November 1, 2023 • 43 mins
Join us on a cutting-edge episode where talk all things knives with Evan Seimbida, a master craftsman from Siembida Custom Knives. If you've ever wondered about the intricate details of knives, the importance of ergonomics, or the pros and cons of different blade options, you're about to discover a wealth of knowledge. Evan, with his deep expertise, guides us through a lively discussion, offering insights on the recent trend shift from replaceable blade knives to fixed blade options.
Our conversation doesn't stop at blades, we also carve our way through the complex world of knife steels and the importance of finding a balanced steel that suits your specific needs. Evan introduces his Magpie model, a versatile do-it-all knife that embodies the principles of balance and multifunctionality. We talk the significance of ergonomics in knife selection. We share our favorite handle materials, ranging from carbon fiber and G-Carta to stabilized woods and ivory. So, join us for a conversation that's sure to be a cut above the rest for both knife enthusiasts and novices alike.
- Book a Hunt
- Shop Amazon Store
- Please Leave Us a Review on your podcast platform!
- You can also WATCH our hunting FILMS on CarbonTV and YouTube.
- Visit our website to submit a question, give feedback or request a topic > http://www.jordan-budd.com
- Follow me on Instagram @jordan.budd and Facebook, at Jordan Budd.
- Thank you to our partners:
- First Lite Clothing
- Sig Sauer Cross / Optics
- OnX Maps
- Reveal Trail Cameras
- Ollin Digiscoping | Use code JBUDD for 20% off + Free Shipping
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's going on everybody?
Welcome back to the toolkit onJordan bud.
And today we have a super coolguest, evan Sambita of Sambita
custom knives.
He is out in the east.
He does custom knife work witha bunch of different kinds of
steels, different designs,different handle options and
Completely custom.
So I had him on on the rockcast quite a while back.
(00:23):
I think that you can dig intorock slide and find the archives
.
You can dig up that episode ifyou want.
But we're gonna talk with himagain today.
I thought he'd be an awesomeguest to have on.
We're gonna discuss, likeergonomics of knives, you know,
choosing the right knife for thejob, what he, you know, really
(00:44):
likes as far as backcountryknives versus Frontcountry
knives.
We also dig in a little bit onreplaceable blade knives and why
why each of us don't reallylike them, kind of the evolution
everybody was using thosereplaceable blade knives and now
it seems like everybody's kindof going back over to Fix blade
(01:05):
options.
So that's really interesting.
We're gonna talk aboutdifferent kinds of steel options
, that you have some of thepluses and minuses of all of
those, and we're gonna talk alittle bit about sharpening as
well.
So Real quick, I got a questionon Instagram this morning that
(01:25):
related to knives, so I thoughtthat it was kind of interesting
what do you use for a knifesharpener?
And he says thanks and cheersfrom Alberta.
So this relates right to thisepisode.
So I like this sharpener righthere.
It whoops this way and it'sbackwards because the camera
(01:48):
makes it backwards, but it's theguided field sharpener from
work sharp sharpeners a thing Ireally like about it as it has
Like it has your knife guides,so it has a guide.
Here it says 20 degree guide,so it you can lay your knife on
the side of it.
(02:08):
Let's see, here I Can lay yourknife on the side of it.
It would give you that angleguide and it has.
It has kind of a rougherdiamond on one side and a fine
diamond on the other and then ithas a ceramic portion here on
the top it has your ceramic andthen here it has a leather strap
(02:29):
, so Really lightweight, reallypretty small.
I won't always take this thingwith me like in my pack out in
the field, but I will have it inthe vehicle all the time.
So if we get back and I cantouch it up, or if I'm bored
Sometimes I'll just sharpen andwe'll touch it up.
So yeah, this is, they'repretty dang cheap and they're
(02:54):
small and they're just nice tohave around, so that's that's
what I like to use.
So, without anything, I guess,left to cover, we are going to
dive right in with Evan.
All right, we are back withEvan.
(03:18):
Some beta of some beta customknives.
Dude, I haven't talked to youin like Years.
I think the last time we talkedyou were getting ready to go
full-time with the shop, right?
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Yeah, it's been a minute.
Yeah, yeah, it's been a minute,but things have changed a lot.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
All better.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
but yeah, I'm full-time and I don't have a
side hustle or anything rightnow, it's just so fun, we were
talking, a little pre recording,about how nice it is having
your own business.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Like there are some downsides, definitely, but like
we were talking about how niceit is to be able to have some
freedoms, to be able to go, likewhen you have to be home you
have to be there and working,but it lets you go do other
things that you normally likeyou'd have to approve time off
for months in advance.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Oh, yeah, like when I worked at the factory job I
used to have like you'd have toget permission.
I felt like I was a kid, youknow, living with my parents.
I'd ask permission anytime Iwanted to do anything.
And yeah, now, like I saidbefore we start recording, like
I'd be a terrible employee atthis point, like I'm so used to
the freedom.
It's insane.
I want to do something, I justdo it.
You know, like I've had timeswhere I've worked all week and
(04:25):
then all weekend and then allthe next week and then taken
like two weeks off.
And then I've had times whereI've woken up sick and I'm like
I'm sick, I'm just gonna workSaturday, like no approval
needed, just do what needs to be, done and it's been working.
It's been pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yeah, it's so, yeah, it's so nice.
I couldn't imagine going backeither.
It'd be awful.
But yeah, anyways, we're gonna.
We're gonna talk about knives.
So what's like, what's new inthe in the custom?
Are you still just doing likeall made to order?
Are you still, before you were,doing like you would make kind
of a cool knife and then youjust put it up for sale on
(05:00):
Instagram?
Are you still doing that?
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Well, I'm doing a little bit of both and then I've
got a third option I just addedin.
So about 75% of what I do iscustom order.
So I've got a wait list andthat's about eight months out
right now to get a custom order.
And then I do every week, justabout every week, I do what I
call open sale knives, which iswhat you're describing.
I do something that just soundslike fun and I put it up for
(05:25):
sale and then and that might belike it might be anywhere on the
spectrum From mild to wild, itmight be, you know, a budget
build, it might be reallyexpensive Just whatever I feel
like using that week, and then Ioccasionally do Well, now it's
trying to do every week now whatI call a stock knife and I have
two different models that aremy most popular models and I'm
(05:46):
just doing.
They're all exactly the same.
So they're all in my stockstandard option steel.
They're all an odd drab G10with carbon fiber pins and a
black sheath.
And the idea is, if I make twoor three every single week, if I
have a customer call in and say, hey, I know it's last second,
but I've got a mule deer huntnext week.
Can I buy something?
Well, you can get this, yeah,and it gives you a good feel for
(06:06):
what my stuff is like, and then, if you like it a lot, which I
hope you do, come back and buy acustom next year.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Perfect.
Yeah, dude, that's a great idea.
So, yeah, I just I wanted towalk through a little bit on
like what we covered last time.
So I had you back on the rockcast when I was hosting that and
I thought like we had such acool conversation about knives
and I listened back to it acouple days ago and one thing
that was kind of cool I thoughtthis that stuck out to me was
(06:36):
you were talking about howknives are.
Like you know, people put somuch Emphasis and time and money
into other portions of gear andit seems like people are
starting to do that with their,their knives, and I think even
more so now.
Like replaceable blade.
Knives used to be the thing,like everybody was.
(06:58):
You know different companies.
We're trying to make differenthandles for the blades and all
this stuff, and now it seemslike it's starting to shift back
over towards a good fixed blade.
And have you seen that shift?
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Big time.
Like it's interesting, becausewhenever I started this is like
a hobby, that's like you'resaying like there's a few people
that used fixed blades but noneof them used custom work, none
of them used semi, like smallproduction shop stuff.
There was always like a buck orcase, a Little bit of bench
made and then it was.
If it wasn't one of those, itwas a replaceable blade knife
(07:32):
and yeah, everybody likes howwell they cut until they lose a
blade in the gut cavity or breakone and you know have to deal
with that, you know in the coldand your fingers don't work
right.
And yeah, I've seen a heavyshift towards fixed blades again
.
Yeah, it's, it's so interesting.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
What are your, what are your thoughts on just
replaceable blades, like ingeneral?
You just touched on one problemwith them breaking the tips out
.
I've had broken tips and hadthem fly back towards me.
Yeah, I'm not a big fan.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
I totally see their benefits.
I'm Like I've got a buddy who'sa taxidermist and he uses a
scalpel all the time when he'sdoing, you know, like skinning
out heads and stuff like that.
But I mean, even he'll tell youlike it's not as effective.
In my opinion, and his opiniontoo, it's not as effective as a
fixed blade for for skinning.
It's just so much like faster,it's more effective, it's more
(08:26):
ergonomic to use a fixed bladewhenever you're skinning and
that's what we're doing in thefield Is we're breaking down
animals, we're not skinningfaces out.
I mean, you can keep youranimal in the field too.
But that's like 5% of the job,like right.
The other 95% is deboning,skinning, you know, working on
bone joints, separating, bonejoints.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Yeah yeah, and like you said, the ergos Just having
a better handle and Something toyou know everybody.
For a while, like with thereplaceable blade kind of
movement I guess, if you will itpeople wanted to go to Really
lightweight, like skeletonizedhandles, and those things were
hard to hang on to.
(09:05):
Especially you get like allgrisly and fat and stuff on your
hands and it's like there it'stough to hang on to.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
So yeah, well, like the selling point was always how
light they are.
Like, oh, look at this, yeah,this, the knife, including the
sheet, is like 1.2 ounces.
And then all the people thatwould get them would get them,
and then they would stuff stuffinto the skeletonized holes and
then wrap it In paracord.
So they had this bigger,bulkier handle and they're like,
oh, it's great.
Now it's like not always threeounces.
You just totally undideverything that you said you
(09:33):
wanted to buy.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
You know, yeah, yeah.
And then it went from that tolike, alright, I'm gonna take a
replaceable blade and I'm gonnatake a fixed blade, like I was
on that for a while, I'll admit,yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
So yeah, a lot of a lot of folks, a lot of folks it
I've noticed a lot over the lastcouple years have said well,
yeah, I like the idea of a fixedblade.
