Discover the remarkable journey of Montana Knife Company as we sit down with the founder and owner, Josh Smith, who also happens to be the youngest person to ever become a Master Bladesmith, at 19 years old. In this latest episode, we delve deep into the evolution of the company and discusses their Third Phase of development, with an ambitious and strategic decision to self-finance the expansion of their new facility. Construction of the new building is already taking its first steps, with concrete poured and steel on its way. This new facility is expected to be a hub of manufacturing, innovation, and community engagement, encapsulating a vision where high-quality knives meet impeccable craftsmanship. The decision to invest entirely in this new venture underscores a mindset: keep everything in-house, retain control, and prioritize the welfare of the employees. The new headquarters will have retail space, a Black Rifle Coffee Company store front, and a Sorinex gym for the employees.
The rewards of all their hard work manifests in the form of not just superior knives, but a company culture that believes every knife produced could become significant for its eventual owner. Josh emphasizes the importance of storytelling in their manufacturing process, giving each employee a glimpse of the end user's connection to their work. Josh shared an example with a touching instance involving a special request earlier that morning, to engrave three knives with the name and rank of the soldiers that were on the helicopter that crashed in D.C. Josh mentioned that after our call he was going to go downstairs and pick three random knives off the production floor. Any knife made could be one to memorialize a soldier, the most meaningful birthday gift, or something a little more Presidential, perhaps.
Josh shared a series of unforgettable experiences at President Trump’s latest inauguration, as he was invited as a guest by the Trump family. Hear about the unique opportunity Josh had to present a set of chef knives to President Trump, along with the lighthearted challenges and memorable moments that arose from the encounter. He also spoke about the MKC luncheon Josh and his wife held at the inauguration.
A significant part of the episode revolves around the narrative of giving back and community support. The "Come Hell or High Water" fundraiser will support recovery efforts in the flooded areas of North Carolina and the fire ravaged areas in California.
The conversations about craftsmanship lead to insights about current collaborations with renowned figures like Steve Rinella from MeatEater, Cameron Hanes, Remi Warren, and an upcoming drop with Mike Rowe (the “Rocker”), first announced on this podcast! Each collaboration reflects the essence of what MKC aims to produce: functional, reliable tools that serve a purpose for workers and adventurers alike. The discussions draw attention to their commitment to stay rooted in American manufacturing, raising awareness of its importance in today's global economy.
As we wrap up the episode, Josh shares his thanks and heartfelt gratitude for the unwavering support from customers and partners, which serves as an inspiring reminder of what can be achieved with hard work, perseverance and a tight-knit community.
Learn more about the host, George Blitch at:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Josh Smith with Montana Knife Company, and
you're listening to the Son of aBlitch podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hey Josh, how you doing today, man?
Good Thanks for having me onAppreciate it.
I'm stoked to have you back.
You know it's been a coupleyears.
The last time we spoke you werekind of getting ready for phase
two development.
You had built out the new MKCheadquarters and y'all were just
moving in equipment andeverything.
And so now I know you guys areabout to do phase three and the
(00:44):
you know the building is isbeing built.
I just wanted to kind of catchup a little bit.
Why don't you tell me what'sgoing on with that?
And uh, you know some of thedevelopments as far as you know
the new building and what thatmeans for you guys podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Um, I could have sworn it was, you know, a year
ago or less, but it's uh, it'sjust kind of wild how fast time
flies.
You know, um, when you say wewere just moving into this
building, uh, yeah, I can't evenbelieve that.
It seems like it's, uh, thatseems like a decade ago.
But I feel like I talked to youjust yesterday, um, but yeah,
no, we, we moved into thisbuilding day, Right.
(01:27):
But yeah, no, we, we moved intothis building.
We filled it up incredibly fastand, frankly, within a few
months I was like, oh my gosh,like we got to start thinking
about the next move.
And then, you know, it was abouta year down the road of being
in here that we actually reallygot serious about it and I found
a piece of property about 15minutes from here, right along
the interstate, and it took awhile, but we got that secured
(01:48):
and bought that and it was theold stockyards property here
where they sell cattle or didsell cattle, and we bought that
and then started developing,kind of the plans for the new
building and actually we got theconcrete poured at least the
plans for the new building andand, uh, actually, uh, you know,
we got the concrete poured uh,at least the foundation for that
(02:09):
and um, steel started arrivingyesterday.
So, uh, they're unloading steeltoday and then Monday they're
going to start tipping ourbuilding up.
So, uh, and it's what?
February 1st or it will be umtomorrow, maybe what's I don't
even know what the date isanyway, Um yeah.
So it's just super, superexciting that we're kind of
(02:32):
starting to build out that 3.0phase.
But I mean, that's honestlygoing to take the rest of this
year.
We're kind of targeting a movein date around the 1st of
December.
Um, I'm hopeful it'll goquicker, but also with a lot of
these projects, sometimes theydon't so sure.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Well, what does the new facility look like?
I mean, maybe, if you can kindof give you know listeners an
idea of what you have now andwhat you're moving into, what
kind of you know developmentthat looks like?
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yeah, you know, the current building we're in is
about just shy of 10,000 squarefeet.
It's.
It's literally in my backyard,uh, my house is about 150 feet
from where I'm sitting.
Um and uh, you know this, thisbuilding's, you know it's pretty
nice, but it's really just kindof your typical shop.
Uh, this new facility isactually, you know, more of what
you would consider like atypical commercial building um,
(03:20):
big steel structure, uh, butwe're honestly going to do it
nicer than you probably normallywould see.
A knife factory build it.
Uh, the the front third of itis going to be offices and a
retail space.
So, you know, that's one thingwe don't offer here is the
ability to walk in and and buysomething in a store, uh,
because it is on my homeproperty.
(03:41):
So we're going to have a blackrifle coffee shop in our retail
facility.
We can give some tours, andthen the back, 30,000 square
feet, is all manufacturing.
It's going to be big, bright,tall, really nice, and honestly,
I'm doing this probably nicerthan most companies would do it.
But, to be honest, some ofthese employees might spend the
(04:04):
next 20, it.
But you know, to be honest, thesome of these employees might
spend the next 20, 30 years oftheir life in this facility and
I want it to be nice, so, likewe put air conditioning
throughout the whole entirebuilding, Um, and we're just
putting some amenities in, likea sore next gym and some things
for our employees that I hopemake it, you know, a little bit
nicer place to go to work atthan your typical manufacturing
facility.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah, well, and you know I wanted to also address
the idea.
Like you know, a lot of timeswhen companies are expanding and
they're developing, they'relooking at outside influences,
as far as investment wise, to beable to help them do that.
And you and Brandon, your team,kind of decided to double down
on your own effort and your ownmoney and that was a big, big
(04:46):
move and I think it's going topay off well.
And I know you've talked tosome other folks around there
who kind of like had that idea,like hey, keep it in house as
much as you can because you canhave the most control.
And you know you had a videowhere you were saying that you
told your employees this youknow your 75, 80 employees and
that that they were like kind ofnodding.
I don't think they fullyunderstood, but you said that
there was a time that they'rethey're one of the guys came in
(05:08):
like yeah, they're, they'reusing tape measureers and you
know, measuring stuff out andyou're like, yeah, I told you if
you can kind of talk a littlebit about like that idea of you
know all around how many peoplewant to support.
you know MKC and be a part of it, but I wanted to have you kind
(05:28):
of talk a little bit about thatand your decision to
self-finance in that way.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Well it's, it's funny .
Uh, you, you got most of thatright, but the part you actually
didn't get right is the partwith Kip and like with our board
.
You know, our board ofdirectors is small but very,
very experienced and theyadvised us not to do it this way
.
Okay, okay, they and they havea lot of experience and and this
(05:57):
was kind of an interesting, youknow, discussion back and forth
but basically they understoodfrom building huge businesses
before that cash is very, verydifficult to come by and it's
really hard to build and cashbecomes a problem, right, and so
by going and investing a bunchof cash into a building, you
then take away cash from yourpossible purchase of equipment,
(06:18):
materials, hiring people, andthey said, hey, use other
people's mind, take on someinvestment, go lease a building
which, where we're at in Montana, there's no lease space
available that could in any wayserve what we needed.
Maybe bring on an investor, butuse someone else's money to
(06:38):
build a building.
You don't want to own thebuilding, don't want to buy the
land, and that's just not,honestly, the vision that I had.
I wanted to build agenerational company.
Now, if I was building thisthing up to sell the entire
business.
That probably would have beenthe absolute right move, right,
but that's not.
That wasn't the goal.
(07:00):
And so, you know, we kind oflooked at it, we found that
property and we decided to kindof go against the board and buy
the property and build thebuilding ourself.
And now to your point yeah, wehad to go talk to banks and
figure out a way to borrow themoney, and we actually found a
(07:20):
great bank that really workedwith us and helped us make this
happen.
But it's literally two dudesthat had to go sign on the
bottom line to borrow $20million and it's kind of unheard
of.
And, to be honest, you reallywere very fortunate that we had
a bank that believes in us andthey kind of took that risk with
us.
But to your point, you're right, you know we had to put
(07:45):
basically everything we own, youknow, up for collateral, and so
they did.
They came out one day, uh, anappraiser and was measuring up
my shop, my house, and some ofour employees saw that and asked
me about it and I was like,yeah, we're literally putting
everything on the line to dothis, and so we're really proud
of the fact that we were able toget that loan and do all that
(08:06):
strictly, bootstrapping it likethe old school business way.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
What was your kind of feedback from your employees
when they realized that you knowyou're investing in them the
future of this and kind of thatgenerational idea, and what was
their kind of take when theykind of finally understood all
that's involved with that?
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah, I think that you know.
I don't know that it's as muchof a verbal thing that they talk
about, but I think you can justfeel it in the energy and in
the culture.
You can just tell that they'rebought in and that they believe
what they're doing is important.
We also share a lot of customeremails and messages that come
into us to try to reiterate that, because if you're making
(08:47):
hundreds of knives, um, it'seasy to start to just glaze over
.
Knife number 65 is just likeknife number 70.
And you can maybe even tend towant to let your quality go or
it doesn't seem as as importantor as as cool.
Um, but, but we always tellpeople like knife number 65
(09:07):
could be the most important giftthat someone has ever given
someone.
They could.
You know, honestly, I just gotand I haven't even had a chance
to deal with this yet I just gota request from someone that
knows those three soldiers thatwere on that helicopter that
crashed, um, you know, out in dc, and this guy just requested
(09:32):
that we uh, laser basicallytheir names and ranks on three
knives and give it to theirfamilies.
Um, I'm, I'm gonna just godownstairs and grab three knives
off the shelf and I'm going tolaser those and send those when
those guys were sharpening thoseknives a week or two ago or
assembling them or doingwhatever they were doing.
They're just three blades inthe process.
(09:54):
They aren't special, Right, butthey are.
That's the thing.
That's the point is, everysingle one of these knives is
potentially one of the mostspecial things that someone has
ever given or received.
And so, you know, we, we tell alot of those stories because I
think it's important to themthat you just never know which
blade you're holding and whatwhat you're doing that's going
to have an impact on someone'slife, you know, and so they've,
(10:17):
they've bought into that and Ithink they've.
They've seen that.
They've seen the way we'rebuilding the business and they
know they're a part of it.
And we tell them all the timeyou guys are a part of something
that they're going to writebooks about someday, you know.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Yeah absolutely Well and and you know, to your point
too, I think that's amazing thatyou're you're going to be
shipping those out and and and agreat honor uh to to them in
their lives and, and you know,just to kind of reiterate that
idea too Like you had sent, Ithink you you talked about how
you found out someone's truckwas broken into, a knife was
(10:50):
stolen it was an NKC knife andyou ended up finding out because
of you know, you could lookback on the history of your
orders and you ended up shippingout a replacement one to this
individual, who is Andrew Oliver, who then, if you might be able
to kind of thread that storyand how that you know came to
came to be of a whole notherlevel of development.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah, since that I've done that a few times, but that
particular time was the firstand I had seen a comment that he
had made on early on in ourcompany that somebody had got
one of our knives.
