Welcome to the Knife Junkie Podcast. Your weekly dose of knife
news and information about knives and knife collecting. Here's your
host, Bob The Knife Junkie DeMarco.
Welcome to the Knife Junkie podcast. I'm Bob DeMarco. On
this edition of the show, I'm speaking with knife tuber extraordinaire
Scott Baldwin, or Scab, as he may more commonly
be known from choir boys outdoors. As a knife
tuber myself, my consumption of knife review videos has waned
in recent years. Kind of like the cobbler's kids wear no
shoes. The algorithm instead has me pegged as someone more
readily taken in by cooking, wristwatch or
other guys on camping trip videos. But Scott
has remained one of my favorite youtubers, no matter what the subject.
He is also one of those trusted voices in the knife world that I
refer to from time to time in my own videos. He's
real and his takes on knives are based on real world use. And
as a bonus, he's incredibly likable. We'll catch up with
Scott and get the skinny on his channel's direction, but first, be sure to like,
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BattleBox Scott, welcome back to the Knife Junkie
podcast, sir. It's great to see you man. Thank you for having me. I, I
don't know that I can live up to that introduction, but I, I appreciate it
very much. Well, you've already lived up to it. That's. That's how come
it got rich. It's good, it's good to see you.
And last time I saw you was at Blade show and you were, we were
showing off some of our, our purchases which
was cool. Let's, let's start there. What was, what was.
What do you love best about Blade Show? What are those highlights there?
Honestly, Blade show, for me it's
one of those weird things where you get to see everybody and
nobody all at the same time. I think my favorite part
is Just talking to folks in knife tube. I always
enjoyed seeing you there. The knives are great. That's
why we go, right. But I enjoy the interaction.
I think that's my favorite part. I feel like
those of us who make knife videos, probably all
video makers on YouTube, we spend a lot of time in the virtual
world making these things and then watching other people's videos, that
kind of thing. That when you actually get to meet people in
person, it's like you're being let loose. Yeah,
yeah. And it's cool, man. It's, it's like you meet people that you know,
you have something in common with. No matter
your background, no matter your financial, no matter anything you
have that. We have knives and we have steel and we have
passion and really, truly, honestly, that's like
one of those rare moments where we can share with like
minded people, like really react. Cause everybody else
thinks we're nuts, crazy, or you know,
what do you got that many for, you know, or, or they expect you
to, you know. So for me, blade shows just really,
I'll tell you the truth, man. I
have been treated insanely well at blade show
both times by folks just walking and talking
by knife makers. I always enjoy though
speaking with, with other knife tubers and just getting that
proof. I think it's a shared experience and
for me that I, man, I can't, I can't really stress that
enough. And if you're a new knife tuber, try to make it to one of
the blade shows. Honestly, I think you'd enjoy.
Yeah, definitely. I told people on the live show that we do
here, if you're there, you know, I know your name from, from
the screen, but I don't know what you look like, so come up and say
hi. I love that. I mean, I, I, I've
really realized I'm, I'm, I'm a social
butterfly. And you know, especially
when I'm around all those knife people, like, I just want to talk to everyone.
Yeah, absolutely. And try to, I try.
But you feel, you feel like you talk to everybody and nobody.
You feel like a million people and miss everybody.
That part's bizarre to me, you know. You know, you, well,
you, you said, yeah, it, well, it is for sure. Because you also
know you're going there, you want to, there are certain makers you want to catch
up with. There are definitely certain people you want to see. And then you leave
and you're like, oh, I never, you know, I missed that. But you
were, you were saying, you know, we're, we're A bunch of nuts. Or at least
people think we're nuts. And, and that's,
to a degree, why I started doing this is because,
you know, my wife likes knives, but only up until a
certain extent, you know, there's only so much dialogue. She'll
suffer, you know, around knives. So I figured, why not
talk to like minded people? What was it that, that got you to start choir
outdoors? Man, I, I don't know if we talked about
this last time, but honestly. And it, it's, it's
not as deep as it sounds, but I was just coming out
of a heavy addiction
and I. One of the things that kind of bounced with me or resonated
with me, and people don't understand this, Bob and I, it's hard to
explain it to somebody because you're not glorifying. But when you are
in addiction, whether it's opioids, alcohol, whatever it
is, you have to hustle to
feed that addiction. So when I quit, man, I
was relieved I quit. But I had also realized that, dude,
I hadn't, I, I promise you, I hadn't sat down
and watched TV for probably a
decade. And so quitting, that's one thing,
that's great, but it's the nervous energy. And
I've watched a bunch of. I watch it, man. Knife bro,
Donnie B. All day. I mentioned him a lot, but Donnie. It was
Donnie's video on this knife, the
cold steel, that really. I said,
I'm doing it. And the reason that I
said I'm doing it is anybody that doesn't follow Donnie, you
should, because Donnie, he's passionate, man.
And Lonnie is going to disagree with
99% people on certain designs and things,
but he did a review of this knife and I thought, and I really thought,
I said, man, that guy, he loves it. And it
resonated with me and we fired it up. And Donnie was one of the
first guys to. To
answer question, to help me with the channel so
that, I mean, that's what it was. But it wasn't like,
I've done this now for five years, five and a half. And I
don't ever want to glorify that or do it. Oh, woe is me.
Because this thing really, knife tube in general
turned my whole thing around.
And I had a lot of knives, Bob. And this is kind of scary.
And it, but, but as a heavy drug user,
man, I bought a ton of knives now. Not hurt
anybody. No, no, I get it. But I mean, it's like.
And it, it's not again, it's not some deep dark place.