I don't want to sharpen mystuff in the field, so that's
why I take replaceable blades.
And I think most people don'trealize just how good some
steels can be and I think mostfolks their experience.
(10:06):
Yeah, most folks experienceslike buck or case and I'm not
crapping on buck or case, butthose are like consumer grade
steels.
They're very, very low qualitywhen it comes to like how they
score an edge retention andthings like that that.
Everything they care about withwith case and buck with the
majority of their stuff, is howEconomically can we produce it
and is it gonna rust wheneversomebody puts it through the
(10:27):
dishwasher?
That's all they care about.
And Some of the new steels wehave now, like Magna cut it's
absurd the edge retention thatyou can get out of them.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yeah, I want to.
I want to talk about that too,and we're gonna dig, yeah, we're
gonna dig in.
All that stuff is so I don'tknow.
It's so interesting.
But one question I wanted Iwanted to lead with with you is
like what's the most annoyingemail you get about?
Speaker 3 (10:52):
knives.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Just oh, guaranteed.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Hands down.
My favorite question is whatare your knives cost?
I'm like that's like the mostblanket question in the world.
Like you wouldn't go to a cardealer and be like what's a
vehicle cost?
Like what do you want?
Like you said before, you wantan F-150.
Do you want a Ferrari?
You want a smart car.
Like what are your goals?
And Like then I have to respondwith that.
(11:16):
And then they say I just want aprice list.
And I'm like so I got a breakdown all 30, some of my models.
I actually lost count where I'mat.
I'm always putting on new stuffand, and you know, being custom
, like you can't just give aprice for a model.
There's a price for the modelwhere it starts and then where
it might top out.
But then if you have a customerthat has really extravagant
taste, that can bump up evenmore, so it's Ah, just the the
(11:41):
broad question of how muchsomething costs, it's like, ah,
and it's not anybody's fault,it's usually it's somebody's
first custom knife.
So right, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Yeah, I can understand it, but I think the
problem with just price shoppingon stuff like that is you're
gonna end up buying a knife offa price and it's not gonna be
like the night, the, the, thebetter option for the
application that you're using itin like I.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
I remember last time.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Yeah, I remember last time we talked we were talking
about, I think, blade.
We were just talking aboutknives in general, how big some
of them can be and like Doingthe outfitting and stuff.
Like I've gotten people thathave Huge knives, like huge
blades that I've used to liketry to get something and it's
hard to like.
That is not the knife for thatjob.
(12:30):
I don't think just you know,like legit six inch plus Blades
and it's, it's just too much.
And like really big bulkyhandles Trying to move in and
out of places.
It's just rough, rough to workthose things.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Oh yeah, like everybody always asked me what I
like in the the backcountry andlike I Stuff's little the stuff
I prefer.
Yeah, you know personally.
You know little tiny guys, sixand a half inches overall, two
and three-quarter inch blade andmost, most folks want something
like Gigantic and it's likejust, you can do it, but it's
(13:06):
like that's not what you want.
We're not cutting steaks andstuff in the field, we're
skinning, you know yeah, yeah,yeah, yeah for sure.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
So can we dive into that a little more like choosing
the right knife for the job?
And another thing, too is I I'ma big fan, especially a lot of
folks I feel like that arewatching this or like just
getting into it or just tryingto go, you know, up and in, like
just Make their gear a littlebetter and like most people
(13:35):
can't buy two right.
Or at least right off the bat.
So like I'm a big proponent andlike what is one really kind of
do-it-all design In your mindto make it like, if you're just
gonna buy one to do pretty mucheverything?
What would that look like?
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Well, if you're gonna do like one for everything and
you're, you're makingcompromises at that point, yeah,
so you're not going ultra light, you're not going super heavy,
you're kind of going in themiddle.
That'd be something like this,which is my magpie model, and
it's about a little over eightinches long, about eight and a
half inches long with a threeand a half inch blade.
It's not the lightest knife,it's extremely ergonomic.
(14:15):
I think that's probably my mostergonomic handle when it comes
to stuff for breaking downanimals and in fact, I skinned
deer for a deer processorwhenever I have free time and
that's the knife I reach forevery time, and I'm talking like
20, 25 deer a day.
You know skinning.
Yeah and you know that's theknife I want, but it does leave
(14:37):
some stuff at the table.
You know it's a little bitsmall, for you know if you're
gonna be doing breaking downstuff in the kitchen when you
get back.
And it's a little bit big foryou know.
I mean it's not too big to doit, but it's a little heavy
whenever you're packing as lightas you can to go up above the
tree line.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
You yeah, gotcha.
So what should people like havean internal conversation with
themselves about when they'regoing to look at something Like
you know there's, like you'regetting ready to go to Idaho on
a hunt that'll probably be a badcountry, like, so you're
thinking about that.
Some folks are just thinkingabout hey, I just want you a
(15:14):
knife to gut a white tail or amule deer in the field, and then
I'm taking my deer, theprocessor, so I don't really
have to worry about anythingafter that.
Can you talk about like thosetwo things and what you would
start thinking about as far aschoosing a knife for both those
applications?
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Yeah, well, so for, like the front country hunter,
which most of us are, I mean, Imostly think about ergonomics
and a knife blade shape thatlends its weld to skinning
without poking into the guts.
I know everybody likes guthooks, but with a properly
shaped blade you really don'tneed a good hook and it's just
something that's a pain tosharpen.
(15:52):
That night, the same knife Iwas showing the magpie.
That's kind of what I wouldrecommend for the front country
guy.
But the camera, there we go.
My windows were small so I'mprobably exaggerating, but I've
got a graceful curve.
It's real subtle but it's justenough that I'm not poking into
the guts when I'm zipping upthrough a deer and it's also got
(16:13):
an aggressive enough tip towork around fine areas while
having enough belly to geteverything else done.
And that's kind of what I wantwith a knife, at least me
personally.
I want something that I canwork on an animal and be
effective, be nimble, be quickat the same time.
It's not going to beuncomfortable and that's kind of
(16:33):
a tough combination.
Sometimes I think most folksreach for blades that are real
deep in the belly and they havea real big blunt nose and that
just makes it really difficultto work around tight areas like
the elbow joints and ankles andthings like that on deer,
because at the end of the day,that's what we're doing,
especially if you take youranimal to a processor you're
just skinning in the field.
So Right.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Would that be like a drop point?
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Yeah, it's a.
It's technically a drop point,I guess it's not.
It's real gradual.
I mean, if you like, the line,the curvature of the handle just
keeps going until it gets thetip, but it doesn't drop
aggressively like a lot ofknives.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Got it.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Knives that drop really aggressively when you
turn it upside down and you workup the animal just like a
zipper, that initial cut.
It ends up forcing you to holdthe knife at a really steep
angle to ride that tip and itmakes it really difficult.
You end up like slipping andmaking cuts like that.
But with this I can run it downat a shallow angle and just one
long cut up the animal.
In fact, on my Instagram I havea video in the processing shop
(17:37):
Basically I think it's calledwhy I don't like gut hooks and I
show I zipped down an entireleg on this big buck in one cut
explaining.
You know you don't need a guthook.
And here's proof zip, and withthe right angle it's literally
one cut.
I think most folks get toocaught up in either the gut hook
and they end up with too bluntof a blade because of that, yeah
, or they get caught up andhaving those really big bellies
(17:59):
because they're worried aboutpoking stuff.
It just slows you down, though.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah, and then, like you were talking about, you can
go too far that way, but thenyou can go too far the other
direction too, of like, is itcalled a clip point where they
it's like really narrow and thenthat's too pokey right Like
that.
That will clip your guts.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Yeah, and that makes it really difficult.
I've got a buddy who he helikes skinning with a boning
knife and which is not far offfrom a filet knife it's real
pokey like that and I mean forhim it works, but I feel like
like I've watched him skin withit.
He does a good job but it slowshim down because he's always
working to try to keep that tipfrom going down into the guts
and you know, cut open a stomachor something like that.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
What about the like steels?
There are a ton of differentkinds of steels and I think that
that's where people kind oflose it sometimes is they don't
even really understand orrealize that there are all these
different kinds of steels thatare going in to these knives.
It's just not like one is thesame as the rest.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Yeah, well, so steels , it's uh, that's like one of my
favorite topics.
And knives, yeah, there's a lotof parallels between knives and
guns and I'm a big gun guy,right, Like I love rifles, rifle
cartridges, I like geek out onballistics and, um, so, like a
knife, steel is more than justlike how long is it going to
stay sharp?
Um, I compare the steel alloyto picking a cartridge for your
(19:28):
rifle.
Um, it doesn't mean anything.
It is a bad choice or a goodchoice, but there are certain
applications that are betterthan others.
And, just like cartridges,there's ideal bullet weights and
, you know, loadings.
There's ideal sharpening anglesand sharpening methods and, uh,
it's, it's like a whole rabbithole.
But, to make things simple, Ihave three steels that I use and
(19:50):
then my favorite steels Like Idon't offer anything.
That's like not my favorite, youknow like um, but I try to
stick with what we call balancedsteels, and that's being
balanced is like there's threedifferent attributes of a knife
steel there's strength, there'sedge retention and there's
corrosion resistance.
And a balanced steel has allthree of those sort of in tandem
(20:10):
.
You're not giving one up to getthe other two high up on the
scale and um, a lot of the sealsyou see.
Like you know, benchmade, forexample, has stuff in S one, 10
V crazy steel.
It'll hold an edge for, like,the rest of your life A little
bit exaggerating, but it's notstrong at all, like you can't do
anything even slightly roughwith it or break Um, and it's
(20:31):
not as corrosion resistant assome other stuff.
And there are other steels thatare super focused on corrosion
resistance, like I mentioned,with, uh, a lot of cheaper
production knives, like in 420and 440 and those like they're
almost impossible to make rustbut they won't hold an edge for
crap.
And uh, so the steels I workwith I prefer to have something
(20:51):
that has all three of thoseattributes, um, you know they're
not giving anything up.
They're really well balanced Um, but there's a lot of good
seals out there.