And he commented and said, yeah, that's the best knife I had,
but I they got, you know, stolenout of my truck and they broke
my windows, stole my, my stuff,and so I just sent him a
replacement blade and just outof the blue and he got it and I
(11:33):
guess he went home that nightand told his wife I'm going to
work for that company somedayand he was working for Amazon
and he was managing severalthousand people.
He stood up the Amazon facilityin Spokane.
So when we needed a director ofoperations hire, he applied,
came over and interviewed andtowards the end of his interview
(11:55):
he's like do you remember me ormy name or whatever?
And I was like no, and he toldme yeah, I'm the guy that you
sent a knife to.
You know that got broken intomy truck and whatnot.
I was like, oh, that's cool.
And you know, kind of told usthat story and as it turns out,
he's been one of the best hireswe've ever made.
He's now our director ofoperations and you know very
(12:17):
much the reason for our success.
So, just kind of cool, like youdo the right thing and and not
uh yeah, honestly, it wasn'tthat big a deal.
To me it's just felt likethat's the kind of company I
want to run.
And again, that was in year oneof our company.
It's just like, hey, when Ihear stories like that, I want
to try and take care of ourpeople.
Um little did I know the impactthat that would have on our
(12:40):
business later.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Oh, it's like the ripple right.
You never know what that may,you know, come to be.
And I mean that it kind ofbrings you to the.
The next thing was the ideathat you at one point in time
you know I guess you and Don jrhad kind of become friends or or
associated.
You know, in some some you knowformer fashion and you ended up
making some knives forpresident Trump, and I believe
that you had done this maybeeven before he announced that he
(13:04):
was running for 47 or that youknow he was going to, or maybe
he had.
But if you can tell a littlebit of story about exactly the
culinary set that you had madeand what you had had engraved on
there, if you wouldn't mind.
And then I want to kick in tohear more about the inauguration
and your trip there.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Yeah, no, I had become friends with Junior over
some time here and got a chanceto go out to North Carolina and
meet him and at that point hewas running.
But that was I think that wasApril of last year.
So you know very much up in theair as to whether or not he
would win and quite honestly atthat point I would.
(13:41):
I would say that he was reallyvery much running into a
headwind with all theallegations against him, all the
court cases.
He had a long road to hoe toactually win at that point.
But we did.
We made a chef set and weengraved the presidential seal
on that chef set and we putnumber 45 and number 47 on that
(14:05):
and, you know, gave that set tohim, uh, which he thought was
really, really cool.
Don jr Loved it, um, but boy, Iposted those pictures and I got
a lot of people, a lot of hate,uh, and a lot of people like
you know.
You're going to regret doingthat.
You're going to look like aclown someday.
You're going to see in November, that was a mistake, turns out
(14:27):
it was pretty much accurate,it's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
How did you end up?
I guess through your friendshipthere, you ended up going to
the inauguration.
I know you hosted a luncheon.
I know Don and Tulsi came outthere too.
If you can talk about a littlebit of that experience, what was
that like for you to go thereand be a part of that?
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Yeah, it was amazing.
Junior, um, you know, invitedus, uh, you know, and not not
that we were hanging out withjunior the whole time, just, uh,
you know, he invited us outthere.
We went, uh, he was verygracious to actually invite his
us to his kickoff dinner onFriday night, which was, um, uh,
yeah, it was kind of weird,like it was basically lots of
famous, powerful people and thenand then Josh and Jess, uh,
(15:11):
yeah, it was, uh, out of myelement for sure Pretty much the
entire right half of thefederal government, all the
appointees and, uh, you know,billionaires.
Um, so that was interesting forsure.
It was a really cool experience.
But again saw Tulsi and uh andjunior there and talked to them
both a bunch of Pete Hegseth,and become friendly with all
(15:34):
those guys.
Uh, tulsi, um, amazing galspent, you know, I've spent a
bunch of time with her now, um,you know, got huge hug from her
and we talked for quite a whileand same with junior, he was, he
was awesome, but, yeah, we didthat.
And then we hosted a luncheon onsaturday, uh, and it was really
just to celebrate americanmanufacturing and, to be honest,
(15:54):
I I thought, you know, 20people might come or something
like that and shit.
We ended up having uh 80 to 100, uh the.
The restaurant that we hostedit at that we told we thought
we'd have top end would be 40was not very happy with us.
We had people standing out inthe hallway trying to get in and
then when Trump Jr came in, itcreated quite a stir.
(16:21):
So but it was just really cool.
We had four US senators thereand then just a bunch of regular
people, I mean ranchers fromMontana, people that were
actually just out thereattending some, some media folks
, uh, george st pierre, some ufcfighters, you know um secret
service guys were there.
Uh, that's the cool thing aboutknives, is it?
It cuts across so many peoplein categories.
Uh, no pun intended, I guess.
(16:43):
Um, it's, it's just coolbecause you can just be a
rancher in eastern Montana oryou can be the most famous
whoever in the world, andeveryone uses a knife almost
every single day, which isreally cool.
And then the inauguration wascool.
I mean it was kind ofunfortunate that it got moved
(17:04):
inside.
They said it was for weather,but it was chilly for sure.
I mean it was cold, but it was100% about security.
There was no doubt, and Iactually kind of knew that from
some of my sources.
It was absolutely aboutsecurity, which was the right
move.
But we actually got to see thepresident's motorcade drive
(17:26):
right by us, him and then JD,when they actually came into the
white house for the first time,and it was totally random, we
were just out walking around andthat was pretty wild experience
.
So, um, yeah, just a neat timeand the balls were cool.
Went to the uh, the uhcommander in chief ball, saw, uh
, you know, president Trump comeout and speak there with JD.
(17:46):
So that was really cool too.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
I was curious about when you presented his knives,
cause I know, you know Joetalked about the time when he
came in and he was in the studioand he's like, yeah, the secret
service is like we got to takethese axes away and the, the,
the the uh, jack Carr, you knowthe Winkler Tomahawks and stuff.
But I was kind of curious.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
It's like how do you present, you know, a president,
a set of knives, well, and thatand that, that was.
It was funny.
Um, you know, I walk up to thehotel and you know, walk up the
secret service.
People are standing out thereand I'm like, hey, you know, I
have a chef set, I have weaponson me and I need to get them in
there.
And of course they startcalling around and and I had
(18:26):
some contacts in secret servicethat kind of knew it was coming,
but those people didn't.
And so, you know, kind of theystart communicating through each
other and they figured out, andthey get me in there and they
walk me into a back room.
They had me put those knivesout on a table and I actually
left that room.
And then President Trump endedup coming in there a little bit
(18:48):
later, uh, with the secretservice guys, and they gave them
to him.
And then when I met him about ahalf hour later, uh, he had
seen him and thanked me for himand stuff.
So I didn't personally handthem to him, uh, and I don't
think that was necessarily asecurity thing.
It was when I was in thereinitially.
He wasn't even there yet, uh,and so it was just a logistics
thing, um, um, you know, butI've been to other events, uh,
(19:13):
with Trump jr, with secretservice, where, uh, I have, I've
just brought the knives in backbehind, they've just escorted
me in and I'm the only guy with,you know, weapons in there
other than secret service.
So it's, I was also the onlykid in school that was allowed
to bring knives to school toshow my teachers.
So Right?
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Well, you sold your first two, I think, to your
teachers, right they were likethe beginning of the journey,
weren't they Exactly?
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Yeah, exactly.
And then all through junior,high and high school, I would
finish knives and bring them in,show my shop teacher, show the
principal, you know, and then Iwould store them in the
principal's office and then takethem back home on the bus.
So yeah, it was kind of cool.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Well, and for those who want to know a little bit
about that journey, you cancheck out the podcast, all the
show notes.
The first time we sat down andkind of give a little bit of
Genesis of your story andwhatnot, you know and, speaking
of, you know knives and special,you know stuff that you're
putting together.
You've done a lot ofcollaborations since we've spoke
, since, I mean with a lot ofdifferent companies.
Uh, there's, you know, some Iwanted to kind of highlight.
(20:09):
You know, I've done a littlebit of work with Steve Rinella
over there at MeatEater and youguys have, you know, a handful
of knives there you guys havecollaborated with, obviously,
you got Remy Warren and you knowthe Cam Haines one that
recently dropped and you know ifyou can maybe talk about a
little bit of thosecollaborations and you know
pretty soon.
Uh, and I also wanted you tokind of touch base on the idea.
(20:30):
I know a lot of people haveasked him hey, when is there
going to be a folding knife?
So maybe, if you can kind ofaddress a few of those things,
if you want to talk about someof the stuff that's coming down
the pike here in 2025.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Yeah, I mean, I want to just work with cool people
that are doing amazing stuff and, um, I think all of those
people you named have donereally cool things in the
industry.
They're respected, and so we'vebeen very fortunate to work
with those folks.
Yeah, working with Cam wasawesome.
That packout knife is reallycool.
Cam is, you know, he's anabsolute badass, obviously, and
(21:04):
that's a.
That's a cool little knife.
It's super unique.
So is that one we did with Remy?
I mean, they're very, veryunique knives, um, but they're
very functional, um, and so Ithink both of those knives are,
uh, I think they're gonnaabsolutely crush for us over the
next few years, um, and then,uh, yeah, as far as
(21:24):
collaborations that we havecoming up, I'll I'll just break
news right on your podcast foryou.
We've got a really cool knifecoming out and we are going to
be donating and this is a brandnew model and we're kind of
doing it with Mike Rowe.
It's our own model and it's ourown knife, but what we're doing
(21:44):
with Mike Rowe is we're goingto give 10% of the proceeds of
every single one of those kniveswe sell on perpetuity, uh, of
that particular model, to themicro works foundation, um, and
that is going to be coming outhere, uh, probably about the
week after this podcast drops,um, so, yeah, we're very excited
(22:07):
about that.
Uh, that knife is going to becalled the rocker, um, and so
it's kind of a blue collar knifeand it's it's less around
hunting and more around justpeople who go out and work with
their hands for a living andneed a good, solid little
working knife, little belt knife.
So, um, uh, that's that's acollaboration that I'm actually
(22:30):
really excited about becausethat's going to help send kids
to quote, unquote college butactually, like, help them in the
trades, help them with gettingapprenticeships, maybe going to
line school, welding school, youknow, plumbing, a plumbing
apprenticeship.
You know Mike is really big onlike, how do we help kids that
(22:51):
aren't maybe cut out to go tofour years of college, to get a
business degree?
They want to graduate highschool and go work with their
hands and there's nothing to beashamed about that, in fact,
frankly, that's why I'm sittinghere today.
You know, I flunked out ofcollege basically in a year, but
duck hunted my way right out ofcollege and it was just my
heart wasn't into it, it wasn'tthe right thing for me, went
(23:12):
back and worked in my parents'excavation business Later in
life, ended up with anapprenticeship, you know, to
become a journeyman lineman.
And I passed through that andbecame a lineman.
You know.
I was an apprentice knife makerand I actually thought for a
while I was going to be anapprentice welder, so much so
that I bought a pipeline welderand started practicing welding
(23:33):
in my shop before I got mylineman job.
So, uh, but those are the.
That lineman job is what fundedand set me up for my chance to
start MKC, you know, and so Ivery much believe in that, in
that mission that Mike Mike ison with the micro works
foundation, so pretty excitedabout that.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
That's amazing man.
And as far as folding knivesdid, I hear something on a video
once.
