and what the end use is going to be. The task you’re going to put it to.

C: And I will say one last thing on that is just because you know a knife steel is at 62 HRC or 64 HRC, pick a number. Just because they are at 64 HRC, ABL at 64 HRC and MagnaCut at 64 HRC are not necessarily going to perform exactly the same because they are different compositions of material. They have different formulas therein. Just because you cook a pizza at 400 for 15 minutes and a cake at 400 for 15 minutes does not mean those two things are going to taste the same. It’s not necessarily the end result of how hard it is. It’s how those things are composed within them that make up the performance and then of course the geometry and all the other things that go into it.

J: Yeah. So the hardness is essentially a measurable indicator of where that steel is at for its specific recipe, right? So it gives you an idea of, okay, this steel, and again through testing and stuff like back to MagnaCut, you know, Laren Thomas tested it and determined that there was a sweet spot for it. That sweet spot for that steel is great, but it’s still specific to that blend of materials that make that steel. Mhm. So, I think that explains it pretty well. Yeah.

C: All right. So, next part of that question. Do you have a favorite steel and why?

J: Yes and no. You mentioned this before, but yeah. Yes and no. It again goes back to what I’m planning on using a knife for, and whether we’re talking about on a knife that I’m going to use or whether we’re talking about me getting spam phone calls. Getting spam. Dude, it has been non-stop. I think that’s the eighth one since I’ve been here. Yeah, it’s been awful. Anyway, so it depends on whether you’re talking about from the aspect of me using a knife steel or working with a knife steel because those are two different things because some of the really high performing steels are also a total pain in the ass to work with. So, I may dislike it from a maker standpoint but love it from a user standpoint and vice versa.

C: That’s 3V for me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

J: And I do. So again, for my pocket knives at this point, I’m on the MagnaCut train. I like MagnaCut a lot. There’s other steels I really like, but MagnaCut’s pretty hard to beat at this point for me. For a fixed blade, it would kind of depend. If it was like a small, pocket size fixed blade, maybe I’d probably still go with MagnaCut. You start getting up into some of the bigger fixed blades and stuff, especially if I’m gonna be using it for chopping and stuff like that, I’d probably take 3V all day. So, I like that steel a lot. It takes a really good edge. And then there’s other steels that I like for various reasons, but if I had to pick two for a pocket knife, probably MagnaCut; for a medium to bigger fixed blade, I’d probably pick 3V.

C: Yeah, I agree. I mean, good choices. If I had to take just one steel, I mean, I don’t know. I would probably still delineate if I could, but CTS-XHP has always been one of my favorites, especially as a user. That was the first, I think, powder metallurgy super steel I ever owned in a knife in a Cold Steel Code 4 back in the day. And I used the crap out of that thing and I loved it and I still love it even as a maker. I love working with it. I love using it. It’s really great steel all the way around. And if I had to go more tool steel, chopping, toughness even on a folder or small fixed blade, I like CPM CruWear which is very very close to 3V. It’s just like the edge retention and toughness get moved one point one way or another. I think CruWear technically has a little bit better edge retention, a little bit less toughness, whereas 3V is the opposite. So, that’s sort of where I land is basically in the same boat: a good all-around stainless and very tough, awesome tool steel. So, yeah.

J: All right.

C: Next question. Are there any new developments either current or on the horizon with regards to knife making including but not limited to steels, knife making materials such as scales and other components, lock designs, deployment methods, or anything else you can think?

J: Wait, what?

C: That’s a loaded question.

J: Is there anything new on the—so wait, are we asking like new stuff that we’re going to be starting to do or new stuff just in general in the industry coming?

C: I’m taking it sort of as on the horizon. Yeah, choose your own adventure. I don’t know. Ask Mr. Ray. He knows.

The only new development that I know of right now as far as like a new steel or new anything like that is MagnaMax is supposed to be coming and I really don’t know that much about it. I just know it’s coming. And I don’t know, with the whole Crucible situation, where it’s at. I know it was developed and Crucible did a test pour and all that sort of stuff and I think Spyderco a couple weeks ago did their Mule batch in it.

J: From Niagara—I forget what the time frame was—but it’s got to be coming up here within the next couple of months from what they told me. They would be starting to have it. It was late this year that they were planning on having it. Now how available it’s going to be I don’t know. Yeah, obviously, Spyderco’s big enough that they probably got some of the first dibs on it or whatever. But yeah, from what Niagara told me, it was going to be late this year that they were looking to start rolling it out.