I mean, like the three I usearen't the only ones on the
market, obviously, but I preferone called AEBL.
It's all letters.
I don't actually pretend toknow why it's called that, yeah,
um, but it's a Europeanstainless steel and it's super
(21:13):
fine grain, easy to sharpen,takes a screaming edge with like
very little effort and it'sreally strong.
You're not going to break itwhenever you're like working
into the ball and socket jointon a hip, uh, trying to break
that tendon that holds themtogether, you're not going to
break the tip off.
Um, the downside is it's notlike rust proof, it's.
It's corrosion resistant, it'sa stainless steel but it's not
(21:34):
rust proof and you're you'regoing to get through like maybe
an elk, elk and a half, beforeyou have to touch the edge up.
Edge retention isn't insane.
Um, the other one is Magna cutand I mentioned that before.
Um, stuff's pretty insane.
It's, uh, the edge retention isstellar.
It's nearly impossible to makerust and it's still really
strong.
(21:54):
It's just more expensive, alittle harder to sharpen.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yeah, so is that kind of an elite of its own that
Magna cut?
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Yeah, I mean there.
Like I mentioned, there areother steels that hold an edge
longer, but not with all theattributes that Magna cut has.
Uh, for reference, like Imentioned, I skin dear for a
processor buddy.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
It gives me an excuse to try out new heat treat
recipes, new blade shapes, allthat stuff.
And when Magna cut first cameon the scene, I said, okay, I'm
going to see how far I can pushthis before I need to sharpen it
.
And most people think I'm nuts,but I did 54 deer on one edge
Never sharpened.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
That's why it was insane.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Now like full disclaimer, I write it across a
smooth like non abrasive steeljust to take out rolls, because
I was doing awful things withthose splitting rib cages, I was
cutting out butts, I wasseparating elbow and knee joints
, I was taking as poppingvertebrae on does.
I was doing terrible stuff.
I just wanted to see what ittook to make it stop working.
(22:54):
But 54 deer that's, while beingrust proof or nearly rust proof
and also being stronger thanmost stainless steels.
It's pretty incredible stuff.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Yeah, that's awesome.
I was looking at just a fewcompanies that had knives and
the way that they were listingthem.
They were talking about yourstainless steels, like you were
just talking about.
Then they also mentioned ballbearing steels and then they'll
call it a tool steel.
Can you kind of run throughthose?
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Yeah, so well.
Tool steel is kind of like acatch-all.
Tool steel is any steel thathas a high enough carbon content
to be hardenable to a workablehardness, and that doesn't
necessarily mean a hardness thatyou can make a knife with.
Some tool steels need to justbe able to take impact and
they're really good at takingimpact, but they're not good at
holding an edge, because that'snot what the steel is designed
(23:50):
for.
There are some steels like4140's, an example.
That's a tool steel and it's onthe edge of what we would call
a tool steel.
We make rifle barrels out of it, but we don't see knives made
out of them.
It's a relatively malleablesteel and that gives the ability
to be just obliterated withpressure like in a rifle and not
shattered, but it's not goingto make a good knife.
(24:13):
We have other steels like A201,1095, a lot of these steels you
see on the shelves offered byknife makers and they weren't
made for knives.
Those steels were actually madefor making tool and die stuff,
for making car parts in the 40sand 50s, and we still use them.
Somebody figured out that we'regood for making knives and now
we use them a lot.
(24:33):
Ball bearing steels are similar.
They tend to have differenttraits.
They're zeroed in on differenttraits and the idea is that they
can take a lot of pressurewithout cracking.
You think about a ball bearing.
You have a round ball and thenyou're putting all the force you
have on one tiny little focuspoint because it's round.
It needs to be able to handlethat without shattering or
cracking or breaking apart.
(24:54):
Those tend to make good kniveswith appropriate heat treats.
They're messy to work with.
They're not as clean to workwith as air-hardening steels,
but they tend to make a reallytough knife.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
I was using one the other day that had a ball
bearing steel in it and itseemed like edgy tension wasn't
what I thought it was going tobe, pretty much skinny one elk,
and I was like Not even actuallythe whole elk, just doing a.
What do you call it?
(25:28):
Just a shoulder mount?
Yeah, a regular shoulder mount.
I was touching that thing upagain quite a bit.
At the end I was basically justresharpening it there when I
got down with that cape.
That was kind of interesting.
Then I started looking atdifferent folks that are doing
(25:49):
the stainless steels.
There are a ton of differentkinds of steels.
It's harder to keep up withthan calibers.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
There's hundreds of different kinds of steels.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
It's insane.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
I've got a book by a guy named Laren Thomas and it's
Knife Steels and Engineering.
It might be quoting the namewrong.
It's about heat treating andmechanics of knife, geometry and
things like that.
He's got just a short rundownof basic a bunch of steels that
are popular.
The list looks like Barnes'book cartridges of the world.
It's insane.
(26:25):
That's not even a fraction ofwhat there is out there.
They're making new steels everyday.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Yeah, you can definitely see how it can be
confusing.
You pop on a website to look ata knife and you see what it's
made out of.
You're like there's fournumbers after a ball bearing
steel.
You're like, what does that?
Speaker 3 (26:44):
even mean.
Yeah, it gets confusing.
That's one of the reasons Ionly offer a couple different
steels.
I offer steels that work wellfor everybody and that I also
have a ton of experience with.
Somebody calls me and they wanta knife.
We tend to talk about that atsome point in the conversation
about steels.
(27:06):
The biggest thing is findsomebody that knows their stuff
about steels and ask them.
Don't just go on Google andtype in what do you think about
this steel and go to a messageboard, because most people on
message boards are talking outtheir backside.
They have no idea what they'retalking about.
A good steel with a poor heattreat is still a terrible steel.
It's not going to cut.
(27:27):
Well, you have to have all ofthat stuff good geometry, a good
heat treat, combined with agood steel.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
How would you know about heat treat?
Is that more of a brand typething where that's why you go
with a brand you trust, becausethey have?
Speaker 3 (27:44):
a good heat treat.
Yeah, you can't look at a knifeand tell that it's been heat
treated properly.
It's kind of another rifleanalogy.
If you have a rifle that has away off from square bolt face
and maybe that the trigger islike a non-consistent trigger it
hasn't been inlayed to thestock well, it's not bedded.
(28:05):
It might look great throughoutthe shelf Then it's going to
shoot terrible and you're goingto have to go through this huge
checklist to figure out what'swrong with it.
A knife can look absolutelyamazing and then be made with
terrible steel or made with goodsteel with a bad heat treat.
The biggest thing is to go to areputable maker, especially
with a lot of these small batchsteels like MagnaCut.
They're getting to be moremainstream.
(28:25):
But I would make sure that youget something from somebody I'm
going to totally prop myself uphere Somebody like me, because
if you buy something from me andI'm not perfect, I totally
screw up.
Sometimes you get a knife fromme and you're like, hey, you
said this would last 20 or 30deer.
I needed to sharpen after one.
I'm going to be like, hey, sendit back.
I will either double check itand make sure it's not something
(28:46):
you did.
Maybe you're just cutting intoteeth like crazy with your skin
that head.
Or maybe I screwed up, in whichcase I'll make you a new knife.
I warrant my stuff, but if youbuy it from somebody that
doesn't have reputation, doesn'tstand behind their work, then
you're hoping that they did agood job.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Right, yeah, that's tough.
How would you recommendsomebody just look at a grip and
know if it's going to fit them?
Is it pretty self-explanatory?
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Not always.
I think a lot of folks getstuff because it looks cool and
they see stuff and they think,well, the first thing people
always ask is is somethinggrippy?
And I'm like, yeah, but that'snot that important.
It's important, don't get mewrong, but it's like that is
towards the end of my list ofthings to consider.
Because if it's really grippybut not ergonomic, I'm not going
(29:42):
to be accurate with my cuts,I'm going to start slipping when
I get hand fatigue, I'm goingto start making mistakes, I'm
going to do bad stuff.
It either hurts my animal orhurts me.
And I want something that'sgoing to be ergonomic, that's
going to give me control, notjust when I'm starting, but when
I'm at the end of skinning thatelk or bison or the 15th deer
that week, because I'm the guythat skins deer and deer camp
(30:04):
and everybody's just killing iton gun week.
I want a knife that's going tolet me keep up and stay accurate
with my cuts.
The other thing is I mean again, there's nothing wrong with
being grippy, but some folks getso wrapped up in the idea of
something being grippy that theyget something that later on
they don't actually care for.
And if you don't like the knife.
(30:24):
You're not going to carry theknife and I don't know.
I think that, like people get sowrapped up and, it being grippy
, the animals already dead.
You're working on dead animalsJust to hope so.
And like it's not, it's notpumping blood out everywhere all
over you.
If you've done it, if theanimals dead it's, it's been
killed by a hunter.
You know like it's been.
(30:45):
It's died through bleeding out.
It's largely bloodless.
There's nothing on earth that'sstill grippy through fat.
I mean, fat is always slick,it's like motor oil.
Yeah, blood, though it's notbleeding whenever you're working
on it.
So there's not much of an issuethere other than gutting the
animal.
I would focus mostly onergonomics.
That's my big thing.
The other thing is knives thathave the tang sticking out on
(31:06):
the edges.
So you know, full tang knife,the tang is exposed all the way
around.
A lot of guys get knives thathave the scales or CNC machine
and they're smaller in profilethan the tang and so the tang
sticks out all the way aroundthe edge and it looks kind of
cool, looks kind of tactical,but then that wears hot spots in
your hand, some fears, andyou're blistered up and
(31:28):
everything by the time you getdone through.
You know working one or twoanimals down.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
What materials do you like for your handles?
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Oh, that's a huge rabbit hole.
I work with all kinds of stuff.
I've got carbon fiber I like,so for my customers tend to like
my cart of stuff because my caris ergonomic, it looks pretty
cool.
There's stuff called G-Carta.
It's made in Nampa, idaho, by aguy named Greg Hansen.
He makes composites that areit's like my car, but instead of
(31:57):
being industrial and made heindustrially oh tongue tied.
