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E2: Beginners Luck
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In this episode we'll cover the newly announced Viking Challenge and talk about the upcoming rerecording of the Beginner Series with how to get started as a knife maker / bladesmith. We'd love to hear from you so send in questions to the email address below.
Show email: tripletfkmpodcast@gmail.com
Your hosts:
Denis Tyrell of Tyrell Knifeworks: https://www.instagram.com/tyrellknifeworks/
https://www.youtube.com/c/TyrellKnifeworks
https://www.tyrellknifeworks.com
Jerid Sandoval of Echo Blades:
https://www.instagram.com/echo_blades/
Links related to things we discussed:
Viking Challenge Announce Video: https://youtu.be/YwhSvLk-ryQ?si=kyJsfchqxWeIJwO4
Viking Challenge Viewer Instructions: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NRcKaNBRCLQFAdiKIChWfcgkvvZ7qrhIgScYBy_NL7U/edit?usp=sharing
Podcasts we love:
- Work For It
- Fire and Steel
- Hustle and Grind
- KnifeTalk
- FullBlast
- ForgeSideChat
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Triple T Podcast
00:00:17
Speaker
Ladies and gentlemen, you are now listening to the Triple T podcast for knife makers with your host, Dennis Terrell from Terrell knife works and Jared Sandoval from echo blades.
00:00:30
Speaker
Wow. So professional, man. All the panties are dropping in the audience. Yeah. Wait a minute. Are they panties or? The overalls. Yeah. As long as they're not clear. Yeah. Right.
Weather Talk: California Storm Humor
00:00:50
Speaker
All right. How are you doing? Good, man. I didn't see you today.
00:00:54
Speaker
I know. Yeah, it's been a couple hours. Right. Oh, good. Good. I just got done processing a bunch of cardboard boxes with my PK buddy, slicing and dicing. It's a recycle day over here. We're actually having like a California storm. A bunch of shit in my backyard is blowing over and you know, I don't know. I'm sure I got like a
00:01:22
Speaker
millimeter of water taken on, you know, so I don't know. I'm panicking right now. The California hurricane, the chair, my backyard is knocked over. Literally the big, big, uh, aluminum ones. I'll be right back. I got to go get some sandbags. Yeah. We're, we're bitching about the, uh, the quarter inch of rain we just got all day. Yeah. Rick, Rick sent me a, Rick Hall, uh, sent me a picture of his place. They got, uh, six inches of snow today.
00:01:50
Speaker
Yeah, no, thank you. No, I just went to, uh, Idaho in middle of December. And I think it was like, uh, a low of 22 and a high of 36 or
Relocating for Warmer Climates
00:02:05
Speaker
something. And yeah, no, not, not for me. That's not even, you know, laugh at right now because that's not even cold, but it was cold. I moved away. I moved away from that when I moved away from Canada. So.
00:02:19
Speaker
I'm not not shoveling sunshine. I mean, I'm born and raised here in the Bay Area. So I don't know anything else than you know, I mean, I grew up with a 60 degree overcast till 11 and then a blazing hot 75 by the afternoon. So that was it for years. My favorite story when I first moved here to California is that people in California refer to it as the snow.
00:02:45
Speaker
That's me. Wait a minute. It's a fucking event. It's the snow. You drive to it, you drive to Tahoe, you see the snow, and then you drive home. It's not a fact of life here. It's an event. It definitely is because it's like four hours in any direction we can hit like any, you know,
00:03:05
Speaker
kind of climate, right? You got the beach, you got the desert, you got the mountains, you got the snow. So it is the snow. See how I just did that? The snow. Yeah, I know you're a California native. It's all right. Yeah, my only snowboard experience was
00:03:20
Speaker
I don't know. It's been about 10 years now. First time and only time I ever went and it was basically a snow walking for me because I was gonna see you ended up on your ass the whole day. Yeah, actually got the snow patrol people kind of told me you need to get off, you know, kids sit on your board there. And I was like,
00:03:36
Speaker
Why I keep falling over. So I popped out and they're like, you're going to slide off a mountain. People die that way. I'm like, yeah, okay. Well, just get me off this mountain and I won't ever be back. I'm still old school. I know how to ski. I can ski all day without falling down. I have no desire
Balancing Work and Knife-Making
00:03:53
Speaker
to spend the entire day or two. It's going to take me to learn how to snowboard because I know I'm going to be on my ass the whole day. I have no interest in that.
00:04:01
Speaker
No, and I had some really cool people that took me up and didn't even introduce me to a little bunny slope or nothing. They just like, you could do it. And it was a white out. Like literally it was like the most intense thing I've ever been in. And I was just like, yeah, I'm over this. And I don't drink. So I couldn't even go back to the, what is it? I don't even know what they call it. The chalet. Yeah. And go get warm. And, you know, I literally had to go get some hot chocolate or something, you know, something real manly.
00:04:33
Speaker
Uh, so what's new in your shop this week? Well, um, currently right now I am over inundated with my day job. Um, it is pretty much kind of taken precedence in, in my life. And I haven't had an opportunity to get rolling on much. I've been working on, uh, that, um, the wave cutter, um,
Learning from Knife-Making Mistakes
00:05:02
Speaker
And I actually spent this whole weekend hand sanding it. It feels like it anyways. Tell people what the way of cutter is because I know, but yeah, so it's a, it's a chef knife that we did. I think it's 400 layers with a Chevron.
00:05:21
Speaker
pattern in there was trying to go for some kind of a wave thing. It's a it's a gift for somebody. So that's kind of the theme that I was trying to go for.
00:05:32
Speaker
It was an eventful forge for sure. I mean, every time we do things, it's a couple hours here, a couple hours there, you know, over a week, we'll get a couple of sessions in our, you know, but Dennis over here decided to blow up a copper billet in his forge and contaminate the whole thing on the very last restack and almost what I ended up with.
