"Talkin' Story" with Mr. Sal Glesser

[Synov]

Talkin' story;

I had just shaved with a straight Razor for the first time. I was staying in a camper at the Hammer Inn in Dubois. I had a lot of cuts so I had little piece of tissue stuck to my face. Looking back, I had to look odd to the group (Bill Bagewll, Don Hastings and Bill Moran were the instructors.)

It was a custom maker from Canada. Don't recall his name. What he said was; "What you doing sal? You look like you've been trying to shove butter up a wildcat's *** with a hot icepick?

sal

From the Straight Razor from Spyderco thread

[JSumm]

Talkin; story,

My bank called me about a year ago to tell me that I was overdrawn. I told her the payment beat the deposit, wait a day or two.

Then she said to me; "sal, about 10 years ago, you gave everyone in the bank a blue handled kitchen knife for Christmas. I use that knife every day, it's still sharp and I think of you every day when I use it".

I'm guessing that Vivi must have a number of his plain edge knives that he can use every day for 10 years and still not need to be sharpened?

sal

[JSumm]

Talkin; story;

I added the Rhino blade from Teaching of James Keating. The Rhino blade works better for trapping and passing, and the lock is strong enough to handle the force. The Leaf was mine. But the Rhino just wasn't as popular and that's probably why it's harder to find.

I thought about adding a Wharncliffe, a la Michael Janich. It's a unique pattern that only appeals to certain knife users, so volume isn't high, but I like to keep it in the line for that group that does see value in the design. Not much on the market serving that market.

sal

[JSumm]

Talkin; Story; The original design was a fitting of both forward grip, edge down and up, and reverse grip edge out. We made 23 wood and plastic models to get the "Pattern" to where I wanted it. I had been studying some Martial Blade Craft and was trying to design a legal (under 3") in most places, heavy duty, reliable self defense tool.

We made the design in Golden. As time went on, I'd discovered the MBC style known as Pakal / Pikal. My design would not serve that style. So I redesigned the pattern to fit all four grips (Forward Grip, Edge Down, Forward Grip, Edge Up, Reverse Grip Edge In, Reverse Grip Edge Out).

We tried a number of locks (RIL, Compression Lock, etc.) and decided on the Compression Lock for a variety of reasons. The model has a long history, and while not a "hot" seller", some find the advantages of the design. It is somewhat unique and probably wouldn't be noticed by a non "Afi" knife person. Almost an "insider design".

sal

[JSumm]

Talkin' Story;

I designed the pattern in grade school and kept it in mind for 50+ years. There are no curved lines in the design. It's all done with straight lines.

sal

[Wowbagger]

Talkin' Story;

I designed the pattern in grade school and kept it in mind for 50+ years. There are no curved lines in the design. It's all done with straight lines.

sal

Pardon me for saying ; we would like some links back like this one
viewtopic.php?p=1859164&hilit=stepped#p1859164

I was trying to see what one or two of the others refered to .
e.g. what is trapping and 'passing' ?

[JSumm]

Talkin' Story;

I designed the pattern in grade school and kept it in mind for 50+ years. There are no curved lines in the design. It's all done with straight lines.

sal

Pardon me for saying ; we would like some links back like this one
viewtopic.php?p=1859164&hilit=stepped#p1859164

I was trying to see what one or two of the others refered to .
e.g. what is trapping and 'passing' ?

No need. It is already built into the forum software.

[JSumm]

Hi Zero,

Talkin' Story;

The original Native design has an interesting history that few probably know. A knife company came to be with a proposal. They said they had an "in" with Walmart. They asked me to design a Spyderco knife knife that would sell well in Wal-Mart, they would build it for us, inventory and deliver product and pay us. I sounded too good to be true, right?

I spent weeks in the Sporting goods department of Wal-Marts. I watched what knife buyers were buying. I spoke with them on their purchase, just to get a grasp of the amount of knife knowledge was there. I didn't expect to become an expert, but information helps. I decided on a 3..0" blade that ultimately became the Native. The ergos were good, which is difficult in a hump-less, straight spine model, 3.0" blade model. The shape of the blade was designed to be functional, as it would lead to more sales, but it also had to have a "look".

As it turned out, the project never did materialize, the project was put on hold for years. We ended up making the Native in Golden and in Japan for the next number of years. Then Blue Ridge Knives, a company that we had been working with for years wanted to do something with the inventory on hold and wanted to know what needed to be done to finish and buy the whole batch. Blue Ridge is a very honorable company, and so we worked deal.

If there is interest in a Native 5 Sprint, but with the "Dagger" style hollow grind blade, that would be more possible than re-creating the original.

sal

[JSumm]

Hi Ilocano,

Talkin' Story,

When we first decided to make folding knives, circa 1980, we decided to us the mid-lock-back (sometimes called the front-lock) that Al Mar was using. I worked with Al Mar and his teacher Harvey McBurnette to learn how to make the lock. The lock had a few advantages that I thought were valuable and got permission from Harvey and Al to use their lock.

One major advantage was that the kick was designed to land on the lock bar pivot when the knife was closed. This did move the kick slightly forward, which did shorten the edge. The kick landing on the lock bar prevented the edge from hitting the spring, which was a common problem with rear lock-backs. It also permitted one to depress the lock bar while still holding the knife in the using position and "drop" the blade onto the index finger, with the kick hitting the index finger, and not the edge. It made for easy one hand closing. Eric and I both use the McBurnette / Al Mar mid-lock-back when we design knives with a lock-back, so the edge doesn't it the spring.

