#100 Andrew Arrabito - Half Face Blades
Half Face Blades was founded by Andrew Arrabito, Navy SEAL (ret.), to meet the need for high-quality, “go to” knives and axes – usable, personalized, functional, versatile tools that work for every person in every walk of life. Andrew grew up hunting, camping and fishing in the great outdoors. After high school he joined the US Navy, determined to achieve the honor of serving in the United States Navy SEAL Teams. It was during his time in the Teams that Andrew decided to bring the “end user” back to the beginning, to learn blade-smithing. From the beginning, Andrew’s goal was to make simple blade designs for consumers who demand the finest products. With his real-world experience in using cutting devices in super-charged action, Andrew understands what will be demanded from his blades. And he makes them to meet those demands. HFB knives bring the soul of rugged, dependable, combat knives and tools to a variety of settings - from special operations tools for warriors, hunters and backpackers, to knives for the kitchen and great American workers. Bobby is joined by Andy to discuss Half Face Blades, Navy Seals, archery, hunting, survival, family, friends, outdoor life and much more.
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Andrew Arrabito - Half Face Blades
We are in Half Face Blades here in San Diego, California, with my friend Andrew Arrabito. He is a true outdoorsman, craftsman, and friend. This was a great conversation. I always enjoy Bito’s company and there was no better way to bring in the 100th episode. I'm so genuinely grateful for all the readers' support. Over 100 episodes. You guys are amazing. Thank you for reading.
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Some of it stuff I bought from other makers, and then I have a favorite maker who does these forged tomahawks overseas. I have a couple of real tomahawks I have got from auctions. I have two real 1800s tomahawks from these auction houses, and then some other stuff I bought from different makers, a few gifts. I have the majority of these that you are looking at are from this tomahawk maker overseas. I don't want to name his name because now we won’t get any at an auction. Everybody else will. He's got a small following and he's grown, but his stuff is so badass. I got three more now. That is a Damascus spike with a hammer. I'm going to keep this one in my truck for those times when I don't need to use it, but I wanted to use it.
Under the overpasses.
I need to go to work, but you are all walking in the middle of the highway.
It's getting crazy around here. I don't understand it. I spent twenty years in the South Bay up in LA. San Diego still feels pretty chill compared to there.
This one's a little more simple non-Damascus forage, but just cool. A little longer stick. I haven't even looked at these ones. I unpacked them earlier. Stand them on the shelf. I have fifteen of this guy’s tomahawks.
What is the Peace Pipe one?
He makes these too. This one is dope.
Can you smoke out of them?
I smoked out of this one quite a bit. Get some organic tobacco. Get the little pin here, so if it gets clogged, poke it here in the end. Clean it. He did a few Damascus. He had a buddy. He did a few of his buddy engraved. This is a Peace Pipe too, but it's also an 1890s, I believe. I have some documentation for this one.
What are some of this wood that they are using on them?
That’s probably a maple. I'm not sure what this one is. Probably some curly walnut or maple. He did a really good job. It's got the weight to it. This one's a real one, 1800s. It's cool. It was like there was old engraving in it, Success to Liberty. It has a native with a heart on his chest. It has the American shield and the eagle holding arrows in one hand and maybe a spear in the other. Pretty cool. I smoked at that one too, a couple of times. Let's see. The engraving is pretty rad.
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That is so cool. I wonder how many times this was used.
This one has attached something to it. Pull it up on the screen and know how many dudes’ heads it's locked into or the ceremonies it’s done in the years. The hands. How many people used it in history? It would be so cool. There is some on those websites when they do estate sales or Western-type sales. They put all that stuff together. I use iCollector.com. There's Western. There's art. There's also stuff, and when they have enough items like a Western or Native American stuff in-house, they will do this auction and start bidding. You can bid through. It's insane. My buddy got a 7.5-foot Crow Indian coup stick from a chief.
It wasn't from the chief. It's like stuff at estate sales. Kids aren't interested in going back to their parents’ estate in Montana, and they are like, “Sell it all at an estate sale.” They value it and put it up. There's cool jewelry and art. I have a few other pieces of art on the wall from that. I got that Tim Cox. I got that for $3,000 off that thing. Tim Cox, he goes for a while. He's an old-school timer. Cool stuff. Every time I get it, when I see a new one, I'm like, “I don't have that one.” I get a few as gifts too. I probably should give some more away. I get too many, and then people's birthdays come up. They are like, “You made this?” I'm like, “No. I didn't make this one.” It's awesome.
It's good to see you.
You too.
We are coming up on the 100th episode. I was like, “I got to get somebody I want to hang out with,” number one. Number two, somebody that's been the most downloaded and you are there. I knew how many people loved your blades and stuff, but the cult following that you have basically because of that is incredible. We crushed on that. More importantly, I wanted to come down and hang out. I don't go very many places. We did a lot when we first started, but I always enjoy coming here for stuff like this. There’s so much cool stuff to see. It's wild, too, over 100 episodes, how much love and support that we have got.
What year was the first episode?
We started right after the pandemic. I had all the equipment and was putting everything together prior to that. I was going to start at pre-pandemic, and then the first episode was in 2020, March or April. Somewhere in there.
It's not that old. That's cool.
It's cool because I have made so many relations. I have forged so many relationships out of it too.
You've got some good people on. Some influential people. A lot of people with cool backgrounds.
I'm trying to keep it that way too, and I want to thank you too for helping me vet some of those people like Tyler Sharpe and some of those dudes that you turned me on are super rad people doing incredible stuff.
Cool history like the traveling they have done. What they have learned and what they are working on now, those guys are always super interesting on it. They are characters with a lot of knowledge and passion.
Half Face Blades: The outdoor community is attractive to many veterans. Doing a lot of outdoor stuff where the do rock climbing and hunting and getting away from the day-to-day grind going out there and having a little peace while challenging yourself is attractive to people like that.
That's how I got introduced to Matt as well. Helping us out here. I value time a lot more now because of this. I never realized how special time was and being able to sit down with somebody. When I walked in the door here, everybody was busy, everybody was on their phone. Some people lost their phones. It's the world we live in, and this is a much more genuine way to sit down, chill, and talk. I feel super fortunate and blessed for all of that. Thanks for everybody that supported me along the way and you as well.
I don't do podcasts very much and I get bugged to do them quite a bit, occasionally here and there. It's like, “I will do one,” and talk about good things with good people. It's been alright. I had a great time last time with you. It turned into a marathon.
It was a good time. What have you been up to? I know you are just getting back from a couple of mountain trips doing some TAC stuff.
I went up to Park City. A quick trip. We did some shooting with friends up there. The Big Sky trip is really special. That place was incredible up there in Montana. That's when guys like John Deadly and stuff can chill out and we get up early and go up and hit the mountain for everybody else. Give each other shit. Shoot arrows, barbecue and hanging out in the afternoons and evenings.
With that, the Protect guys came up prior SEAL buddies and they are good friends. I met through them. They started a company which I'm doing an ambassadorship for. I believe in what they are doing. Those guys had come up and we spent time with them. It's a rad weekend. I like to do that every year with that group.
Was that TAC event that you were at?
Both of them. The Park City. That's a cool place too. Climbing around those mountains. Genuinely, there are five courses each, is there some shorter courses you shoot and then the longer course for 4.5 to 5.5 miles, 25 different targets? There are some 110-yard ones. John Deadly has the knock-on course. He puts like a big, huge, green big foot out there far out and challenges people and it hits it.
It's not like a snowshoe hare or something.
There are some shots and like, “Are you kidding me?” It's like a mini elk, like 45 to 50 yards, and you lose a lot of arrows out there. I do, at least.
I do, too as well. I have never shot TAC, but where I shoot at where I was talking to you about trying to get you to come up at American Bowmen. The furthest shot there is maybe 70 yards or something.
There are some easier courses and some tougher courses out there.
You can pick your level.
When you sign up online, you do your knock times and do what course you want to do. There are little minor courses, and then you have set because always a gnarly course. Prime is usually a tough course. Knock On course is a little tougher than the other courses.
It's still on my list to do. I was going to go to Sunlight Mountain.
You just learn a lot. It's so many different angles and distances. By the time you do 2 or 3 courses, you are like,” I'm way more comfortable to shoot out 50, 60, 70 yards at a full-size out because you shoot these little targets at those distances. When you get a full-size elk at 75, 80 yards after shooting 50 different targets. If your bow is dialed, you'd get a little more confidence in your shoot.
That's the whole reason I go to American Bowmen twice a week is it's all up and downhill shooting. There are maybe 1 or 2 flat targets out of 40, and they are not so much better than standing on polished concrete and flying arrows down it. Some circles. I enjoy going up there and it's good for me mentally. A lot of times, I go up there because it's a private land. There's nobody ever on it. It's like you are out there by yourself. It's quiet. A good way to connect. A lot of the guys from former veterans and stuff, especially with TAC and everything, it seems like there's a huge veteran community there.
The outdoor community probably is pretty attractive to a lot of veterans, at least the veterans I know. I can't say that for everybody, but there's a very large amount of prior special operations dudes and team guys that I know that do a lot of outdoor stuff where they rock climbing and hunting, whether it's bow or rifle. Something with getting away from a bunch of people, maybe not like the normal day-to-day grind, getting out there and having a little piece but also challenging yourself. It's attractive to people like that.
There's a little bit of that gearing up too. It's about having some cool gear like what you do and what you do.
You always got to have cool gear.
Do you got any hunts lined up, spending some time shooting and stuff?
I will be heading back to Alaska. I failed the last time in getting a moose. I can't stop at that. I'm heading back up. I will take my bow and my rifle. I'm an ambassador for Christensen Arms, so I have got a couple of real nice guns from them. My 300 PRCS is dialed in. I will head up there and meet up with my buddy Matt DeLuca who grew up there, big hunt. That’s why I go with and we'll take an airplane out to get dropped off the Alaska Range. Cross my fingers, do our best and see if we can get a few animals down, maybe moose, caribou, and bears up there. If we can get a few animals, they will get picked up, fly to meet back, come back out, and pick us up. I will stay up there as long as I can. It's a one-way ticket for now.