00:05:58
Speaker
just very little comparative to what it started with. But it was salvageable. That's what matters. So you got enough. And yeah, that's a good story, actually, because I've always told people the whole melt like copper in your forge, having to reline the forge was bullshit. But after I've always I've never liquefied a whole billet before. Right? Well, I
00:06:25
Speaker
I did this on a build a while ago where I had my thermocouple go and I had the PID controller and I basically liquefied all the copper in a billet and it basically vaporized, the forge was so hot, it basically vaporized the copper and it got into everything. We tried to forge weld, it was getting between the layers like
00:06:53
Speaker
I've got pictures of the outside of the forge and you can see copper fumes, like coming out the front of the forge, the entire inner part of the forge was like this weird color. And we seriously, I had to, I had to, um, it was just the bottom of the forge, but that is no joke. If you liquefy copper in your forge, it actually does prevent you from forge welding if there's still copper in there.
00:07:22
Speaker
because you're gonna vaporize the copper and that's the issue. So it's not a wives tale. And I owe owner, owner, owner, Kaggler, an apology because I told him it was bullshit, but it's not. We kind of proved that. Yeah, no, because your billet just started splitting like, I mean, layer after layer, it never even you weren't, it didn't even get together, right?
00:07:51
Speaker
It was 100%. Right. And there was you couldn't see copper on the bottom of the floor. Yet, there was copper all over the billet, including between the layers when we busted it apart. So the copper had vaporized at that point. It was bizarre. You didn't even see all that till the next day though, right? Yeah, no, I didn't see it till the next day because we were scrubbing the scale off and we saw this copper on it. Yeah, so weird.
00:08:18
Speaker
So through that whole event, we ended up, uh, yours got junked and I was able to save a little bit of that billet. And I, I got this little on sake kind of style, a chef knife that I'm making in came out great. The grind, it was that particular grind was probably one of the first times that, um, I was, cause I've been, I mean, grinding for us all.
00:08:44
Speaker
is, you know, for the experienced guys, you know, you guys get it for the newer ones, like myself, you know, it's, you know, do I want to do it on the rest? Do I want to do it freehand? Do I want to, you know, how does pressure, you know, affects, you know, from, you know, each access, you know, left and right and up and down. And, but this particular grind, like, I just I was in the zone and I and I started to feel
00:09:10
Speaker
and do everything with purpose and intent. And it came out really, really good for me. And I'm super, super happy with it. So I got to hand sanding this weekend. And so I made a little, another hand sanding vice that has a, I cannot remember the name of the vice that I saw. It's nothing original, but I made my own version of it, but it's got the,
00:09:40
Speaker
plate on the bottom and then we we drilled and tapped a bunch of holes and you put the some like quarter 20 bolts through it and these little protective plastic caps on it so it kind of elevates the knife up and it's not sitting down like on the flat surface and I like the idea except I think when we were drilling holes we had just kind of randomized
00:10:06
Speaker
you know, a pattern, nothing that was like OCD kind of measured out.
00:10:12
Speaker
But so again, I only used it a couple of times and I started getting busy here yesterday. And apparently this is my thought anyways, is that I had the some of the
Knife Grinding Techniques
00:10:26
Speaker
bolts too close to the edge and I didn't hang the knife over the edge enough. And as I was hand sanding, I started getting these little like high and low spots in between where the knife was sitting on the bolts.
00:10:42
Speaker
And so I went over to your house today and I was like, dude, what the hell is this? That's kind of what we came up with. But I ended up having to reprofile the knife a little bit, take the edge down because it was to for me anyways, even though it's a gift, I and I just couldn't deal with seeing what I was seeing. So we kind of reprofiled it. And I think I think it's under control now. But yeah,
00:11:11
Speaker
But, and for everyone else, and you're definitely right, I'm pretty convinced it was those pins. And just as he's sanding the blade, you had that edge really thin, like it's probably like 5,000ths or less, like it's almost a zero edge. And it's so thin there as he's supplying pressure, it's doming over the pin. And then he's sanding that part and it's getting more pressure. And then when he took the knife off, he's got these little divots
00:11:41
Speaker
So, you know, for anyone who's got that kind of knife fight, you got to be careful where you put your pins. Yeah, you definitely got to hang hang it over, put the pressure on the more spot where there's more meat under the knife and kind of hang it. It's just like you would a regular, you know, flat surface, you know, but yeah, it was kind of a bummer. But I've been at the end when we are when I reprofiled it,
00:12:08
Speaker
I actually like it better now. It had too much of a belly. Yeah, it came out. I think it's going to be good. Yeah, it looks good. The pattern is killer on that one. The Chevron came out so nice on that one. Yeah, so I don't know. You got all the other makers here, but I have probably etched that thing like five times. Test, etch. After test, etch. After test, etch. Because I just can't get enough. Like, somebody comes over. I had a buddy come over to the house on the... That's what you've hand seen it in so many times. Yeah, probably.
00:12:39
Speaker
I was, uh, had a buddy come over and he just, we were just hanging out and I was like, Oh, I got some hands handed to do. So I did it. And then at the end, I was trying to explain it to him and he just wasn't quite getting it. So I was like, hold on. So I gave him the, the ferric dip show and he was just like, Oh my God, that's incredible. I mean, that's still, that never gets old. Like when you try to explain to somebody what's underneath, you know, when it's like satin and you're standing and you're like, no, but when you put it in this magic potion here,
00:13:07
Speaker
Oh, uh, peanut butter. Boom. And then they're just like, holy shit. I get it. Especially if I haven't, um, I've been working on a knife and it's been a really long time and I'll forget, I'll forget what the pattern looks like. And then I'll etch it. I'm like, Oh, fuck. Yeah. So cool. Uh, especially like on the knives I'm working on now, I haven't etched them in a couple of weeks. So, um, I'm anxious to see what it looks like. Cause I'm kind of.