Oh yeah, it's a little talkabout that coming out.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
The number one question we get folding knives.
Yeah, we are in the uh, we'revery much in the prototyping
stage now.
It's designed uh, we're workingon several prototypes right now
.
That's a knife you really gotto put a lot of testing into, um
, you know, you got to go get itdirty, you got to get sand and
fat and blood and whatever in it, water right and make sure the
(24:26):
mechanism works correctly, makesure it locks up well, make sure
it uh, you know, wear wise,that it wears in well and you
don't end up with issues.
So we're going to beprototyping and testing that
basically this entire year andour goal is to come out with
that in the middle of next year.
And, frankly, that's probablythe number one reason we need
the new building is we don'thave room in this current
(24:49):
facility to even make thoseknives this year, uh, you know.
So that square footage that wehave coming up in that new
facility is going to allow thatfolding knife to become a
reality.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Uh, man, I'm excited about that, you know.
And there's one other one thathit.
The name escapes me, but it wasthe one that's kind of like for
ranch hands, right, that justdropped, I guess in December.
Uh, what hit?
The name escapes me, but it'sthe one that's kind of like for
ranch hands, right, that justdropped, I guess in december.
Uh, what's the name of that one?
It's that you guys had come out, um, which, uh oh, oh, the
stockyard knife yeah I was.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
I was throwing off for a second, yeah, uh, I was
thinking about a rocker knifeand I was like, no, we haven't
come out with that.
Yet no, the, the stockyard knifeis a knife that with, without
really really much of a tip onit, um, and I did that because
there's a lot of people,especially during branding
season in the spring, and you'recastrating calves.
You know, you know you're usinga knife in that process and if
(25:43):
a calf kicks or somethinghappens, you can stab them with
a regular knife, you know.
Same thing, if you're out onthe ranch and you find a calf
that's got, or a cow or whateverthat's got, baling, entwined,
wrapped around its hoof orsomething, and you need to cut
it out, um, anytime.
Or, let's say, you get hung upin a rope or something happens
with a horse and you got to cut,say, the halter free or
(26:06):
whatever, right, um, we've had,we've had our, our four H calves
.
When we're breaking them, whenwe tie them up, we've had them.
Uh, and our, when my kids don'tquite tie the knot correctly,
we've had those four H calvesbasically throw themselves down
and flip themselves over andyou've got all that weight on
that rope.
If you don't tie the right knot, you can't untie it, and so, uh
(26:32):
, you know, we've had to reachup there with a knife and cut
those ropes for you, right?
There's a ton of differentsituations you can be in with
livestock where you need to usea knife, and it's a bit of a
wild situation, and if you havea tip on a knife it's much more
dangerous for the animal and foryou.
And so that stockyard knife uhwas specifically designed for
that crowd and, honestly, itworks really well in that blue
(26:54):
collar uh vein for people whomaybe just need to open 500
boxes a day.
Uh, you know, it really workswell for that kind of work.
Uh, and I've seen electriciansusing it for skin and wire.
So, again, you make knivesintended for one purpose, but
it's interesting how other uh,uh you know, professions, um, or
(27:17):
crafts find uses for in theirin their way.
So it's really cool to seethose photos come in from
customers.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yeah, well, you know I, I want to rewind back to the
idea the knife that you designedthere with cam, and you know
the the thing about it.
The thing about it it's gotshort but it's actually in that
three-inch blade.
It actually has three and ahalf inches right of, like
actual blade, because of itscurvature.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
You pay attention, just a little bit.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
A little bit.
Listen, you can see all theseknives of yours behind me.
I've got quite the sets, man.
They are my favorite.
I've been using those when Iguide hunts.
That's the one I'm putting inmy hunter's hands.
I mean they're the best ones outthere and I love that they're
all made here and that supportAmerica jobs.
I mean it's a big thing for me,right?
But something about thecraftsmanship and the quality
(28:01):
and the idea of having somethinglike that that you can take out
in the field you know, cam,he's going out in the middle of
nowhere, no one else has beenright and so having something
that's lightweight, that'susable, that is very, very
reliable and I wanted you tokind of talk about that because
I didn't get a chance to get onein that drop but I was just
floored with the design.
It looked like such a greatutility for those purposes of
(28:23):
being way out in the woods andhaving something light but
durable and just I love thedesign.
So, if you can go ahead andmaybe expand on that a little
bit, and, uh, when you guys weredeveloping that, what was it
that, you know, you guys came tothe table with to to bring that
out?
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Yeah, it's, uh, it's called our packout knife and
it's uh, it's actually kind of aminiature version of our bare
tooth.
Uh, and that bare tooth knifewas designed, you know, to do a
lot of work in a hurry with andhave a lot of edge, and it's a
for people that you know.
Uh, you know, maybe you're justlistening to this and try and
visualize it uh, it's got areally aggressively upswept
(29:03):
blade on it.
Um, but unlike the bear, youknow, the bear tooth is really
big knife and that was more forlike fleshing big hides like
bears up in Alaska or moose, youknow, really huge hides.
This was made more for, and Iwould say that bear tooth is
more for like back at camp, backin the garage, in the taxidermy
studio, things like that.
You're not necessarily carryingit.
(29:24):
The packout was made literallyfor packing out into the
furthest depths of the woods andthen be able to get a lot of
work done with the skinningprocess and there again, this
knife doesn't really have a veryaggressive tip.
It's maybe not necessarily thebest knife for doing little fine
detail, uh, caping work aroundthe eyes, the tear ducts, the,
(29:44):
you know the, the antlers, baseof the antlers, um, but boy,
when it comes, comes to, youknow, opening up a cavity of an
animal and then skinning thatout, skinning out the quarters,
if you remove the quarters andyou're trying to get that skin
off in a hurry.
Like you said, it's a relativelyshort blade but it's actually
got more cutting edge than itdoes overall length of blade,
(30:08):
which is actually interesting,which just means it has a ton of
working surface on that edge.
Um, and the other thing is isthe handle is relatively short
but it's kind of chubby, so itfills up your hand really nicely
.
So you know, guys that have bighands, it fits in the palm of
your hand well, um, and you havea lot of dexterity and control
(30:28):
over that, that handle and thatblade which allows you to really
move fast.
A guy like yourself that'sguiding and whatnot.
You're man, I'm sure when youget a deer or another animal
down, you're moving, especiallyup here, if it's cold, dark,
you're trying to beat dark, oryou're trying to get out before
the snow hits, or whatever.
(30:49):
You're trying to beat dark, oryou're trying to get out, and,
uh, before the snow hits orwhatever.
You're trying to be fast andthat little blade I think you're
going to find that blade is is,uh, you can.
You can move quickly on ananimal with it.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Well, you know, in Texas the heat sometimes right
You'd knock a hog or two down.
You know you gotta move quickin that realm too.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
And the flip side of the spectrum.
That's a problem we don't havevery often up here.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
It'd be nice to trade sometimes.
We just had, like our littlesnowmageddon two whole days.
Everyone's like, oh, the wholestate shuts down.
No one knows what to do.
I've lived in snow before.
I'm like this isn't that big ofa deal, guys.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
But, god, we've had two straight weeks of it being
zero degrees every night andit's actually been sunny and
nice.
We don't have much snow, butboy, uh, like these guys
starting in my building, theywere unloading steel yesterday
morning it was zero and, uh, youmight see some photos or video,
but yeah, they're all.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
They all look like big, chubby snowmen, they're all
puffed up and all these clothesand, uh, yeah, pretty frosty
beards on them, that's for sureI can imagine when I saw some
videos, you guys having likehaving to tarp over all the
stuff that y'all were doing whenyou were laying down.
I mean it looked like aday-to-day operation of just
kind of keeping that snow offwhen you're working on the
concrete there.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Yeah, I was running up there almost every day.
They're insulated concreteblankets, and so when we poured
our concrete, we had to cover itand then run heaters on it for
three days to get the concreteto cure correctly.
Um, and then I pulled thoseblankets off of that and laid
them on the ground to keep theground from freezing so hard, so
the plumbers and electricianscould dig their ditches.
(32:19):
Right now, I bet you, there'sprobably 12 to 18 inches of
frozen hard frost in the ground,so the the top surface of the
earth is frozen foot foot and ahalf deep, which is, uh,
probably not something thattexans have to deal with very
often no, not at all.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Well, you know that.
That made me think about, too,just like kind of being out
there in the elements.
Have you, did you get a chance?
I know, with so much going on,uh, you're a busy man, but did
you get a chance to get out anddo some hunting this, this, this
last season?
And if so, uh, what did thatlook like?
What you got in the freezer?
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Uh, yeah, unfortunately not really.
Um, I, and I say that Iactually got to do, you know,
probably the coolest time of mylife, uh, in August.
So, uh, it almost doesn't countas hunting season, but it was
late August, Uh, uh, I took myson up on a moose hunt to
Northern British Columbia and heshot an absolute monster moose.
(33:13):
It was a 10 day fly into a lake10 day, uh, horseback packing
hunt.
We use the horses some, but nota lot.
A lot of it was hiking, Um, weuse the horses.
When it mattered most, whichwas packing the meat out, which
is a godsend.
Um, we'd never been able to hunttheory, we're in without horses
, frankly.
But my son shot a huge moose,saw some grizzly bears, heard
(33:36):
some wolves.
How got to sleep in a tent andfreeze our butts off for 10 days
in the rain and cold weather.
Uh, it's funny, you thinkAugust, I mean he even here in
Montana, it's 100 degrees herein August and flew in there and
I mean froze our asses off for10 days.
But when I got home from that,honestly we were so busy, you
(33:59):
know, I didn't, I didn't huntbasically the rest of the season
, which is kind of insane tothink about, but there's just so
much time being spent right nowon trying to grow this company
that it's a bit of a challengeright now to get away at all.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
I can imagine Now was that Hank's first moose.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
That's awesome For sure.
What an experience man.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yeah, he made a 644-yard shot and absolutely
dropped it in its tracks.
Wow, what was he using?
28 nozzler?
Okay.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Yeah, yeah, and absolutely.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Uh, it's the coolest video and the fact I actually
just watched the film my cameraguy just finished editing it, uh
, two days ago, Uh and uh, Iwent over it, checked it out, it
was really cool, and so weshould be releasing that pretty
soon.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Cool man.
Well, I'll, once that comes out, I'll I'll throw some links
here in the show notes below soeveryone can see that as well.
Yeah, appreciate it Absolutely.
You know I wanted to kind of,you know, chat a little bit
about what you got kicking rightnow and I know it's, you know,
kind of coming to the end of thenext week or two.
But you got the come hell orhigh water fundraiser and I'd
love for you to just kind ofmaybe you know, cradle to grave
talk about the idea of what thiswas about, how this started and
(35:10):
the explosive growth from thecommunity.
And you know, I'll, I'll letyou go ahead and chat about that
, but I'm really curious how youknow how, this came to be.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah.
So you know, a couple of yearsago we had some bad flooding
here in Montana, um, down aroundYellowstone park, and a knife
maker buddy of mine, willStelter, reached out and said,
hey, let's collab on a knife anddo a fundraiser for that.
And so we ended up calling itthe come hell or high water
fundraiser.
Uh, and it was great.
We donated $80,000 to reallysmall town, uh, small towns down
(35:44):
in in Southwestern Montana, uh,and so we hadn't done anything
since.
And then, uh, the northcarolina floods happened from
hurricane helene.
And, uh, a little bit later inthe fall, uh, chase rice reached
out to me.
He's like, hey, I, I'm going onthis elk hunt in montana.
If I shoot this elk, will youmake a knife or two and let's do
(36:08):
a fundraiser for North Carolina?
And I was like sure, no problem.
So he did, he came, he did, hedid get an elk.