Did you get anything last time?
No. It was freezing cold. I saw 3 grizzlies and 25 black bears. I saw this Dall sheep up on the mountainside getting dive-bombed by an eagle, trying to knock it off the cliff. It was cool. The Dall sheep was way too big to get knocked off that cliff, but it was cool to watch that aggressive eagle after it. It's cool. I love it up there. My body lives up there and he's got this beautiful house right outside of Anchorage up on the hill. In his backyard, we put the spotting scope out and looked all over and saw bears and moose.
Do you have any close encounters up there?
They have come fairly close but not getting any charged or anything like that yet. No.
If your bow is dialed, you get a little more confidence in your shot.
Do you carry anything for protection?
I don't even mind. That's land sharks, to me. I'm scared of sharks in the ocean. I carry my 10-millimeter Glock, 300 PRC or so, something big on me as well.
You got to have it. The grizzly is scary. The black bear is not as much. Up where I'm at, the bears don't get hunted, so they get big.
There are so many black bears in Colorado. I see almost as many there when I'm hunting on the north side of the Flat Tops. They are everywhere. Every time I elk hunt there, I buy a bear tag as well.
The add-on is so easy now. You can get a bear tag for any area.
For out-of-state non-residents, $750 or it's like $400 for $450 for bear tags. Shoot bears too out there. It's too many.
For me being in-state, it's only $50 or something. It's not even. It was $35 or something.
You probably get antelope, bear, elk, or mule deer all for the same price or something. $40 for all or something.
Moose is the only thing I think that’s still up there, and the big horns. That is wild. That's once in a lifetime.
If you are an Alaskan resident, you can hunt Dall pretty often. A bear is every five years. You can hunt every other year, and then if you get one, it's like every five years you can get a big brown bear. Black bears, you can get five of them if you are a resident. It's pretty wild.
What does it take to get your moose tag up in Alaska?
Over the counter. The only two tags you need, a guide for a mountain goat and a brown bear or grizzly. Outside that, it's over the counter. You can do it yourself. Luckily my buddy was there. Twenty years he's been hunting there. The most expensive stuff is getting out, taking a small plane out and dropping you off. You are paying a bit for that, but you are in the middle of nowhere. Animals are being pushed. I want to see a wolverine. Those things are super rad.
I have seen one in Northern Montana when I was a kid, and I still would love to run across one of those things in there.
My buddy them almost every hunting trip, but I haven't seen one yet.
Are they still on the endangered list or can you hunt up?
You can hunt them. You trap and hunt them. I probably wouldn't. Those things are too cool.
Could you imagine trapping one of those things?
How do you open that cage back up? We are going to have to kill it. I'm not letting this thing out. It's going to look at me, recognize me, and come down to California to fuck me up. My buddies last time said they saw two of them. They were fighting and running, and they said they watched him all day long just run to the top of these steep mountains across the ridge. Down, fight, back up, and they were like, “They never ran out of steam.”
There are all these pisses, right?
I guess so. They need to brush their teeth.
You've hunted a bison before, haven't you? That's a bucket list hunt for me.
High-fence hunts. Ten thousand acres in Texas and they are not scary. It's like hunting cows. I did it for the meat.
That’s exactly what I'm going to do it for. I'd love to go on a timber bison hunt somewhere up in Alaska or something like that. It'd be cool to draw a tag. I put it in for a few years outside of Yellowstone or Grand Teton because they are still wild. They are free range anyways.
They are such a big beast. They are not scary that much. That'd be cool to do. I'd like to do another one for the meat. I got to start eating more food out of my freezer.
My freezer is done. I'm having to buy beef for the first time because I have been on a gnarly diet too. That's been fucking crazy.
Half Face Blades: You need a guide for a mountain goat, a brown bear, or a grizzly. Outside that, it's over the counter. You can do it yourself.
I need to start sharing all my wild game. I have one that's like all elk and the other ones are some pigs off my buddy's farm, chunks of wagyu and stuff like that that I like. Another one is all bluefin tuna from catching out here.
I see her pictures all the time. Are you out spear fishing?
I have spearfished. That's a goal of mine here. I have been regular fishing more out here, just deep-sea fishing. I got a good buddy who we do this nice dive with. Kinetic spearfishing. He's still active. He builds bad-ass guns. He is very good at what he does, and he also does charters out of here for spearfishing. Right now, there's a big bluefin coming in. Big schools. There's a guy who flies in these spots and gives a little information out of where those are. There are some 200 to 300-pounders out there ripping around. The guy Blake crushes it. He gets one every week at least. If he wants to go more, he can get more. He's that good at it
Two in every night. Sashimi.
We'll do like wild game night. Another one of my buddies loves spearfish, Colton. He's a good cook too, and he'll be like, “Wild game night and I will bring the fish.” He'll bring fresh. When he kills one, he'll bring that. I will pull an elk out. I got some buffalo and yak in there. I will pull that stuff out and I will thaw that. He'll come over with it and he's making sashimi and rolls, and I'm doing strips of wagyu and buffalo, and we do some cool wild game dinners at the house.
Like the best of both worlds right there. Surfing turf. Mountains and seer. Whatever you want to call it. That's fucking rad. Being out and spearing one of those things, and I'm super curious about this because I have never done it. I have done some Hawaiian sling, like the rubber band that goes around. I have done a little bit of that, never in the ocean. We used to do it up in Northern Montana in some of the lakes up there for salmon, bull trout, and stuff like that. That was a wild ride. Once you spear a 200-pound tuna, what do you do?
I have two kinetic guns. They have the attachments to break away the floats. The two I have, I went to Moriah. You get some good size fish, but you are holding on to them. There's a reel on the bottom. The big guns, there's an attachment. You shoot it and it's a breakaway. When it takes off, it breaks away from the gun. The gun doesn't go with it. It goes to floats. It drags the floats down. That wears them out and then we pull them up and shoot them again.
Is there a particular spot that you are aiming for?
If you are able to hit the brain and it stuns them, and then they sit there and float. If you don't do that, they are taken off.
They are gone and they are so fast.
It's nuts. There are videos. If you look at that Kinetic Spearfishing on Instagram, he does first-person shooting them. Sometimes, he dives down and he's looking left to right, and it's all just a massive school of bluefin. There are tons of schools like that. There's a lot of them out there and he'll be thinking. He’s doing a two-minute breath hold. He starts swimming up and he'll see three floats disappear after that thing, like pulling those things down 250-pound bluefin.
Once you spear one, you are chumming the water.
These guys don’t see sharks very much. There are sharks out there. There was a video in La Jolla and it's a twelve-foot great white swim by this dude who's spearfishing right in La Jolla. He looks up in this twelve-foot great white. I was nervous. There are some people going to get eaten sooner or later. Last time, they were taking great whites right off Coronado, and there's a video of guys getting up and tagging 6 to 7-foot great whites, and it's like, “We take a bunch.” “What's a bunch?” “I think we saw six. We only were able to tag four in that murky water.” I don't know. Bud students are getting their legs eaten off, but it's a matter of time.
That fucking scares the shit out of me. Grizzlies and sharks.
I don't know if grizzly or shark. That's tough. It depends on what I have on. Put an S vest on and be like, “Come on, boy.” Take his boat out.
Have you seen the trailer for the movie Prey yet? It's a Hulu exclusive deal, but it's the predator. It's got a native influence.
Somehow these hundred pounds soaking wet Native American girls are hunting these futuristic predators.
It's not quite Schwarzenegger. Did you see the whole thing?
Women are as strong as men, even if they have a 150-pound difference. Not even the same skillset, but it's a movie. I will watch it when it comes out. I may wait until it goes to Netflix.
I didn't understand how they were drawing their boats. They were drawing them backwards or something. Being an archer, I picked that out right away.
At least do it realistically. People want to create something weird like, “Let's make it look funky.” There's a way to do things right. Upside down, pulling it back. There are some odd stuff. Did you ever see that show SEE and everybody’s blind? Jason Momoa.
No, I don't think so.
It's wild and it's called the SEE. Everyone's blind. It's like post-apocalyptic. In post-apocalyptic, everybody's like using sticks again, and you are like, “It's like bow and arrows again.” There are a lot of weapons in this country. I will probably break into every other house and get some guns and ammo.
There are more guns than there are people.
I hope so. There's probably way more. It’s like 4 to 1. Craziness.
Women are as strong as men, even if they have a 150-pound difference.
That is wild. All the hunting that you've done in the last couple of years, do you have a favorite?
Elk hunting is my favorite. It's beautiful. I have been lucky and blessed enough to hunt on the north side of the Flat Tops up there. There are some guys in Texas that bought a big ranch up there and they are part of American Warrior Association, a nonprofit. My good buddy I was in the SEAL teams with, Big Will Spencer is a retired Master Chief. He's the head of the nonprofit. They get together up there. I get to get out there in the woods and hunt with them, and there are people who donate to the foundation that fly up there and will go hunt with them and call for them. I spend the evenings with those guys and bring a chef in and cook. It's been cool to be able to get out with those guys in a hunt. Being able to go out and call and hear the elk and sit there. It’s so beautiful. A 22,000-acre ranch. That's one of the coolest places I have ever been. The best ranches I have ever been at.
Bulls get pretty big up there too.
There are some good-sized bulls. I have seen like fifteen bulls in one afternoon, all different sizes. There are some good sizes. It seems like 7x7s. A lot of good size 5x5s. I think that the ranch was a little abused prior to them buying it by some outfitters. Originally, it was owned by an energy company because there are some canes and some shale. They used it for some of the big wigs there to go hunt and they leased it to some hunting outfitters.
