I have nothing but respect for Todd Hunt, he took at least an hour of his very busy day on the phone at one point to talk about a **** knife I sent him to take a gander at and he gave me all kinds of pointers. In the spirit of the open conversation he talked about in this article though I think it's important to mention that the surge in interest in knives is a positive thing in general. More interest is a net positive. There are certainly a lot more armchair experts who can tell you all about how to make a good knife because they've seen a couple nods towards a knife from Doug "It Will Keel" Marcaida on Forged in Fire or heard something from that other judge on there who must spend a serious amount of his day on his facial hair. Those armchair quarterbacks are certainly frustrating. But, really, so what? The same people who knew what good knives are and are willing to put their money towards them haven't gone away. There are just more people now who might make the same trip most of us went on. I doubt I'm the only person who got hooked on knives with some Cold Steel or United Cutlery garbage and as time and use went on I found out what made a good knife. There is a good chance that there is an unprecedented number of people on that particular trip right now. Everybody thinking they're a knife expert all of a sudden is definitely an annoyance, no doubt about that. I haven't worked on making any of my own knives since I decided I need a 2 x 72 grinder to get serious about it and I won't do that until I get enough sheaths made to at least help pay for it. I'm no expert or anything but I've had enough custom sheaths come through my hands to know that my sheaths are pretty damn good. Despite all of my mistakes it actually floors me sometimes how good they are and I'm pretty proud of them. I promised myself a while back that the next person who ignored the sheath I made and asked if I'd made the knife for it was going to get punched in the throat. It's usually people at work that ask that and seriously, if I could make a knife like Todd, Andy Roy, Osprey K/T, Adventure Sworn, Nathan Carothers, or manufacturers like ESEE, Becker, Survive!, etc I'd damn sure be doing that full time, not going to work for someone else. Fortunately the next person to blow off a sheath I made and ask about the knife was my dad and I'm pretty sure he could still put my ass in the dirt quick so no violence ensued. I guess the point I'm trying to make is the new surge in interest in knives will play itself out and I'm betting it'll be good at the end of the day. Most people will be happy with a junk knife they'll never use but there are still more people getting exposure and it just makes sense that some of them will end up looking at the custom end of things.