He sent me the elk antlers,no-transcript, and we were
getting ready to launch, kind oflike, this fundraiser for that.
And then the fire, theCalifornia wildfires hit and
(36:31):
unbelievable devastation.
And you know, my house burneddown 11 years ago and I was
living in a camper in mydriveway, so like I know where
some of these people are sitting.
I get it.
And, and I do want to add to,you know I've had some comments
on this, you know, basically,like you know, screw those
people leftist, commie, whatever, liberal, whatever's right,
(36:53):
screw California and all thepeople in it.
Granted, I'm not a fan ofCalifornia's politics, but there
are a ton of amazing peoplethat live in California and,
frankly, they are US citizens.
And number two, not everyonedown there has Mel Gibson's
money right.
A lot of those people that livethere maybe even got those
(37:13):
homes passed down for thegenerations and sure they might
have $10 million net worth andall of it's in their home and
they go down and work a day job.
There's people who arewaitresses, there's the service
community of that place and,granted, it's the Palisades and
a lot of those people at leastthe perception is that they're
wealthy and they're rich.
But I know enough stories nowto know, in fact, another guy I
(37:40):
know, his daughter lost theirhome and they're not sure
insurance is going to cover itand they're in an absolute bind,
right and so, and they're notsuper wealthy.
Uh, so this idea that we shouldjust uh throw out our, our
American citizens cause we don'tagree with the state's politics
kind of bothers me.
(38:01):
But anyway, when I saw thathappen, I called Chase and I was
like, hey, let's do one knifefor North Carolina and one knife
for California and let's raisesome money and split it between
the two, which he loved it.
It was great, and we launchedthat, come hell or high water,
and basically what it is.
Frankly, it was our hack to getaround the illegal raffle rules
(38:27):
.
You can't run raffles.
There's a bunch of crap withgambling laws, internet crap,
right.
And so what we did is we'relike, okay, buy a t-shirt or a
hat, so now you're buying anitem and then we will enter you
to win these knives.
And so for every $5 you spendon a t-shirt or not a hat, I'm
(38:47):
sorry or a Zippo lighter, forevery $5 you spend, you get
entered.
That's one entry into thisquote unquote raffle fundraiser.
And so what was really cool wasthe minute we launched it, some
other really big brands startedthrowing in grand prizes and we
(39:07):
have now a bunch of really coolgrand prizes from a lot of
different companies, and it justmade it that much sweeter.
And so we've already raisedover $230,000 that we're going
to be donating and, quitehonestly, I would imagine over
the next few days it's probablygoing to be upwards of 300 grand
, um, and then we're going tomake sure that was the other
(39:29):
thing when we raised that moneyfor red lodge, montana and those
people.
Uh, I want to be damn sure thisgets to the people that actually
are affected.
And I did a bunch of researchand, frankly, I interviewed
nonprofits.
You know, we we have to writethis check to a nonprofit.
I can't just I'm not going tojust go write it to individuals,
right, frankly, if I wrote itto individuals, they would get
(39:51):
taxed on it.
It's kind of stupid.
But we are going to make sure wedo a lot of due diligence and
make sure that we're not.
We're not.
I'm not going to just write acheck, you know, to the Red
Cross or something like that.
No, I'm not going to just writea check to the Red Cross or
something like that.
No offense to them.
I know they do a lot of greatwork, but we're going to make
(40:12):
sure this gets to the ground andhelps the people of North
Carolina and California.
So, yeah, it's been really cool.
Chase Rice is actually going tofly out the two people that win
the knives to a concert and himand I are going to present
those knives to the winners onstage at one of his concerts,
and he's going to pay for thewhole thing.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
So that's cool prizes now or something like that even
more.
And so I'll have the linksbelow and make sure everyone
who's listening or watching goand pick up one of these.
(40:47):
You know, I got one of theZippos here.
I got the t-shirt as well here,for those who aren't listening,
you can go check out the shownotes.
But great shirts, great Zippo,great cause, and I love that
it's going to be going directlyto people.
It's not going to benecessarily all administration,
it's going to be going to thepeople that need it the most and
I, you know, your due diligenceis, you know, definitely you
know, salute you on that andmaking sure that that dollar
(41:09):
goes far for each person.
There's a lot of people who areaffected a lot, a lot of land
that was just destroyed, there'sa lot to build back and it's
great to see our community and,you know, fellow Americans
stepping up and helping eachother and building something
back, hopefully better thanbefore and as as you can, you
know, and a lot of hurt and alot of pain in a lot of people's
lives right now.
So, uh, you know, I think it'simportant that we empathize with
(41:31):
everyone, no matter what yourbackground is, and realize we're
all just trying to.
You know, we're all a part ofsomething together here, Right,
and you know, and, and kind ofleaving with that.
You know, I wanted to kind ofhave you maybe, you know, take a
few minutes to talk about.
You know, maybe, how you'refeeling as far as the support
that you've gotten from so manydifferent people having your
(41:51):
business.
You know, I know you've talkedabout it before it's right, it's
a 33 year overnight success.
Right, it's all the hard workand the efforts that's put into
this, something that in fiveyears seeing this brand grow
that represents so much here ofyou know American jobs, American
manufacturing and really kindof trying to build something
great here in the US and Iapplaud that.
(42:11):
I just wanted to you know ifyou had some words you'd like to
share to some of those peoplehave supported you and you know
what it means like for youpersonally to see this
development and see all thissupport.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
Yeah there, yeah there, there almost are no words
it's, it's, it's, it's umabsolutely really become
impossible for me to thankeveryone that deserves a thank
you.
I, I see, you know the labelsthat when my wife's in charge of
customer service and and andfulfillment and I see the labels
(42:43):
being printed, you know, aftera drop, and a lot of times I'll
grab those labels and just kindof look through them and see if
I like recognize any names,Right, and a lot of times I
don't recognize a single name.
That's all strangers, Right?
And uh, I wish I could reachout and thank every one of those
people because, you know, whenyou buy even people that can't
(43:03):
afford a knife but they believein what we're trying to do, just
buying a t-shirt or a hat whenthey wear that hat or that shirt
or they they buy that knife,they're they're representing and
they're believing in an idea of, like the American dream, and I
cannot tell you how much Iappreciate.
When I get, I'll get texts frompeople you know at a Red Sox
(43:25):
game in Boston and they'll belike dude, I just saw this dude
wearing your hat, and a lot oftimes these people will like go
up and talk to each other andthey're like, dude, you're
wearing MKC and they're wearingthat.
And they're doing that becausethey believe in this idea that
the American dream is stillalive and that they believe that
American manufacturing iscritically important to, frankly
(43:47):
, the survival of our country.
And it's not just the customersbut the industry itself,
whether it's Seekins or StowGlacier or SIG or Leupold,
Sorenex and Black Rough Coffee Icould just go down the list of
(44:09):
literally 100, 150 brands thathave, in one way or another,
been accepting of us and helpedus grow, and we try to remember
that now.
You know we've talked a littlebit about like hey, when we see
some of these other brandscoming up and whatnot, how can
we be helpful here and there toto their success as well?
(44:30):
Um, I think a lot of people seelike a, a brand, like a Yeti,
and they just see a huge brand,they see a conglomerate.
But what I've gotten to know is, like the guy like Andrew Jones
behind Yeti right, and you knowhe's not some big executive,
he's a worker bee guy, but hemakes a lot of things happen I
(44:50):
get to meet the humans behindthese huge brands and you start
to realize that these hugebrands, like a Seekins Precision
.
There's a Maddie and a DannyNelson behind it and there's
Glenn Seekins.
That's the CEO, that's doingwhat I'm trying to do with mkc
and he's literally grindingevery day to try to build his
gun company.
Um, and what I really wantpeople to know is that, like, it
(45:11):
is absolutely possible to chaseyour dreams.
And you know people say, well,it's never been more unfair
today, it's never been more.
You know, rich versus poor.
And I would argue, do you thinkit was any better during the
great depression when yourgrandparents were trying to
survive?
Right, I think there's alwaysgoing to be struggle, no matter
(45:34):
what time of uh, you know timeperiod we're in.
But what's most important isthat we, we keep a free country
and we live in a free country.
If you live in a free country,then you have opportunity, right
, and I don't know that.
There's another country and youknow I'm not into a lot of, you
(45:54):
know, world news, so I don'tknow, maybe there's the
equivalent of a Montana knifecompany in Taiwan, but I'm not
aware of it.
Right, Our style of governmentand government for sure has all
its flaws, but our style of whatwe set up for a framework for
our country allows forinnovation, allows for people to
(46:15):
rise up from being broken,living in their camper 11 years
ago, with a house burned down,to have an 80 employees and a
multimillion dollar brand Right,Um, and that doesn't mean I'm
getting rich, it means I'mreinvesting all that back in and
, frankly, for the thing I'mmost proud of probably is the
fact that I have 80 people inour company that can go chase
(46:39):
their dreams, pay their bills,feed their families and raise
their kids here in Montana andthey don't have to leave our
state to go find a good job.
So it kind of rambled on there.
But, like the appreciation isjust throughout the entire
process and you know theappreciation for my employees
that have stuck by us and put inthis hard work and kept the
quality up and, um, yeah, I'm,I'm very grateful for the
(47:03):
position we're in today.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Well, I just applaud everything that you just said
and you know I think it's soimportant.
Uh, you know all the aspects,especially just kind of the
American made job and like beingable to continue and like
you're helping all these peoplecontinue to pay their bills,
build their lives, build theirfamilies.
And you know it's only going togrow as phase three continues
on and as your company continueson and, uh, you know, like I
said, I salute you and all thegreat things you guys got going
(47:31):
on.
Um, you know, for those whomight not know, why don't you go
ahead and give the, you knowsocials where people can follow
you and as well as, uh, you know, maybe you want to go ahead and
just, you know, talk about thatand where people can find that.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
I appreciate it.
As far as finding us, you knowmontananifecompanycom or our
Montana Knife Company Instagrampage we finally got our Montana
Knife Company Instagram pageverified about a week ago, nice,
and got the blue check mark.
And that might not seem like abig deal, but you go search
Montana knife company onInstagram a month ago and there
(48:09):
was dozens of fake pages and so,uh, and they were scamming
people, which really pissed meoff.
Um, cause people believe theywere winning things from us and,
yeah, it was very frustrating.
Um, so that's good.
And then you know my personalInstagram page if you want to
follow.
Uh, it's, it was veryfrustrating.
Um, so that's good.
And then you know my personalInstagram page if you want to
follow.
Uh, it's, it's kind of a randommix of of stuff, but, uh, just
(48:32):
Josh Smith knives is myInstagram page.
Um, you know, I haven'trecorded a podcast in several
weeks.
Now I'm actually looking at kindof revamping it just a little
bit.
We were going to maybe pull itout of.
It was on our Montana knifecompany YouTube and it felt like
it was getting swallowed up alittle bit by all the content
that we put out on the Montanaknife company page.
So I'm actually trying tofigure out what to do and how to
(48:55):
do that, but, cause I do lovedoing the podcast, it's called
the Josh Smith show, uh, and Idid.
I have a bunch of really greatguests.
There's just amazing people andyou can still find all those.
I need to get to recording moreepisodes.
But I'm actually currentlytrying to figure out if I'm
gonna keep the name and then ifI'm gonna start like its own
YouTube page and kind of run itas its own thing, versus it kind
(49:17):
of being swallowed up in thatMKC proper YouTube.
So that, yeah, just internalstruggles of trying to figure
out how to grow and what, whatthe right move is, you know.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
Indeed, man.
Well, you know, I'm sure you'llfigure that path out, and I
definitely encourage people togo check it out.
You've got some amazing peopleyou sit down with and chat with,
and it's a thoroughlyentertaining and educational too
.