I think really what it did, it brought
something to the surface that I didn't understand until I got
clean. And so that's what fired it up. That's
what started it. And it's a blast ever
since was. Like, you've got, you know, in your, in
your pre YouTube days when you were overindulging you, you've got a lot
of late nights, you're up late, you're. You've got a lot of energy.
You're scrolling, you do, you do those little
thighs where you're like, oh, oh, I bought it. Oh no. Going back from that.
We've all done that and I could see how you
need to fill that void with, with something and
why not fill it with talking about this other thing that you love, you
know? Well, and I didn't know what I was doing and I still
don't to a large degree. But that's why
I am huge on encouraging people
to start. And at some point, Bob, we need to talk about
maybe doing a series, maybe having you on
Blade Talk with Scavenger. We really, I think we need to
do some kind of series where we help some of these younger, newer or
newer, not younger, but newer creators start, you know,
maybe give some tips to avoid the pitfalls.
I think that would be cool, you know, and have different
voices, you know. No, no one central voice have different
voices because I see people get in
and I see their heart and I see their passion and,
and there's some folks, man, you watch it die
and it's like there's. They don't really have any. And I'm not saying we can't
build everybody to a certain level. Right?
Yeah, but I don't want anybody's passion
to get killed because of the Internet
or because they just didn't. I'm too hard headed. I said
I didn't know what I was doing. Um, I don't, I don't now
but I'm too hard headed to quit, you know. But I, I
really would like to get some guys, you, some other
guys who, who have been around it and understand kind of the
pitfalls and just. I don't. I won't call it a class,
but maybe let's do, let's do a little series of things to look out
for. Perhaps it's sort of, sort of like a roundtable. This is actually
an idea very similar to an idea that Jim has had
for a while. But it'd be, it would be like doing a round table and
having someone there and they can, they can,
you know, bounce ideas off you and everything. You know, there's something, you and
I are the same age, and there's something to becoming a man
of a certain age where you kind of just don't care so much about what
people think. And it, there's a freedom to that that
is. Oh, man, like, I wish I felt the way I feel
now, you know, 30 years ago. So maybe
instilling a little bit of that attitude in someone who's
new, and it doesn't mean young in age. It could just be someone
who's 65 years old who's starting, but just to
get them. Get their feet wet. Yeah. Cause I see, I
see I had help. And I mean, like, like I said,
Donnie stepped up big for me. Another guy,
Backyard Samurai, stepped up big for me. And, and,
and some of these guys
did it, you know, they, they, they may not still
be on knife tube today, but they instilled certain
things. Backyard Samurai instilled
giving, you know, one channel to the other. And I,
I don't know if you've experienced this. I'm, I'm sure you hadn't been on here
so long, but, you know, if you gift another channel
something, there's always the comment, well, you always give stuff to other
channels because it helped
me. Right. So. And we
can't control what other people say. And, and honestly,
Bob, I'm not even talking about, like, trying to help people with trolls
because you, you got to ask yourself if
you have thick skin, you know? You know, if you
have thick skin and if you don't, don't get on you, because you won't.
Backyard Samurai, he gave me a. There's a battle axe over there.
And he's given me several things, and he's given a lot of people things.
And so I try to pay it forward. That was all he asked,
pay it forward. And those things help
build relationships and they actually
help maybe somebody who's just starting out with a
little credibility, if that makes sense. It
does, actually. You talk about relationships. It.
One of the, one of the things I love about your videos, I,
you have a whole bunch of different kinds of videos. And
you know, I know you've done a lot with shorts, and I also know you've
done a lot with long form test videos, and those are the ones that first
drew me in. But I love your. You have
sort of, for lack of a better term, sort of philosophy videos.
You'll be driving in your car, you'll just turn on the, the camera and
something's been eaten at you. And, and you have at it
you recently, without getting too specific on, on my end, you can get as
specific as you want. But you recently did one kind of. On
relationships and, and how, you
know, whether it's other knife
tubers or knife makers, upstart companies,
you know, they're asking for some faith from
those of us who invest money in them or time in them. And then when
they don't, when they don't kind of
produce, it can. It can be a problem. Especially if you put your
own name to helping them. Can you talk about that?
Yeah. Well, I was talking about heavyset, tactical.
And the reason I'm bringing him up by name is
Jonathan was with me at Blade show. And
I don't know where he's at in his head right now,
but I know this. I went to bat for that guy.
And if he needed me, if he reached out, I would be there.
But Bob, we put, you know, people watch these things, man.
They've watched you for years now. They've watched me for a certain amount of time.
People trust us, right? They trust you.
I know they trust you. I know they do because I do. I trust what
you say. So when we're out there, we tout someone
because we're, we're. We're holding on to what they've
made and then they screw somebody over.
And, and let me, Let me just say this too. I'm not talking about a
misunderstanding. I'm talking about when it's time. And we've seen it.
We've seen it with Carnivora. I got ram there
survived knives. And I did it big time. And
listen, I don't mean any real will on these people, but dude,
they screwed people over. They took
their money. Yeah, yeah.
And it. There's no like survive. And
Guy never sent me a thing. I talked to him a couple times and
I Distance. But
people watch us and they're spending their money. You
work, I work. We're not getting rich off
this. So somebody goes out and they.
They get a custom knob that I. Of course, I wouldn't have one.
But if they purchase a knife. Well,
you know what? We'll do this right here. I do have it.
This is one of the most reputable guys I've ever come across.