It's small batches of fabricthat are rolled up with resin
and pressed into blocks and thencut whenever it's hardened.
So you get a lot of coolpatterns and colors.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
And he's got a zillion different color combos
and he's always dropping newstuff.
It's pretty cool.
I work with stabilized woods,that's woods that have been
soaked in resin using a vacuumprocess to draw it all the way
through.
Ivory antler everybody likesantler.
As far as me personally, I'm ahuge fan of antique micardas.
(32:32):
So micardas and industrialmaterial is made for usually
electrical work, to insulate,you know transformers and stuff
and when it gets old it oxidizes, so it gets darker.
It might be like a honey blondecolor to start off and then in
50 years it's developed thisdark brown we call it bark on
the surface and when you cutthrough it you can see the
(32:53):
oxidation layers, just likefading into the honey brown on
the inside and it makes for areally cool handle and it's just
special, like I'm making aknife right now out of some
that's from the Boeing plant inTacoma, washington, and it's
like super old stuff and likethey're not making anymore, you
know, and it's like it's got abackstory, it's got a place it
came from and it's like stufflike that gets me fired up but I
(33:19):
can make a handle out of justabout anything Is there, yeah,
yeah, and is that more whenyou're choosing your handle?
Speaker 1 (33:27):
is that more of a just a personal preference thing
, or are there, you know?
Besides, maybe like care.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
There is some care with some materials, like I said
, ivory, elk, antler, bone, somewoods, like you don't want to
like like get it wet, wipe itoff and then just throw it in
the drawer for next year.
You want to oil it and you keepit hydrated so it stays pretty
and stays, you know, fromshrinking and stuff.
There's other materials, like Isaid, carbon fiber and G10,
that don't need any carewhatsoever and they're
(33:58):
bulletproof.
They're really tough stuff Iactually didn't mention.
I've got the stuff called SureTouch and I'll show up.
Yeah, there we go, but it's G10and rubber layers.
Those layers you see thereblack, are rubber.
So it's absurdly grippy.
Going back to the grippy thingis grippy without without giving
up stuff Like you don't havelittle grooves and crevices and
(34:19):
checkering to pick up fat andblood and distinct later on.
It's not porous like wood soit's not going to pick up.
Like you know, you have thatshore lunch.
You get your three day fishinglicense when you're hunting out
West and you catch some trout.
Now your knife smells liketrout for the next six months.
It doesn't happen with thatstuff.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Nice, that's.
That's super interesting stuffsounds like let's go into field
sharpening.
This was people really wantedto hear about this.
This was like the one thing andman, when we were doing the
meat eater stuff, we we had thework sharp guys on and we talked
about knife sharpening and Imean we got more comments on
(34:59):
that episode than any of theother ones we did.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
Yeah, well, I mean I I don't have any great
recommendations for fieldsharpening, because it's going
to sound like I'm braggingmyself up.
I haven't had to sharpen in thefield.
Really Like I I tend to Ichoose knives that don't have to
sharpen in the field.
You know, if I worked down anelk, I've still got life left on
my edge and I can help my bodywith this.
I do like to bring a littlemicro pocket stone.
(35:25):
It's about the size of a packof gum or a stick of gum.
I want to say easy lap makes it.
It's an extra fine diamondstone.
It works on any steel, I meaneven carbide.
It'll sharpen and I bring thatand then I'll bring, and this is
like something you can't findin a knife shop or sporting good
store.
But if you go to a machine shopand ask them for a drill blank,
(35:47):
that's just hardened drill bitrod without any flutes in it,
and get one that's like fourinches long, like three
sixteenths or so in diameter,it's hardened so your knife
can't bite into it and you canuse it like a chef's deal, like
you see people using the movies.
Yeah, and when you're skinningout like caping out a head and
you're, you brush up against thebone with your edge or your
tooth with your edge teeth.
(36:09):
Teeth are harder than steel andwhat that causes is it rolls
the edge.
You can't see it, it's on amicroscopic level.
But suddenly it won't cut.
And with that hardened drillblank you can couple strokes and
it's not removing any metal,it's just standing that edge
back up and now it cuts likecrazy again.
So with a good steel youshouldn't have to sharpen in the
(36:29):
field.
You might have to fix rolls,but you shouldn't have to
sharpen.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Okay, what about?
What about a home, when you dohave to sharpen?
Speaker 3 (36:39):
at home.
So there's a couple differentmethods that are cool.
There's the KME Bench Top styleLike.
There's a bunch of differentcompanies that make them.
I think workshop makes one nowtoo.
But it mounts to your tabletop,has a little chip clip that
grabs onto your knife and holdsit flat.
I've got a knife here.
It holds it flat.
And then there's a guide rodsystem with a stone on a stick
(36:59):
and you just run it across theknife and it's impossible to
mess your angle up.
Once it's set those, anybodycan make a knife scream and
sharp with that system and it'snot like hogging down your edge
in a weird spot.
It's not doing anything thatyou can mess up.
They're great.
They take up a little morespace, they're a little more
expensive, but they're reallyworth the money, if you ask me,
(37:21):
and they work on any knife.
You can set the angles.
Another one is the Ken onionworkshop, which is a tabletop.
It's motorized, has a littlebelt.
But if anybody gets one ofthose, I would advise that when
you buy one, go to the SportingGoods counter at the store
you're buying it at and buy offthe turnstile One of those super
cheap piece of crap pocketknives from China.
Get one of those and practiceon that like crazy before you
(37:44):
put your good knives on it,because it's easy to like round
the tip off or hog out the bellyright by the handle.
It's easy to go too far withthose.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
So get some practice and yeah, yeah, got it With
those with.
I mean, even like those homestyle sharpeners are a little
more expensive, but they'restill like 60 bucks, like
they're not like 200.
Yeah so yeah, so after we gotone of those and I was touching
(38:15):
my knives up, like we juststarted touching like steak
knives up and stuff that are inthe house and like what a
difference it makes.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Oh yeah, well, I tell everybody that, like you know,
you buy a vehicle and you don'tstop thinking about, like
changing your oil or getting newtires, like those are things
you think about.
You get a rifle, you thinkabout cleaning it afterwards,
you think about checking yourzero, and so many people are
like I've had that knife for 10years and it doesn't cut anymore
, but I got to find somebody tosharpen it.
Like dude, you should learn howto sharpen.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Like that's like you don't hire people who are like
you're floors Like just do it.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
Yeah, like buy the equipment and do it and it works
forever.
Your sharpening system is goodfor a very long time.
If you wear it out, then you'reliving a much more exciting
life than I'm living becausedang.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Yeah, yeah, sweet.
Anything else you can think ofthat you want to dig into?
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Oh man, I mean like it just depends on how crazy you
want to get.
So, like my little side projectthat I've been working on has
been it's called hog dogging.
It's running hogs and houndsdown in Texas and because you're
running hounds and the houndsare actually catching the pig
Unlike running, you know, houndsfor cats or for bears you can't
(39:30):
shoot them Because you knowobviously you've got a dog
fighting grabbing onto his faceand stuff.
And so you get in there with aknife and you, you know, one
hand's on the pig that are handson your knife and you take care
of business that way.
And so I've, actually I've beenworking on a pig sticker design
for doing just that and it'sbeen wild.
(39:53):
I went down and did some testingwhen I was on an exotic hunt
last I think it was November inTexas and it worked out pretty
well.
I did some, did some fine youknow tunings and tweaks on the
design.
And then after that, I think itwas in February or March, I
went back down with some buddies.
We all had that you know, therefined version of the knife
model it's called the Harpy andwe cleaned the house on pigs.
(40:16):
It was epic and actually I'mgoing to be going back here in I
want to say it's February thiscoming February to do it again.
It's been, it's crazy.
If you haven't done it, it's alot of fun, it's worth trying.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Yeah, yeah, I did it once.
Just the soft heart of me islike it's primal, it's pretty
primal.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
It is really primal, I mean.
At the same time, if you do it,if you make a good stick and
with proper technique, it's ait's quicker than an arrow kill.
But the idea of like beinghands on is it's a bit much for
some folks.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
It is yeah, yeah, yeah, it is Dude.
That's awesome.
What are, what are the waittimes?
What are your lead timescurrently for customs?
Speaker 3 (41:01):
So, to get a custom, if you get on my wait list right
now it's around eight months.
It could be a little more, itcould be a little less
fluctuates, but it's been ridingabout eight, nine months for
the last three years, so it'spretty safe to say it's around
there.
Like I said, you can alsofollow me on Instagram or
Facebook and I post open salestuff, usually on my story, so
(41:21):
I'll have you know the availableposts and if you tap on it you
can look at the actual posts andsee all the specs.
But yeah, any questions, justshoot me a message.
You know I try to do one or twofancy open sales a week and
then I'll do, like I said, thestock options now with the metal
arc and the magpie.
So yeah, somebody wants to buysomething right before a hunt or
they've got, you know, arelative or a friend that's
(41:43):
going to go on a hunt, that'syou know.
They got a cool tag draw andthey want to get them something.
You know that's a great optionto get.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Yeah, have you started doing etchings or
engravings?
Speaker 3 (41:54):
Not, I'm not doing custom engravings right now,
Like I just engrave my logo andsome weird cases I do serial
numbers.
The etching process I use isn'treally conducive to being
economical for doing customengravings.
I do plan on at some pointgetting a fiber laser and doing
that, but it's it's not in thecards at the moment.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
Right, gotcha, all right.
Well, where's the best placethat folks can get a hold of you
?
Speaker 3 (42:20):
So they can shoot me an email or call me.
My email is a Symbita customknives.
I'm assuming we can put that inthe tagline or the info for the
podcast.
My number is 740-270-9057.
And you can give me a call orshoot me a text anytime.
As long as I'm not like in themountains and don't have signal,
(42:40):
I'll answer the phone and thenInstagram or Facebook.
That's pretty much where I dolike.
95% of my work is on Instagramand Facebook.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Yeah, Awesome and well.
Thanks again for hopping on,Evan.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
Thanks for listening to this episode of Jordan's
Toolkit.
If you have any questions orsuggestions for future episodes,
please visit the websiteJordan-budcom and follow the
links to submit an email orvoicemail to be played on air.