Those guys took advantage of it, but there are so many elk. We are particular with what we shoot and if there are some bigger ones, you let them sit. Some ones with bad and messed up antlers, take those out of the breeding pool. It's getting better every year. Didn't have a whole lot during COVID. When we are up there, maybe we get 4 to 6 elk and there are 3,500 or 1,500 bulls on the ranch bounce around. It's not high-fence. They can go onto the public land.
There’s wilderness area there.
To the east, there's a small wilderness area. The thing is, for hunters to try to get behind it, it's tough. They have to come all the way through the bottom, through the Flat Tops wilderness. Whatever pressure is created down there, it pushes the elk up and then down into their land. Those elk are like, “There are 33 ponds. There are creeks. We love this area. We are going to stick around.” When you hunt them with rifles, we hunt suppressed on it. That's a good place. I love it. I like Colorado.
This is the whole reason I moved back there. I’ve grown up there and stuff. I didn't appreciate it as much as I should have. I don't think. After going around the world and seeing a bunch of different places, it was like, “It's not so fucking bad. This is the best place.”
The activities are where it's at. You got those winters where you got great snow and snowmobiling. You got spring that's incredible. It's green all summer, and then you get the cool colors. You've got everything from whitewater rafting to fly fishing, to normal fishing, to backpacking, camping, or hunting. It's all there. Mountain biking.
There are so many hobbies that you can get in. It's crazy. Not even hobbies. They are like outdoor thrill sports.
There are plenty of stuff to get outside and do.
It's hard to pick and choose, honestly. I don't ever leave Colorado in September. That's why I don't go hunt in Alaska and stuff. It's like that's what I enjoy doing the most and I enjoy doing it there. It could be awesome or epic to go on an elk hunt in Utah or something for some of those spots.
Utah would look so similar.
It's pretty much the same damn thing.
I went to hunt in Montana. Montana is beautiful. Once spring ends, it's gray. It's not super green and you wait until the fall, you get some cool colors. It gets cold, and then you got to put it in instead of over the counter. You don't get landowner tags up there. Colorado, you go to a ranch like that 20,000-acre ranch, and they are like, “We got sixteen landowner tags here.” Don't quote me on how many, but you get a lot. They are like, “There are sixteen for your ranch.”
When you shot your bison, how much meat did you get off of it?
It wasn't a real big bison.
Do you shoot a cow?
I shot a small bull. We shot three in total, so I think they divided the meat up. One of them was pregnant, which he couldn't tell. One was pregnant, which we cut open and it was probably a week before the baby was going to be born. It's full of hair. I took it out, did a little CPR to see if I can get a pet out of the situation. We took the backstraps and tenderloins, quartered it out and we cooked it that night. The meat was opaque because it never breathed oxygen. That was amazing, like sashimi. It was good. I almost had a pet out of it. That would be cool. I was going to name you Lucky, coming home with me.
I'm intrigued to hunt a bison because of the native-like culture and what they did, some of the books that I read, and some of the stuff. I don't think it's quite the same as it was, but I genuinely like the meat. The backstraps or whatever. It’s incredible. I prefer it over beef.
It'd be cool to do one every year if you had enough people to feed and fill a freezer and get all that burger meat, backstraps, or steaked out ribs. I'd like to get one. We'll see. I don't have a lot of time. I'd have to do a high-fence. If you do a high-fence, you can go year around if you want to do that.
That's probably what I will end up doing. A) I don't have the time to get up and do it, and B) It's a long process.
It's a draw for those up there, those real wild ones.
Even the one in Utah, I have been putting in for ten years or something.
I forgot the name of the ranch, but it's up by San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara. There's a ranch up there that you can hunt. I can't remember how much. It depends on the size too. You want like a trophy size. You want a large adult for the male. I think it's $4,000 to $5,000. You can go and shoot one and have it processed and fill your freezers.
Half Face Blades: They would customize their own tools back in the day. They would put different feathers and different symbols on them.
A cow would be ideal for me because I'm not after anything that trophy types.
You can get a cow for the meat. That's what I do. I wanted to do it last time. I wanted to do that for the guys where we take a trip. Get through the guys and be like, “Who wants to shoot one?” Roshambo, I don't care. Get to rock, paper, scissors to the guys when they get to shoot the animal. Everybody gets to see how it's processed and cut up. Everybody gets in on it. That'd be cool, and I'd like to do that for the shop. All the meat gets divided up. Comes in here. Everybody gets meat to take home and they were all part of the process and seeing the breakdown be cool. I'd like to do that.
My friend Donnie, who makes all those stone tools and stuff I was telling you about, got hired by CU Boulder to atlatl a bison and then break it down all with stone tools. He's told me the whole process is insane. He processed the whole thing with stone tools.
Making scrapers and making his own skinners. Was he using obsidian or something? Was he able to use steel?
He has all kinds of different stones. He's a hoarder of it. He doesn't have a whole lot of material stuff, which is cool. He was a Marine, and he had all this badass stuff when he got out. He’s super into rock climbing and all that stuff. At some point, he decided, “I don't need all this bullshit.” He went down to the corner and gave it away to a bunch of homeless dudes. Ever since then, he's been like, “I'm a straight primitive.” He did some walks from Northern California to get his first stone. He goes out and harvests his own stone and stuff.
There's a little mountain, a little hill up in Northern Napa Valley called Glass Mountain. The whole thing is obsidian, which is that black rock. What's crazy is you can drive by on Glass Mountain Road. You could get out of the car and you could kick the leaves over and there are chunks of obsidians. It's absolutely amazing. That's where I grew up, making arrowheads with the older brothers all the time. What's cool is they find that same obsidian from that mountain all over from Arizona to Oregon. Those native people used to travel all the way over there, back in the day. I don't know if the natives there in Napa Valley would sell it, give it away, or trade it back in the day. As I said, they found that same obsidian from up there in Napa Valley all over the west.
We find it all the time in Colorado and that's not like a native rock. It comes from the East Coast or the West Coast. It looks like glass, but it's black or smokey. I have a few knives and arrowheads that we found out in South Park because my grandfather was super into that. We would go at least 5 or 6 times a summer to do a day trip and go out and walk these huge prairies that were once underwater or whatever and we would find stuff every time.
Some that are full. Some are chipped.
A lot of them are broke, but it's cool. He has a whole collection. I know you are not supposed to do that.
I got a collection going from all over. Even the way I have gotten the tomahawks off the iCollector, there are some BS ones in there too, but you can find authentic really beautiful.
This was on the authentic collector. That's cool that you know you are not buying something fake.
They will give you paperwork and stuff too. Some of them have a lot of history. King George IV gave it to a Northeast Indian tribe chief, and they have all this history and it'll go for $15,000 to $20,000 for a hawk, hatchet, or something cool.
I wonder if they could do any forensic like DNA-type stuff.
What they will do is they will give you the breakdown of like, “We know it's from this era.” For the ones that don't know the exact history, it's from this era. They will say this is the other tomahawks like it that we know.
They grade it. When I purchased my tomahawk from you, I was like, “What did I do?” It’s because A) I want to use this, but B) It might send me to prison for life. I can't imagine using a tomahawk on somebody.
Those guys use their tomahawks for everything. It wasn't an instrument of war. They had a knife and a tomahawk. You are using it for hunting and protection purposes. They didn't have three different tomahawks. One’s for heads, one’s for bellies, and one’s for animals. They use the shit out of them and sharpen them, and use the shit out of them. It's a tool.
The influence that you've carried over from that culture into this is into what you do at Half Face Blades is incredible. Going back to something if you look at how this is crafted, this isn't a super thin, replaceable blade, or anything like this. This was purpose-built to last for hundreds of years.
If you crack that handle, they can make a new grip. Make ornate that one's got some little metal things. They'd put these little brass divots on them and you make it yours. They would customize their own tools back in the day, which was cool and put different feathers, meanings, and symbols on them. They take someone's life. They put their symbol on it. It's where they are all a little different. They are all cool.
With all the influence and the way that you've done it, how much has he read into history on some of the stuff like that? I know that you have the Crow scout and you mentioned in the last episode that we did that you might have a little bit of Crow in you.
That 23andMe says it's minimal, and I'm like, “That's right.”
I think that they can do one that finds native blood.
I used to read a lot more books about Chief Red Cloud and Joe Medicine Man and all this stuff with Custer and the Crow scouts that worked along with the US military. I have been in history about it. Even though I forget shit, my mind isn't what it used to be, but I continue. I will start with Simon and only. Get busy and I have to go back and finish it.
When I do long drives, I will listen to another book and listen to some of the Comanches and some of the history of those guys and Apaches. They talk about tools a little bit. It's more of their exploits and their battles and stuff like that. I liked that. I liked the Western native culture. When the settlers were pushing west and carving the homes out of the land, they used primitive tools to build their log homes and axes, working together and living in that. That's tough life, winners, and that's pretty rad to me in how tough we used to be.
It’s a way different lifestyle to begin with from where we are at now. It's incredible to me.
If I could have been a bird sitting on Clark Lewis's shoulder. Imagine coming over the mountains of Montana in the Hills and looking at the prairie and asking, “What the fuck is that?”
Tomahawks weren’t just an instrument of war. They used it for hunting and protection purposes.
Seeing a grizzly bear for the first time.
Seeing how many back in the day they were. Look at the amount of bisons and grizzlies. Every day they are coming across elk, grizzlies, and Wolverines, and like, “This is the coolest shit I have ever seen, and hopefully, my musket stays dry.” That’s gunpowder. That’s incredible. Eagles all over. There are fishes in the creek like brown trout. Imagine the first 10-pound brown trout they got.
Undisturbed.
The closest that I have ever come to underserved countries is being up in Northern Montana. I have never been out in the backcountry in Alaska yet. It's a bucket list for me, for sure. There were times when we were 7, 8, 9, or 10 miles on glaciated peaks going over some stuff into Black Lake and some of these spots, year-round glacier in there, and the deer had no idea what you were. They were like, “What the fuck is this?” Imagine back in the day. Animals wouldn't know what to think. Maybe that's not a threat.