00:13:37
Speaker
You know, it's not as cool now because they're just silver. I agree. I agree. And I used to think that was bullshit. Like, how do you not know? But, you know, after you get a couple of billets and time goes by, you're like, oh, my God. So, yeah, I'm like a test edge king right now. I can go do it again right now if you want to see. Well, I'm the only one who's going to see it. And I saw it today. I'll go live on Instagram. There you go.
00:14:05
Speaker
Uh, but I did get to check out your, uh, the, uh, hand sanding, um, machine dude. So I am honestly super skeptical, right? Like it looks like something that you might see in an adult, like bow cheeks or something. Yeah.
00:14:35
Speaker
I'm like, wait a minute here. But, you know, you see it going and, but man, I, at the end, I put it, you know, a couple hours on it today. Yeah. Yeah. You put it through spaces. Yeah. And, man, fantastic, dude. Like, I think I didn't have, um,
00:14:57
Speaker
My sanding sticks that I use, uh, they're longer than the little two inch things that, uh, aluminum blocks that you have. Um, so I have a little bit more support on my hands, but, um, even without all that, it was fantastic, dude. I think it's, it's a badass, so helpful. Yeah. I'm anxious to get the hand rests, uh, set up on it. So it'll be a little even less stress. And we talked about in the future, you know, gen two or three.
00:15:26
Speaker
getting some bars and reducing hand stress, but it'll get there. We got to get V1 out the door first. This thing, I mean, how do you even explain it? I don't know. You're just applying downward pressure and this fucking thing is just going to town and you feel, you know, you get friction. It's really cool. I don't ever want to handstand any other way now. Good, good.
00:15:56
Speaker
Yeah, it was good having you in the shop today. Um, I'm still working on those, uh, two plug welded integrals, but I'm close. So I'm, I was trying to take some inspiration from, uh, Mr. Morecco Malmasy on the handle. First time I've, uh, done facets on a handle like that. So, uh, yeah, thank you. Uh, I still got to sand them. So yeah.
00:16:23
Speaker
off the grinder, they look pretty decent. So we'll have to do some, some fine work on them, but they're close. I'm hoping to get those done this week, uh, get them all etched and, you know, yeah. So looking to get those done. And then we're, I'm starting to think about what I'm going to do for the Viking challenge. So I think, uh, I think I know what I'm going to do. I think I'm going to do that cross pattern.
00:16:52
Speaker
Damascus for the for the center and uh I'm not gonna give too much away on what that pattern is but and then I'll probably do an edge bar. Okay. And uh were you gonna make something original like a sax or? That's that's my problem with the Viking Challenge. I know you know we all voted for Viking Challenge and uh I like the concept but I feel like 90% of the builds are gonna be saxes. Right? I
00:17:21
Speaker
Maybe we'll get an axe or two, but most people are going to do a sax. And, you know, no offense to all of our Nordic friends out here, but I'm sorry, Viking weapons are a little bit boring compared to European or Japanese weapons,
Is the Viking Challenge Exciting?
00:17:38
Speaker
in my opinion. They're just, I don't know.
00:17:42
Speaker
Not, you know, yeah, I'm going to do the challenge. This isn't one of those ones that I'm super, super excited about, but maybe I will when I get closer to it. I've never done a sack. So maybe it'll be a super awesome when I, when I started. I don't know. Is that what you're going to do? Or are you not spilling the beans on that? It's probably going to be a sacks. Cause I've just never done a sack. So for me that it's something, if I had done one before, then I'd be, you know, and I just did a big ax for the shopper challenge. So I don't really want to do an ax again.
00:18:13
Speaker
So, uh, all right. But, but, uh, yeah, we didn't talk about challenge much last time. A lot of big names in this one. Yeah. That's what I was going to say. Tell me more about it. I like to get the, uh, the lowdown on who's, who's in this time. Secret judges. Come on. So I got, I got displaced as a judge by Mr. John Norwood. So, uh, uh,
00:18:41
Speaker
Well, you're back in the competition. Yeah. I'm back in the regular competition, uh, which is good. I don't know. I don't know if everybody else likes it, but, uh, yeah, I'm back competing with everybody, which is going to be fun. And for everyone else whoop him. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, of any, of anyone, I think, I think someone else is going to win this one because the new people coming in, we got Matt Stagmar from that works.
00:19:08
Speaker
Right. Matt, Matt is him and the boys that that works. They do swords, right? That's their thing. So I'm expecting Matt. That's for sure. Matt, no pressure bond, man. But I'm expecting a lot. And then we got the owner Kaggler from Dies in Every Film. You know, that one's going to be entertaining. Slightly, slightly x-rated. But you know, you know how
00:19:38
Speaker
what these videos are like. I love them. I love them. So that one should be good. We got green Beatles back. He hasn't done one since the first two challenges. So we got Steve back his videos are always super entertaining. Yep. And we got a smaller channel. Harpy and knives. That's new in this this challenge. So we got some new ones. We got a mix of the the old guard in there. So got the old cast you got
00:20:08
Speaker
James Cone. Yeah. Right. Brian is there. Redbeard, Blackbeard Projects. We got PJ. Yeah. Yeah. PJT Forging Phil from the UK. His videos are hilarious. Yeah. Those are some good times there. In the judges, let's see if I can do this from memory. You got John Lenorewood from Old Hickory Forge. You got JP.