William Collins. That's the Gray man by
William Collins. Fuel the fire. Right? William has
an established business. That knife's between 3 and
$400. So when somebody puts
that kind of money up and I don't. Bob, I don't for what
they have, dude, $400 is $400, bro.
And somebody intentionally
takes. That's wrong. It's theft,
you know, and the whole addiction thing. And I mentioned this in that video,
and I meant it, and I mean it now. Addiction. Addiction's not an
excuse, man. Addiction is not an
excuse. This ain't some old, poor, pitiful me or
we're not heroes. The damage that we do.
Again, I don't know where John's at. I'd like to see him right
and ship. But here's what happened. And, and you know,
you get so far behind, man, and then
not only can he not catch up and maybe
people don't feel this way. I've had people go, man, don't worry about it.
It's hard not to worry about it. It's hard.
I take that stuff personally, you know,
especially when I've said, hey, this is a great knife, because it wants,
you know, what he's doing.
So I, it. And it puts me in a quandary,
I think, like, it would put all of us in a quandary because there
are. Dude, there, there are thousands of
phenomenal knife makers out there, man,
but every form, somebody new gets me up. I'm skeptical.
I'm skeptical, and I never got into this
skeptical, you know, or I didn't get
this to. I don't know, man. I,
I, that video meant a lot to me. I meant it. I don't say
stuff I don't mean. And very
protective of us, of knife tubers. And to me,
knife tubers is not somebody. And this is a
bashing and saying what knife tube is to me.
Knife tube is to me, working folks.
Folks who don't have huge teams, who don't have
huge production companies, who don't aren't
celebrities and nothing wrong with that. We need some of that to help perpetuate
knife tube. But to me, knife tube is
folks coming together and sharing their passion of knives
and for knives. That's what it is. And if,
if we don't have trust, then. Then all we are is one more
community on YouTube that got tanked by law. It's.
It's sitting around the coffee table with your friends
BSing with, with knives. Just since
you mentioned heavyset tactical, I'm rooting for that guy. I've followed him.
You know, he had a channel and I, I loved his taste
in edc and his knives looked great and from everything I heard,
so hopefully he digs himself out of the morass and.
But I, I think it takes someone maybe with your experience
to say addiction is not an excuse use, you
know, but it's not. It's not. And I,
and let me to everybody watching Bob and I didn't talk about this
beforehand. This is my, I'm saying, and I
love John. I, I, we had a great time at Blake show.
I'm pulling for, I'm pulling for anybody, but there comes
a time when, you know,
I can pull for people and I do, but
gotta make up for what you've done. You know, I, I don't think
he needs to be part of life for a while. I, I, I'm
not a gatekeeper. I don't want to be. But I, dude,
I had a lot of people reaching out. I mean, out of nowhere. That video
didn't just appear because there was one instance
and, and see when what happens, Bob, in this case
is you do have white knights in the community. And, and
again, this is me. This isn't Bob, this is me. You got
gatekeepers and you got white knights who sit on go to wait and abash
anybody they can. So you'll get people
watching you. Well, you know, they did it. And so,
you know, if it's what now I can tell you man to man,
if it's one person, I'm not making a video about it because
to me, it's a relationship that went sour.
Now when it starts getting to 2 and 3 and 4 and 5,
how long do you let it go? You know, how long then do you let
it go before that? There's one more mark of you not
being responsible and saying, hey. And so that's where I was at.
I'd gotten to a point where I have to now say something. And that's
came off a little angry because I was. Because now I've got to make this
video that I don't make.
Well, you seem, you seem the sort of angry someone is towards a good friend
who, who messes up and you're like, look, man, yeah, I recommended you for this
job and you kept falling asleep on the job and now it looks bad on
me. Yeah, I get that. And I think, I think that
that's really evident. Came through on the video.
And I haven't heard from it. Heard from. I
haven't. But, but honestly, man, Carnivore did the same thing.
And because what would happen with
Carnivore? Because I love the look of those knives. I don't have any.
I think I held some at Blade Show. I'm pretty sure they've been to
Blade Show. Right. And what
did they disappear? It's a lot. It's a
long, complicated story. But no, no, if we will make
it long, I'll make it quick up
front. Everything looked legit. But what, what
I began to notice in what I started to fear
and what came out, not this past blade show, but the one before that
was, it was almost like the Ponzi scheme. You know,
they were taking in money for knives,
robbing Peter to pay. Paul got behind again.
Except in their case, there were some major. And I don't want
to say a whole lot about it because I think there's like some legal stuff
going on, but dude, you talked about knife
to the back. Because I touted them heavy. Because I
loved what they did. I, I, that's part of my passion.
I think I showed you some of their stuff last time. I love
crazy stuff. And those lives weren't
cheap. They weren't cheap. And so you're
asking people to shell out money and I might even have it.
I don't know the old saying of
beating a dead horse. But again, it's one of those things where
it started snowballing and before,
before I realized it, I had to make a video. And I hate making them
stupid videos. I like my riding with scabs where we're having
fun. I like reviewing knives. I like seeing what other people have.
Now I'm like you, and I'm glad you
mentioned this because the longer you do this, the less life reviews
you want. You just don't have,
you don't have the time really.
And I, I'm like you, man. The camping videos, the extreme camping
videos, dude, who's those? That's
my jam. I love that, love that.
But, but I support knife tubers.
I catch a lot of folks who shorts. I'll catch your podcast,
I'll catch certain long form videos and I try to leave likes
and comments and I try to send knives out
to channels that may not get the opportunities that I have,
but especially like with the work up and you know, it's just all part
of it. It's fun. That part I like. It's fun.