If you're listening on an audioplatform, you can also watch
this podcast on YouTube viaJordan-bud's personal channel.
What's going on everybody?
Welcome back to the toolkit onJordan bud.
And today we have a super coolguest, evan Sambita of Sambita
custom knives.
He is out in the east.
He does custom knife work witha bunch of different kinds of
steels, different designs,different handle options and
Completely custom.
So I had him on on the rockcast quite a while back.
(00:23):
I think that you can dig intorock slide and find the archives
.
You can dig up that episode ifyou want.
But we're gonna talk with himagain today.
I thought he'd be an awesomeguest to have on.
We're gonna discuss, likeergonomics of knives, you know,
choosing the right knife for thejob, what he, you know, really
(00:44):
likes as far as backcountryknives versus Frontcountry
knives.
We also dig in a little bit onreplaceable blade knives and why
why each of us don't reallylike them, kind of the evolution
everybody was using thosereplaceable blade knives and now
it seems like everybody's kindof going back over to Fix blade
(01:05):
options.
So that's really interesting.
We're gonna talk aboutdifferent kinds of steel options
, that you have some of thepluses and minuses of all of
those, and we're gonna talk alittle bit about sharpening as
well.
So Real quick, I got a questionon Instagram this morning that
(01:25):
related to knives, so I thoughtthat it was kind of interesting
what do you use for a knifesharpener?
And he says thanks and cheersfrom Alberta.
So this relates right to thisepisode.
So I like this sharpener righthere.
It whoops this way and it'sbackwards because the camera
(01:48):
makes it backwards, but it's theguided field sharpener from
work sharp sharpeners a thing Ireally like about it as it has
Like it has your knife guides,so it has a guide.
Here it says 20 degree guide,so it you can lay your knife on
the side of it.
(02:08):
Let's see, here I Can lay yourknife on the side of it.
It would give you that angleguide and it has.
It has kind of a rougherdiamond on one side and a fine
diamond on the other and then ithas a ceramic portion here on
the top it has your ceramic andthen here it has a leather strap
(02:29):
, so Really lightweight, reallypretty small.
I won't always take this thingwith me like in my pack out in
the field, but I will have it inthe vehicle all the time.
So if we get back and I cantouch it up, or if I'm bored
Sometimes I'll just sharpen andwe'll touch it up.
So yeah, this is, they'repretty dang cheap and they're
(02:54):
small and they're just nice tohave around, so that's that's
what I like to use.
So, without anything, I guess,left to cover, we are going to
dive right in with Evan.
All right, we are back withEvan.
(03:18):
Some beta of some beta customknives.
Dude, I haven't talked to youin like Years.
I think the last time we talkedyou were getting ready to go
full-time with the shop, right?
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Yeah, it's been a minute.
Yeah, yeah, it's been a minute,but things have changed a lot.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
All better.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
but yeah, I'm full-time and I don't have a
side hustle or anything rightnow, it's just so fun, we were
talking, a little pre recording,about how nice it is having
your own business.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Like there are some downsides, definitely, but like
we were talking about how niceit is to be able to have some
freedoms, to be able to go, likewhen you have to be home you
have to be there and working,but it lets you go do other
things that you normally likeyou'd have to approve time off
for months in advance.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Oh, yeah, like when I worked at the factory job I
used to have like you'd have toget permission.
I felt like I was a kid, youknow, living with my parents.
I'd ask permission anytime Iwanted to do anything.
And yeah, now, like I saidbefore we start recording, like
I'd be a terrible employee atthis point, like I'm so used to
the freedom.
It's insane.
I want to do something, I justdo it.
You know, like I've had timeswhere I've worked all week and
(04:25):
then all weekend and then allthe next week and then taken
like two weeks off.
And then I've had times whereI've woken up sick and I'm like
I'm sick, I'm just gonna workSaturday, like no approval
needed, just do what needs to be, done and it's been working.
It's been pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yeah, it's so, yeah, it's so nice.
I couldn't imagine going backeither.
It'd be awful.
But yeah, anyways, we're gonna.
We're gonna talk about knives.
So what's like, what's new inthe in the custom?
Are you still just doing likeall made to order?
Are you still, before you were,doing like you would make kind
of a cool knife and then youjust put it up for sale on
(05:00):
Instagram?
Are you still doing that?
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Well, I'm doing a little bit of both and then I've
got a third option I just addedin.
So about 75% of what I do iscustom order.
So I've got a wait list andthat's about eight months out
right now to get a custom order.
And then I do every week, justabout every week, I do what I
call open sale knives, which iswhat you're describing.
I do something that just soundslike fun and I put it up for
(05:25):
sale and then and that might belike it might be anywhere on the
spectrum From mild to wild, itmight be, you know, a budget
build, it might be reallyexpensive Just whatever I feel
like using that week, and then Ioccasionally do Well, now it's
trying to do every week now whatI call a stock knife and I have
two different models that aremy most popular models and I'm
(05:46):
just doing.
They're all exactly the same.
So they're all in my stockstandard option steel.
They're all an odd drab G10with carbon fiber pins and a
black sheath.
And the idea is, if I make twoor three every single week, if I
have a customer call in and say, hey, I know it's last second,
but I've got a mule deer huntnext week.
Can I buy something?
Well, you can get this, yeah,and it gives you a good feel for
(06:06):
what my stuff is like, and then, if you like it a lot, which I
hope you do, come back and buy acustom next year.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Perfect.
Yeah, dude, that's a great idea.
So, yeah, I just I wanted towalk through a little bit on
like what we covered last time.
So I had you back on the rockcast when I was hosting that and
I thought like we had such acool conversation about knives
and I listened back to it acouple days ago and one thing
that was kind of cool I thoughtthis that stuck out to me was
(06:36):
you were talking about howknives are.
Like you know, people put somuch Emphasis and time and money
into other portions of gear andit seems like people are
starting to do that with their,their knives, and I think even
more so now.
Like replaceable blade.
Knives used to be the thing,like everybody was.
(06:58):
You know different companies.
We're trying to make differenthandles for the blades and all
this stuff, and now it seemslike it's starting to shift back
over towards a good fixed blade.
And have you seen that shift?
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Big time.
Like it's interesting, becausewhenever I started this is like
a hobby, that's like you'resaying like there's a few people
that used fixed blades but noneof them used custom work, none
of them used semi, like smallproduction shop stuff.
There was always like a buck orcase, a Little bit of bench
made and then it was.
If it wasn't one of those, itwas a replaceable blade knife
(07:32):
and yeah, everybody likes howwell they cut until they lose a
blade in the gut cavity or breakone and you know have to deal
with that, you know in the coldand your fingers don't work
right.
And yeah, I've seen a heavyshift towards fixed blades again
.
Yeah, it's, it's so interesting.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
What are your, what are your thoughts on just
replaceable blades, like ingeneral?
You just touched on one problemwith them breaking the tips out
.
I've had broken tips and hadthem fly back towards me.
Yeah, I'm not a big fan.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
I totally see their benefits.
I'm Like I've got a buddy who'sa taxidermist and he uses a
scalpel all the time when he'sdoing, you know, like skinning
out heads and stuff like that.
But I mean, even he'll tell youlike it's not as effective.
In my opinion, and his opiniontoo, it's not as effective as a
fixed blade for for skinning.
It's just so much like faster,it's more effective, it's more
(08:26):
ergonomic to use a fixed bladewhenever you're skinning and
that's what we're doing in thefield Is we're breaking down
animals, we're not skinningfaces out.
I mean, you can keep youranimal in the field too.
But that's like 5% of the job,like right.
The other 95% is deboning,skinning, you know, working on
bone joints, separating, bonejoints.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Yeah yeah, and like you said, the ergos Just having
a better handle and Something toyou know everybody.
For a while, like with thereplaceable blade kind of
movement I guess, if you will itpeople wanted to go to Really
lightweight, like skeletonizedhandles, and those things were
hard to hang on to.
(09:05):
Especially you get like allgrisly and fat and stuff on your
hands and it's like there it'stough to hang on to.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
So yeah, well, like the selling point was always how
light they are.
Like, oh, look at this, yeah,this, the knife, including the
sheet, is like 1.2 ounces.
And then all the people thatwould get them would get them,
and then they would stuff stuffinto the skeletonized holes and
then wrap it In paracord.
So they had this bigger,bulkier handle and they're like,
oh, it's great.
Now it's like not always threeounces.
You just totally undideverything that you said you
(09:33):
wanted to buy.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
You know, yeah, yeah.
And then it went from that tolike, alright, I'm gonna take a
replaceable blade and I'm gonnatake a fixed blade, like I was
on that for a while, I'll admit,yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
So yeah, a lot of a lot of folks, a lot of folks it
I've noticed a lot over the lastcouple years have said well,
yeah, I like the idea of a fixedblade.
I don't want to sharpen mystuff in the field, so that's
why I take replaceable blades.
And I think most people don'trealize just how good some
steels can be and I think mostfolks their experience.
(10:06):
Yeah, most folks experienceslike buck or case and I'm not
crapping on buck or case, butthose are like consumer grade
steels.
They're very, very low qualitywhen it comes to like how they
score an edge retention andthings like that that.
Everything they care about withwith case and buck with the
majority of their stuff, is howEconomically can we produce it
and is it gonna rust wheneversomebody puts it through the
(10:27):
dishwasher?
That's all they care about.
And Some of the new steels wehave now, like Magna cut it's
absurd the edge retention thatyou can get out of them.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yeah, I want to.
I want to talk about that too,and we're gonna dig, yeah, we're
gonna dig in.
All that stuff is so I don'tknow.
It's so interesting.
But one question I wanted Iwanted to lead with with you is
like what's the most annoyingemail you get about?
Speaker 3 (10:52):
knives.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Just oh, guaranteed.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Hands down.
My favorite question is whatare your knives cost?
I'm like that's like the mostblanket question in the world.
Like you wouldn't go to a cardealer and be like what's a
vehicle cost?
Like what do you want?
Like you said before, you wantan F-150.
Do you want a Ferrari?
You want a smart car.