I come from a very outdoor family and outdoor brothers. We used to make arrowheads. I remember taking the old leaf springs and grinding those a little bit as a kid. We probably talked about this before. It was pretty cool to go back and do that same thing again. Begin an end-user has been the biggest blessing. Secondary to having a great team and great customers, but knowing what works and what doesn't work. It’s great.
The last episode that we did was on wildland fires. It was awesome. The guy that has been on all kinds of different helitack and engine companies and stuff. Prior to that, I was doing some homework reading up on stuff, and I wanted to know how the natives taught fire and fire mitigation and that stuff. They used to burn some tribes.
There's this tribe somewhere up in Northern Montana. Fire was so sacred to them that they would take a buffalo horn or a black horn. They would inlay clay in it somehow or something like that, and then they would turn it into almost like a satchel or something that they could carry, but they would never put their fire out. It was the same fire that they had for thousands of years or however long they were around.
Damn this river. What are we going to do?
The fire carriers were these sacred dudes and they were like these badasses that would run 50 to 60 miles in a day.
Imagine running out and the fear that you are never going to see it again. It's all your warm. It’s how you cook food.
I think part of it was a spiritual thing kept your ancestry growing. It went so fucking deep. It was super cool.
The fire was probably given to them by their ancestors who are still watching out for them. They are sacred for sure.
There was one guy that like you can't get drunk. You got to man the fire. They are your own literal fire watch.
They put stuff in there and they keep it smoldering, so it never goes out.
They were talking about you can take an aspen tree conk. It's like those big knots and that stuff will burn for a long time. They would take some of that or from a birch tree if they were down in Colorado because they were my migratory. They were going wherever their food source was. They would carry it and then they might have to stop somewhere in between, make a fire and then breathe. They were like scouts. They would go out and find. They would scout for game or new camps.
The tribe was packing up. Women and children were moving and they were moving their teepees and all that stuff, but it was super cool. They said that these dudes would run over some of that country up there, 50 miles a day carrying this fire to get there and get the fire going before the rest of the tribe shows up. It was pretty wild. It was something I had dove down a deep rabbit hole on that.
I thought it was super crazy. I'd never heard that before or anything like that. I never thought about the meeting, but what it came down to and how I stumbled across it. I was looking at how back then, they didn't have forestation, any mitigation, or anything to clean the forest. They would burn before they left. Wherever they were camped at, they would set it on fire before they left. When they came back, it was regrowth.
As well as the nitrogen in the soil.
If you've ever hunted around wild burns or anything like elk and deer, they love being right on the burn scar, because there are so many nutrients where that stuff is burned. It made a lot of sense.
The grass regrows. All that greenery pops up again. It was a lot of that in the world. There's a big fire up near Yosemite. That's crazy.
We need them. I hate to say that. We need the water research that I did. All these signs down here going down the five and stuff. Extreme drought.
They are trying to ruin everything. I'm sure there's more to it than people using water.
Back into some of the native influence that's in some of the blades, these things are amazing. It's incredible what you've come up with and what you've built from a business standpoint as well, but I love the design of everything. They are purpose-built for specific things you could say.
Purpose-driven tools that we can get as simple as somebody wants, as we want, or it's intricate. Personalized. That's a fun part.
We got a bunch of stuff. I asked you to lay a bunch of stuff out here. I'd love to go through each one of these because sometimes I don't know the purpose of what it used.
Half Face Blades: Purpose-driven tools are built for specific things. It can be as simple or as intricate as somebody wants.
There are some that crossover between tactical and outdoor as well. Some of much more the shape, the design, the thickness, or the type of steel. The purpose-driven portion of it is like, “More outdoor, more skinning, combative, tactical, concealable. Chef knives, utility knives, tomahawks with a spike, Tomahawks without or the shape of a tomahawk. If I want a tactical tomahawk, that spike is great. If it's something I'm going to be used in that country, I want a hammer on one side of it like I can hammer things. I can hammer ten steaks. That's what's nice about it. Little pry bar on the bottom. Working on redesigning the skinner.
Is that a lightweight?
This is the exact handle like the feather-light, but it's my new skinner. I put one of each, a large one and a small junior out. This is the new junior skinner. A cool little, pretty classic skinning design. You can come up with new designs, but a lot of people are they get way too insane with the design because they want it to be so different.
I'm like, “There's a reason why like there's this belly here.” There's a reason why a skinning knife needs more surface area to hit the meat. I have seen people skin stuff with the weird stuff, but a ceramic goes this way, this knife goes this way. That's what you want to use to skin. You got more surface area. You are cutting it. The purpose-driven lends itself to how it's used, but some people get a little overboard with the design, the actual blade shape because they want to be recognized somehow. I'm like, “Skinning knife is a skinning knife. You can't get a whole lot different. You can't make it better.”
You can make the design a little bigger or smaller. You want to be able to puncture. Going from the spine down to the tip, I like that angle because if you want to cut it upside down and up, the tip isn't so low. You are scared to puncture into the gut cavity. Those little things lend itself. When you put your finger and then you are cutting up. If that tip is too low or too shallow, you were so worried about cutting into that belly cavity. That's why I do that little drop point on that backside. Raise it up a little bit because I'm an end-user.
You are doing this motion the whole time, so that makes so much more sense than belly.
There are a lot of skinny knives with a similar shape. You can't get away from a shape that works. It'd be dumb too. Like, “Look at it. I made the skinner like this. It's so different than everybody else's.” I'm like, “You might want to go use it before you think it's that much better.” A lot of that comes down then to the rest of the shape of the knife. As I said, I can make it nice and simple. The bolt-on grip, nice texture, and then I can customize it for people too. That's a lot of the fun side.
If you want your knives to be purpose-driven, you can come up with your own design, you've got to come up with your own style and be original, but there are reasons why there are certain shapes because they work. How are you going to differentiate your stuff? Aesthetics using the knives. A lot of people make knives and sell knives and they don't use them. It's not who buys them. It's like knife makers. There are a lot of knife makers out there because it's a cool thing. It's fun to make stuff.
There are a lot of knife makers. They make knives and I'm like, “That's a nice skinner knife. Do you hunt?” They are like, “No. Why?” I'm like, “That's weird.” I do the next one. I try to use everything and I like the input from people who use everything like, “This isn't working as good. I prefer this.” I'm like, “Okay.” Let me take on that constructive criticism and work on making things better all the time.
That's a nice knife.
This one is the Cavner which is always a special one to me. It's this as the Cav Jr. It’s an original design. Brad Cavner was a buddy of mine. Great frogman. He died and his little brother brought me this piece of paper. I'm not sure if Aaron Vaughn and him designed it. I know they wanted to make a knife but could have been Brad drawing it on a piece of paper. This knife design and his little brother bought it to me, and I was like, “That's so rad. What a cool thing honors me.”
Is that the actual design?
That's the actual design. I have a large one that's junior and I do a folder that's called the Cav. Underneath the Half Face Blades logo, it says, “HFB.” It says Cav on this side. Some of them say Cav, and they said, “That's the signature.” I took a signature and we engraved his signature Cav on every single knife too.
Every day camping and backpacking, I skin three elk with this thing. It's such a good blade and at the end of the year, I go through and I type in Cav into all my sales and I get that bottom line, and then 10% of that, we donate to different foundations, charities, outdoor stuff, veteran-oriented, and law enforcement-oriented foundations, which is cool. It’s such a good special blade for me and be able to give back and Brad himself designed it.
I didn't know that whole backstory. That's incredible.
Karambit, pretty classic style fighting knife.
A bit of a terminal list in there too.
A little bit of slash all. This one is in terminal lists. The hunter-skinner is in there. The SPOs folder. I think the line is in the last one.
I haven't got to the last one yet.
Me neither. That's a classic combative style blade, held like that.
This is more fighting.
You are catching the inside of their legs, arms, catching brachial arteries, femoral neck. You can do stomach coming across. You'd go to YouTube and look up karambit-style fighting. Southeast Asia-style fighting. There are certain moves you do to mess people up. The scene in The Terminal List, the book, he cut some dude's stomach open and wraps his guts around the tree. They changed it a little bit for the movie or the show,. That's the karambit. That’s called the Karambito. I did the Crow scout, which is the larger version, and I was like, “It's a little on the big side.” I did the Crow Jr., which is this one.
I can attest to it. I have skinned multiple animals with it. I have gone through sternums, all animal sternums. Big game. With a simple, literally like putting my palm on it and going like that doesn't mean much.
We worked through that. Get the hammer on the back of it. Majority of the knives are S35 and S45. I have a few of the designs that are 3V, that's good steel. The 3V is strong. Not as corrosion resistant as S35 and S45, those are tough and good steels with good corrosion resistance, good edge retention, and a little harder to sharpen, but the edge retention goes a long way.
Surfboard again.
The biggest blessing secondary to having a great team and customers is knowing what works and what doesn't.
Crow jumping on the board. If you throw it, it’s going to keep coming back. That's that size. I did one a little smaller called the Cowboy Carry. It's a little smaller blade, and then I released one called a Feather light, which I'm stoked on. It's a bit smaller. I used thinner steel, the same thickness as the skinner. It's light. It's 3.2 ounces or something.
Is that more for backpacking?
I'm going to use that one. I will probably take my Crow and that one for my caribou and moose because those are big animals. That's a solid little skinner backpacking camping. You could carry it on your kit if you wanted to run it in a tactical way. That's a pretty solid little guy. I love it.
The size of the junior is amazing. I don't own the full Crow Scouts.
It's only a 1-inch difference. The handle's the same size. If you are a big ass dude, I'm like, “I get the Crow Scout. Anybody is average normal size. I like the size. I have used mine and everything. This is a full-size disaster. This is 3V. Heavy-duty steel. I did that drop point. I wanted to keep that tip strong for prying and digging. I don't want to pry hard with a knife. I go get a pry bar if you need to do it. That's the full-size disaster with the original and I'm like, “I got to do a junior size.” I do a junior that's a bit smaller.
It’s more of a tactical knife, do you think?