So something you do that I love. And I gotta say,
this is like an early morning. I get up very early and I
have a little time to myself and there's always a portion of the morning where
I'm watching YouTube. We'll leave it there. But I
love your videos. Lately they've been cold steel and
for a long while, Rose Craft, where you take a knife
and every day you put it to hard use. Whether it's
10 cuts through a fire hose or.
Or I'm going to use this D2 slip joint until it falls
apart. And I love those. It's. They do a couple of
things. First of all, I'm sure from your perspective, they, they. It's
a series so it solidifies a viewing audience. They just kind of, oh, here he
is again cutting this. Yeah. Oh, okay. What's he going to talk about this
time? Because a lot of it has to do with just the human
interact. Interaction. We're not actually interacting. But you're talking to the
camera so familiar. Because it's something you do so often.
Tell us a little bit about that. I mean, you know, how did you get
into doing these daily testing videos and what have you
learned from them? The, the. How I got
into it was specifically through Ragecraft.
I love Rosecraft. I love Andy and
Swag Swags and all have a very, very different
relationship. Almost familial, almost
because we have a lot of commonalities. But man,
I wanted to do something for him. We get, for folks that
don't know when you get on YouTube or you get on knife tube,
whatever you start off with, people put you in a box. Like I'm known
for, for crazy fixed blades and big fixed blades. Bob's known
for big fixed blades. I am not known for pocket knives.
So as much as I love pocket knives and love reviewing pocket
knives, they don't get the view. And so if a company
seemingly knives like Rosecraft sends me all kinds of.
If I can't get the views through a long form, I thought let's try this.
And we're the same age, we grew up
with uncles and grandfathers and great uncles.
They carried slip joints. So I thought this will be
cool. There's a lot of
just falsehoods about slip joints. And I thought.
And that started it and then I got a lot of
views on you just to be real with you. They really did well.
And I thought this is a way that I can say thank you to
Rosecraft. I can show their stuff and,
and make a really. So that. I mean that's how it started. And
then I'm a cold steel freak. Talked about
that before. All right, all right, let's talk about cold steel in a second because
I can't get enough. Like literally I just ordered two
things last night. I actually just happened.
But the Rosecraft, those slip
joint videos in particular, I don't remember what the Barlow is called, I don't have
that one. But it, it really, first of
all oftentimes, you're cutting, like,
sandblasting pipes and all sorts of crazy stuff that,
that I, I, I don't use those at work. I,
you know, I don't. So I have an inkling
that these knives can take that kind of use.
But to see it over and over, day in, day out, day, and, and to
see that you haven't stropped it or sharpened it in a while and all that
really kind of sold me. I mean, I didn't need
any more selling on the form. I love, I love
slip joints. But to see the evidence is
important. Yeah. In that
you ask what I learned from it. What I learned from it
was I learned a ton.
Like, when you start cutting every day, one of the byproducts of
it. One of the things I learned from. We don't use our knowledge
as much as we hope we do. We really don't. It's
easy being knife tubers. And for those of y' all don't know, it's
just knife tube is a, Is a term.
It's not knife reviewers. It's just knife tubers. We love knives.
But it revealed to me how little.
Even though I have a channel, I actually,
like, really use a knife. So it showed me
it takes effort to, I mean. Cause nobody's gonna use a knife that much
unless you're a chef or a baker or something like that. That's the
first thing. The second thing I learned from it was knife
maintenance, believe it or not. It started to instill
in me, okay, I don't want to run this thing all the way dull. So
I need to strop it this amount of times or hone it this
amount of times. It taught me a lot of knife safety,
because y' all don't notice a lot. But when I fold something to cut it,
I stab myself every
so. And before somebody said, you haven't learned. Oh, I learned. I learned every time
I dig it and I, I move it back. But, man, I've,
I've really, It's really. I'm glad you brought that up, man, because
it's really, really, really, really, really revived
my love. Not for knowledge that'll always be there, but for, like,
YouTube and, and social media and that kind of thing.
And it, It's. I'll be honest with you, too. The other thing I learned is
this. It is a constant source of content.
Cause as much as I love knives, I enjoy the, I enjoy
the growth part, if that, you know, that
ports. There are folks who don't care about growth at all.
And I admire that. I really do. I'm not
one of them. I like to push the boundaries and
it's a challenge. So it really from
that standpoint and I monitor
really helped a ton. In fact,
I'm glad you mentioned it too because I've got to do mine for tonight.
So I'll porch when we're done,
dudes that you just stroll by.
My wife and I, Megan and I went kayaking Sunday,
Saturday Ocklawaha. That
little short I put up of that gator, it. It's kind of grainy but man,
that was a nine or ten foot gator,
dude. That thing looked. I'm. I'm blind and everybody
knows my eye floats. You can see it on this. I'm sure you could see
it. I can't help it. But Megan was in front of me and
we're, we're going. It was just gorgeous. And I see her kayak kind
of turn to the side and she reached down. So
I immediately start looking. That's a sign something's over there
and I can't. I'm like. She said, do you see it? And I lied.
I said, yeah, but that thing was so big, man, it
looked like a truck tire leaning up against that
tree. Oh my.
She said, it looks like a truck tire. So when she said, I said holy
smokes it. That was the second largest gator and I
live in Florida. If you live in Florida, gators are abundant.
But some gators, but that was just cool.
That had nothing to do with knives. I did have. I can. I
took my trusty William Collins in
AEB Dash shell because where we were at can be kind of
brackish. But I thought this isn't going to do nothing to that gators for
weeks. Turn around. He's gonna pick bits of you out of
his teeth with that knife. Yeah, yeah, that,
that's. That was a bad boy there and then we seen the little one. But
that that's thing was big. But being on
the ocklawaha and things like that, the
cutting every day has really kind of honed in
what I carry with me, if that makes sense.