00:20:39
Speaker
Um, from JP's blade works. Um, Spencer from heavy forge. Oh yeah. Um, why am I spacing on the other two? Oh, Tony Saverio is the judge. He's amazing. Knife maker from Louisiana. And I don't know why I'm spacing on the fourth person.
00:21:01
Speaker
I don't remember. I don't either. Shoot. Yeah. I don't remember who the fourth judge is. I'm lucky I remember those four. But it should be good. There's 15 participating channels and five judges. So 20 total. Cool. Should be good. Viewers getting some action this time too?
Prizes of the Viking Challenge
00:21:20
Speaker
Yeah. This is the first time we have one of the first place prizes is a two by 72 grinder. Ooh. Yeah.
00:21:32
Speaker
Yeah, knife print is, I didn't even know this, knife print is doing grinder kits now. So they are gonna ship a two by 72 grinder kit. And as far as I could be wrong, I need to look this up, but I'm pretty sure the kit comes with a motor and VFD. Wow. So it's not just like a kit, put together kit where you buy all the parts, like it's full grinder assembly. Awesome. Yeah.
00:21:59
Speaker
And for second and third, they're doing 200 bucks worth of water jet cutting service. So how much? 200 bucks. For second and third? Yeah, each.
00:22:12
Speaker
Yeah, I will participate. Yeah. Changing your mind. Yeah. I could lose like everybody else. And we got Mr. Lawrence Lake from maritime knife supply doing $500 in gift certificates spread between the first three places. So that's awesome. Always good to get something for maritime. And most of the US is doing custom, sorry, pins.
00:22:41
Speaker
And each place gets a number of pins. I think it's like 12, 10, and eight. And each one gets to do one custom pin. So you send them an image, they'll do a custom pin for you. So that's pretty cool. That's a bad gig. Yeah, it's not a bad gig. Yeah, so some good prizes. Nice. And of course, just for the viewers, the YouTube channels, we just get bragging rights and maybe judging for the next one. There you go.
00:23:10
Speaker
Yeah, it's all relative, right? Yeah. So folks, if you want to get in on the Viking Challenge, go watch the announced video on my channel or any of the participating channels. They've all put that announced video up. And in the video description, you can read the viewer instructions, a link to the viewer instructions, which is a Google Doc tell you how to how to enter what you got to do, blah, blah, blah. So go read that and start building.
00:23:40
Speaker
pictures of your final builds are due April 19. So you got some time. Nice. Isn't there a Facebook group for the yeah, thank you. There is it's YouTube knife maker challenge is the name of the Facebook group. There's also a link to that Facebook group in the announced video.
00:24:00
Speaker
Yeah, that's always pretty cool because if you get in that group, you can catch some progress of the people's builds and stuff and, you know, start rooting for your favorites and rooting people on and stuff. It's really cool. I haven't done one myself, but I am a member of that group and I enjoy that a lot. So check that out for sure. Yeah, it's fun to watch the progress pics and see what people are planning and
00:24:27
Speaker
You know, last, last time we had, uh, you know, some guys with some, just some bummer things happen at the last minute and everyone's like, Oh, that sucks. And other guys posting, you know, Oh, this is my first time doing this. It's just great to see people branching out and doing stuff they wouldn't normally do. Yeah. But yeah, so Viking challenge, um,
00:24:53
Speaker
The, so I do, I do have a funny story. I was looking at, um, when I posted the video, um, uh, someone, I think it was Ben cuts said, uh, cause Toby, I mean, sorry, owners in it from Dyson every film, right? And those two guys, owner and Toby are like the hosts of fire and still podcast. So Ben puts a comment down there. Did you invite Toby?
00:25:21
Speaker
And I don't really know Toby that well. Uh, and, uh, and then Ben underneath, I said, I said, no, no, like Toby, I looked up his channel and like, you know, Toby hasn't posted a video in three years. So, you know, that was my out. Right. And then Ben goes, yeah, I think, uh, I think he's, uh, he's moved over to OnlyFans. Uh, and I responded being a jackass saying, I don't know if he's, yeah, he, Ben said, yeah, he's moving over to OnlyFans because he makes more money there. And I responded.
00:25:51
Speaker
I don't know if he's making more money over an Onlyfans and just being a dick. And then I looked up Toby and I'm like, he's actually a pretty good looking dude. He probably would make money on Onlyfans. Not for me, but anyway, I felt bad. I'm like, I don't even know what this guy looks like and I'm being a dick. Oh, you missed the golden opportunity. He's on the owner fans.
00:26:20
Speaker
I did reach out to Toby and said, hey, you can compete as a viewer win and you'll get a prize and owner won't even if he wins. But I did think it would be funny if they were both in it and they could sit there and trash talk each other on Fire and Steel. That's funny. Yeah. We are actually going to announce the winner on the Fire and Steel podcast. Oh, cool. Yeah.
00:26:47
Speaker
I already agreed with them beforehand. That's where we were going to do it. Unless they back out on me because Toby is not in it. Yeah. They're a package, I guess. Right. Yeah. But I'm looking forward to seeing what honor is going to do. It should be pretty fun. Yeah. Speaking of like a podcast.
00:27:10
Speaker
I wanted to make sure that I took a second to acknowledge all the support that we got this week, like overwhelming Dennis.
Community Gratitude
00:27:22
Speaker
I don't know about you. You, my friend, are maybe used to this kind of stuff, but like I was absolutely just overwhelmed by how many people actually just reached out and were supportive.
00:27:34
Speaker
gave good feedback, you know, keep going. The hustle and grind guys, both of those, they reached out and send me a message and was, you know, really cool. I just I think
00:27:50
Speaker
work for it, you know, did a, you know, opened up and had awesome things to say, you know, and it just kind of, I mean, I know I'm probably talking to most people are in our community, but like, I don't feel like this is a natural response.