It's like every day like a workhorse. There are a lot of guys that go the end stuff. They will carry it because it's got that strong tip.
That was your Series 1 design.
No. Series 1 is called the Series 1. The whole thing is different. This is a different style. This is one of the first series. The Series 1, which I never named, it's a simple camp knife. I did this one second, then the karambit, then the Crow, and each one was going to have a different Half Face. The Series 1 was going to be the half of the lion’s face based on my dad's painting stuff.
Then this one original was half Zeus's face on them. Then the karambit had the half eagle’s face and then the Crow had the half of the native’s face. I realized, “That's going to be a real bitch, all the rest of the designs I make.” I have to come up with half face with every single one. That be $50,000 and trying to copyright faces. I was like, “I liked this one,” so I stuck with that one. That's why some of those original knives are so sought-after. Those original Half Face logo knives are all super sought-after. It's nuts.
3V is a larger version. It's a workhorse of a blade. We make it as simple and as extravagant as people want, but it's very purpose-driven. That's what I want. My favorite is the tomahawks. There's a bleeding heart, Ironwood full grip, with the spike, S35. The heart is called the wailing heart, the bleeding heart, and I was like, “Where did that come from?” There is a heart on that one. If you look at old original tomahawks, a lot of them have these hearts cut out.
I was going to ask you about that because I don't know.
All these old stories from different ceremonial stuff, I kept looking back. I found this one story where the son was old enough to go to war and protect his tribe. The mother took the tomahawk, put it over his heart and made his heart steel, and he was invincible. He took his heart into the steel. For going to war and feeling he was invincible and strong, he made his heart a steel. It gave him that courage in battle. That's my favorite one. We talk about the wailing heart and the bleeding heart. I can imagine that also meaning like, “That reminds you what you go to war for those you love the most.”
It's so sacred in that culture too. That was the first thing that you basically cut out of an animal? Getting inside of it.
What's cool is people give gifts all the time and knives and stuff, and that's super traditional. All the way back from different native cultures all the way to Viking culture. Giving somebody a knife was the best thing. Someone did something super nice for you. You gifted them your knife and that was your knife. That's what you use to protect yourself. That's what you use to get food. By giving somebody a knife or gifting a knife, even to this day and age, I view it the same way you are giving them something that they could protect their family and feed their family with. That's why I like gifting knives is such a fucking cool thing.
I've gifted several of your blades. I have gifted as many as I own, probably.
Which is cool but uncool too because I'm like, “I could own twice as many.” It's not for your everyday person. We gave away one on the Christmas special. We weren't able to connect, but I gave one away to Jeremy. Shout-out. I did take it away from him the same night too. Giving gifts is such a meaningful thing. You are right. It's not for everybody to give. I give them to people I care about. Each trip I go on, I take 2 or 3 with me and I don't come back with any. I was in Park City or up there.
How stoked to the people that you give it to you?
Hopefully stoked. You build that one friendship.
All the people that I have given them to are blown away. They are like, “Where did you get this,” or they already know about you and Half Face Blades. They are so pumped because it's not something that you can run down to the outdoor store. Even if you are getting online, you can't get it. It looks like you are pumping out some more blades.
We are on it. We get a little backed up here and there with heat treat or something like that. Some of the stuff we order, but we lost a couple of guys moving away and I'm working on an interview and about fifteen people. I should put 5 or 6 people to bring them on the team.
How many guys do you have now?
Thirty-two, including myself. It’s a good team. It's all teamwork.
As this is the 100th episode and I contacted you about this. I decided that as a thank you to all of our readers, we are going to give them a chance. I'd love to give every single one of them a chance at a blade for as much as they have done for me. We are going to be giving away Crow Jr., my favorite Half Face blade. I own the same blade and have used it outdoors, and then I have a custom one made with some burl wood and red rose that you made for me.
This is an incredible outdoor knife. This is something you want to check out: anybody on the mountainside, anybody that's reading. We are not doing a raffle or anything like that. We got to have a way to enter people. We'll do a follow or something on Instagram. If you are not on Instagram, which a lot of readers aren't, a lot of people are remote but still getting podcasts and stuff.
Half Face Blades: Some people get a little overboard with the design and the actual blade shape because they want to be recognized somehow.
Throw everybody a list of people. I usually just do an IG post and an email blast, saying, “Here's how you enter.”
If you are on our email list, you are already entered. If you want to enter a second time, send us a screenshot of your subscription to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, just a way to get entered. I'm super stoked that I was able to swoop one up.
Hit me up and ask.
I know, but I hate asking for stuff. I'm not that type of guy.
If I can do it, if it makes sense, if I can help out, if I can support, then I always do.
It's also about supporting you. You can't give away stuff for free or anything like that. I have always felt I know where my money is going. That's why I do it that way. I did. That's a lie. I did hit you up one time. It was when the Defcon Blades were dropping. What are these aside for you and you were like, “Can't do it.”
Those guys, I did that. I didn't even have to be here in my shop to do that. Those guys handled that. We made them and the man over at Defcon handled all that.
You did a Defcon giveaway.
We gave away a chef knife set and then raffled a pair of Defcons, a bleeding-heart tomahawk, a Crow, a ring Cardiac Spike, Woodland camo, red bolts and a black.
It's like a fashion statement between the shoes and all that.
Carry it all on. You wear the shoes out
For people who don't know about Defcon or maybe know you through Half Face Blades, can you dive into that because that's been around for a bit?
I don't run it to my close buddies I have known for a long time. They run that project. Those guys are gifted at making very good, cool stuff. That's very hard to get, very limited, and they are not money hungry. They are like that. It's a fun project to do, and they got good connections to the industry. Those humble and excellent people are making a cool product.
They are not trying to be like, “We only made this many.” They are like, “This makes sense,” and they try to do a drop. It used to be maybe a drop a year because of COVID hit. It was a couple of years before that. The shoes before that and some gear were the LBT Mass Grey, and before that was that black multicam. There was like a huge list going around and people signing like Vans forced them to make more. It's like, “That's on Arrabito.”
It's funny because I had seen the Vans trend when that started. Then they started building like the MTE shoes.
They did some of their own camo stuff.
They are not Defcon, but I have a pair of multicam black. Vans, they are MTEs and those are sick.
Other shoe companies would start doing those same things. It's not to say.
It's not. You've experienced some of that here and what you are doing with Half Face Blades, I have never seen it prior, and I knew about you super early because we had some mutual friends. They were showing me photos before. I think you even had a Facebook.
I did a Facebook and Instagram. I didn't do a website for two years. The only way to get it on the list was via email, and it was always a waitlist, and I was like, “I had my roommate and other buddy.” We built a little shop in the backyard because I was under the awning, and it was like, “Here's what we could do. Let's take custom orders and let's make what we want,” and then we'll post what we want on the website as we get finished with it.
That started going and then people were so upset because we didn't have a whole lot to post. Then it was like, “Let’s hire more guys, train more guys, and build our team.” It then got to a point. It was like we couldn't even post up during the week because there were so many people complaining. There's not enough. We didn't plan on doing like a drop every Saturday. That organically came about because we start stuff to begin.
You were going to try to stick to custom.
We wanted to make what we wanted and take customer orders. As we finished up, we were working like, “We finished three of them and we put them on the website.” There will be hundreds of people going to the website. There are only four knives. People are so upset. It's similar because it's 100 customs in production, but at least we have 400 to 500 knives on the website each weekend, with 1,500 or 2,000 people hitting the website. It was because of the timing of the beginning of the week. We are working on new stuff or planning everything out. We are getting some stuff ceracoated. We are working on machines here. The timing of starting and finishing. We tried to finish it in the organic way. We did it.
Then we are like, “Let's finish everything we can.” We are building handles one day, pending on the next day, profiling the next day and finishing in the next day. “Friday is our last day. Cool.” Photos, get them on the website. Originally, it was Friday evening at 5:00 PM was the drop. Then I was like, “We got to work late in the night. We weren't finishing everything by 3:30 or by noon. Why don't we do Saturday at noon?” That's what we are stuck with now.
People are sometimes upset that it's like, “You should make more.” I get demands to make more, and I'm like, “I'm maxed out. We make I wish. We make more money if I could make more. I can't rush the custom work. I can't rush any of it.”
Take on constructive criticism. Work on making things better all the time.
It's pretty cool that it worked out that way. It's a good system. We have bots that we battle here and there, but if someone gets caught with a bot, they get refunded, the knives go back up. It's awesome to see the buying, selling, and trading. As long as people are also making money on a secondary market, they are always valuable and that value grows. That's cool. I'm good with that. People are buying them strictly to flip. We try to ban that and block them.
How do you track that? You see them every week.
Besides, there are a few other people that work on this. It's also timing. It takes a couple of seconds for 400 or 500 knives to go live on a website. When you have somebody that has three transactions in the first four seconds, when two of those seconds, the knives running up yet, they are running something that's searching. You use keywords and stuff like that. It’s limited bone, turquoise, Cav. They can type that in. It searches and it checks out. You have multiple checkouts and only a few seconds. That's not humanly possible.
They have some troll farms set up somewhere. They weren’t buying knives.
People like to brag that they used bots. That's another way that you can find people. It’s crazy.
What kind of nerds are buying these knives?
If they can turn around in three weeks and sell it for $2,000, they bought it for $500, $600, or $700.
Especially some of the more custom knives.
That’s what they go for. People buy a production knife and then they will take a hone. They will do some crappy ass handle on it. Which it looks like it, and then they will go around and eBay and try to sell it for $1,000 and stuff like that.
Have you authenticated that?
People used to hit us up and we can generally tell within a second if we did it or not. Let's say someone does sells a knife for a couple of grand and that person hits us up and we don't authenticate like, “We are not going to work on it. You voided the warranty. Sorry. You got ripped off. You should have run it by us. We apologize. Go after the guy who sold it to you.”