Like what are your goals?
And Like then I have to respondwith that.
(11:16):
And then they say I just want aprice list.
And I'm like so I got a breakdown all 30, some of my models.
I actually lost count where I'mat.
I'm always putting on new stuffand, and you know, being custom
, like you can't just give aprice for a model.
There's a price for the modelwhere it starts and then where
it might top out.
But then if you have a customerthat has really extravagant
taste, that can bump up evenmore, so it's Ah, just the the
(11:41):
broad question of how muchsomething costs, it's like, ah,
and it's not anybody's fault,it's usually it's somebody's
first custom knife.
So right, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Yeah, I can understand it, but I think the
problem with just price shoppingon stuff like that is you're
gonna end up buying a knife offa price and it's not gonna be
like the night, the, the, thebetter option for the
application that you're using itin like I.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
I remember last time.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Yeah, I remember last time we talked we were talking
about, I think, blade.
We were just talking aboutknives in general, how big some
of them can be and like Doingthe outfitting and stuff.
Like I've gotten people thathave Huge knives, like huge
blades that I've used to liketry to get something and it's
hard to like.
That is not the knife for thatjob.
(12:30):
I don't think just you know,like legit six inch plus Blades
and it's, it's just too much.
And like really big bulkyhandles Trying to move in and
out of places.
It's just rough, rough to workthose things.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Oh yeah, like everybody always asked me what I
like in the the backcountry andlike I Stuff's little the stuff
I prefer.
Yeah, you know personally.
You know little tiny guys, sixand a half inches overall, two
and three-quarter inch blade andmost, most folks want something
like Gigantic and it's likejust, you can do it, but it's
(13:06):
like that's not what you want.
We're not cutting steaks andstuff in the field, we're
skinning, you know yeah, yeah,yeah, yeah for sure.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
So can we dive into that a little more like choosing
the right knife for the job?
And another thing, too is I I'ma big fan, especially a lot of
folks I feel like that arewatching this or like just
getting into it or just tryingto go, you know, up and in, like
just Make their gear a littlebetter and like most people
(13:35):
can't buy two right.
Or at least right off the bat.
So like I'm a big proponent andlike what is one really kind of
do-it-all design In your mindto make it like, if you're just
gonna buy one to do pretty mucheverything?
What would that look like?
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Well, if you're gonna do like one for everything and
you're, you're makingcompromises at that point, yeah,
so you're not going ultra light, you're not going super heavy,
you're kind of going in themiddle.
That'd be something like this,which is my magpie model, and
it's about a little over eightinches long, about eight and a
half inches long with a threeand a half inch blade.
It's not the lightest knife,it's extremely ergonomic.
(14:15):
I think that's probably my mostergonomic handle when it comes
to stuff for breaking downanimals and in fact, I skinned
deer for a deer processorwhenever I have free time and
that's the knife I reach forevery time, and I'm talking like
20, 25 deer a day.
You know skinning.
Yeah and you know that's theknife I want, but it does leave
(14:37):
some stuff at the table.
You know it's a little bitsmall, for you know if you're
gonna be doing breaking downstuff in the kitchen when you
get back.
And it's a little bit big foryou know.
I mean it's not too big to doit, but it's a little heavy
whenever you're packing as lightas you can to go up above the
tree line.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
You yeah, gotcha.
So what should people like havean internal conversation with
themselves about when they'regoing to look at something Like
you know there's, like you'regetting ready to go to Idaho on
a hunt that'll probably be a badcountry, like, so you're
thinking about that.
Some folks are just thinkingabout hey, I just want you a
(15:14):
knife to gut a white tail or amule deer in the field, and then
I'm taking my deer, theprocessor, so I don't really
have to worry about anythingafter that.
Can you talk about like thosetwo things and what you would
start thinking about as far aschoosing a knife for both those
applications?
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Yeah, well, so for, like the front country hunter,
which most of us are, I mean, Imostly think about ergonomics
and a knife blade shape thatlends its weld to skinning
without poking into the guts.
I know everybody likes guthooks, but with a properly
shaped blade you really don'tneed a good hook and it's just
something that's a pain tosharpen.
(15:52):
That night, the same knife Iwas showing the magpie.
That's kind of what I wouldrecommend for the front country
guy.
But the camera, there we go.
My windows were small so I'mprobably exaggerating, but I've
got a graceful curve.
It's real subtle but it's justenough that I'm not poking into
the guts when I'm zipping upthrough a deer and it's also got
(16:13):
an aggressive enough tip towork around fine areas while
having enough belly to geteverything else done.
And that's kind of what I wantwith a knife, at least me
personally.
I want something that I canwork on an animal and be
effective, be nimble, be quickat the same time.
It's not going to beuncomfortable and that's kind of
(16:33):
a tough combination.
Sometimes I think most folksreach for blades that are real
deep in the belly and they havea real big blunt nose and that
just makes it really difficultto work around tight areas like
the elbow joints and ankles andthings like that on deer,
because at the end of the day,that's what we're doing,
especially if you take youranimal to a processor you're
just skinning in the field.
So Right.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Would that be like a drop point?
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Yeah, it's a.
It's technically a drop point,I guess it's not.
It's real gradual.
I mean, if you like, the line,the curvature of the handle just
keeps going until it gets thetip, but it doesn't drop
aggressively like a lot ofknives.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Got it.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Knives that drop really aggressively when you
turn it upside down and you workup the animal just like a
zipper, that initial cut.
It ends up forcing you to holdthe knife at a really steep
angle to ride that tip and itmakes it really difficult.
You end up like slipping andmaking cuts like that.
But with this I can run it downat a shallow angle and just one
long cut up the animal.
In fact, on my Instagram I havea video in the processing shop
(17:37):
Basically I think it's calledwhy I don't like gut hooks and I
show I zipped down an entireleg on this big buck in one cut
explaining.
You know you don't need a guthook.
And here's proof zip, and withthe right angle it's literally
one cut.
I think most folks get toocaught up in either the gut hook
and they end up with too bluntof a blade because of that, yeah
, or they get caught up andhaving those really big bellies
(17:59):
because they're worried aboutpoking stuff.
It just slows you down, though.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah, and then, like you were talking about, you can
go too far that way, but thenyou can go too far the other
direction too, of like, is itcalled a clip point where they
it's like really narrow and thenthat's too pokey right Like
that.
That will clip your guts.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Yeah, and that makes it really difficult.
I've got a buddy who he helikes skinning with a boning
knife and which is not far offfrom a filet knife it's real
pokey like that and I mean forhim it works, but I feel like
like I've watched him skin withit.
He does a good job but it slowshim down because he's always
working to try to keep that tipfrom going down into the guts
and you know, cut open a stomachor something like that.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
What about the like steels?
There are a ton of differentkinds of steels and I think that
that's where people kind oflose it sometimes is they don't
even really understand orrealize that there are all these
different kinds of steels thatare going in to these knives.
It's just not like one is thesame as the rest.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Yeah, well, so steels , it's uh, that's like one of my
favorite topics.
And knives, yeah, there's a lotof parallels between knives and
guns and I'm a big gun guy,right, Like I love rifles, rifle
cartridges, I like geek out onballistics and, um, so, like a
knife, steel is more than justlike how long is it going to
stay sharp?
Um, I compare the steel alloyto picking a cartridge for your
(19:28):
rifle.
Um, it doesn't mean anything.
It is a bad choice or a goodchoice, but there are certain
applications that are betterthan others.
And, just like cartridges,there's ideal bullet weights and
, you know, loadings.
There's ideal sharpening anglesand sharpening methods and, uh,
it's, it's like a whole rabbithole.
But, to make things simple, Ihave three steels that I use and
(19:50):
then my favorite steels Like Idon't offer anything.
That's like not my favorite, youknow like um, but I try to
stick with what we call balancedsteels, and that's being
balanced is like there's threedifferent attributes of a knife
steel there's strength, there'sedge retention and there's
corrosion resistance.
And a balanced steel has allthree of those sort of in tandem
(20:10):
.
You're not giving one up to getthe other two high up on the
scale and um, a lot of the sealsyou see.
Like you know, benchmade, forexample, has stuff in S one, 10
V crazy steel.
It'll hold an edge for, like,the rest of your life A little
bit exaggerating, but it's notstrong at all, like you can't do
anything even slightly roughwith it or break Um, and it's
(20:31):
not as corrosion resistant assome other stuff.
And there are other steels thatare super focused on corrosion
resistance, like I mentioned,with, uh, a lot of cheaper
production knives, like in 420and 440 and those like they're
almost impossible to make rustbut they won't hold an edge for
crap.
And uh, so the steels I workwith I prefer to have something
(20:51):
that has all three of thoseattributes, um, you know they're
not giving anything up.
They're really well balanced Um, but there's a lot of good
seals out there.
I mean, like the three I usearen't the only ones on the
market, obviously, but I preferone called AEBL.
It's all letters.
I don't actually pretend toknow why it's called that, yeah,
um, but it's a Europeanstainless steel and it's super
(21:13):
fine grain, easy to sharpen,takes a screaming edge with like
very little effort and it'sreally strong.
You're not going to break itwhenever you're like working
into the ball and socket jointon a hip, uh, trying to break
that tendon that holds themtogether, you're not going to
break the tip off.
Um, the downside is it's notlike rust proof, it's.
It's corrosion resistant, it'sa stainless steel but it's not
(21:34):
rust proof and you're you'regoing to get through like maybe
an elk, elk and a half, beforeyou have to touch the edge up.
Edge retention isn't insane.
Um, the other one is Magna cutand I mentioned that before.
Um, stuff's pretty insane.
It's, uh, the edge retention isstellar.
It's nearly impossible to makerust and it's still really
strong.
(21:54):
It's just more expensive, alittle harder to sharpen.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yeah, so is that kind of an elite of its own that
Magna cut?
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Yeah, I mean there.
Like I mentioned, there areother steels that hold an edge
longer, but not with all theattributes that Magna cut has.
Uh, for reference, like Imentioned, I skin dear for a
processor buddy.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
It gives me an excuse to try out new heat treat
recipes, new blade shapes, allthat stuff.