00:28:06
Speaker
when somebody goes and does something that somebody else is already doing, like for the podcasters, right? And one of them, somebody said, you know, like, welcome to the podcasting community, which is incredible to even like, Adam, anybody ever saying that to me, but you know, like, you know,
00:28:21
Speaker
every other thing except for knife making in my life has been like competition, guarded secrets, not wanting to help, you know, a money grab for teaching or you know what I mean? But it's just not that way here. And I don't know if I'll ever get used to it. But you know, it's so awesome to, you know, have people in your corner
00:28:41
Speaker
rooting for you, trying to teach you, um, and just support you with whatever you're doing. I mean, we're just, like I said, you know, two dudes here talking and not, I mean, the amount of, I think the last week's episode was like so appropriately, uh, titled because like we were just like, yeah, but I was, I was overwhelmed as well. Like just the, the number of people that shared it.
00:29:11
Speaker
Yeah, you know, people like it, whatever. But the number of people that shared it on Facebook, on Instagram, I was blown away. I was so I'm so thankful to everybody that listened. But the people that shared it and talked about it and put it on their stories. And it was, you know, I was thinking, yeah, you know, it would take us weeks or a month or two before you gained any traction. But I was totally happy. I think we like, you know, it's like we got
00:29:41
Speaker
shot out of a gun or something. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, Brian and the guys on work for talking about it for like the first five or 10 minutes of, uh, of work for it helped. Uh, that was nice, really nice of that. So yeah, I mean, like I said, I just, I wanted to make sure that we.
00:29:58
Speaker
We appreciate all you guys. It was overwhelming and just a cool experience. Just tack that on to this never ending level of awesomeness that one day you wake up and you wanna make a knife and then thanks so you know you're sitting here doing all this.
00:30:19
Speaker
It's too late. You shouldn't even muted it. Yeah. Apparently, this is a guy racing outside my house here. I live in a little community and some guy thinks he's Mario Andretti. Yeah. Speaking of. Never mind. Never mind. I've been watching this NASCAR thing on Netflix right now and a couple, I don't know, whenever the finals, the last race in Phoenix, I hated NASCAR my whole life and I got to go to this NASCAR race and
00:30:50
Speaker
in Phoenix for the championship. Dude, she was a blast. I mean, I probably had one of those like experiences in a box that probably not everybody did, but yeah, besides that, it was fun. I started getting into it. So I watched the show and now I guess when you get neighbors, you know, peeling rubber on there. That's what I thought about. I've never been in one of those. It, it definitely looks like a, you know,
00:31:20
Speaker
Redneck good old boy kind of thing, like, you know, drinking and whooping and, you know, it looks fun, but, and no offense to guys that love NASCAR, but.
00:31:30
Speaker
making left turns for three hours doesn't really look that interesting to me, but I'm not a car guy. So I'm with you. Yeah, I'm with you, dude. But when you have some guys that are into it and can like explain all the what's happening and, you know, who's in it and being at the championship was really cool. So I don't know, man. I love sports like that looks looks awesome.
00:31:51
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, you know, and I do like cars. So I mean, we got to go down into the pit and see all the cars. It was cool. Anyways, sorry. Sorry for that. Well, one of my buddy, my buddy Greg has got a Shelby Cobra, like a remake. But he raises it. And I've I've been in that car. And that's an older car. Right. But that thing is all engine. Right. And you get in that car and I asked him one time we were driving somewhere or whatever to pick up something. And we saw that.
00:32:21
Speaker
And I said, could you take that thing off the start? And he laughs and he goes, watch this. And he hit the gas so hard. My neck almost, my head almost snapped off my neck. Like I did not think this car was going to go that fast. So yeah, that part was fun. The speed of it. I see why people like driving cars like that. Oh, yeah. I got my buddy at work is building a
00:32:50
Speaker
a women's car and they're starting to race. So like everything you're talking about right now is, you know, built for speed and everything. These things are just clunkers like, and they're all like themed kind of cars and, uh, they don't go fast in cars.
00:33:06
Speaker
They're Lemons cars. So it's like a lower circuit of racing where they just take all these, I think it's a Ford Focus, I want to say, or an escort, like a 1990s, something or other. And they, they bought a little junker and him and a couple of buddies are building this thing up and they're going to go race it. You know, do they put like a massive engine in or do they have to use engine? No, it's like speed is not
00:33:35
Speaker
is not the deal here. It's just I'm sure they can get them going pretty good. But yeah, they're not they're not whipping anybody's necks. That's for sure. All right. I thought you meant they buy these crappy cars and they put these giant engines in them and they sound like race cars, but
00:33:51
Speaker
They're loud, but this thing has no muffler. So maybe that's what I was, but yeah, I don't
Rebooting the Beginner Series
00:33:58
Speaker
know. So, so we should talk about what's coming up on triple T because this is a long topic and I want to get a bunch of people's feedback. So I said in my last video that I was going to restart the beginner series because I feel like it's getting a little deep and I, and I send a lot of people to that playlist like, Hey, watch this beginner series playlist.
00:34:21
Speaker
and I feel like it's getting a little dated, I should probably start and just redo some of those. So I'm wondering, do I wanna do the first video on stock removal or on how to get started bladesmithing? And it's really two paths, two different topics, two different ways to get started. Maybe I'll do the first half of the video, the second half of the video. I don't know, what do you think?
00:34:50
Speaker
at more stock removal? Yeah, 100% stock removal. I think it's a great point to bring up because I think beginner series are always awesome. And like you're saying, the progression of where we were two years ago, things change, right? We get new shit, new stuff, new ideas. You learn stuff, right? Yeah. Somebody comes up with some awesome thing that you wish you saw.