C: Nice. Do you know anything more about that steel because I really haven’t looked at formula? I don’t know if it’s a tool steel or stainless or I don’t know anything.

J: I’ve been meaning to either try to find some information or just ask them at Niagara about it and I need to, but I had too many other irons in the fire and too many other pressing problems to worry about that I hadn’t paid that much attention to it. But I do need to look at it, especially since I’ve got enough MagnaCut on hand or on order to last for a while. So, I can probably start looking and thinking about some other stuff now.

C: Which y’all used some XHP a little while back.

J: Yeah, we did. We’ve got basically—so we get all the MagnaCut sent out to Peter’s Heat Treat for heat treat. It’s a more complicated steel, a little bit more complicated to heat treat and all that. And just to be honest, everybody’s so picky about the hardness on them and everything that I would just rather send them to the professionals and get them done. XHP is a steel that I’m comfortable heat treating in house and we’re not going to do it in large volumes. But that was essentially for one thing: so that we could offer something different because not everybody wants MagnaCut all the time. Some people don’t ever want MagnaCut. There’s a few haters out there. But I needed something at the time. We were having some trouble with, you know, like we’d get hung up either with heat treat or somebody running out of, you know, getting low on blades. And so I needed something that we could have that if we got low on blades, heat treat got hung up for an extra couple of weeks or something and we started running low on blades, that we could have some that we could just heat treat ourselves and skip the lead time, the turnaround time on those or whatever.

C: Yeah, you’re talking about a day or two for heat treat versus, I’m guessing, a week or two weeks. Couple of weeks.

J: Yeah, we’re usually on a couple of week turnaround on heat treat. So yeah, it could—we could—basically it would still probably slow us down, but if we saw the bottleneck coming far enough ahead, we could go ahead and start heat treating them and have them…

C: Better to be slowed down a little bit instead of coming to a brick wall stop, you know.

J: Yeah. So, it’s kind of to have a little bit of variety, but also to give us a little bit of a cushion in case we needed something that we could pull off the shelf, heat treat and grind, and within—if we pulled them off shelf, started heat treating them—if we’ve got the blanks sitting out there ready, if we pulled them off the shelf and heat treated them, we could be grinding them and putting them in knives by either the next day or at most two days later. Yeah. So, inside a week, we could go from un-heat-treated blanks to finished product. So that was our main thinking on that.

C: Yeah. So it just came to mind because I said XHP.

J: Yeah. And it was cool to do something. I want to do some other small runs of stuff too. I’ve had more than one person mention 3V. So we’re probably going to start doing some of that kind of stuff too—some very small runs of different steels just to keep it mixed up.

C: Yeah. I mean I think people like that. I mean there are people that have a Paramilitary 2 in 30 different steels because that’s fun for them. So yeah.
The only other, I guess, new material I’ve seen lately is a company called GripX. It was formerly Grip Tec. It’s a smallish— I mean I think he’s moving into a new facility and hiring new employees and stuff, but it’s rubber infused inside like a resin matrix or something like that. And it’s an interesting material to work with. I’ve seen a lot of custom makers using it and I haven’t seen it too much in the—

J: Yes. This is not that crap we used that pissed me off so bad.

C: No, this is not that. That was not good. Okay. Yeah.

J: Go ahead and then we’ll tell what I’m talking about.

C: No, this is different stuff. You’ve probably seen it, just not known what it is, but it just looks like a bunch of little black dots like rubber pellets, I guess, thrown into it. They’re very small and adds a really interesting texture. I’ve used a little bit of it, but it’s not Micarta, so it wasn’t my jam. That’s just kind of how I roll. But yeah, that’s the only other thing I’ve seen lately.

I haven’t really seen any new deployment methods. I mean, there’s thumb studs, thumb holes, front flippers, back flippers, and besides that, you got an automatic or a nail nick, I guess. Yeah. And—yeah. So, yeah.

J: I’m sure somebody will come up with something new, you know, a pinky flicker or something down the road, but there’s—yeah.

C: I got bored the other day in CAD and put an opening hole, a thumb stud, a front flipper, and a regular flipper on one model just to kind of see what it looked like.

J: Some people would absolutely love it.

C: Oh, they—yeah, there are definitely people who just want all the ways. And yeah, I understand that. I used to sit and find out I could finger flick with every finger at one point. Now I’ve lost some dexterity, but gained some strength, so that’s all good.
So anyway, tell your rubber banana story.