There’s a dude who stole knives from my shop and blanks and was trying to sell for $20,000 and stuff like that. It's so nuts. The person was like, “I can make grips. I used to work there. I can make grips the same as they make. I was the best worker there.” I told this guy who was a huge collector of ours and loyal. I was trying to sell him. He was like, “How much?” He was like, “I don't know. $20,000. Let me know what grip you want. I will do it. It’ll be the same. I was the best worker.” Obviously, he wasn't. He got the boot. He's the absolute turd, and he stole knives when he left. Just blanks. It was nuts.
I was like, “Do you think that that's going to come back to you?” You are mind-blowing. Also, if you do this, think about that. Think about taking other knives, doing your own grips, selling it for $20,000. Do you think that person's going to be okay when they hit us up and go, “I got this knife. Can you sharpen it?” We are like, “We didn't do that grip. That's not our knife. Where'd you get that?” When they find out that it's a fake, you don't think that they are going to be okay with you having taken $20,000 or more? They are going after you.
I buy direct from you. I'm not buying it unless. Facebook enthusiasts. I see them for sale on there.
They are good to go. There's such a very good group of people buy, sell, trade, raise funds for different foundations. Someone’s here and there. They are raising funds for them. They are donating knives to guys who haven't got their first knives, Military, law enforcement. It's been cool. I didn't start the group. There are a few admins on there. I run it and try to be a positive, good group of people, and it's cool to see.
They have been conversing with me since the first time we had them on. They have hit me up, asking, “Can we use some of the footage?” I was like, “Absolutely.” I think that somehow, we got suckered into being on TikTok and we'll be off of there soon. Some of them have started like a TikTok for you now. That's fucking crazy or whatever.
They are the ones at the Chinese window.
It's something that's a bit more of a culture than it is a business.
That wasn't why it was started. What it's become is cool. The support we have had is cool. The relationships and friendships, there are a lot of people who have their custom knife made to cut their baby’s umbilical cord once was born. We do people's ashes and working dogs’ ashes inlaid in the grips. People who've died. Law enforcement or firefighters, some of their old clothing. That's the holy knives that come through the holy grail of knives being able to work on. It's so cool for the guys in the back to work on and know what they are working on and who it's going to. That's a super honor.
It's cool to do those knives. I'm glad Matt is here to take photos of everything now, but we have done a lot of insanely special knives. It dawned on me. I should have done professional photos of each one and asked the people for a little breakdown of what it is, and then we would do the breakdown of how we made the knife and do a coffee book table of this knife. This was this person's grandfather in World War II. This was part of his clothing. He died. These are his ashes in the grip. We used redwood because he grew up in the redwoods in Northern California. We put a little strip of this in it for that.
Is that something you guys are working on?
We are putting some aside. We are going to dive in to start looking back and contacting people that we have done that for. I get the knives back and get some photos. We'd have 100 or more insane and beautiful pictures. It’s something fucking cool to see. That's a goal. We run pretty ragged here.
It’s hard just to keep up with the weekend.
We may have to hire somebody like, “Here's your job.” Hire someone separate. Track down these knives. Let's get them back, get photos, get the little story. The story of why they owned a knife. Who lights important? We'll do picks, open up picture the knife. Little snippet on it.
It's something that you could add volumes to. Tyler does or something that.
Half Face Blades: There are a lot of skinny knives with similar shapes. You can't get away from a shape that works.
We are like, “We got another 50 more.” That'd be very cool to do. It'd be very special. It's cool too because now you are reading about all these other important things. It's not about the creativity being cool and visually appealing, but you are like, “This dude's ashes from World War II.” You can look one up.
It checks all the boxes at that point. Dive back into what I was going at or what I was getting prior to Defcon and some of the stuff like there are so many blade companies out there now, but they are not Half Face. How does that make you feel starting this? There are a lot of similarities in handles and logos.
The aesthetics. I didn't see any split material handles before we made them. I'm sure there are some out there. I didn't see them on social media. I don't go looking. I follow knife companies. I love supporting and seeing that these companies do well and cool stuff. I'm sure we have been inspirational with that. As a team, we have our function, beauty, and artistic, original as well with everything. A lot of companies are makers. We get this a lot like, “You've been huge. You’ve been such a big influence. I started making knives because of you.” I'm like, “Cool. Let's see your Instagram.” I'm like, “No kidding.”
It's flattering to a point, but now when I go online, it's a lot. It's everywhere. It's awesome. It's challenging for us to mix stuff up and everything and be original. It has annoyed me before, especially if someone's like, “You were a huge influence.” We get that. “You are a massive influence. I started making knives because of you guys.”
How about this? Why copy? Do you make nice because of us, because we are an awesome influence to you or do you make knives because they were awesome, and you saw us successful? Do you want to put a penny in your pocket and that's why you copy us? It’s because we didn't copy people when we started. I'm sure there are similarities between knives out there. There's a man like Hatcher. He's incredible. There are so many makers out there that do incredible work.
That’s the same thing as comparing pistols. You can do different stuff with the grips. You can have different customization.
1911 companies. There are some similarities, but there are aesthetics and they are different. One side of it is like, “It's going to happen.” My thing to those companies, when I chat with them, it's like, “You should be original because that's going to go for it.” Anybody they are getting a knockoff almost, and people are like, “That looks like Half Face,” then like, “I can't afford a Half Face, so I will get a knockoff.” That's not going to hold its value. What's going to hold its value like do you want to fake Rolex? Do you want a real Rolex? Do you want to go to the real thing from the real people, the real makers and support the real brand that brought the aesthetics?
You are hoping that someday it comes down to something like this.
I'm so happy. We have been a big influence on knife making. It's like I want to be an influence on the end users using the product. I'm glad people are making stuff. I want success for all those people. The biggest lesson for them is if you’re original, you are going to go further. You are going to sell more because people don't want the same thing.
If you are original and a design that lends itself to utilitarian to whatever you designed it for it to work, and then you can somehow be original and create from there. It's going to go a long way instead of someone being like, “I have tried on the drops and can't get it, but this person has some that look like it. I will get that.” That only is going to go so far that people know it's a knockoff.
If you pay attention, you can pick up a blade pretty much now like I was able to get this from a giveaway.
We are trying to grow that production side. We have upped the production. I want to get knives. I don't purposely. A lot of people have been like, “You probably hold knives back or you have knives in stock, and to make it limited.” I'm like, “We put everything we can finish up out.” If we are able to get that week, we get more knives back from heat treat or I'm having a guy ceracoat and I'm able to make these handles.
It’s that people are that critical of you.
I get more knives out. Knives last a little longer on the website. Awesome. People are after the customs. They retain their value for a long time and they can buy, sell, and trade, but also originally, I only did customs. I was like, “I want to get more to the people. I want to get more people knives and tools in their hands that work. We need to do production. Let's pick this knife and this knife, the most sold and used knives. Let's do a production version.” That version is like, “We have that knife that's 3$50 where it starts at $550 or $600, the custom side.” I didn't devalue, which is cool, but I wasn't scared of devaluing in people's minds, the knives or the company, by getting more out there. I didn't do that. We have always had that demand.
We are not going to ever be devalued. We are going to crush it. I didn't want to be like, “I'm going to keep it so limited, so that drives the value of everything through the roof. I want people to get those knives. I want people to have a good tool.” It's cool that the value has grown even with the growth of the business, because the demand is growing. We try to keep up like there's more demand than we have product, but never one time we held product back.
Do you know what blows me away? I have known about you from pretty much the beginning, like right after the Series 1. I have put my first order in through Facebook or Messenger. The very first one I got was a gift. It's one of my favorite things. All my Half Face Blades are some of my favorite possessions because I can replace other stuff. Something like this feels irreplaceable.
That's why when you give it as a gift. It's meaningful.
The best gift that I can think to give somebody. If you can go custom, it's even better. I have shown your stuff because I have been such a fan of it from the very beginning to 1,000 people, and I don't think I have ever had one person be like, “That sucks. That's not cool.” They are interested. Ninety-five percent of them are hitting me up later like, “What was the name of that blade company? How do I get one? Can you contact Andy for me?” Especially now that we have readers and you've been on here, we get so many messages. You got to go to the website.
We were always working on it. We started doing a new thing. Let's say we have 250 or 300 productionized we are able to finish a week. Sometimes more, sometimes a little less. We started doing, which I'm hiring more guys. Part of this whole thing, a little tangent, is I like to provide jobs. I don't need to be me sitting in a shop, pounding steel out, growing my name Andrew Arrabito. That's not the point I want.
I do one insane $3,000 or $4,000 knife every two weeks. That's fucking awesome. There are incredible makers out there that do that. That's not what I wanted to do. I wanted to get tools into people's hands. I want to hire my friends. I want to surround myself with my buddies. That's mentally healthy for me. I want to provide jobs.
Being able to grow the business is extremely important to me. Being able to get these tools in people's hands is extremely important to me. Supporting things I love to do, hunting, supporting my time. Now I have grown the business where I get to go see my family more. I get to go hunt more. I get to use these tools is extremely important to me. Being able to produce more production knives costs less than custom. I'm going to do that. I'm going to hire a couple of guys who work on taking the materials we genuinely use for custom handles.
We are going to start doing machine to bolt-on grips. We started doing that production-style blade. We could still do rock work, but we did a light desert ironwood grip. That’s all machined and bolted on that you could. What's cool is we didn't do it specifically so guys can switch out, but they can. We did it because I wanted to get a lot of that custom stuff because it's more valuable. More people like that, even more than the production, but I wanted to get more of them done.
Now we have that full custom production which is using all these natural materials, but all that grip is a machine and they are bolt-on. The full production is like G10 the car. Some nice carbon fibers out there we do. What's cool is I'm going to hire more guys. I'm going to hire 5 or 6 more guys. Some guys start the custom side, learning everything. I'm going to have two more guys go to the production side.