00:35:20
Speaker
Yeah, the stock removal was my entry in and you know, I think I'm I forged a couple of knives, you know, but the I was listening to
00:35:38
Speaker
full blast with, um, Fader and Brian, um, this weekend. And, and he was kind of pitching Brian on coming down to take a class over there at the center for metal work, metal arts. Um, but the way he was explaining it and being at makers camp and stuff, we knew.
00:35:57
Speaker
beating hot steel for me just I just don't I don't fucking get it. I don't get it. You don't get it. You don't understand or you don't get why it's interesting. What part do you know? I don't get how like how to make it do what I want it to do. Like, you know, that part is frustrating. So what I'm trying to say is is you know, kind of piggybacking on faders.
00:36:19
Speaker
take of, you know, instruction, instruction, instruction, right? That you can't, you can't get enough, right? And beginners, I think, you know, however you're going to get it, if it's YouTube, or if it's, you know, some kind of an instruction from a school or, you know, those are things that, you know, I highly recommend that
00:36:40
Speaker
you pursue because for blacksmithing or bladesmithing, right? It's like, it's like stock removal for me was I was able to kind of just figure out the next process. But when I think when you're forging, the most frustrating part is like, you, I mean, the first time I did it was with you and Lawrence of Ed Maker's camp, right? And I could see in your
00:37:02
Speaker
fucking weird ass heads that you guys were like three steps ahead, right? You were doing things, but you were like planning, you know, down the road with like how you were going to get it to move to that particular spot. So, um, I almost say that you should kind of isolate each one on its own realm. Yeah. Do it, do an episode on each one. Yeah. I think I'll probably tape one and then see how long that episode is.
00:37:30
Speaker
Um, cause if it's only like five minutes or 10 minutes, but who knows? Like, I want to also want to make it engaging and I don't want to just meet talking, but I don't know. I will see, but I think that's what I'm going to, I'm going to do one topic. Like stock removal. This is what you had. This is how you get started at stock removal. This is what I think you should do. This is what I think you should get. Right. And if I'm seven minutes in then, you know, but I'll see.
00:37:54
Speaker
No, I was going to say it's important too, is to like, get them set up with, you know, what they should have, what they need and what they should kind of look for. And kind of, I think it's good, you know, just to, you know, start with basics and then, you know, if the interest is sparked, then go take the journey path and like buy an entire knife making shop in the first year. Except for the press, you have everything that I have.
00:38:25
Speaker
Yeah. So I got the mill and the lathe, but you know, you've got a mini lathe. But back to what you were saying about like training. I'm, I agree. Like, and I, and I've never had any formal blacksmithing training. And I realized we had this discussion coming back from maker camp this last past maker camp about, you know, a, I wasn't comfortable. Like I can do it. I know.
00:38:54
Speaker
you know, I know how to forge a knife, but it wasn't at that point, even when you and I did it, you know, in my shop at the time wasn't comfortable teaching it. And even you said, Oh yeah, you kind of, you didn't get some of the things that you needed out of that. And honestly, in the last two, two or three months, I've done three or four beginner knife maker courses and like,
00:39:23
Speaker
Going through those now, I've learned so much in how to teach it. And I thought it was a good move. Now, when I start my courses, I'll do a demo on a piece of clay. And I'm like, this is what I'm going to do. If I hit it here, it's going to do this. Here's why the hammer is round on one and a flat one. And we cover all that.
00:39:49
Speaker
getting that kind of thing because you don't have that many videos that really and again and now I'm going through on my head all the stuff I'm going to go through on the blacksmithing videos hammer control um you know striking methods all of that now that I know oh yeah you gotta you gotta tell someone that they don't know how to use a hammer so they're not going to blow out their elbow in the first session yeah right
00:40:13
Speaker
So 100%, 100%. I actually was that's another thing too. You know, for beginners is what I highly recommend is to get out and try to get with other makers like it is
00:40:31
Speaker
man. So I'm a kind of person that I could watch all the YouTube in the world. And at some point, it just doesn't, you know, click in my head. But when I'm, you know, in person watching somebody do things, you know, so I've had obviously Dennis and I have, you know, spent a lot of time and I've learned a ton.
00:40:52
Speaker
my buddy, like I said, last week, Tony Satani, he invited me up to his house in Idaho. And I spent three days there just watching him do his thing. I got a we have another maker here in Oakland. Nick Rollins, and he he kind of was
00:41:13
Speaker
Just some people are going to deliver the message, you know, a lot clearer in whatever it is for you to receive it, you know, his, the way he was describing hitting hammer or with his hammer strikes was like, Oh my God. Okay. Okay. Now I can start to think about it. So, um, I really recommend you guys getting out there and just, you know, hanging out with people and doing that. Yeah. And I totally agree. The collaboration piece. Like I feel like my.
00:41:40
Speaker
I was doing stuff alone in my garage and then I started YouTube and it was really the first year on YouTube was really about my journey, you know, and then at about the one year mark, my one year mark is probably in
Collaboration in Knife-Making
00:41:55
Speaker
YouTube is probably when we met and it was right around there. I don't think it was, I think I was at like 3000 subscribers back then, pretty close to that. Yeah.
00:42:07
Speaker
and I was still not collaborating that much. I knew a few guys, like online guys, but hadn't met anybody local. You were actually one of the first people, I mean, I had a couple of local guys, but not really, where we actually started, we started the Northern California Knife Makers Discord, and after that, and it really, really rolled in, and now,
00:42:35
Speaker
the YouTube community and everybody so get get into a community get into you know, whether it's collaborations or just working with other people around you. Yeah. And the other thing I did a lot of was just kind of like reaching out and
00:42:52
Speaker
bug in people, I want to say that's how it feels. Anyways, you know, you send a message to somebody that you like that inspires you or what you like what they're doing, you give them an atta boy. And then, you know, if you have questions or anything, but you know, it's trying to like participate in these relationships with people because that's what it is. You know, it's just building, I call it my maker support group.