J: Oh yeah. I don’t remember the name of the stuff and I don’t really want to dog it out anyway but it was a material that—oh I remember the name—similar, but it was instead of being little rubber pellets infused in, it was layers of rubber. Kind of—I mean all this stuff that we’re using like Micarta and G10 is essentially layers of some sort of material layered with epoxy and really high pressure to make it a solid substance. This had layers of rubber in it and it felt really cool. When you ground into it and contour the handle and stuff, it didn’t feel like pure rubber but it literally felt like a combination of G10 and rubber.

C: Yeah. I mean that’s what it was. It was G10, rubber, G10, rubber in really thin layers.

J: You’d hold it and it wasn’t squishy like rubber, but it had grip to it. So, it felt like G10 with grippiness to it. I thought it should give a little better—especially for bigger knives like choppers—it should give you a little better shock absorption and stuff through it. People have used horse stall mat for years on competition knives for that reason.

So really I thought it was a cool material and we were actually working on a— we’ve got a guy that we’ve worked with several times, he’s a former SEAL and he does some charity stuff, and it was some knives for a charity event for him, some fixed blades we were doing. We were running down to the wire on getting them done and we used that material because it was new. It was cool. Especially for military-minded folks, cool grippy material like that I thought would be awesome. We glued them up. We glued up the whole batch. It was several knives. I don’t remember how many it was, but it was several. Thirty maybe, something like that.

C: And it was right after we moved into the shop.

J: Yeah, it was. Yeah. That was quite the intro into being in this shop. We got them all glued up and the next day or whatever, once the epoxy set and everything, we got to looking at them and they had gaps.

C: I thought we weren’t going to glue them up to begin with. I thought we were just going to use the— I think we were.

J: That’s right. Yeah. We were going to just use Gulo bolts. We weren’t planning on using epoxy. I was going to make the handles detachable. We were going to use Gulso bolts which are basically like a pivot—two sides, male, female, that screw together and hold it on there. We went to screw them. We fit everything up, everything looked good. But when we went to screwing them together, there were gaps between the material and the tang. No matter what we did as far as tightening those bolts, you could not tighten them enough; in between the bolts, there were still gaps. So, we ended up having to go to plan B and epoxy all of them. And like I said, we were running really last minute and it had to be done by a certain time to get to him for the event or the whole thing was useless.

So anyway, if I had to use it again now knowing that I need to just epoxy it from the get-go, it probably wouldn’t be that big of a deal. But at the time it definitely was a bad taste.

C: Yeah, it was rough because it was an introduction into a new material and all we got was issues.

J: Should have gone with something I was used to. Lesson learned. These things happen. Moving along.

C: All right. So, what is your favorite sheath material and what is your favorite sheath design? Can you discuss methods of sheath retention, including pros and cons of each and show some examples? Woo. I have some examples just from—

J: Man, he’s asking us do homework and everything. Dude, you trying to work us.

C: I didn’t think about this question when I brought these knives, but I just so happen to have pretty much examples of the things that we need.

So “favorite” is a loaded question in terms of anything really, I guess, but if I had my druthers, I would probably say leather is my favorite sheath material. I generally prefer it in terms of the fact that I’m a custom maker at my core at the moment. Anything that doesn’t scratch the blade is good for me. And when you spend a couple hours of your life hand rubbing and etching, especially like a hamon or a Damascus or something like that, and then you put it in Kydex and it scratches it in about 2 minutes, that’s rough. So leather generally doesn’t do that. However, leather doesn’t generally have the retention or the modularity that Kydex offers. So, it’s all about what you deem as most important in your carry method.

Generally, a lot of people don’t like a pouch leather style sheath like this. It’s just sort of drop in. That’s old school in a lot of people’s minds. I like it. I carry one. I’ve got a Mudlark on my hip right now in that. But also in the front I’ve got a Kydex sheath as well.

J: So he’s showing off.

C: I am a little bit. But you know, there’s pancake Kydex style like this that’s two pieces smooshed together on the knife and then riveted—which are called eyelets actually—but essentially riveted together. That’s how I made sheaths for a long time. Now I make them taco style where I take one piece of Kydex and fold it over. It eliminates these top eyelets. Just makes the sheath in general a little bit slimmer. With Kydex you generally get a lot more retention; as far as it won’t fly out, it won’t do things like that. But with leather, you get less scratchy and I tend to think of it as a little more refined carry method. And nowadays they’ve got all the pocket sheaths with different Ulticlips and DCC clips and all those other sorts of attachments. I just rambled a bunch of sheaths.