So, josh, once again, man, Ijust want to thank you for
coming along.
You know, I guess, as phasefour comes out, we'll have
another podcast, and you knowwe're just going to continue our
trend here, but there you go.
It's wonderful to you know, bein touch with you and to see all
(49:51):
the growth and all thewonderful things you got going
and all the things you'refacilitating all around and just
making the best damn knives outthere.
Man, just keep it up.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
And thank you once again.
Well, congrats on the podcast,uh, congrats on the maps
business and, and, uh and man, Iappreciate your support.
Um, I love all the stuff behindyou.
It's super, super cool.
Um, I can, I can tell we're alot alike.
There's a lot of things therethat are real similar to the
things I like, but, uh, yeah,really appreciate the support
and, having me on for sure, lookforward to doing it again
excellent.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
Well, hey, man, take care and everyone.
Make sure you check out theshow notes.
Go check out the website, signup for the next drop and be
notified when the next knife'scoming out.
Another one's coming out soonthe micro special.
Make sure you also go and checkout the Kumheller High Water.
Go ahead and get your purchasesin there.
Remember that's going to endsoon.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
So, as this drops, you maybe got a week too.
We'll see what it is, but makesure you sign up for that and go
help out with that fundraiser.
Thanks again, josh.
We'll talk soon.
Thank you.
This is Josh Smith with Montana Knife Company, and
you're listening to the Son of aBlitch podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hey Josh, how you doing today, man?
Good Thanks for having me onAppreciate it.
I'm stoked to have you back.
You know it's been a coupleyears.
The last time we spoke you werekind of getting ready for phase
two development.
You had built out the new MKCheadquarters and y'all were just
moving in equipment andeverything.
And so now I know you guys areabout to do phase three and the
(00:44):
you know the building is isbeing built.
I just wanted to kind of catchup a little bit.
Why don't you tell me what'sgoing on with that?
And uh, you know some of thedevelopments as far as you know
the new building and what thatmeans for you guys podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Um, I could have sworn it was, you know, a year
ago or less, but it's uh, it'sjust kind of wild how fast time
flies.
You know, um, when you say wewere just moving into this
building, uh, yeah, I can't evenbelieve that.
It seems like it's, uh, thatseems like a decade ago.
But I feel like I talked to youjust yesterday, um, but yeah,
no, we, we moved into thisbuilding day, Right.
(01:27):
But yeah, no, we, we moved intothis building.
We filled it up incredibly fastand, frankly, within a few
months I was like, oh my gosh,like we got to start thinking
about the next move.
And then, you know, it was abouta year down the road of being
in here that we actually reallygot serious about it and I found
a piece of property about 15minutes from here, right along
the interstate, and it took awhile, but we got that secured
(01:48):
and bought that and it was theold stockyards property here
where they sell cattle or didsell cattle, and we bought that
and then started developing,kind of the plans for the new
building and actually we got theconcrete poured at least the
plans for the new building andand, uh, actually, uh, you know,
we got the concrete poured uh,at least the foundation for that
(02:09):
and um, steel started arrivingyesterday.
So, uh, they're unloading steeltoday and then Monday they're
going to start tipping ourbuilding up.
So, uh, and it's what?
February 1st or it will be umtomorrow, maybe what's I don't
even know what the date isanyway, Um yeah.
So it's just super, superexciting that we're kind of
(02:32):
starting to build out that 3.0phase.
But I mean, that's honestlygoing to take the rest of this
year.
We're kind of targeting a movein date around the 1st of
December.
Um, I'm hopeful it'll goquicker, but also with a lot of
these projects, sometimes theydon't so sure.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Well, what does the new facility look like?
I mean, maybe, if you can kindof give you know listeners an
idea of what you have now andwhat you're moving into, what
kind of you know developmentthat looks like?
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yeah, you know, the current building we're in is
about just shy of 10,000 squarefeet.
It's.
It's literally in my backyard,uh, my house is about 150 feet
from where I'm sitting.
Um and uh, you know this, thisbuilding's, you know it's pretty
nice, but it's really just kindof your typical shop.
Uh, this new facility isactually, you know, more of what
you would consider like atypical commercial building um,
(03:20):
big steel structure, uh, butwe're honestly going to do it
nicer than you probably normallywould see.
A knife factory build it.
Uh, the the front third of itis going to be offices and a
retail space.
So, you know, that's one thingwe don't offer here is the
ability to walk in and and buysomething in a store, uh,
because it is on my homeproperty.
(03:41):
So we're going to have a blackrifle coffee shop in our retail
facility.
We can give some tours, andthen the back, 30,000 square
feet, is all manufacturing.
It's going to be big, bright,tall, really nice, and honestly,
I'm doing this probably nicerthan most companies would do it.
But, to be honest, some ofthese employees might spend the
(04:04):
next 20, it.
But you know, to be honest, thesome of these employees might
spend the next 20, 30 years oftheir life in this facility and
I want it to be nice, so, likewe put air conditioning
throughout the whole entirebuilding, Um, and we're just
putting some amenities in, likea sore next gym and some things
for our employees that I hopemake it, you know, a little bit
nicer place to go to work atthan your typical manufacturing
facility.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah, well, and you know I wanted to also address
the idea.
Like you know, a lot of timeswhen companies are expanding and
they're developing, they'relooking at outside influences,
as far as investment wise, to beable to help them do that.
And you and Brandon, your team,kind of decided to double down
on your own effort and your ownmoney and that was a big, big
(04:46):
move and I think it's going topay off well.
And I know you've talked tosome other folks around there
who kind of like had that idea,like hey, keep it in house as
much as you can because you canhave the most control.
And you know you had a videowhere you were saying that you
told your employees this youknow your 75, 80 employees and
that that they were like kind ofnodding.
I don't think they fullyunderstood, but you said that
there was a time that they'rethey're one of the guys came in
(05:08):
like yeah, they're, they'reusing tape measureers and you
know, measuring stuff out andyou're like, yeah, I told you if
you can kind of talk a littlebit about like that idea of you
know all around how many peoplewant to support.
you know MKC and be a part of it, but I wanted to have you kind
(05:28):
of talk a little bit about thatand your decision to
self-finance in that way.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Well it's, it's funny .
Uh, you, you got most of thatright, but the part you actually
didn't get right is the partwith Kip and like with our board
.
You know, our board ofdirectors is small but very,
very experienced and theyadvised us not to do it this way
.
Okay, okay, they and they havea lot of experience and and this
(05:57):
was kind of an interesting, youknow, discussion back and forth
but basically they understoodfrom building huge businesses
before that cash is very, verydifficult to come by and it's
really hard to build and cashbecomes a problem, right, and so
by going and investing a bunchof cash into a building, you
then take away cash from yourpossible purchase of equipment,
(06:18):
materials, hiring people, andthey said, hey, use other
people's mind, take on someinvestment, go lease a building
which, where we're at in Montana, there's no lease space
available that could in any wayserve what we needed.
Maybe bring on an investor, butuse someone else's money to
(06:38):
build a building.
You don't want to own thebuilding, don't want to buy the
land, and that's just not,honestly, the vision that I had.
I wanted to build agenerational company.
Now, if I was building thisthing up to sell the entire
business.
That probably would have beenthe absolute right move, right,
but that's not.
That wasn't the goal.
(07:00):
And so, you know, we kind oflooked at it, we found that
property and we decided to kindof go against the board and buy
the property and build thebuilding ourself.
And now to your point yeah, wehad to go talk to banks and
figure out a way to borrow themoney, and we actually found a
(07:20):
great bank that really workedwith us and helped us make this
happen.
But it's literally two dudesthat had to go sign on the
bottom line to borrow $20million and it's kind of unheard
of.
And, to be honest, you reallywere very fortunate that we had
a bank that believes in us andthey kind of took that risk with
us.
But to your point, you're right, you know we had to put
(07:45):
basically everything we own, youknow, up for collateral, and so
they did.
They came out one day, uh, anappraiser and was measuring up
my shop, my house, and some ofour employees saw that and asked
me about it and I was like,yeah, we're literally putting
everything on the line to dothis, and so we're really proud
of the fact that we were able toget that loan and do all that
(08:06):
strictly, bootstrapping it likethe old school business way.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
What was your kind of feedback from your employees
when they realized that you knowyou're investing in them the
future of this and kind of thatgenerational idea, and what was
their kind of take when theykind of finally understood all
that's involved with that?
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah, I think that you know.
I don't know that it's as muchof a verbal thing that they talk
about, but I think you can justfeel it in the energy and in
the culture.
You can just tell that they'rebought in and that they believe
what they're doing is important.
We also share a lot of customeremails and messages that come
into us to try to reiterate that, because if you're making
(08:47):
hundreds of knives, um, it'seasy to start to just glaze over
.
Knife number 65 is just likeknife number 70.
And you can maybe even tend towant to let your quality go or
it doesn't seem as as importantor as as cool.
Um, but, but we always tellpeople like knife number 65
(09:07):
could be the most important giftthat someone has ever given
someone.
They could.
You know, honestly, I just gotand I haven't even had a chance
to deal with this yet I just gota request from someone that
knows those three soldiers thatwere on that helicopter that
crashed, um, you know, out in dc, and this guy just requested
(09:32):
that we uh, laser basicallytheir names and ranks on three
knives and give it to theirfamilies.
Um, I'm, I'm gonna just godownstairs and grab three knives
off the shelf and I'm going tolaser those and send those when
those guys were sharpening thoseknives a week or two ago or
assembling them or doingwhatever they were doing.
They're just three blades inthe process.
(09:54):
They aren't special, Right, butthey are.
That's the thing.
That's the point is, everysingle one of these knives is
potentially one of the mostspecial things that someone has
ever given or received.
And so, you know, we, we tell alot of those stories because I
think it's important to themthat you just never know which
blade you're holding and whatwhat you're doing that's going
to have an impact on someone'slife, you know, and so they've,
(10:17):
they've bought into that and Ithink they've.
They've seen that.
They've seen the way we'rebuilding the business and they
know they're a part of it.
And we tell them all the timeyou guys are a part of something
that they're going to writebooks about someday, you know.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Yeah absolutely Well and and you know, to your point
too, I think that's amazing thatyou're you're going to be
shipping those out and and and agreat honor uh to to them in
their lives and, and you know,just to kind of reiterate that
idea too Like you had sent, Ithink you you talked about how
you found out someone's truckwas broken into, a knife was
(10:50):
stolen it was an NKC knife andyou ended up finding out because
of you know, you could lookback on the history of your
orders and you ended up shippingout a replacement one to this
individual, who is Andrew Oliver, who then, if you might be able
to kind of thread that storyand how that you know came to
came to be of a whole notherlevel of development.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah, since that I've done that a few times, but that
particular time was the firstand I had seen a comment that he
had made on early on in ourcompany that somebody had got
one of our knives.
And he commented and said, yeah, that's the best knife I had,
but I they got, you know, stolenout of my truck and they broke
my windows, stole my, my stuff,and so I just sent him a
replacement blade and just outof the blue and he got it and I
(11:33):
guess he went home that nightand told his wife I'm going to
work for that company somedayand he was working for Amazon
and he was managing severalthousand people.
He stood up the Amazon facilityin Spokane.
So when we needed a director ofoperations hire, he applied,
came over and interviewed andtowards the end of his interview
(11:55):
he's like do you remember me ormy name or whatever?
And I was like no, and he toldme yeah, I'm the guy that you
sent a knife to.
You know that got broken intomy truck and whatnot.
I was like, oh, that's cool.
And you know, kind of told usthat story and as it turns out,
he's been one of the best hireswe've ever made.
He's now our director ofoperations and you know very
(12:17):
much the reason for our success.
So, just kind of cool, like youdo the right thing and and not
uh yeah, honestly, it wasn'tthat big a deal.