00:43:15
Speaker
you know, there's not like an actual group where we all hang out, but you guys are like all on my team secretly, you don't know. But you know, I have questions or I talk and I just you know, I just want to ask and or lets people know and you know, you get feedback, you start building and you know, people because everybody's good at something, you know, as a strength in one particular area. And that's kind of how you know, it works for me. So I recommend that at all levels. Because yeah, this whole stainless Damascus, I had to use the
00:43:44
Speaker
phone a friend card to call up Josh Prince and say, Hey, how do you get this done? And, uh, he's not the first person I've dialed up and said, Hey, how do I do this? I'm my buddy, Rick Hall in Reno. I call him all the time. We bounce things off. So it happens at all levels, whether, you know, you're a master Smith and collaborating with other mastersmiths or, you know, I think no one has done everything. No, that's for sure. So.
00:44:14
Speaker
always some new stuff going on. But yeah, I think the beginner series, and I think I'm just gonna slowly go through those topics one by one.
Knife Steel Basics for Beginners
00:44:26
Speaker
I think one of the first videos after the intro is really that Knife Steel 101. What it is, where to get it, what you should start with,
00:44:42
Speaker
Uh, that kind of, cause the, these questions come up in like bladesmithing for beginners all the time. What should I start with? And, uh, I'm trying to do 10 95 in a forge and I'm having a hard time. I saw that today. Right. Uh, I mean, not too long ago, I was probably asking that, you know, so did you start with 10 95? I did. I'm guilty. I'm like, I didn't know what I was doing. I ordered 10 95 off Amazon and right. Same.
00:45:12
Speaker
Same, exactly the same. Had I watched a basic video that told me these are the different knife steels, this is the common use for each one. Here's the heat treat for each one. If you're gonna do it, I wanna redo that video with some newer knowledge and
00:45:37
Speaker
you know, but I'll go through them and then we'll, you know, I'll do the knife grinding and all that stuff. So yeah, fun stuff. I love doing the intro videos because there's always something new. I think when I did the fixing a warp video, for example, I didn't have a straightening hammer. I didn't even know what one was. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. So I think you and I built a that little three point jig
00:46:05
Speaker
for you. And I've used it once. I'm lucky with some straighter blades, but I got the straining hammer and now that's that that works. Yeah, I mean, I'm a big fan of the straining hammers for gentle warps. Because I've actually cracked a blade with one of those before. And yes, it was tempered and stuff like that. But I think I was I was I think I was just going after it with a
00:46:35
Speaker
with the straightening hammer thinking it wasn't, you know, nothing was going to happen. And I mean, it was probably my fault. I think I probably lifted the, the knife kind of off the anvil a little bit and then whacked it and sure enough. So you have the jig, you have the hammer, you have, you have options. That's what I'm trying to get at, right? Exactly. They're all good options. Uh, things not to do. Try to straighten it right out of the quench. Don't do that.
00:47:03
Speaker
I think we've all seen that unfortunate fire enough times to know not to try that. Yeah, unless you're an expert and you've done it a billion times. Yeah, you're not being aggressive and putting it in a vice and yanking on it. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, that's gonna be some videos coming up. Oh, we got Yeah, Jared and I working on a Damascus pattern. That's, um,
00:47:34
Speaker
Which is a funny story how it started because even people like me who know how to do a pattern, we were trying to do simple C's. We're trying to make C's. And this one here, I'm pointing to myself. Yes, he is pointing to himself. We needed a square bar that was C's.
00:48:03
Speaker
But the bar we had was already square. So I knocked in the corners, and then I'm used to it being in a rectangular shape and then smashing it down, but it was already square. So I'm like, what? I don't know why. I was having a brain fart that day. But then I thought, oh, no, we need to unsquare it. So we ended up with straight lines.
00:48:25
Speaker
They see some wavy, some wavy lines. Um, I do want to say that I was like, I don't think we're not going to score. No, I shut up Jared. You know, just give me a minute. I'm not a gate saying I was wrong. Uh, yeah, but that was a dumb move. Uh, but what we did end up with.
00:48:53
Speaker
with some straight lines in a bar that was like five-eighths square. So we cut that up today, made some basket weave, and I think we're gonna stack that back, you know, four-way it a few times, stack that basket weave up, and we're gonna split it like a feather. So I think that's gonna look really cool. A basket weave split. So that's what we're gonna do. I'm excited.
00:49:21
Speaker
I left it out in the rain today, and an hour later after it was pouring, I was like, oh, shit. Oh, man. It's fine. It was still plenty hot. It's not like it hardened or anything. It was going back and forth anyways. It doesn't matter. Right. All right. Yeah. So that should be fun. I'm looking forward to seeing that one. But I don't know what I'm going to do. I still have a twist to go my.
00:49:52
Speaker
Sandma, I have a bunch of billets. They're just starting to stack up and we keep making more. Because it's fun to make Damascus, but Noah Bloomberg was talking about this. It's fun to make Damascus, but then you got so many billets stacking up that you're really getting some knives out of them.
00:50:12
Speaker
Yeah, fucking Lawrence. He sent me a video and he was like, he finally set up his grinder and he was going to town and I was just like, man, I'm so happy because when we were in, um, Oh God. So there's a couple of people that said they, they liked making starting knives, but finishing them are just, you know, I'm like, how could you, you know,
00:50:33
Speaker
I get it, guys. I get it 100%. Right now, I just, I had to phone a friend last a couple weekends ago, because I was sitting in my shop and I had been sick for
00:50:46
Speaker
I haven't been sick in like five years. It feels like, I mean, I had the COVID one time and, but prior to that, like, yeah, I had this great run of not being sick. This fucking year, I've had a cold like every three weeks since October. Like, I'm over it, right? So that, and I'm a grade A top-notch super bitch when I'm sick. Like, I just don't do well. Like my wife would just be like, she's like, get the fuck out of here.