J: What he said. Okay. Pretty much. Yeah. I mean, so I like—from strictly, and again, it all goes back to whether we’re talking about for carrying them, for working with them, for making them, whatever. Be honest with you, I don’t like making any of them. So, there’s that. I’m not really a sheath maker. I would love to maybe have an in-house sheath maker at some point, especially for leather, but it ain’t going to be me. Other than straight up Kydex like this one—I was just looking at this Miller Brothers that he brought—it’s cool. It’s technically a Kydex sheath, but it has leather attachment and stuff. It’s got a belt loop and a fire steel loop out of leather. I really like the looks and the functionality of the hybrid. Some other sheaths that I really like and am planning on using as soon as we can get more fixed blades going are the Chattanooga Leather Works sheaths. I think they— I don’t know if they use some Kydex in theirs.

C: I can’t remember.

J: But they’re primarily leather sheaths, not made like a traditional leather sheath that’s just stitched together. They have hardware; they use bolts and stuff along with the stitching. They’ve got more of a tactical industrial look that I really like. And they’re really functional too. So yeah, echo everything he said. Kydex sheaths: great for retention and easy access points or attachment points. You have more flexibility with what you’re going to do with attachments. The trade-off is most of the time they’re going to be rougher on your blade finish. Leather also—if you put a knife in there with some moisture—can be rough on your finish and end up with stains.

C: Kydex can be that way too. It can. But leather will definitely absorb moisture and can be harmful to non-stainless or if you’re in a wet environment. If you just got done skinning a deer and you put it back in a leather sheath, unless it’s H1 from Spyderco, it’s probably going to have some corrosion that comes along with it.

J: And the sheath itself on the inside is going to be harder to clean. Whereas you can wash out a Kydex sheath and then let it dry really well. It’s hard to do that with a leather sheath.

C: Definitely. But anyway, I like how a lot of modern makers are doing hybrid stuff to eliminate some variables. With a traditional leather sheath like this, you put your belt through it and that’s how you carry it. Some guys are using the eyelet method to put their sheaths together now, and that way you have more modularity. You can put a scout loop on it. You can put an Ulticlip on it if you want to put it in your pocket or whatever. I like that new hybrid style because you get the best of both worlds.

But one thing I did want to mention while we’re on sheaths is some of the people out there making sheaths today seem to have forgotten the purpose of a sheath, and that is to not cut yourself—to have a safe way to carry your knife and not cut yourself. Same thing as a detent in a folding knife. The whole purpose it has that detent—even though we like it and it’s clicky and it’s the action—is to stay closed so you don’t bleed. There seem to be a few leather makers out there that have forgotten that. Be wary of that in your adventures in the knife world.

J: First and foremost, it needs to protect you first and the knife second, and then the rest is personal preferences.

C: You need to make sure your leather’s thick enough that it’s not going to be stabbed through easily.

J: We got time for probably about one more. Well, I think that’s it from Mr.— Oh, our homework is done, I believe.

C: So, we may have some other questions. I don’t have my thing queued up that I normally have. I normally have a little side notes bar with all my old questions.

J: That’s fine. Well, since we skipped straight to the questions and didn’t do any “what’s going on in the shop” or anything like that, we can just do that at the end here then.
So, what have you had going on last week or so?

C: Been making fixed blades this week. Been working on a bunch of compound grinds and doing some, like, my compound scales, I guess you would call them. Yeah. You know, bolstered scales.

J: I saw some of your pictures.

C: Yeah. Been playing with epoxy all week is what it feels like. And grinding blades. Dirty week. Yeah, for sure. Monday was a good grinding day. It had to unfortunately end short because I only had one 220 grit belt and zero 400 grit belts. So, unfortunately my good grinding day got stopped. Some days you’re just on; you’re in there, you’re dialed in, and then you kind of have to run into a wall. The day either ends or you run out of stuff to grind. Unfortunately, I ran out of belts, but I got everything ground that I needed to get ground. I still had to go back and touch them up after that, yesterday whenever I got belts in. But it wasn’t too big of a problem. Had to get back in the groove a little bit and find out where I was on Monday, especially with those duplex grinds—having to match all those lines from side to side. You’ve got essentially four plunges and four top lines and all that. Trying to match it up and marry it up and—yeah, that’s always fun.

J: You better be on top of your game when you’re doing those. For sure.

C: Yeah. I have a tendency to walk in there and be a little too willy-nilly at times with those, because I have to dial in and focus.

Yeah. But what you been up to this week?