To me it's just felt likethat's the kind of company I
want to run.
And again, that was in year oneof our company.
It's just like, hey, when Ihear stories like that, I want
to try and take care of ourpeople.
Um little did I know the impactthat that would have on our
(12:40):
business later.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Oh, it's like the ripple right.
You never know what that may,you know, come to be.
And I mean that it kind ofbrings you to the.
The next thing was the ideathat you at one point in time
you know I guess you and Don jrhad kind of become friends or or
associated.
You know, in some some you knowformer fashion and you ended up
making some knives forpresident Trump, and I believe
that you had done this maybeeven before he announced that he
(13:04):
was running for 47 or that youknow he was going to, or maybe
he had.
But if you can tell a littlebit of story about exactly the
culinary set that you had madeand what you had had engraved on
there, if you wouldn't mind.
And then I want to kick in tohear more about the inauguration
and your trip there.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Yeah, no, I had become friends with Junior over
some time here and got a chanceto go out to North Carolina and
meet him and at that point hewas running.
But that was I think that wasApril of last year.
So you know very much up in theair as to whether or not he
would win and quite honestly atthat point I would.
(13:41):
I would say that he was reallyvery much running into a
headwind with all theallegations against him, all the
court cases.
He had a long road to hoe toactually win at that point.
But we did.
We made a chef set and weengraved the presidential seal
on that chef set and we putnumber 45 and number 47 on that
(14:05):
and, you know, gave that set tohim, uh, which he thought was
really, really cool.
Don jr Loved it, um, but boy, Iposted those pictures and I got
a lot of people, a lot of hate,uh, and a lot of people like
you know.
You're going to regret doingthat.
You're going to look like aclown someday.
You're going to see in November, that was a mistake, turns out
(14:27):
it was pretty much accurate,it's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
How did you end up?
I guess through your friendshipthere, you ended up going to
the inauguration.
I know you hosted a luncheon.
I know Don and Tulsi came outthere too.
If you can talk about a littlebit of that experience, what was
that like for you to go thereand be a part of that?
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Yeah, it was amazing.
Junior, um, you know, invitedus, uh, you know, and not not
that we were hanging out withjunior the whole time, just, uh,
you know, he invited us outthere.
We went, uh, he was verygracious to actually invite his
us to his kickoff dinner onFriday night, which was, um, uh,
yeah, it was kind of weird,like it was basically lots of
famous, powerful people and thenand then Josh and Jess, uh,
(15:11):
yeah, it was, uh, out of myelement for sure Pretty much the
entire right half of thefederal government, all the
appointees and, uh, you know,billionaires.
Um, so that was interesting forsure.
It was a really cool experience.
But again saw Tulsi and uh andjunior there and talked to them
both a bunch of Pete Hegseth,and become friendly with all
(15:34):
those guys.
Uh, tulsi, um, amazing galspent, you know, I've spent a
bunch of time with her now, um,you know, got huge hug from her
and we talked for quite a whileand same with junior, he was, he
was awesome, but, yeah, we didthat.
And then we hosted a luncheon onsaturday, uh, and it was really
just to celebrate americanmanufacturing and, to be honest,
(15:54):
I I thought, you know, 20people might come or something
like that and shit.
We ended up having uh 80 to 100, uh the.
The restaurant that we hostedit at that we told we thought
we'd have top end would be 40was not very happy with us.
We had people standing out inthe hallway trying to get in and
then when Trump Jr came in, itcreated quite a stir.
(16:21):
So but it was just really cool.
We had four US senators thereand then just a bunch of regular
people, I mean ranchers fromMontana, people that were
actually just out thereattending some, some media folks
, uh, george st pierre, some ufcfighters, you know um secret
service guys were there.
Uh, that's the cool thing aboutknives, is it?
It cuts across so many peoplein categories.
Uh, no pun intended, I guess.
(16:43):
Um, it's, it's just coolbecause you can just be a
rancher in eastern Montana oryou can be the most famous
whoever in the world, andeveryone uses a knife almost
every single day, which isreally cool.
And then the inauguration wascool.
I mean it was kind ofunfortunate that it got moved
(17:04):
inside.
They said it was for weather,but it was chilly for sure.
I mean it was cold, but it was100% about security.
There was no doubt, and Iactually kind of knew that from
some of my sources.
It was absolutely aboutsecurity, which was the right
move.
But we actually got to see thepresident's motorcade drive
(17:26):
right by us, him and then JD,when they actually came into the
white house for the first time,and it was totally random, we
were just out walking around andthat was pretty wild experience
.
So, um, yeah, just a neat timeand the balls were cool.
Went to the uh, the uhcommander in chief ball, saw, uh
, you know, president Trump comeout and speak there with JD.
(17:46):
So that was really cool too.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
I was curious about when you presented his knives,
cause I know, you know Joetalked about the time when he
came in and he was in the studioand he's like, yeah, the secret
service is like we got to takethese axes away and the, the,
the the uh, jack Carr, you knowthe Winkler Tomahawks and stuff.
But I was kind of curious.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
It's like how do you present, you know, a president,
a set of knives, well, and thatand that, that was.
It was funny.
Um, you know, I walk up to thehotel and you know, walk up the
secret service.
People are standing out thereand I'm like, hey, you know, I
have a chef set, I have weaponson me and I need to get them in
there.
And of course they startcalling around and and I had
(18:26):
some contacts in secret servicethat kind of knew it was coming,
but those people didn't.
And so, you know, kind of theystart communicating through each
other and they figured out, andthey get me in there and they
walk me into a back room.
They had me put those knivesout on a table and I actually
left that room.
And then President Trump endedup coming in there a little bit
(18:48):
later, uh, with the secretservice guys, and they gave them
to him.
And then when I met him about ahalf hour later, uh, he had
seen him and thanked me for himand stuff.
So I didn't personally handthem to him, uh, and I don't
think that was necessarily asecurity thing.
It was when I was in thereinitially.
He wasn't even there yet, uh,and so it was just a logistics
thing, um, um, you know, butI've been to other events, uh,
(19:13):
with Trump jr, with secretservice, where, uh, I have, I've
just brought the knives in backbehind, they've just escorted
me in and I'm the only guy with,you know, weapons in there
other than secret service.
So it's, I was also the onlykid in school that was allowed
to bring knives to school toshow my teachers.
So Right?
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Well, you sold your first two, I think, to your
teachers, right they were likethe beginning of the journey,
weren't they Exactly?
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Yeah, exactly.
And then all through junior,high and high school, I would
finish knives and bring them in,show my shop teacher, show the
principal, you know, and then Iwould store them in the
principal's office and then takethem back home on the bus.
So yeah, it was kind of cool.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Well, and for those who want to know a little bit
about that journey, you cancheck out the podcast, all the
show notes.
The first time we sat down andkind of give a little bit of
Genesis of your story andwhatnot, you know and, speaking
of, you know knives and special,you know stuff that you're
putting together.
You've done a lot ofcollaborations since we've spoke
, since, I mean with a lot ofdifferent companies.
Uh, there's, you know, some Iwanted to kind of highlight.
(20:09):
You know, I've done a littlebit of work with Steve Rinella
over there at MeatEater and youguys have, you know, a handful
of knives there you guys havecollaborated with, obviously,
you got Remy Warren and you knowthe Cam Haines one that
recently dropped and you know ifyou can maybe talk about a
little bit of thosecollaborations and you know
pretty soon.
Uh, and I also wanted you tokind of touch base on the idea.
(20:30):
I know a lot of people haveasked him hey, when is there
going to be a folding knife?
So maybe, if you can kind ofaddress a few of those things,
if you want to talk about someof the stuff that's coming down
the pike here in 2025.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Yeah, I mean, I want to just work with cool people
that are doing amazing stuff and, um, I think all of those
people you named have donereally cool things in the
industry.
They're respected, and so we'vebeen very fortunate to work
with those folks.
Yeah, working with Cam wasawesome.
That packout knife is reallycool.
Cam is, you know, he's anabsolute badass, obviously, and
(21:04):
that's a.
That's a cool little knife.
It's super unique.
So is that one we did with Remy?
I mean, they're very, veryunique knives, um, but they're
very functional, um, and so Ithink both of those knives are,
uh, I think they're gonnaabsolutely crush for us over the
next few years, um, and then,uh, yeah, as far as
(21:24):
collaborations that we havecoming up, I'll I'll just break
news right on your podcast foryou.
We've got a really cool knifecoming out and we are going to
be donating and this is a brandnew model and we're kind of
doing it with Mike Rowe.
It's our own model and it's ourown knife, but what we're doing
(21:44):
with Mike Rowe is we're goingto give 10% of the proceeds of
every single one of those kniveswe sell on perpetuity, uh, of
that particular model, to themicro works foundation, um, and
that is going to be coming outhere, uh, probably about the
week after this podcast drops,um, so, yeah, we're very excited
(22:07):
about that.
Uh, that knife is going to becalled the rocker, um, and so
it's kind of a blue collar knifeand it's it's less around
hunting and more around justpeople who go out and work with
their hands for a living andneed a good, solid little
working knife, little belt knife.
So, um, uh, that's that's acollaboration that I'm actually
(22:30):
really excited about becausethat's going to help send kids
to quote, unquote college butactually, like, help them in the
trades, help them with gettingapprenticeships, maybe going to
line school, welding school, youknow, plumbing, a plumbing
apprenticeship.
You know Mike is really big onlike, how do we help kids that
(22:51):
aren't maybe cut out to go tofour years of college, to get a
business degree?
They want to graduate highschool and go work with their
hands and there's nothing to beashamed about that, in fact,
frankly, that's why I'm sittinghere today.
You know, I flunked out ofcollege basically in a year, but
duck hunted my way right out ofcollege and it was just my
heart wasn't into it, it wasn'tthe right thing for me, went
(23:12):
back and worked in my parents'excavation business Later in
life, ended up with anapprenticeship, you know, to
become a journeyman lineman.
And I passed through that andbecame a lineman.
You know.
I was an apprentice knife makerand I actually thought for a
while I was going to be anapprentice welder, so much so
that I bought a pipeline welderand started practicing welding
(23:33):
in my shop before I got mylineman job.
So, uh, but those are the.
That lineman job is what fundedand set me up for my chance to
start MKC, you know, and so Ivery much believe in that, in
that mission that Mike Mike ison with the micro works
foundation, so pretty excitedabout that.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
That's amazing man.
And as far as folding knivesdid, I hear something on a video
once.
Oh yeah, it's a little talkabout that coming out.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
The number one question we get folding knives.
Yeah, we are in the uh, we'revery much in the prototyping
stage now.
It's designed uh, we're workingon several prototypes right now
.
That's a knife you really gotto put a lot of testing into, um
, you know, you got to go get itdirty, you got to get sand and
fat and blood and whatever in it, water right and make sure the
(24:26):
mechanism works correctly, makesure it locks up well, make sure
it uh, you know, wear wise,that it wears in well and you
don't end up with issues.
So we're going to beprototyping and testing that
basically this entire year andour goal is to come out with
that in the middle of next year.
And, frankly, that's probablythe number one reason we need
the new building is we don'thave room in this current
(24:49):
facility to even make thoseknives this year, uh, you know.
So that square footage that wehave coming up in that new
facility is going to allow thatfolding knife to become a
reality.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Uh, man, I'm excited about that, you know.
And there's one other one thathit.
The name escapes me, but it wasthe one that's kind of like for
ranch hands, right, that justdropped, I guess in December.
Uh, what hit?
The name escapes me, but it'sthe one that's kind of like for
ranch hands, right, that justdropped, I guess in december.
Uh, what's the name of that one?