The cutting materials you mentioned, the sandblast hose and the
ratchet strap, man, I really,
really, really go back and forth with that.
I don't think many people use those things on
YouTube. And so for me I'm going, well, this is an
industrial material. But another part of me is like, dude, people
have no clue what you're coming. So I kind of, I do
waffle on it a little Bit,
but I, you know, what else do you cut? You cut what you have around.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, but it's also obvious from the,
the locations where you do these. You know, if it's not at home, it's at
work it seems. And you can see the work environment. You know,
you've got a lot of tools and heavy equipment and stuff
around. People know that. You know, I, I've never held a sandblasting
hose in my life, but I can, I can just tell from its use that
it's, it's a serious material that you're cutting through.
Send you some. Next time we have one blow out, I'll send you some.
It's, it's a cool material. Yeah, I'll add joint on.
So cold steel. Cold steel. Recently
I noticed, well, you started the series with the drop point,
a large Voyager or XL Voyager. And then,
and then you got the, the Spartan serrated
and you've been going to town with these. What is it
about cold steel? I mean, you don't have to sell me on them, but
what do you love about cold steel? I love their
knowledge. I, and I'm, it's. I've got a whole thing
of them right here beside me. Cold steel, their number,
not, not customer service, not anything in that manner.
But their knowledge just resonate with me. And I'll tell you what
started it is those old Lynn Thompson
videos where they're cutting, right? And
they showed again, showed it was cool, it was all right.
Probably not cool people thinking crazy, but it's all right to cut
stuff. And I got to sit and have dinner with
Wayne this past Blade show and so man,
talking to him kind of really, even though he doesn't own it
anymore, like this vaquero,
it's fully serrated. But having Lynn kind of
explained, you know, the dynamics when you look at a
cold steel and I, my channel, I, I think you focus some
on, on the self defense and how to carry.
My channel is typically not like that. But you can't
have a cold steel and not think about some kind of
self defense, self offense. You can't think of a cold
steel and not think of it as not a weapon.
And I probably didn't say that right. But it's not just
that they're not scared to have fun.
I just love their stuff. What is it for you? What,
what's your big thing? Well, for me, you know, when I was in high
school, a friend of mine was like, oh, there's this knife. A friend
of mine was really into Knives when I was in high school and he introduced
me to cold steel with the original tanto. And he's like, yeah, man,
CIA operatives carry these and they can punch them through a car
door. Oh my God. You know, I got obsessed with it and then I
bought the. The Tonto from the Randall
Park Mall outside of Cleveland. There was a knife store and they had
this cold steel I saved up for it. That is still
my bedside knife. I've had it for 40 whatever years.
And yeah, I just 30 some odd years and
I just love that knife. And to me, the thing that
kept me coming back, I never thought Lynn. A lot of people like
apologists. You know, I like Colt steel, but that Lynn Thompson, he's
an unsavory character. I think he's one of the coolest guys I've ever met.
No, he's also a badass, by the way. But what I
love, especially about cold steel knives is
that he's got and. And I believe that the company has carried this
on in his absence. But he's got this insane
wealth of knowledge when it comes to the history of knives. Swords,
blades, axes, historically, how they were used,
the historical periods they come from, why they're significant. And
he's got a giant collection of knives that he would base his
design on. And to me, all of that is just perfect.
Yeah, the dude's amazing. He, he.
Lynn is a bundle of energy and
again, it's the passion and you know, for me, I'll tell you what it is
for me too. He's not embarrassed by. He's
unabashed about. He's not worried about what you think about it.
I promise you that. And you got to interview him. Well,
God doesn't care and you'll hear big. So I don't care what anybody
thinks. And they really do. Lynn really don't. I mean he
really don't. I don't know there's another knife maker on the
planet other than Andrew Dim because he likes.
Honestly. But Lynn's just.
Lynn, man. I was, I was looking and I think you got this
one. But Luke and
that. That's the other thing. One of the things that's caused my biggest
resurgence with Cold Spiel is not long ago I made a video
short on these Securex sheets, right?
How they dull the knives and no, they're not. And, and
that there is some truth to
that. They don't run them completely dull and
that. But to me I thought, well, why not fix
it? So I made the video the short
and not knowing that Luke Who's
a good friend of mine from calculating survival was the
new face of Cold Steel. So I started
noticing Luke from Calculator Survival showing up in Cold Steel.
So I reached out to him, and that's how he came
on Blade Talk with Scad and Judd, and we hung out
at Blade Show. And Luke is passionate
about knives. And, you know, because you do this
podcast in which. I love the podcast, because you have
people on that are passionate about knives.
I cannot stand people who get into that. There are people who
get into this, and they get into it, and they don't want to do nothing
but bash them. Whiny bitch. Use my language. But that. That
I want to be around people who love not. You know,
Luke's one of those guys, whether you like him or you don't. The guys
he. And he has phenomenal hair.
Talking to Luke. Huh?
I said, who doesn't like Luke? He's. He seems like such a nice guy.
He is. He's a great guy. But, you know, here's the thing, too.
You go from having a channel and I think he talked about it on.
On our thing. You go from having a channel and everybody loves what you
do, then as soon as you. You accept a position like that,
you know, then people just look at you as a salesman. And I'll
say this for Luke, he's far from just a
salesman. The guy is knowledgeable. And
so to get back to Cold Steel, he has a fire for it.