J: Not a lot. I was on vacation, which, you know, we said that’s why we didn’t have the podcast last week. We just got back. I was back at work for the first day yesterday on Thursday. We’re recording this on Friday. So, got back, kind of evaluated everything with shops. Shop’s kind of torn apart right now. We’ve got actually two things coming Monday. I just found out about the second one a few minutes ago. We’ve got another, a new CNC coming, a new mill. Same—just another one like we already got. We’re adding more capacity. Got one more of those coming Monday being delivered. Hopefully by the end of the week, we’ll be completely set up with it running and all. You’ve got to come in after it’s delivered and get it hooked up and then the Haas tech has got to come out and do his thing and set it up and then we can start actually running it and making parts. So, hoping by the end of the week we’ll be making parts on it.

And then, we’ve ordered a new—just a blast cabinet thing. If it works out good and all that, we’ll talk about it, go in depth more. It’s supposed to be a somewhat automated blast cabinet that we’ve been waiting on that is also going to happen to get here Monday, too, looks like. So, big day of moving. And that’s not a really big piece of equipment, but still—

C: It could be huge.

J: I’m excited to see how well it— it could be a huge impact. It’s not a physically big piece of equipment. But yeah, that could help us out a lot if it can basically— it’s kind of like putting parts in the microwave or whatever. You put them in there and set the timer and then come back and they’re supposedly done and ready to go a few minutes later. So that time somebody’s standing there at the blast cabinet manually blasting it—that’s 15 minutes while it’s going—that’s 15 minutes they can be doing something else.

C: That’ll probably help their mental health, too. I’ll tell you what, blasting clips is not fun. No. Small parts like that—

J: You barely have room to hold on to them and blast; your fingers are in the way and you’re in there with big old bulky rubber gloves. It’s not fun. It’ll definitely—it should definitely—if it works as advertised, then yeah, it’ll help a lot. As a matter of fact, if it works as advertised, we may end up with two or three of them before it’s over. Just to keep capacity going.

So, got that going. And of course, we have a big—by the time you see this, it will have already happened—but we have a big Dixon, Frag Dixon drop coming up tomorrow on Friday. So, I’m anxious to see how that goes. That’s today. Yeah. Today, so yeah, my bad. Well, like I said, it’ll be over by the time you guys hear or see this. So, doesn’t matter. But yes, today—coming back off vacation at the end of the week has got me totally messed up—but today we have our first drop of Frag Dixon. I’m really excited about that. I’m really tickled with how they’ve come out. I’m excited. I’m really excited about that.

But that’s pretty much it. So we’re just going to keep hammering down mainly on Dixons—frags and the smooth ones. We’re doing some more engraved ones and got some other stuff coming down the line in the not too distant future, but there are still too many chances for plot twists between now and then to be talking about them. So, we’ll see.

C: What was that guy that did—dang it—that movie with Bruce Willis and the kid who could see dead people?

J: Oh, yeah.

C: Yeah, that director that loved plot twists. Yeah, that’s how the knife making world operates. It’s like you’re in a—dang it—M. Night Shyamalan. There you go. Yeah. That’s knife making, I guess just owning a business—you’re in an M. Night Shyamalan movie all the time just waiting for the plot twist pretty much.

J: So yeah, that’s right. So we’ll see how it goes. If we don’t have too many horror stories, we’ve got some more new stuff. I’m on a mission to expand our catalog, expand our offerings and stuff. And part of that starts with getting more capacity for machines. And next podcast we do—well, not to let too much out of the bag, but—down the road when we talk like this again, I’ve got some stuff I want to talk about, some realizations I’ve had about machine time and pricing. I’ve talked about it some before, but it’s become very apparent with starting to do different models and stuff like that. It’s pretty eye opening.

So anyway, all right. I think we’re probably about to have to wrap it up because we have a prior commitment that we’ve got to take care of here. And you’ll know about that soon. Let’s just say the Knife Freak Show is going places.

C: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Going places for sure.

J: All right. So, we do have Salt Lake City Blade West coming up. We do. Chase, like he said before, won’t be there, but I’ll be there. Plan on having—besides our knife stuff—we’re planning on having some show merch there. So please come by and get that and it’ll all—I don’t think we’re planning on selling anything. It’ll all be freebies. So make sure you come by and get some stuff to help you represent the show and tell us what was good, bad, and ugly about it. Good, good, bad, and ugly. I’m just kidding.

All right. So, I think on that note, since I’m down to the kindergarten level here, I guess we’ll wrap it up. We appreciate you guys and we should have another episode out next week and hope you have a great week.

C: Yeah. Any comments, questions, or concern, hit us at the email knifefreakshow@gmail.com and let your freak flag fly.