It's that you guys had come out, um, which, uh oh, oh, the
stockyard knife yeah I was.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
I was throwing off for a second, yeah, uh, I was
thinking about a rocker knifeand I was like, no, we haven't
come out with that.
Yet no, the, the stockyard knifeis a knife that with, without
really really much of a tip onit, um, and I did that because
there's a lot of people,especially during branding
season in the spring, and you'recastrating calves.
You know, you know you're usinga knife in that process and if
(25:43):
a calf kicks or somethinghappens, you can stab them with
a regular knife, you know.
Same thing, if you're out onthe ranch and you find a calf
that's got, or a cow or whateverthat's got, baling, entwined,
wrapped around its hoof orsomething, and you need to cut
it out, um, anytime.
Or, let's say, you get hung upin a rope or something happens
with a horse and you got to cut,say, the halter free or
(26:06):
whatever, right, um, we've had,we've had our, our four H calves
.
When we're breaking them, whenwe tie them up, we've had them.
Uh, and our, when my kids don'tquite tie the knot correctly,
we've had those four H calvesbasically throw themselves down
and flip themselves over andyou've got all that weight on
that rope.
If you don't tie the right knot, you can't untie it, and so, uh
(26:32):
, you know, we've had to reachup there with a knife and cut
those ropes for you, right?
There's a ton of differentsituations you can be in with
livestock where you need to usea knife, and it's a bit of a
wild situation, and if you havea tip on a knife it's much more
dangerous for the animal and foryou.
And so that stockyard knife uhwas specifically designed for
that crowd and, honestly, itworks really well in that blue
(26:54):
collar uh vein for people whomaybe just need to open 500
boxes a day.
Uh, you know, it really workswell for that kind of work.
Uh, and I've seen electriciansusing it for skin and wire.
So, again, you make knivesintended for one purpose, but
it's interesting how other uh,uh you know, professions, um, or
(27:17):
crafts find uses for in theirin their way.
So it's really cool to seethose photos come in from
customers.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yeah, well, you know I, I want to rewind back to the
idea the knife that you designedthere with cam, and you know
the the thing about it.
The thing about it it's gotshort but it's actually in that
three-inch blade.
It actually has three and ahalf inches right of, like
actual blade, because of itscurvature.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
You pay attention, just a little bit.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
A little bit.
Listen, you can see all theseknives of yours behind me.
I've got quite the sets, man.
They are my favorite.
I've been using those when Iguide hunts.
That's the one I'm putting inmy hunter's hands.
I mean they're the best ones outthere and I love that they're
all made here and that supportAmerica jobs.
I mean it's a big thing for me,right?
But something about thecraftsmanship and the quality
(28:01):
and the idea of having somethinglike that that you can take out
in the field you know, cam,he's going out in the middle of
nowhere, no one else has beenright and so having something
that's lightweight, that'susable, that is very, very
reliable and I wanted you tokind of talk about that because
I didn't get a chance to get onein that drop but I was just
floored with the design.
It looked like such a greatutility for those purposes of
(28:23):
being way out in the woods andhaving something light but
durable and just I love thedesign.
So, if you can go ahead andmaybe expand on that a little
bit, and, uh, when you guys weredeveloping that, what was it
that, you know, you guys came tothe table with to to bring that
out?
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Yeah, it's, uh, it's called our packout knife and
it's uh, it's actually kind of aminiature version of our bare
tooth.
Uh, and that bare tooth knifewas designed, you know, to do a
lot of work in a hurry with andhave a lot of edge, and it's a
for people that you know.
Uh, you know, maybe you're justlistening to this and try and
visualize it uh, it's got areally aggressively upswept
(29:03):
blade on it.
Um, but unlike the bear, youknow, the bear tooth is really
big knife and that was more forlike fleshing big hides like
bears up in Alaska or moose, youknow, really huge hides.
This was made more for, and Iwould say that bear tooth is
more for like back at camp, backin the garage, in the taxidermy
studio, things like that.
You're not necessarily carryingit.
(29:24):
The packout was made literallyfor packing out into the
furthest depths of the woods andthen be able to get a lot of
work done with the skinningprocess and there again, this
knife doesn't really have a veryaggressive tip.
It's maybe not necessarily thebest knife for doing little fine
detail, uh, caping work aroundthe eyes, the tear ducts, the,
(29:44):
you know the, the antlers, baseof the antlers, um, but boy,
when it comes, comes to, youknow, opening up a cavity of an
animal and then skinning thatout, skinning out the quarters,
if you remove the quarters andyou're trying to get that skin
off in a hurry.
Like you said, it's a relativelyshort blade but it's actually
got more cutting edge than itdoes overall length of blade,
(30:08):
which is actually interesting,which just means it has a ton of
working surface on that edge.
Um, and the other thing is isthe handle is relatively short
but it's kind of chubby, so itfills up your hand really nicely
.
So you know, guys that have bighands, it fits in the palm of
your hand well, um, and you havea lot of dexterity and control
(30:28):
over that, that handle and thatblade which allows you to really
move fast.
A guy like yourself that'sguiding and whatnot.
You're man, I'm sure when youget a deer or another animal
down, you're moving, especiallyup here, if it's cold, dark,
you're trying to beat dark, oryou're trying to get out before
the snow hits, or whatever.
(30:49):
You're trying to beat dark, oryou're trying to get out, and,
uh, before the snow hits orwhatever.
You're trying to be fast andthat little blade I think you're
going to find that blade is is,uh, you can.
You can move quickly on ananimal with it.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Well, you know, in Texas the heat sometimes right
You'd knock a hog or two down.
You know you gotta move quickin that realm too.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
And the flip side of the spectrum.
That's a problem we don't havevery often up here.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
It'd be nice to trade sometimes.
We just had, like our littlesnowmageddon two whole days.
Everyone's like, oh, the wholestate shuts down.
No one knows what to do.
I've lived in snow before.
I'm like this isn't that big ofa deal, guys.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
But, god, we've had two straight weeks of it being
zero degrees every night andit's actually been sunny and
nice.
We don't have much snow, butboy, uh, like these guys
starting in my building, theywere unloading steel yesterday
morning it was zero and, uh, youmight see some photos or video,
but yeah, they're all.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
They all look like big, chubby snowmen, they're all
puffed up and all these clothesand, uh, yeah, pretty frosty
beards on them, that's for sureI can imagine when I saw some
videos, you guys having likehaving to tarp over all the
stuff that y'all were doing whenyou were laying down.
I mean it looked like aday-to-day operation of just
kind of keeping that snow offwhen you're working on the
concrete there.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Yeah, I was running up there almost every day.
They're insulated concreteblankets, and so when we poured
our concrete, we had to cover itand then run heaters on it for
three days to get the concreteto cure correctly.
Um, and then I pulled thoseblankets off of that and laid
them on the ground to keep theground from freezing so hard, so
the plumbers and electricianscould dig their ditches.
(32:19):
Right now, I bet you, there'sprobably 12 to 18 inches of
frozen hard frost in the ground,so the the top surface of the
earth is frozen foot foot and ahalf deep, which is, uh,
probably not something thattexans have to deal with very
often no, not at all.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Well, you know that.
That made me think about, too,just like kind of being out
there in the elements.
Have you, did you get a chance?
I know, with so much going on,uh, you're a busy man, but did
you get a chance to get out anddo some hunting this, this, this
last season?
And if so, uh, what did thatlook like?
What you got in the freezer?
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Uh, yeah, unfortunately not really.
Um, I, and I say that Iactually got to do, you know,
probably the coolest time of mylife, uh, in August.
So, uh, it almost doesn't countas hunting season, but it was
late August, Uh, uh, I took myson up on a moose hunt to
Northern British Columbia and heshot an absolute monster moose.
(33:13):
It was a 10 day fly into a lake10 day, uh, horseback packing
hunt.
We use the horses some, but nota lot.
A lot of it was hiking, Um, weuse the horses.
When it mattered most, whichwas packing the meat out, which
is a godsend.
Um, we'd never been able to hunttheory, we're in without horses
, frankly.
But my son shot a huge moose,saw some grizzly bears, heard
(33:36):
some wolves.
How got to sleep in a tent andfreeze our butts off for 10 days
in the rain and cold weather.
Uh, it's funny, you thinkAugust, I mean he even here in
Montana, it's 100 degrees herein August and flew in there and
I mean froze our asses off for10 days.
But when I got home from that,honestly we were so busy, you
(33:59):
know, I didn't, I didn't huntbasically the rest of the season
, which is kind of insane tothink about, but there's just so
much time being spent right nowon trying to grow this company
that it's a bit of a challengeright now to get away at all.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
I can imagine Now was that Hank's first moose.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
That's awesome For sure.
What an experience man.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yeah, he made a 644-yard shot and absolutely
dropped it in its tracks.
Wow, what was he using?
28 nozzler?
Okay.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Yeah, yeah, and absolutely.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Uh, it's the coolest video and the fact I actually
just watched the film my cameraguy just finished editing it, uh
, two days ago, Uh and uh, Iwent over it, checked it out, it
was really cool, and so weshould be releasing that pretty
soon.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Cool man.
Well, I'll, once that comes out, I'll I'll throw some links
here in the show notes below soeveryone can see that as well.
Yeah, appreciate it Absolutely.
You know I wanted to kind of,you know, chat a little bit
about what you got kicking rightnow and I know it's, you know,
kind of coming to the end of thenext week or two.
But you got the come hell orhigh water fundraiser and I'd
love for you to just kind ofmaybe you know, cradle to grave
talk about the idea of what thiswas about, how this started and
(35:10):
the explosive growth from thecommunity.
And you know, I'll, I'll letyou go ahead and chat about that
, but I'm really curious how youknow how, this came to be.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah.
So you know, a couple of yearsago we had some bad flooding
here in Montana, um, down aroundYellowstone park, and a knife
maker buddy of mine, willStelter, reached out and said,
hey, let's collab on a knife anddo a fundraiser for that.
And so we ended up calling itthe come hell or high water
fundraiser.
Uh, and it was great.
We donated $80,000 to reallysmall town, uh, small towns down
(35:44):
in in Southwestern Montana, uh,and so we hadn't done anything
since.
And then, uh, the northcarolina floods happened from
hurricane helene.
And, uh, a little bit later inthe fall, uh, chase rice reached
out to me.
He's like, hey, I, I'm going onthis elk hunt in montana.
If I shoot this elk, will youmake a knife or two and let's do
(36:08):
a fundraiser for North Carolina?
And I was like sure, no problem.
So he did, he came, he did, hedid get an elk.
He sent me the elk antlers,no-transcript, and we were
getting ready to launch, kind oflike, this fundraiser for that.
And then the fire, theCalifornia wildfires hit and
(36:31):
unbelievable devastation.
And you know, my house burneddown 11 years ago and I was
living in a camper in mydriveway, so like I know where
some of these people are sitting.
I get it.
And, and I do want to add to,you know I've had some comments
on this, you know, basically,like you know, screw those
people leftist, commie, whatever, liberal, whatever's right,
(36:53):
screw California and all thepeople in it.
Granted, I'm not a fan ofCalifornia's politics, but there
are a ton of amazing peoplethat live in California and,
frankly, they are US citizens.
And number two, not everyonedown there has Mel Gibson's
money right.
A lot of those people that livethere maybe even got those
(37:13):
homes passed down for thegenerations and sure they might
have $10 million net worth andall of it's in their home and
they go down and work a day job.
There's people who arewaitresses, there's the service
community of that place and,granted, it's the Palisades and
a lot of those people at leastthe perception is that they're
wealthy and they're rich.
But I know enough stories nowto know, in fact, another guy I
(37:40):
know, his daughter lost theirhome and they're not sure
insurance is going to cover itand they're in an absolute bind,
right and so, and they're notsuper wealthy.