I'm one guy that's all he's doing is prepping and taking custom style aesthetic grips, wood, and stuff like that, and doing machine bolt-on. We'll take those 300 knives a week production, and then maybe 50, 60, 70 can be rad bolt-on, and then you can be like, “I have a black Crow Jr. at home. That would look cool on my black coat Jr.” You can take the grips off this and put on your black Crow Jr.
It’s like you win your knife in a giveaway and you don't like the handle.
By giving somebody a knife, you're giving them something they could protect and feed their family with.
I'm not selling grips off the site because now, they go on all the knives. At some point, if I can do that, that'd be rad like, “I'm dropping ten different burl wood grips on the side. I will do another little line item up there and put grips up and people can buy them.” These aren't working on all the Crow Jrs. Back in the day, we did it by hand. They will only work on the ones where we started machining them. These are all machined around the outside.
I bought the same exact knife to keep my original Crow Jr. in the safe because I was so worried about losing it in the backcountry and it has a Kydex sheath and it was starting to wear out. I may need to send that to you to get it made or something, but I bought this, so it was like, “If I lose it, I'm going to be super fucking pissed,” but not as pissed as I would be with that cost at first.
I'm looking forward to bringing guys on and with the recession coming and not knowing how it's going to affect the business and we are up in our product, up in production knives to get to people's hands, I was like, “I can provide more jobs and take that production and do some custom production ones.” It would be equally as valuable in the secondary market and fun for people to use and switch handles out. I like these natural products. I liked that Western native wood bone antler.
That looks sweet. I didn't even notice that when you pulled it out earlier because the desert camo is so distracting, but I didn't notice the handles.
I'm stoked on there as we started doing that. That'll be fun to get out to people. What's dope is we have the SHPOS folder. The SHPOS is originally from a buddy who was out on the Army. He was augmenting one of the SEAL team's original fixed blade one. He drew it up. He hit me up and said, “What about this?” We tweaked it and we started making them here. Eventually, that became a folder.
One of the guys here, Sean, who was helping me set up my machines, is still active. He and a couple of his buddies out in Ohio started a machine shop to help with our folders and do monolithic single titanium frames, which is cool, really different. That's what this one is. It's a single titanium frame versus folders that generally have two sides bolt together with a spacer. There's a little push button.
Are those available on the site now?
I have been continuing to do those. Luckily they have gotten it down. They are fairly quick at it and I'm able to keep them stacked on the side. It's a press fit, so the whole thing turns the whole pivot. There are not a lot of frictions. Some people like, “When I fling it open, it opens too fast or it closes too fast.” I'm like, “Slow down. Lightly flick it. Don't flick it hard. Don't close it super hard. You are not tactically closing it.” There's now somebody coming up with a gun and threatening me like, “I got to close it and stick it.” I'm like, “Chill out. You don't need to put the gun away as fast as you pulled it out. You are okay.” Read the situation.
Have you seen those videos of the guys going into knife shops and doing stuff?
It looks like they are going to cut their hand the whole time. That's rad. This is such a very specific to tactical use, combative, small tip. It's for skin clothing getting through that stuff. I'm stoked on is we'll be putting out the Crow and Disaster folder in a monolithic frame. We are working on doing a deep carry pocket clip that'll clip into here and you can switch on either side for left or right-handed guys.
From we first put them out, we get that constructive criticism like, “I hit the button. It's a little easy to hit the button.” We built up the next ones. We'll have this little channel of titanium above the push button, so you have to get over the channel to push down. Those little things, I want to make everything better, and I can be like, “This is amazing.” I like that feedback like, “Check this out. What about this?”
One of the hard things is people are like,”It's great with jeans, but when I wear my running shorts.” “Try putting it up in the top of your running shorts, this little space.” That's a hard thing. These clips are a little hard to get for every pair of pants that's going to fit good. That's where that deep carry pocket clip will come in. I'm always open to making things better if we can.
I don't think I have ever seen a one-piece folder.
It's very few out there. They are a little pricier because of the level of a machining and how you make it. They are stronger than single frame. I can do a lot of cool stuff by hand.
I know you've mentioned to me several times about getting out of California. Is that behind the priority list? It’s got to be hard for you to leave here because you are so embedded with guys.
I got to get a ranch one day, no matter what. That's been a goal of mine, and I'm like, “I can't wait to get a ranch, just be on my ranch,” and then I'm like, “Let me dive into what I'm going to do on the ranch,” and three days later in my head on my ranch, I'm like, “Where are my fucking friends?” I'm going to have to like, “Do you want to come out and hang out for a weekend?” The next guy I will be like, “I should have bought a bigger place and made all my friends move here too.” I will get a ranch. That's a little more long-term. I keep that goal. That's my biggest goal.
My short-term, I probably would have moved in the next years or so, but with this recession, everything's coming. We have been looking for a bigger location here in San Diego to purchase. I looked at a few. They are either too big or the market's nuts. The housing market is absolutely crazy, and the commercial real estate, they were like, “The housing market is crazy. We'll charge more too.”
We have looked at places that would have worked and that rent being $2.50 a square foot, they want to charge sales-wise like $4 a square foot. You are already $1.5 million in the hole, and it's only because inventory is low or biotech is buying it all up. I'm like, “I have to live in that place for 2 to 3 years to even break even. That's pretty uncool.” I get a couple of hundred thousand over, but there was a place that was like $1.9 million. There was a place where I offered $300,000 or $400,000 over what they were asking. They asked for another $100,000 over that. I was like, “I'm not even going to come and look at it. Screw you.”
You are over the asking price, and then they countered with, “We want more.” Why the fuck did you even list it?
I offered $200,000 over, and they came back with $350,000 over what they wanted. I was like, ”I'm not going to come look at it.” It'd cost $50,000 to build out anyway, but I do need a bigger location. I'm putting 4, 5 or 6 guys more on the payroll. We are slammed into the shop. Everybody crushes it, but being able to have a bigger break room, more comfortable for the guys. A bigger chill spot for lunch would be ideal. A few more machines. As I said, it's maybe it's a blessing. We haven't gotten one because we don't know what this recession holds for everybody.
Has it slowed you down at all?
I don't know. As I said, we are flexing to do some of these cool custom production grips. We have grown. We have been able to hire more jobs.
Every time I go on the site, the blades are sold out.
That's good. We are doing stuff. We have that Cav folder. Our design has been worked on in Tennessee by an old-timer, Sean Shop in Ohio. We don't have the space to work on folders. They are working on the SHPOS folder. The Crow and Disaster folders are there, which we'll have before the end of the year. We have been working back and forth on the guy in Tennessee on Cav possibly doing a karambit, take out karambit and do a little karambit folder as well. That stuff that I can be outsourcing because I don't have the manpower or space here, but I still want to do it, and it's still my design working with those guys. Engineer my other guys who do CAD and I can sit there be like, “This and this.” It's all based on my original designs that are fixed blades, which is cool.
It’s employing more people too.
Sean, those guys who started working on that monolithic frame SHPOS, they started a brand new machine shop. You get $1 million worth of badass equipment like you have to have some sales right out the gate, and then you got to collect. Do you want to pay yourself and pay off machines out the gate?
You are taking those loans. It’s a big trust thing and I trust those guys. I trust Sean. Luckily, I worked here and built that relationship. Out the gate, we are like, “I'm going to agree to order 1,000 folders and here's 50% upfront.” The only leverage they have outside of maybe pulling money out of your pocket is being able to put money down for equipment. They have built there.
In one year, they made enough that they have three guys on salary. They can hire some stuff out. They are ordering more equipment. One of the cool thing is he helped me set up my shop and in turn, he sets up the shop and I have 3,000 SHPOS and I will have another 1,000 of the Crow ordering from him, and that money's coming in here. We are selling them. That's flowing back to those guys, those veterans and their business, that old timer in Tennessee, helping his business grow with the support from people supporting us.
That money comes in and it's all going out and we are going to be able to support. That's what I've been talking about, the foundations and everything. I like being a conduit for providing more jobs. That's not just in-house. That's supporting other business. We have a bunch of guys. We have another guy. AJ is helping us out. He's working on horizontal milling for us.
Kydex has outsourced some veteran guys 40 minutes from here and 35 minutes North of here, and they have been growing. It was in their garage and then they got a shop and now they hired two more guys. I'm like, “If we are growing, you are growing. I want to pay you $300,000 this year for Kydex, not $150,000. That means I'm growing and I'm able to support you.” That's cool and important. I like people reading this to know we are like that conduit to help and support other veteran-owned businesses and other businesses in general across America.
It's cool that you've kept it that way too because it's very humble. That's all I got to say. If you decide you want to come to Colorado and check out some spots, I'd be glad to show you around.
I'm going to go check out Colorado Springs. That's one spot. I like Steamboat Springs in small towns like that, but I have a lot of guys that it's too small for them. I'm too far from the airport. I have a lot of guys that want to move. I will check out Colorado Springs. I got a buddy pretty close by there. An hour and a half from the airport. You've got the mountains right there nearby.
There are so many cool towns outside of Colorado Springs, too that super dope that are ranch community types of stuff. In 30 minutes, you can be in the springs or something like that.
You got Woodland Park up on the hill and the cool area. There’s some good hunting there. I know there's good fishing. There's enough to do for the guys. There’s a lot of people here. I guess I can't be in too small of a town. We are eyeballing that place and a few other places. It's a matter of time.
Is it important for you to be around a military town?
No.
I was wondering if that was part of Colorado Springs.
I looked at Durango, but where's the airport? My guy is going to have a hard time flying in and out. Pagosa Springs is awesome. It’s tiny.
I would be on the Western Slope if I didn't have to travel. It's so convenient, and especially with the kids. Not to mention, when you have kids and a lot of my family is there, but the infrastructure that's built. You get into some of those rural areas and something happens. Being able to get to an airport is super important too.
I travel a lot. You don't want guys to be able to, “I will have a shop here. I'm not going to pull the rug out from the guys here.” If we need to downsize a shop a little bit, that's fine, but we'll have a shop here for guys who can't move. Guys can come up there and then guys here they are like, “I can move now. They might come there.” We'll see.