And. And I got to meet Stick, and he has the
fire for it. So, man, it's just the passion that
goes with Cold Steel. You lit up about them when people
either love them or hate them. And that's my favorite way to be in the
world. My. My dad is
a pastor, and I don't do a lot of the politics, religion, or anything down
on channel, but the. The whole, you know, I. I would rather
you be hot or cold, not lukewarm. And that.
That, to me, that resonates me. And people. You'll find people
either love me or hate me. They. You'll never in your life hear somebody say,
my scab's all right. And that's the way I want it to be. That's the
way it should be. You know, I'm not. I'm out to make enemies.
But like Lynn, the guy.
We went to dinner, Bob, and I'm telling you,
I'm telling you, when we got done with air, I went.
I could have cut up a force. I mean, he was just. You could.
You're passionate now. He did hit me. Have you ever seen the
clip? And I'm, I think you have. With Chell Sonnen
and Silva with Von
Delight. Is a fight. A, a fight?
Well, it's, they were coaching, and Chell's
talking to Vondelay and Von delay's cussing him out.
Chell's like, come on, Vondelay, come over.
And Vondelay gets close and Chill pushes him. And he says, I
can't let you get close to me. If you check it
out. Because I had one of moments with Lynn Thompson. That's why I'm
bringing it up. We were talking about chopping something.
I'm sitting like, I'm sitting here. Lynn's sitting
here. So I showed him a video and, and some
of it, man, is just being beat up in 54 years. The dynamics. And
I was getting pointers on chopping from Lynn, you know,
So I turned to him and I said, well, part of the problem, Lyn, is
when I do like this. Well, when I did, he threw one of those.
He come up with like a, a backhand and hit my arm. And
he can't let you get close to me. That house I
started, I'm not going. I won't do that again. But I mean, it was
just one of those. Cool. He's wide open. And
I'll just too. And this means a lot to me. Lynn
is a good tipper. Lynn Thompson's a good tipper. Oh, good doing
that. Yep. And I was going to say, if, you know, you know,
and, and if anybody has anything to say, that's what I'd say. Lynn
Thompson is a good Tim. That is great. Yep.
I'm an Italian and I'm a former waiter, so I,
I, I respect a good tipper, but it also means
that you haven't forgotten where you come from. And, and I think that
that's really important. Some people get too big for their britches, right?
Yeah. Well, I don't think that's, you know, I don't know.
He just loves knobs, man. Well, so let's talk a
little bit about Blade Talk with Scab and Joe. You've had
some serious talk about passion for knives.
You've had some serious heavy hitters on your show.
What's your favorite part about that? First of all, I think Joe's a pretty cool
dude. And, and I follow
him as well, and I love his collection and his approach. But
what have you gotten from Blade Talk? What's, what's your favorite part of that?
First of all, without Joe, there's No blade talk that I've
got to say that. And Joe from the Steel mindset,
I'll give him a shout out because Joe reaches out to all
these folks and you know, you know, nobody knows better than you,
Bob. You reach out to folks, you wait on replies.
You know, some people do say no. You know what
I've gotten from it, man, Blessed
beyond. I mean you've had a lot of big folks too.
And you know, it's not being enamored with anybody but it's
actually getting to pick people's brains. Whether it's Ernie
Emerson or Lynn Thompson or Curtis
Iviedo or on down the line
John Stitt from K Bar. And you get to ask
questions and you get to, to get to know
folks a little bit. Right. More than just
the person. I enjoy having Greg Medford
on. Right, Greg, intelligent guy. He's controversial
guy. But the biggest thing I get from it
is just, I don't want to say just
knowledge because people are like, oh, it's the knowledge that
comes from it. It's about learning about people. It's about
visiting with folks before, it's about the show and
investing with after. I can tell you we've never,
never had anyone, anyone that I was like
how will this ever end? We've had
that again, credit to Joe and you learn about
people's backgrounds. You know, I talked to Ernie
Emerson, he has a monster love
for ancient weapons. Right. And
you nailed it with Lynn. Lynn is a just wealth
of knowledge. So man, it's not about being
enamored with people, it's about getting to know them on a different
level. And it's also
about seeing what you can get out of them from an information
standpoint. Joe and I, as a general
rule and we both been pretty solid on this, we don't it
if we invite you on, we're not going to hit you up for the.
So I'm not saying that but what I am saying is
the, the, the tidbits and some of the, some of the
backdrop, the things that you get And I like
seeing, I like when somebody starts off
a little stiff and I, my favorite part is at the
end when it's free flowing and you could have went another hour
because we do a lot like you do it. So Fireside Chat, it's
enjoying the moment and so
to put one word on it, I will say knowledge but
that is, dude, that's just such a mega definition under
it. It's, it's like sometimes
I've gotten the feeling like wow, Bob, you Think you're
passionate about knives? Here's a guy who started
Emerson knives or cold steel or. Or what have you
in a time before it was cool and before it was accepted. Like, that's
passion. Holy mackerel. And yeah. Yeah, you can. It's
just hope some of that rubs off on you, you know, in a way. Well,
and it's. It's. There have been guys I had.
I had. Man, I. I do want to mention this real quick. I had Wingman
115 on several years ago,
and John and I, we. We did the thing,
and he is the designer of the Mount Laguna from work. Tough
year, dude. We had. The
show went off and it was just. He and I, and we talked for about
30 or 40 minutes. And man taught John Heffron. And
talking to that gal, man, it lit an absolute
fire under me because
he. He was. It's not a. There's passion. There's fake
passion. There's faking it until you make it. There's a Persona
when you come on, and then there's that real underneath.