And when Magna cut first cameon the scene, I said, okay, I'm
going to see how far I can pushthis before I need to sharpen it
.
And most people think I'm nuts,but I did 54 deer on one edge
Never sharpened.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
That's why it was insane.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Now like full disclaimer, I write it across a
smooth like non abrasive steeljust to take out rolls, because
I was doing awful things withthose splitting rib cages, I was
cutting out butts, I wasseparating elbow and knee joints
, I was taking as poppingvertebrae on does.
I was doing terrible stuff.
I just wanted to see what ittook to make it stop working.
(22:54):
But 54 deer that's, while beingrust proof or nearly rust proof
and also being stronger thanmost stainless steels.
It's pretty incredible stuff.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Yeah, that's awesome.
I was looking at just a fewcompanies that had knives and
the way that they were listingthem.
They were talking about yourstainless steels, like you were
just talking about.
Then they also mentioned ballbearing steels and then they'll
call it a tool steel.
Can you kind of run throughthose?
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Yeah, so well.
Tool steel is kind of like acatch-all.
Tool steel is any steel thathas a high enough carbon content
to be hardenable to a workablehardness, and that doesn't
necessarily mean a hardness thatyou can make a knife with.
Some tool steels need to justbe able to take impact and
they're really good at takingimpact, but they're not good at
holding an edge, because that'snot what the steel is designed
(23:50):
for.
There are some steels like4140's, an example.
That's a tool steel and it's onthe edge of what we would call
a tool steel.
We make rifle barrels out of it, but we don't see knives made
out of them.
It's a relatively malleablesteel and that gives the ability
to be just obliterated withpressure like in a rifle and not
shattered, but it's not goingto make a good knife.
(24:13):
We have other steels like A201,1095, a lot of these steels you
see on the shelves offered byknife makers and they weren't
made for knives.
Those steels were actually madefor making tool and die stuff,
for making car parts in the 40sand 50s, and we still use them.
Somebody figured out that we'regood for making knives and now
we use them a lot.
(24:33):
Ball bearing steels are similar.
They tend to have differenttraits.
They're zeroed in on differenttraits and the idea is that they
can take a lot of pressurewithout cracking.
You think about a ball bearing.
You have a round ball and thenyou're putting all the force you
have on one tiny little focuspoint because it's round.
It needs to be able to handlethat without shattering or
cracking or breaking apart.
(24:54):
Those tend to make good kniveswith appropriate heat treats.
They're messy to work with.
They're not as clean to workwith as air-hardening steels,
but they tend to make a reallytough knife.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
I was using one the other day that had a ball
bearing steel in it and itseemed like edgy tension wasn't
what I thought it was going tobe, pretty much skinny one elk,
and I was like Not even actuallythe whole elk, just doing a.
What do you call it?
(25:28):
Just a shoulder mount?
Yeah, a regular shoulder mount.
I was touching that thing upagain quite a bit.
At the end I was basically justresharpening it there when I
got down with that cape.
That was kind of interesting.
Then I started looking atdifferent folks that are doing
(25:49):
the stainless steels.
There are a ton of differentkinds of steels.
It's harder to keep up withthan calibers.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
There's hundreds of different kinds of steels.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
It's insane.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
I've got a book by a guy named Laren Thomas and it's
Knife Steels and Engineering.
It might be quoting the namewrong.
It's about heat treating andmechanics of knife, geometry and
things like that.
He's got just a short rundownof basic a bunch of steels that
are popular.
The list looks like Barnes'book cartridges of the world.
It's insane.
(26:25):
That's not even a fraction ofwhat there is out there.
They're making new steels everyday.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Yeah, you can definitely see how it can be
confusing.
You pop on a website to look ata knife and you see what it's
made out of.
You're like there's fournumbers after a ball bearing
steel.
You're like, what does that?
Speaker 3 (26:44):
even mean.
Yeah, it gets confusing.
That's one of the reasons Ionly offer a couple different
steels.
I offer steels that work wellfor everybody and that I also
have a ton of experience with.
Somebody calls me and they wanta knife.
We tend to talk about that atsome point in the conversation
about steels.
(27:06):
The biggest thing is findsomebody that knows their stuff
about steels and ask them.
Don't just go on Google andtype in what do you think about
this steel and go to a messageboard, because most people on
message boards are talking outtheir backside.
They have no idea what they'retalking about.
A good steel with a poor heattreat is still a terrible steel.
It's not going to cut.
(27:27):
Well, you have to have all ofthat stuff good geometry, a good
heat treat, combined with agood steel.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
How would you know about heat treat?
Is that more of a brand typething where that's why you go
with a brand you trust, becausethey have?
Speaker 3 (27:44):
a good heat treat.
Yeah, you can't look at a knifeand tell that it's been heat
treated properly.
It's kind of another rifleanalogy.
If you have a rifle that has away off from square bolt face
and maybe that the trigger islike a non-consistent trigger it
hasn't been inlayed to thestock well, it's not bedded.
(28:05):
It might look great throughoutthe shelf Then it's going to
shoot terrible and you're goingto have to go through this huge
checklist to figure out what'swrong with it.
A knife can look absolutelyamazing and then be made with
terrible steel or made with goodsteel with a bad heat treat.
The biggest thing is to go to areputable maker, especially
with a lot of these small batchsteels like MagnaCut.
They're getting to be moremainstream.
(28:25):
But I would make sure that youget something from somebody I'm
going to totally prop myself uphere Somebody like me, because
if you buy something from me andI'm not perfect, I totally
screw up.
Sometimes you get a knife fromme and you're like, hey, you
said this would last 20 or 30deer.
I needed to sharpen after one.
I'm going to be like, hey, sendit back.
I will either double check itand make sure it's not something
(28:46):
you did.
Maybe you're just cutting intoteeth like crazy with your skin
that head.
Or maybe I screwed up, in whichcase I'll make you a new knife.
I warrant my stuff, but if youbuy it from somebody that
doesn't have reputation, doesn'tstand behind their work, then
you're hoping that they did agood job.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Right, yeah, that's tough.
How would you recommendsomebody just look at a grip and
know if it's going to fit them?
Is it pretty self-explanatory?
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Not always.
I think a lot of folks getstuff because it looks cool and
they see stuff and they think,well, the first thing people
always ask is is somethinggrippy?
And I'm like, yeah, but that'snot that important.
It's important, don't get mewrong, but it's like that is
towards the end of my list ofthings to consider.
Because if it's really grippybut not ergonomic, I'm not going
(29:42):
to be accurate with my cuts,I'm going to start slipping when
I get hand fatigue, I'm goingto start making mistakes, I'm
going to do bad stuff.
It either hurts my animal orhurts me.
And I want something that'sgoing to be ergonomic, that's
going to give me control, notjust when I'm starting, but when
I'm at the end of skinning thatelk or bison or the 15th deer
that week, because I'm the guythat skins deer and deer camp
(30:04):
and everybody's just killing iton gun week.
I want a knife that's going tolet me keep up and stay accurate
with my cuts.
The other thing is I mean again, there's nothing wrong with
being grippy, but some folks getso wrapped up in the idea of
something being grippy that theyget something that later on
they don't actually care for.
And if you don't like the knife.
(30:24):
You're not going to carry theknife and I don't know.
I think that, like people get sowrapped up and, it being grippy
, the animals already dead.
You're working on dead animalsJust to hope so.
And like it's not, it's notpumping blood out everywhere all
over you.
If you've done it, if theanimals dead it's, it's been
killed by a hunter.
You know like it's been.
(30:45):
It's died through bleeding out.
It's largely bloodless.
There's nothing on earth that'sstill grippy through fat.
I mean, fat is always slick,it's like motor oil.
Yeah, blood, though it's notbleeding whenever you're working
on it.
So there's not much of an issuethere other than gutting the
animal.
I would focus mostly onergonomics.
That's my big thing.
The other thing is knives thathave the tang sticking out on
(31:06):
the edges.
So you know, full tang knife,the tang is exposed all the way
around.
A lot of guys get knives thathave the scales or CNC machine
and they're smaller in profilethan the tang and so the tang
sticks out all the way aroundthe edge and it looks kind of
cool, looks kind of tactical,but then that wears hot spots in
your hand, some fears, andyou're blistered up and
(31:28):
everything by the time you getdone through.
You know working one or twoanimals down.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
What materials do you like for your handles?
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Oh, that's a huge rabbit hole.
I work with all kinds of stuff.
I've got carbon fiber I like,so for my customers tend to like
my cart of stuff because my caris ergonomic, it looks pretty
cool.
There's stuff called G-Carta.
It's made in Nampa, idaho, by aguy named Greg Hansen.
He makes composites that areit's like my car, but instead of
(31:57):
being industrial and made heindustrially oh tongue tied.
It's small batches of fabricthat are rolled up with resin
and pressed into blocks and thencut whenever it's hardened.
So you get a lot of coolpatterns and colors.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
And he's got a zillion different color combos
and he's always dropping newstuff.
It's pretty cool.
I work with stabilized woods,that's woods that have been
soaked in resin using a vacuumprocess to draw it all the way
through.
Ivory antler everybody likesantler.
As far as me personally, I'm ahuge fan of antique micardas.
(32:32):
So micardas and industrialmaterial is made for usually
electrical work, to insulate,you know transformers and stuff
and when it gets old it oxidizes, so it gets darker.
It might be like a honey blondecolor to start off and then in
50 years it's developed thisdark brown we call it bark on
the surface and when you cutthrough it you can see the
(32:53):
oxidation layers, just likefading into the honey brown on
the inside and it makes for areally cool handle and it's just
special, like I'm making aknife right now out of some
that's from the Boeing plant inTacoma, washington, and it's
like super old stuff and likethey're not making anymore, you
know, and it's like it's got abackstory, it's got a place it
came from and it's like stufflike that gets me fired up but I
(33:19):
can make a handle out of justabout anything Is there, yeah,
yeah, and is that more whenyou're choosing your handle?
Speaker 1 (33:27):
is that more of a just a personal preference thing
, or are there, you know?