00:51:15
Speaker
So, uh, but you know, I saw, you know, I'm stacking up and I haven't got to work and everything's all these excuses, blah, blah, blah. But, um, I went out in the shop, but I think it was not this weekend, but last. And, and I just got hit with this like absolute huge wave of like.
00:51:32
Speaker
I don't know, anxiety, fear, like overwhelmed with like my shop was a little disorganized and I was just sitting on this little box in the corner of my shop looking at this like, I don't want fucking beer. I'm going to sell everything I have right now. Well, go ahead and shut over that.
00:51:49
Speaker
Oh, man. But I called it. I called him like, dude, this is horrible. He's like, yeah, just chill out. You know, just go do one thing at a time. And, you know, because, yeah, you could easily put yourself in this in this spot where you have, you know, too many projects going on. And that's kind of where I'm at right now. I have like fucking seven knives sitting on my my bench right now that are all treated in different stages. But this is the most I've ever had. I probably have not including the two integrals. I probably have five sitting there.
00:52:19
Speaker
And that's, I don't like that. I like finishing one end to end. Just, I don't know. I'm just OCD that way. Like I got to finish the one I have before I started a new one, but a couple of these, I've just, especially teaching these classes, I'll forge out a knife during the class. So now I've got two of those sitting there. Plus, you know, the, a couple others, I actually have one, the next one I'm going to do.
00:52:49
Speaker
is a Bowie that to me is a mystery billet because I cannot remember for the life of me what it is. So I'm like thinking of like doing a video. It'll basically be like a stock removal video because it's already forged. I know it. The only thing I know is it's got a nickel shim. So I'm like, I'm really excited about using this billet, but I totally forget what it is. It's mine of course, but no idea.
00:53:16
Speaker
It's the grand reveal. Right. Look at the end. I'm going to like I'll probably be test edging now when like the first second I can to figure out what it is. That's funny. Yeah. Yeah. So I get it, guys, you know, you start making a bunch of shit, but Lord said, you know, he's like, I got to grind all these, even find out what the hell they are. So, you know, I was like, oh, that's awesome, man, because he was saying, you know, he didn't even have his stuff set up and I was just happy he was
00:53:46
Speaker
you know, actually getting out there and, you know, grinding some stuff and making the knives because he's a hell of a maker, dude. Yeah, he is. He's great at the great in the anvil. Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My teachers are horrible. You know, my first time on Borgen, I got, you know, Dennis Lawrence. I forget who else was there. But yeah, Mirko was there.
00:54:10
Speaker
Not teaching, but he was working on quenching something. Right. Right. Yeah. So yeah, guys, if you get a chance, hit up maker camp, that is a, that is quite the experience. Yeah. Yeah. We had a good time there. For sure. Cool, man. Well, lots of stuff to work on. I got lots of video ideas.
00:54:33
Speaker
Oh, one thing I wanted to mention, we want to wait for you guys to get a hold of us, ask us questions. We want to make that a big part of this podcast. So if you guys have questions, we have an email set up. I'm not sending up a whole Instagram account, that's bullshit. No, there's a triple T, FKM, triple T for knife makers. So triple T, FKM, no dashes, no spaces, there are no dots, none of that shit.
00:55:03
Speaker
tripletfkm at gmail.com. So if you got a question, email us there. We'll talk about it on the show. Love to hear what you guys have to say or answer any questions. What are you guys, what do you guys think is some important things to mention in a video about getting started? What issues did you guys have in getting started that you wish you would have known or someone would have told you early on?
00:55:34
Speaker
So triple T F K M at gmail.com. Podcast.com. Oh, sorry. Triple T F K M podcast at gmail.com. Damn it. I'll put it in the show notes and we'll have an Instagram account up in about three weeks. I just got to talk. I have a thing about multiple accounts on anything. I could barely keep my shit straight having one account.
00:56:02
Speaker
Well, yeah, the other one you have is like 300 million followers. So fuck off. But this is why I don't accept, I don't accept friend requests on Facebook. So if you're sending me a friend request on Facebook and you're not like a close personal friend or someone that I know really well, I'm not going to accept it because it's my personal account. I don't have a knife maker Facebook account. Nice.
00:56:29
Speaker
Well, yeah, I'm yeah, hit us up. I'm always DMS are fine too. But yeah, questions, feedback, all that good stuff. Keep them coming. Jared, where can they reach you? I am at
00:56:47
Speaker
echo underscore blades on Instagram. And I do have a echo blades page on Facebook as well. I'm very active on there too. But yeah, there there is that as well. All right. Well, as always, I'm Tyrell knife works on Instagram. Email is Tyrell knife works at gmail.com. I prefer use the podcast email for anything podcast related. So triple t FKM podcast.
00:57:16
Speaker
at gmail.com. All right. I think that's a show. I think so. All right. Yeah. All right. Next week, maybe we'll we'll do a summary of what the first beginners beginner series video was like. What did we miss? And maybe we'll get some email by then. And what else we need to do. All right.
00:57:44
Speaker
We got to make some progress on that billet. I'm excited about this basket split. Yeah, I am too. I got to finish this the wave gutter though. That's top agenda here. Get on it. Wish me luck on that this week. I'm looking forward to seeing the pictures on Instagram. You guys should I mean for you guys, because the handle material, it goes really nice with this knife. So I think that the whole package is going to be awesome. I'm stoked about it. All right.
00:58:13
Speaker
All right, thanks folks. We will see you next time. All right.