This life throws wrenches into stuff and things change. It's not like we have a date to move and we want to continue to grow here and do what we can and provide more jobs before that. I say like a two-year plan, and then now it's another two-year plan because of recession. Maybe I need to pull the trigger, but I have a lot going on. I'm focusing on growing the business and teaching guys in the shop. I also don't want to be a workaholic so much that I don't enjoy life.
You got so much going on outside of this, too, like KBD, Defcon, Canoe Club. Let's talk about WARPAW a little bit.
A little side project. I grew up in Wine Country in Napa Valley. I like wine and I have some buddies in the wine industry. I have wanted to do it for a while. I like the process. I have made wine, beer, and spirits. It's beautiful up there. I ran into a buddy, who's a prior Army guy, and he's a winemaker and works for a winery. He has his own label. I had been working on it a little bit. It's been on the side and wanting to do it and had a name all ready to go. It worked out. I ran into him.
Some of the artwork translates over and you've kept that native influence, too, which is super cool.
That red hand print. There are a lot of hand prints being used these days within different native brands and stuff like that, which is interesting. Some of the stuff like, I remember the one that's up the black hand over the mouth. We are being silenced or not being heard. There's another one, a WARPAW Movement. It’s a guy who retired and raises funds for indigenous missing women and women and stuff like that. Kidnapping. He does that.
The original red hand print, if people want to do their history about stuff and go look, was meant for war ponies. They are only meant for war ponies that brought their riders back alive. You went to battle, success against your enemies, success in hand-to-hand combat, you had red hand print on your war pony, and you rode it back home. If you died in battle, that would mean you were not successful. You could have been successful, which they would have accounts of your bravery and stuff, but it was meant for the war ponies that brought the riders back.
You didn't have it on your body. You would have that red paint on the horse, which is cool. That's the red hand print. I have four little logos on the back and they each stand for something. Four little logos on the back, each have a lot of meaning. I worked on those for a while and we are working on making some good juice.
How hard is that process? I wouldn't even know where to begin. It takes a couple of years from grapes growing to have it bottled.
It depends if it’s a white or red, stuff like that. How long do you want to age it? A cab is going to be 5 or 6 years. My cab is going to be incredible in five years. A long-term investment on that one. The Chenin Blanc, I released. It'll get a little better as it sits in the bottle. The red blend is from my buddy who did his wine in 2016 and then 2019 because there were fires in between. It's an incredible red blend. He had extra and he was able to sell me.
I was able to do all the labeling and everything which is awesome that he even had some and it's good. I was able to do out the red blend. What's cool is that Chenin Blanc, the pinot that'll be coming up was all from wineries that we walked and my winemaker walked, that we got contracts with that he made from scratch and we bottled. It's that much more special.
If you’re original, you will go further and sell more.
Getting into a little bit of the wines and stuff like that, what's the coolest process to that? Are you involved in the whole bottling?
I wish I was more involved. I’m trying to juggle that in between running up there on the weekend. What's cool is they are testing the sugar. GW tests the berries daily to figure out when to pick, so there's the perfect amount of sugar in it. You want the perfect amount of sugar, and when it ferments, you want to get that certain level of alcohol 14% or 14.5%. You have to hit certain bricks and stuff of sugar. You don't want to prematurely pick when there could be more sugar in it. You don't want to pick late because it bursts, and now that juice is dumping into the ground. It ferments.
They’ll test it and mark rose. Some people mark plants. In the evening, it's cold, the sugar hardens, so they come out there, and they cut all of those. They stack them in a bin. You don't want to stack it too much because it would be breaking the berries underneath. Go in and separate the greenery from the berry, fill up the barrel, and let it start fermenting on its own.
As it ferments in the barrel, it separates the skins from the juice. You then go in and you pump that juice out. Skins out, you have in bin, skins on top, juice underneath and you’re punching it and you push it down. The skins are what makes it red, so you want the skins. You get that deep rich. If you want to do like rosé, you are doing the skins a little bit. It's a little bit pink.
You are not putting out a rosé, are you?
Not yet, but I wouldn't. That's a separate project. It's such a cool process. GW, he's very knowledgeable. His wine is incredible. His ideal way of the process is the same as mine. It’s like the less human interaction, the better. Keep everything clean, do what we are supposed to do to guide it.
I didn't know that whole process is so intense until you started the wine label because I have been following it.
Some people don't do that. Some people were like, “It's this date. Let's pick everything.”
We better wrap it up. This has been awesome. I appreciate you having me back on. I'm stoked and pumped that you are the 100th episode.
I'm stoked and I appreciate it. The first episode was awesome.
Go back and listen to that. We talked a lot of cool shit and we talked about new stuff on here too. Before we jump off, let's drop everything from Half Face where to find that, WARPAW, anything you got coming up.
Half Face Blades, as it says. Just you look that up. There's the website, the social media. WARPAW is WARPAW.com has the wines. There are two of them up right now working on more. KBD is WeKBD.com. Working on little projects, do a drop, and then we'll work on new projects, do a little drop. It’s fun. Defcon, that's once a year, maybe. It’s a cool drop, and those guys run that. Canoe Club, which is awesome. My best friend, Ryan Bates, we want to do ammo company.
On the very first episode that I did with you, which was episode 42, you were talking about going up to Alaska and retrieving your dad's prop from the plane crash. Where are you at on that? I saw you in Bates up there.
We went up and ran a cool thing called Arctic Guardian and helped out with this fun shooting course up there for the law enforcement, military, and everything. We took a date to fly up and try to find the crash site. We found it in ten minutes. We couldn't see the crash site itself. Some of the natives up there put this little metal airplane on top of the mountain up there and welded my dad’s brother’s name. We saw that pretty quickly. I didn't have an exact location, so I studied and was like, “I think it's here.” It's 500 or 1,000 yards away from where I thought it might be. We saw it on the mountain there.
There are some other guys flying it up there as the snow melts to see if they see the wreckage. I wanted to get out there. I want to make it something cool that special from might take my mom, even my dad's best friend, either fly some planes in there. I have a buddy who's looking to see if we can fly in within a mile of it where we can lay a plane, then hike up to it.
If we can't do that, we'll take helicopters in. Land, hike up to it, maybe film it, and get that prop off the mountain, which would be cool. It's been so busy and I haven't been able to sit down and discuss the logistics too much with somebody. I know that there are some different companies that like to be involved in that, which would be cool to involve a few people.
It costs a bit. Maybe raise some funds to do that. It's cool as I posted that and it was special for me getting out there and doing that. It means a lot to a lot of my friends. They know what's happened and they know I wanted to find that crash site. I can imagine the amount of comments like, “I want to go. I want to hike up there. I'd love to go hike that with you.”
It's cool. I got so many texts and emails like, “I'd love to be part of that.” I can’t imagine making it a group thing flying 50 helicopters. We needed some 47s full of people and go hike up on the mountain. That's a pretty cool adventure, closure, and something I want to take my mom on and we'd get there. Hope we'd get in here, put names on it and we'll stick it above the door, whatever new shop we have.
Get up there and get that thing. That's awesome. Back to Canoe Club. It reminds me of that dude. I have been trying to set something up with him, but we haven't been able to connect. He's busy too.
He's going to be working on a TV show coming up here, the Netflix show. It's going to be cool. You got connected with that. That'd be a cool show. Canoe Club. I have an ammo company with them out of Vegas. It's been weird. Ammo has been a little slow. It'll take off even more. He's got a new little girl and he wants to spend more time with his family, and he was like, “Let's do something where I can stay home and be with my wife and kids more. I was like, “Let's do it.” Light Helmets. I have Protekt with those guys. I was able to get it on that a little bit with those guys and those are such good people and good brand.
In my affiliates on Half Face Blades, I try to put some companies out there I trust and like, and like to support. Protekt and Light Helmets. It's a helmet company. There are the football helmets and the highest rated from Virginia Tech and they are 2 pounds lighter than all the other helmets. They are growing. They are here in San Diego and the guy who started is my business mentor and good guy. They are badass. Kevlar reinforced, lighter, like I said.
Do they make tactical helmets, too, or just football?
Yeah. I think they are going to work on a soft one for soccer and lacrosse and stuff like that eventually, but Drew Brees is a spokesperson for us and it's a good company.
My son decided he wanted to play football. It’s something I was never going to push on him, and he came to me, he was like, “Dad, I want to play this.” “All right. Let's go.” I will have to check out the light helmets then for sure. Andy, thanks. This has been awesome. I always enjoy seeing you and thanks for everything that you do.
I appreciate being here.
Take it easy, everybody. Thank you for reading. Thanks for sticking with me for 100 episodes. It’s been fucking rad. Follow us on IG or whatever. We'll put some information on the website too on how you can win these knives.
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Episode 42 - Past episode - #042 Andy Arrabito Half Face Blades
About Andrew Arrabito
Andrew grew up hunting, camping and fishing in the great outdoors. After high school he joined the US Navy, determined to achieve the honor of serving in the United States Navy SEAL Teams. It was during his time in the Teams that Andrew decided to bring the “end user” back to the beginning, to learn blade-smithing.
From the beginning, Andrew’s goal was to make simple blade designs for consumers who demand the finest products. With his real-world experience in using cutting devices in super-charged action, Andrew understands what will be demanded from his blades. And he makes them to meet those demands.
Half Face Blades knives are designed with the distinction and ruggedness required for the work they are intended to do. Each knife is calculated to meet requirements gained by experience, by testing knives and axes, by using them over time at sea and in remote wildernesses.
HFB knives bring the soul of rugged, dependable, combat knives and tools to a variety of settings - from special operations tools for warriors, hunters and backpackers, to knives for the kitchen and great American workers.
“I wanted each person to have a usable tool, embodied with a warrior’s spirit, that will perform to their needs during their walk in life.”
Because we at HFB believe in giving back to those who have gone before us, those who have given their lives for a greater purpose, we support associated charities and foundations in their fundraising efforts.