Uh, so this idea that we shouldjust uh throw out our, our
American citizens cause we don'tagree with the state's politics
kind of bothers me.
(38:01):
But anyway, when I saw thathappen, I called Chase and I was
like, hey, let's do one knifefor North Carolina and one knife
for California and let's raisesome money and split it between
the two, which he loved it.
It was great, and we launchedthat, come hell or high water,
and basically what it is.
Frankly, it was our hack to getaround the illegal raffle rules
(38:27):
.
You can't run raffles.
There's a bunch of crap withgambling laws, internet crap,
right.
And so what we did is we'relike, okay, buy a t-shirt or a
hat, so now you're buying anitem and then we will enter you
to win these knives.
And so for every $5 you spendon a t-shirt or not a hat, I'm
(38:47):
sorry or a Zippo lighter, forevery $5 you spend, you get
entered.
That's one entry into thisquote unquote raffle fundraiser.
And so what was really cool wasthe minute we launched it, some
other really big brands startedthrowing in grand prizes and we
(39:07):
have now a bunch of really coolgrand prizes from a lot of
different companies, and it justmade it that much sweeter.
And so we've already raisedover $230,000 that we're going
to be donating and, quitehonestly, I would imagine over
the next few days it's probablygoing to be upwards of 300 grand
, um, and then we're going tomake sure that was the other
(39:29):
thing when we raised that moneyfor red lodge, montana and those
people.
Uh, I want to be damn sure thisgets to the people that actually
are affected.
And I did a bunch of researchand, frankly, I interviewed
nonprofits.
You know, we we have to writethis check to a nonprofit.
I can't just I'm not going tojust go write it to individuals,
right, frankly, if I wrote itto individuals, they would get
(39:51):
taxed on it.
It's kind of stupid.
But we are going to make sure wedo a lot of due diligence and
make sure that we're not.
We're not.
I'm not going to just write acheck, you know, to the Red
Cross or something like that.
No, I'm not going to just writea check to the Red Cross or
something like that.
No offense to them.
I know they do a lot of greatwork, but we're going to make
(40:12):
sure this gets to the ground andhelps the people of North
Carolina and California.
So, yeah, it's been really cool.
Chase Rice is actually going tofly out the two people that win
the knives to a concert and himand I are going to present
those knives to the winners onstage at one of his concerts,
and he's going to pay for thewhole thing.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
So that's cool prizes now or something like that even
more.
And so I'll have the linksbelow and make sure everyone
who's listening or watching goand pick up one of these.
(40:47):
You know, I got one of theZippos here.
I got the t-shirt as well here,for those who aren't listening,
you can go check out the shownotes.
But great shirts, great Zippo,great cause, and I love that
it's going to be going directlyto people.
It's not going to benecessarily all administration,
it's going to be going to thepeople that need it the most and
I, you know, your due diligenceis, you know, definitely you
know, salute you on that andmaking sure that that dollar
(41:09):
goes far for each person.
There's a lot of people who areaffected a lot, a lot of land
that was just destroyed, there'sa lot to build back and it's
great to see our community and,you know, fellow Americans
stepping up and helping eachother and building something
back, hopefully better thanbefore and as as you can, you
know, and a lot of hurt and alot of pain in a lot of people's
lives right now.
So, uh, you know, I think it'simportant that we empathize with
(41:31):
everyone, no matter what yourbackground is, and realize we're
all just trying to.
You know, we're all a part ofsomething together here, Right,
and you know, and, and kind ofleaving with that.
You know, I wanted to kind ofhave you maybe, you know, take a
few minutes to talk about.
You know, maybe, how you'refeeling as far as the support
that you've gotten from so manydifferent people having your
(41:51):
business.
You know, I know you've talkedabout it before it's right, it's
a 33 year overnight success.
Right, it's all the hard workand the efforts that's put into
this, something that in fiveyears seeing this brand grow
that represents so much here ofyou know American jobs, American
manufacturing and really kindof trying to build something
great here in the US and Iapplaud that.
(42:11):
I just wanted to you know ifyou had some words you'd like to
share to some of those peoplehave supported you and you know
what it means like for youpersonally to see this
development and see all thissupport.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
Yeah there, yeah there, there almost are no words
it's, it's, it's, it's umabsolutely really become
impossible for me to thankeveryone that deserves a thank
you.
I, I see, you know the labelsthat when my wife's in charge of
customer service and and andfulfillment and I see the labels
(42:43):
being printed, you know, aftera drop, and a lot of times I'll
grab those labels and just kindof look through them and see if
I like recognize any names,Right, and a lot of times I
don't recognize a single name.
That's all strangers, Right?
And uh, I wish I could reachout and thank every one of those
people because, you know, whenyou buy even people that can't
(43:03):
afford a knife but they believein what we're trying to do, just
buying a t-shirt or a hat whenthey wear that hat or that shirt
or they they buy that knife,they're they're representing and
they're believing in an idea of, like the American dream, and I
cannot tell you how much Iappreciate.
When I get, I'll get texts frompeople you know at a Red Sox
(43:25):
game in Boston and they'll belike dude, I just saw this dude
wearing your hat, and a lot oftimes these people will like go
up and talk to each other andthey're like, dude, you're
wearing MKC and they're wearingthat.
And they're doing that becausethey believe in this idea that
the American dream is stillalive and that they believe that
American manufacturing iscritically important to, frankly
(43:47):
, the survival of our country.
And it's not just the customersbut the industry itself,
whether it's Seekins or StowGlacier or SIG or Leupold,
Sorenex and Black Rough Coffee Icould just go down the list of
(44:09):
literally 100, 150 brands thathave, in one way or another,
been accepting of us and helpedus grow, and we try to remember
that now.
You know we've talked a littlebit about like hey, when we see
some of these other brandscoming up and whatnot, how can
we be helpful here and there toto their success as well?
(44:30):
Um, I think a lot of people seelike a, a brand, like a Yeti,
and they just see a huge brand,they see a conglomerate.
But what I've gotten to know is, like the guy like Andrew Jones
behind Yeti right, and you knowhe's not some big executive,
he's a worker bee guy, but hemakes a lot of things happen I
(44:50):
get to meet the humans behindthese huge brands and you start
to realize that these hugebrands, like a Seekins Precision
.
There's a Maddie and a DannyNelson behind it and there's
Glenn Seekins.
That's the CEO, that's doingwhat I'm trying to do with mkc
and he's literally grindingevery day to try to build his
gun company.
Um, and what I really wantpeople to know is that, like, it
(45:11):
is absolutely possible to chaseyour dreams.
And you know people say, well,it's never been more unfair
today, it's never been more.
You know, rich versus poor.
And I would argue, do you thinkit was any better during the
great depression when yourgrandparents were trying to
survive?
Right, I think there's alwaysgoing to be struggle, no matter
(45:34):
what time of uh, you know timeperiod we're in.
But what's most important isthat we, we keep a free country
and we live in a free country.
If you live in a free country,then you have opportunity, right
, and I don't know that.
There's another country and youknow I'm not into a lot of, you
(45:54):
know, world news, so I don'tknow, maybe there's the
equivalent of a Montana knifecompany in Taiwan, but I'm not
aware of it.
Right, Our style of governmentand government for sure has all
its flaws, but our style of whatwe set up for a framework for
our country allows forinnovation, allows for people to
(46:15):
rise up from being broken,living in their camper 11 years
ago, with a house burned down,to have an 80 employees and a
multimillion dollar brand Right,Um, and that doesn't mean I'm
getting rich, it means I'mreinvesting all that back in and
, frankly, for the thing I'mmost proud of probably is the
fact that I have 80 people inour company that can go chase
(46:39):
their dreams, pay their bills,feed their families and raise
their kids here in Montana andthey don't have to leave our
state to go find a good job.
So it kind of rambled on there.
But, like the appreciation isjust throughout the entire
process and you know theappreciation for my employees
that have stuck by us and put inthis hard work and kept the
quality up and, um, yeah, I'm,I'm very grateful for the
(47:03):
position we're in today.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Well, I just applaud everything that you just said
and you know I think it's soimportant.
Uh, you know all the aspects,especially just kind of the
American made job and like beingable to continue and like
you're helping all these peoplecontinue to pay their bills,
build their lives, build theirfamilies.
And you know it's only going togrow as phase three continues
on and as your company continueson and, uh, you know, like I
said, I salute you and all thegreat things you guys got going
(47:31):
on.
Um, you know, for those whomight not know, why don't you go
ahead and give the, you knowsocials where people can follow
you and as well as, uh, you know, maybe you want to go ahead and
just, you know, talk about thatand where people can find that.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
I appreciate it.
As far as finding us, you knowmontananifecompanycom or our
Montana Knife Company Instagrampage we finally got our Montana
Knife Company Instagram pageverified about a week ago, nice,
and got the blue check mark.
And that might not seem like abig deal, but you go search
Montana knife company onInstagram a month ago and there
(48:09):
was dozens of fake pages and so,uh, and they were scamming
people, which really pissed meoff.
Um, cause people believe theywere winning things from us and,
yeah, it was very frustrating.
Um, so that's good.
And then you know my personalInstagram page if you want to
follow.
Uh, it's, it was veryfrustrating.
Um, so that's good.
And then you know my personalInstagram page if you want to
follow.
Uh, it's, it's kind of a randommix of of stuff, but, uh, just
(48:32):
Josh Smith knives is myInstagram page.
Um, you know, I haven'trecorded a podcast in several
weeks.
Now I'm actually looking at kindof revamping it just a little
bit.
We were going to maybe pull itout of.
It was on our Montana knifecompany YouTube and it felt like
it was getting swallowed up alittle bit by all the content
that we put out on the Montanaknife company page.
So I'm actually trying tofigure out what to do and how to
(48:55):
do that, but, cause I do lovedoing the podcast, it's called
the Josh Smith show, uh, and Idid.
I have a bunch of really greatguests.
There's just amazing people andyou can still find all those.
I need to get to recording moreepisodes.
But I'm actually currentlytrying to figure out if I'm
gonna keep the name and then ifI'm gonna start like its own
YouTube page and kind of run itas its own thing, versus it kind
(49:17):
of being swallowed up in thatMKC proper YouTube.
So that, yeah, just internalstruggles of trying to figure
out how to grow and what, whatthe right move is, you know.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
Indeed, man.
Well, you know, I'm sure you'llfigure that path out, and I
definitely encourage people togo check it out.
You've got some amazing peopleyou sit down with and chat with,
and it's a thoroughlyentertaining and educational too
.
So, josh, once again, man, Ijust want to thank you for
coming along.
You know, I guess, as phasefour comes out, we'll have
another podcast, and you knowwe're just going to continue our
trend here, but there you go.
It's wonderful to you know, bein touch with you and to see all
(49:51):
the growth and all thewonderful things you got going
and all the things you'refacilitating all around and just
making the best damn knives outthere.
Man, just keep it up.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
And thank you once again.
Well, congrats on the podcast,uh, congrats on the maps
business and, and, uh and man, Iappreciate your support.
Um, I love all the stuff behindyou.
It's super, super cool.
Um, I can, I can tell we're alot alike.
There's a lot of things therethat are real similar to the
things I like, but, uh, yeah,really appreciate the support
and, having me on for sure, lookforward to doing it again
excellent.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
Well, hey, man, take care and everyone.
Make sure you check out theshow notes.
Go check out the website, signup for the next drop and be
notified when the next knife'scoming out.
Another one's coming out soonthe micro special.
Make sure you also go and checkout the Kumheller High Water.
Go ahead and get your purchasesin there.
Remember that's going to endsoon.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
So, as this drops, you maybe got a week too.
We'll see what it is, but makesure you sign up for that and go
help out with that fundraiser.
Thanks again, josh.
We'll talk soon.
Thank you.
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