Deep down, whether it's designing, using,
making. And talking to John,
he. John Heffron is a huge reason
while we just kind of triple old and triple down on putting in work
and starting to grow. And really, it was just being
excited from talking to him. So while it wasn't
part of Blade Talk, it's kind of the same
thing. You know, Joe's taking Blade Talk to the next level.
But. But that instance talking to John just came
to mind. And I've got a picture of John. I'll show y' all
this. I need to get a picture of you, Bob. Oh, happily.
This is my. My glossy 8 by 10 wall of
phone from knife. I
love. Dude. I've got all kind. I. I love that.
And it shows the camaraderie that we. That we help.
But just the dude just emanate. He's just.
He's just like us, man. And that's. Let me ask you
this with. With all the passion you have for knives. Obviously, you've got a
large collection. You've been into it a long time. You've met a lot of
very interesting people. And you also seem like a
handy guy. Do you ever think of making knives yourself?
No. No. And I'm glad you asked
that. Not make. I. I would like to.
Okay, let me back up part of me. Yes.
To learn how to have that knowledge,
to have a base knowledge of it. But, Bob, I love
doing what I'm doing, man. I love the
demonstrations or reviews I love knife tube.
I just. I don't want to get into that
because I know me and I know my attention and I know my
drive, and I wouldn't be able to enjoy or appreciate
other people's stuff. Yeah. So I love what we do.
I love what you do. I've thought about. People ask
all the time what I design, Mike, and I'm like, no, no,
I'll collab. I've got several collabs. I love doing that.
And basically that's people going, scab. What do you like? Like Jed
Hornby. And I'll tell them, Jed will make me a knife. You know
that dude can make a knife I love. I have one of his knives. I
have a necromance. I think he only made like four of them or something.
And I can't believe I. I scored one of them. It. It is
one of the finest knives in my collection. And he's such a cool guy, too.
Yeah. That guy. I can't. I don't
know. I can't remember who it was. I honestly can't. But they got a knife
from Chicken, and it was one of mine. It was one of
my far boy camps. When I say one of mine, I
literally just. Jed asked me like eight questions. I
answered them. He made the knives.
You read it real quick. But somebody
actually bought one who
got it. And they hit me up on video chat
and they were all like, I could tell they love the
knife, right? They love the knife. And it's
the choir boys outdoors camp night or
for short. We didn't really think too well. That
marketing probably is not great on that, but this look
on his face, and I'm like, dude, what. I mean,
do you know? He said, I love the knife. I said, what's wrong? He said,
scam. I paid $400 in this. And he,
He. Jed had literally made the knife, took
the time, did the whole deal. I think did him a custom sheet
and wrapped it all in newspaper with rubber bands and sent it to him.
He said. I said, dude, that's Jed. He's in
Hornby, Tennessee, out in the middle of nowhere.
You're not getting a fancy box. You're not. You are getting a knife.
But he is uber talented, man. Hoover
cat. Yeah, like crazy, crazy
talented. I think probably the most comfortable knife in
hand that I have. Is that necromance also? It's just a totally.
It's like right up my alley. I'm not. I'm not going out and getting in
fights, but it is the. The quintessential fighting Knife.
And I feel like probably your knife is quintessential camp
knife. And, and whatever he's doing, he's making like
the top, top version of it. It's the quintessential
hornbeat. It really is. I. I call it the
camp. I mean, I couldn't think of what else to call it,
but Jed just. And I'll tell you what I love about
it. He did this and he did a sheep trick. The. The
ergos on that handle. His handles,
man, are insane. He did this one. He
did the scabber stabber, which is basically.
It looks like a gladius, but it's a dagger.
Did the full leather. But his handles, his craftsman,
Jed Hornbeek is a guy I will shout from the
mountaintops because if you buy a knife from Jed, you will get your knife
and that. He's a man of great
integrity, great intake.
So I'm. I'm afraid to ask this just in light of kind of our
conversation earlier, but besides Jed
and, and other like, who. And I know you love work tough.
Who are some of your other makers that you're really into right now,
Brother. I just did a review on a
trc. I haven't done a lot of their
stuff, but dude, I'm digging them. William Collins is just my
guy. I love everything he does.
This little junior field board, that was it. This is my little
kayaking knife. Oh yeah, with the. That's a, that's a really
interesting shaped blade. Well, here's, here's the thing with
William and I know we're running long, but
he, he blends grinds like this
is a scandi and a high saber. The beauty
of Williams knives is when you go to sharpen this,
he's already done the work for you. The bevel's the same,
although the grind's different. So all you do is you find the
angle and you can sharpen the scandi and you can sharpen the saber
at the same time all at once. And it is
not complicated. He. I'm
really into his stuff. Tkl, of course. Big
fan. Huge Fisher blades fan.
I'm sitting here looking at half breed blades. Have you got any
stuff? I do not have any half breed blades. Nope. I love the
way their combat knives look. They look so good.
Well, when I get them back, I'll send them your way.
Love to check out their takes. Dude,
I'll put a couple back here. This is
a Lon Humphrey.
Oh, that's the gunfighter Bowie. Right, Lee,
that's beautiful. Now Junior just sent me this One to check
out. And Junior is actually a real person.
He's not somebody I make up to. What? No,
dude, I just met Junior a couple weeks ago at
Blackie Thomas's camp out for the first
time. I never even talked to the man on the phone, and he
sent me thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars of
knives to review. Send the bank.
But this is one. Bob,
do you recognize that one? Oh, is that. Is that.
What's his name? Yeah, I do.