Besides, maybe like care.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
There is some care with some materials, like I said
, ivory, elk, antler, bone, somewoods, like you don't want to
like like get it wet, wipe itoff and then just throw it in
the drawer for next year.
You want to oil it and you keepit hydrated so it stays pretty
and stays, you know, fromshrinking and stuff.
There's other materials, like Isaid, carbon fiber and G10,
that don't need any carewhatsoever and they're
(33:58):
bulletproof.
They're really tough stuff Iactually didn't mention.
I've got the stuff called SureTouch and I'll show up.
Yeah, there we go, but it's G10and rubber layers.
Those layers you see thereblack, are rubber.
So it's absurdly grippy.
Going back to the grippy thingis grippy without without giving
up stuff Like you don't havelittle grooves and crevices and
(34:19):
checkering to pick up fat andblood and distinct later on.
It's not porous like wood soit's not going to pick up.
Like you know, you have thatshore lunch.
You get your three day fishinglicense when you're hunting out
West and you catch some trout.
Now your knife smells liketrout for the next six months.
It doesn't happen with thatstuff.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Nice, that's.
That's super interesting stuffsounds like let's go into field
sharpening.
This was people really wantedto hear about this.
This was like the one thing andman, when we were doing the
meat eater stuff, we we had thework sharp guys on and we talked
about knife sharpening and Imean we got more comments on
(34:59):
that episode than any of theother ones we did.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
Yeah, well, I mean I I don't have any great
recommendations for fieldsharpening, because it's going
to sound like I'm braggingmyself up.
I haven't had to sharpen in thefield.
Really Like I I tend to Ichoose knives that don't have to
sharpen in the field.
You know, if I worked down anelk, I've still got life left on
my edge and I can help my bodywith this.
I do like to bring a littlemicro pocket stone.
(35:25):
It's about the size of a packof gum or a stick of gum.
I want to say easy lap makes it.
It's an extra fine diamondstone.
It works on any steel, I meaneven carbide.
It'll sharpen and I bring thatand then I'll bring, and this is
like something you can't findin a knife shop or sporting good
store.
But if you go to a machine shopand ask them for a drill blank,
(35:47):
that's just hardened drill bitrod without any flutes in it,
and get one that's like fourinches long, like three
sixteenths or so in diameter,it's hardened so your knife
can't bite into it and you canuse it like a chef's deal, like
you see people using the movies.
Yeah, and when you're skinningout like caping out a head and
you're, you brush up against thebone with your edge or your
tooth with your edge teeth.
(36:09):
Teeth are harder than steel andwhat that causes is it rolls
the edge.
You can't see it, it's on amicroscopic level.
But suddenly it won't cut.
And with that hardened drillblank you can couple strokes and
it's not removing any metal,it's just standing that edge
back up and now it cuts likecrazy again.
So with a good steel youshouldn't have to sharpen in the
(36:29):
field.
You might have to fix rolls,but you shouldn't have to
sharpen.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Okay, what about?
What about a home, when you dohave to sharpen?
Speaker 3 (36:39):
at home.
So there's a couple differentmethods that are cool.
There's the KME Bench Top styleLike.
There's a bunch of differentcompanies that make them.
I think workshop makes one nowtoo.
But it mounts to your tabletop,has a little chip clip that
grabs onto your knife and holdsit flat.
I've got a knife here.
It holds it flat.
And then there's a guide rodsystem with a stone on a stick
(36:59):
and you just run it across theknife and it's impossible to
mess your angle up.
Once it's set those, anybodycan make a knife scream and
sharp with that system and it'snot like hogging down your edge
in a weird spot.
It's not doing anything thatyou can mess up.
They're great.
They take up a little morespace, they're a little more
expensive, but they're reallyworth the money, if you ask me,
(37:21):
and they work on any knife.
You can set the angles.
Another one is the Ken onionworkshop, which is a tabletop.
It's motorized, has a littlebelt.
But if anybody gets one ofthose, I would advise that when
you buy one, go to the SportingGoods counter at the store
you're buying it at and buy offthe turnstile One of those super
cheap piece of crap pocketknives from China.
Get one of those and practiceon that like crazy before you
(37:44):
put your good knives on it,because it's easy to like round
the tip off or hog out the bellyright by the handle.
It's easy to go too far withthose.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
So get some practice and yeah, yeah, got it With
those with.
I mean, even like those homestyle sharpeners are a little
more expensive, but they'restill like 60 bucks, like
they're not like 200.
Yeah so yeah, so after we gotone of those and I was touching
(38:15):
my knives up, like we juststarted touching like steak
knives up and stuff that are inthe house and like what a
difference it makes.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Oh yeah, well, I tell everybody that, like you know,
you buy a vehicle and you don'tstop thinking about, like
changing your oil or getting newtires, like those are things
you think about.
You get a rifle, you thinkabout cleaning it afterwards,
you think about checking yourzero, and so many people are
like I've had that knife for 10years and it doesn't cut anymore
, but I got to find somebody tosharpen it.
Like dude, you should learn howto sharpen.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Like that's like you don't hire people who are like
you're floors Like just do it.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
Yeah, like buy the equipment and do it and it works
forever.
Your sharpening system is goodfor a very long time.
If you wear it out, then you'reliving a much more exciting
life than I'm living becausedang.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Yeah, yeah, sweet.
Anything else you can think ofthat you want to dig into?
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Oh man, I mean like it just depends on how crazy you
want to get.
So, like my little side projectthat I've been working on has
been it's called hog dogging.
It's running hogs and houndsdown in Texas and because you're
running hounds and the houndsare actually catching the pig
Unlike running, you know, houndsfor cats or for bears you can't
(39:30):
shoot them Because you knowobviously you've got a dog
fighting grabbing onto his faceand stuff.
And so you get in there with aknife and you, you know, one
hand's on the pig that are handson your knife and you take care
of business that way.
And so I've, actually I've beenworking on a pig sticker design
for doing just that and it'sbeen wild.
(39:53):
I went down and did some testingwhen I was on an exotic hunt
last I think it was November inTexas and it worked out pretty
well.
I did some, did some fine youknow tunings and tweaks on the
design.
And then after that, I think itwas in February or March, I
went back down with some buddies.
We all had that you know, therefined version of the knife
model it's called the Harpy andwe cleaned the house on pigs.
(40:16):
It was epic and actually I'mgoing to be going back here in I
want to say it's February thiscoming February to do it again.
It's been, it's crazy.
If you haven't done it, it's alot of fun, it's worth trying.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Yeah, yeah, I did it once.
Just the soft heart of me islike it's primal, it's pretty
primal.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
It is really primal, I mean.
At the same time, if you do it,if you make a good stick and
with proper technique, it's ait's quicker than an arrow kill.
But the idea of like beinghands on is it's a bit much for
some folks.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
It is yeah, yeah, yeah, it is Dude.
That's awesome.
What are, what are the waittimes?
What are your lead timescurrently for customs?
Speaker 3 (41:01):
So, to get a custom, if you get on my wait list right
now it's around eight months.
It could be a little more, itcould be a little less
fluctuates, but it's been ridingabout eight, nine months for
the last three years, so it'spretty safe to say it's around
there.
Like I said, you can alsofollow me on Instagram or
Facebook and I post open salestuff, usually on my story, so
(41:21):
I'll have you know the availableposts and if you tap on it you
can look at the actual posts andsee all the specs.
But yeah, any questions, justshoot me a message.
You know I try to do one or twofancy open sales a week and
then I'll do, like I said, thestock options now with the metal
arc and the magpie.
So yeah, somebody wants to buysomething right before a hunt or
they've got, you know, arelative or a friend that's
(41:43):
going to go on a hunt, that'syou know.
They got a cool tag draw andthey want to get them something.
You know that's a great optionto get.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Yeah, have you started doing etchings or
engravings?
Speaker 3 (41:54):
Not, I'm not doing custom engravings right now,
Like I just engrave my logo andsome weird cases I do serial
numbers.
The etching process I use isn'treally conducive to being
economical for doing customengravings.
I do plan on at some pointgetting a fiber laser and doing
that, but it's it's not in thecards at the moment.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
Right, gotcha, all right.
Well, where's the best placethat folks can get a hold of you
?
Speaker 3 (42:20):
So they can shoot me an email or call me.
My email is a Symbita customknives.
I'm assuming we can put that inthe tagline or the info for the
podcast.
My number is 740-270-9057.
And you can give me a call orshoot me a text anytime.
As long as I'm not like in themountains and don't have signal,
(42:40):
I'll answer the phone and thenInstagram or Facebook.
That's pretty much where I dolike.
95% of my work is on Instagramand Facebook.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Yeah, Awesome and well.
Thanks again for hopping on,Evan.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
Thanks for listening to this episode of Jordan's
Toolkit.
If you have any questions orsuggestions for future episodes,
please visit the websiteJordan-budcom and follow the
links to submit an email orvoicemail to be played on air.
If you're listening on an audioplatform, you can also watch
this podcast on YouTube viaJordan-bud's personal channel.
Popular Podcasts
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
Introducing… Aubrey O’Day Diddy’s former protege, television personality, platinum selling music artist, Danity Kane alum Aubrey O’Day joins veteran journalists Amy Robach and TJ Holmes to provide a unique perspective on the trial that has captivated the attention of the nation. Join them throughout the trial as they discuss, debate, and dissect every detail, every aspect of the proceedings. Aubrey will offer her opinions and expertise, as only she is qualified to do given her first-hand knowledge. From her days on Making the Band, as she emerged as the breakout star, the truth of the situation would be the opposite of the glitz and glamour. Listen throughout every minute of the trial, for this exclusive coverage. Amy Robach and TJ Holmes present Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Betrayal: Season 4
Karoline Borega married a man of honor – a respected Colorado Springs Police officer. She knew there would be sacrifices to accommodate her husband’s career. But she had no idea that he was using his badge to fool everyone. This season, we expose a man who swore two sacred oaths—one to his badge, one to his bride—and broke them both. We follow Karoline as she questions everything she thought she knew about her partner of over 20 years. And make sure to check out Seasons 1-3 of Betrayal, along with Betrayal Weekly Season 1.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.