Sorry.
Dark. Dark. Timber. That's him.
This is the Honey Badger. This is one of his production runs.
Oh, this is a great man. I would love to have a Bowie by
that guy. Oh, my God. He. He has
Peter on. Peter Cole
with Scavenge O and Bro.
He awesome guy, but
scoring something from him. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Impossible, man, but great guy.
He's one of those guys who stays within himself, you know,
not arrogant, hyper, but not arrogant. Love him. I. I
could go on and on, man. I. I'm into a lot of stuff. Right.
Oh, here's one last one I did want to show y'. All. I met
Dave Canterbury. Oh, I love. He's one of
the guys whose videos I love to watch. I. I met Dave.
I actually did an interview with Dave a couple weeks ago at
Rewild Outdoors Camp out, and I bought this.
This is a kept part. This is the PKS
Pathfinder Knife Series or Pathfinder Knife
Shop kept part
1095 steel. The curling maple.
Now he gets his sheaths from. I think it's Badger
Claw, which I love them, but,
man, Dave was a good guy, really good guy to talk
to. But I'll say this real quick
for everybody. You know, a lot of times people want to buy American,
but they're super expensive. I paid for the knife
and the sheath. I think a buck 56. No
way. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And
you can actually, if you go like the Self Reliance outfitters, I
believe that's their. They. They don't have
anything over like a buck 70. And, and
typically when you get like a buck 50 to a buck 70,
they include the sheath. The. The knives, I think, are like a buck
25 or 130 without the sheath.
But I, I, he two things real quick.
Lifetime warranty. Lifetime warranty. And
he warranties it against Batani. He's one of the few people on
the plumb that'll do that. Oh, that's
cool. And. And this is coming from a guy, obviously, who knows. He's
Dave Canterbury has been around the block more than once when it
comes to wilderness. Wilderness Adventures and stuff. So if you can,
if you can score a handmade USA night
that's endorsed by someone like that, it just goes to
show that it's, you know, it's possible. Yeah, oh,
absolutely. And, and I've, I've carried their stuff every day and
that's something I'm working on. It's a little more long form type review
and I've Loved it, man. Love it. Love what they're doing. All right, last
up before I let you go, Scab. I, I, I feel like I'd be remiss
if I didn't ask this, and I'm sure people want to know, what do you
carry on a daily basis? Really?
Oh, okay. So I actually this time came
prepared. I always have some kind
of pocket fixed blade. Now this one's on long from the
outdoor analyst. But this is a very good knife company.
It's in that pops pro cut. But I'm showing you this, this
is something, a knife this size daily.
I just got this not long ago. This is my default 7
Talos. This is one I actually carry daily. It's
in Magnacut. Les George
is the maker. And then I carry
a cold steel and I'm just using
this one, but so I carry a cold steel. I carry my
Defiant 7. Typically I'll have an Emerson
and of course it's up there on the table, but a bulldog.
The bulldog, yeah. I retired my Vindicator.
Typically, Bob, I carry three pocket knives and a
pocket fixed blade. That's what I carry. Okay.
Actually one last thing. Sell the concept of a pocket
fixed blade to people who think they can't carry a fixed blade every day.
Okay. So the whole point behind the pocket fixed blade. And we'll
use this one from Tekal. This is the
exact way I carry it. And you'll notice
there's nothing on it to hang me up. You can put a lanyard on it
to make it easier. But a pocket fixed blade, guys, is a pocket
knife or it's a fixed blade literally
close to the size of a pocket knife.
The reason that I do that and that that Defiant
seven Talos is, is pretty average size.
The reason that I do that and I encourage people to do that is this.
You get the stick strength of a fixed blade with the
size of a pocket knife. So if you are in an environment
where you need a staller knife but you don't want to
scare old lady and kids, this, if you work at a company
corporate that, that are big on, on weapons and things
like that, this is easy to carry
slim. So for me, a pocket. But for me, a pocket. Fixed
blade is the strength of a fixed blade. The size of a pocket knife.
It's really, truly, honestly, there are days where
that's all I. I have on. If we're kayaking. It's.
It's this junior field war that I showed you. I
carry that. That a lot because it's an aebhl. I
encourage everybody to carry one. The. The strength, the
size. That for me. That for me
is. Is the two biggest selling points right there.
And I'm a huge proponent of it. Outstanding. Me
too. I think we all need to carry fixed blades. Absolutely.
Scott, thank you so much for coming back on the Knife Junkie podcast. It's been
a pleasure, sir. I could talk all night about knives. You for
having me. I'm really honored. I really tell you
how much I appreciate that. The honor is mine. The honor is mine.
And we will continue this conversation for another 10 minutes or so for the patrons.
So definitely check that out. And of course, I'll be seeing you
at doing the rounds at Blade show. Absolutely,
Scott. Thank you, man. Yeah, man. Appreciate you. Ever
strap a knife again. Even though it gets no real use.
Face up to what you are. You're a knife junkie.
There he goes. Ladies and gentlemen, Scott Baldwin, or Scab as you may know
him from choir boys outdoors. Always a pleasure to see and talk with
him. Um, I'm sure you're not living under a rock, but
if you are, be sure to subscribe to his YouTube and
Instagram channels. They will be constant source of information
and entertainment and everything else.
So that does it. All right for Jim working his magic behind the
switcher. I'm Bob DiMarco, saying until next time, don't take dull
for an answer. Thanks for listening to the Knife Junkie podcast. If you
enjoyed the show, please rate and review at. Review the podcast
for show notes for today's episode, additional resources, and to listen to past
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