The designer of this model specifically wanted the edge to go all the way to the handle, and not have the "gap" between the handle and the start of the edge at the kick. That meant that the kick was further back and would not land on the lock-bar pivot when the blade was closed. He even had his own custom maker make a prototype the way he wanted it. We usually try to accommodate the desires of the collaborator, so that's how we made the model. The same issue exits on the Centofante designs as Frank also wanted the edge to go to the handle, but still use the mid-lock-back.

My latest solution for a mid lock-back to have the edge go to the handle was the "handle Forward" concept used on the Leaf and Rock Jumper models. The "Handle forward" kept all of the advantages of the mid-lock-back, but had the edge go all the way to the handle. unfortunately, the Market wasn't ready for the concept, sales were very slow and the models were discontinued.

Hope that helps.

sal

[JSumm]

It's not an impossible or unreasonable request. For either Magnacut or MagnaMax or even SPY27.

I'll watch the thread.

Talkin' Story;

The Stretch is a very nice all around design. It was originally created when many of the ordinances in the US moved from a 4.0" blade length limit to a 3.5" blade length limit. So we had to create a number of designs to meet the need of those that want to carry as large a blade as is legal to carry. The Stretch 2 was one of those models. The Harrier 2, the Endela, etc. The XL was created because there seemed to be a number of knife users that just wanted a 4.0" blade. It seemed to me the XL could serve that demand. Then the Police 4 came out with an even longer blade, which was also well received. We don't know where the future will go. It mostly depends on where you want to go?

I expect that in time, our Seki maker will be using MagnaCut and MagnaMax. They've done a great job with the SPY27 models.

sal

[Wowbagger]

Talkin' Story;

I designed the pattern in grade school and kept it in mind for 50+ years. There are no curved lines in the design. It's all done with straight lines.

sal

Pardon me for saying ; we would like some links back like this one
viewtopic.php?p=1859164&hilit=stepped#p1859164

I was trying to see what one or two of the others refered to .
e.g. what is trapping and 'passing' ?

No need. It is already built into the forum software.

THANK YOU !

[Wowbagger]

Hi Silver & Black,

I built cabinets for some 15 years. Still like it as a hobby. When working with wood, which is often a hard wood (Birch, Walnut, Ash, etc.), I prefer the higher edge retention materials. s90V, 15V, REX-121, etc.

sal

I had no idea . Got to have this in here .

[Wartstein]

viewtopic.php?p=1868380#p1868380

Talkin' story;

Something I should share. Serrations are generally made with a formed wheel that plunges into the edge creating the serrations all at once. Each model generally has it's own wheel. Each time you add them, plunge, into the edge, a little bit of wear occurs on the wheel. Every 50 blades or so, less on the super steels, we have to redress the wheel to restore the shape. So no two serrations are exactly the same.

The makes always liked "Spikey" teeth, because they "looked cool" (to them) and it meant the wheel could go longer without redressing. We're finally getting away from that, but TBH, it's taken, taking, far longer than I'd hoped.

Serrations in general have been a challenging path. I've been pushing the concept for 50 years. Many are just adverse to serrations.

sal

[Mushroom]

From the "VG-10 criticism: why?" thread -
viewtopic.php?p=1870419#p1870419

@sal

Could you take us back to when VG-10 was coming out and how it compared in your opinion to ATS-34/154-CM?

Here you go Shawn...


Talkin' Story,

The VG-10 story is kinda like the 154Cm / ATS-34 story. "Back in the day", maybe 1998, we were using Gingami 1 (G-2) in most of our knives made in Japan. ATS-34 was our "Higher line" blade steel. I was getting more and more involved in blade steels, edge geometries, and was seeking better performance. ATS-34 was quite expensive and harder to process. We were using Crucible's CPM-440V in out Golden factory.

I was a member of the US Knifemakers Guild and the ABS. Learning a great deal.

Hitachi had come up with a new steel, ATS-55, and offered it to us as an exclusive. Testing went OK, so we signed on, and we were using the steel in most of our Seki made knives. Then another maker told us of a new steel developed by Takefu for Grafting in horticulture. They called it VG-10. Again, testing went OK, so we added VG-10 to our stable of steels. We introduced VG-10 in a fixed blade, the Moran, and began using it for many of our Seki models.

Over the next few years, testing and ELU response was watched carefully and we eventually gave up ATS-55 and continued using VG-10 to this day.

We continued to work with Crucible adding steels and Crucible decided that Blade steels was a potential market and began working knife shows, which worked well for them.

Then Carpenter Steel asked us if we would help them develop blade steels and bring them into the Knife Market. We have a decent testing lab, CATRA, etc., so we worked with them for the next few years. That's how the line of CTS steels came into the knife market. Once they had a working line of Blade steels, their head metallurgist asked me, what can we (Carpenter) do for Spyderco for our efforts.

I told them that there was a Japanese steel made by Hitachi, called Gingami 1, that we were using in Japan and importing to the US to use in our Golden factory. There was no USA equivalent, so I asked them if they could make a powdered version and tweak it for blade steel performance. The result was CTS-BD1N. turned out to be a really good all around steel. I had hoped for an exclusive, but that wasn't going to happen.

A while later, I was speaking with Bob Shabala at Niagara and wondered in Crucible would make a special steel and give it to Spyderco as an exclusive? Bob didn't think it was likely, but as it turned out, Crucible agreed. I was working with Crucible's metallurgist, Mr. Bob Skibitski (I call him Bobski), who is a gifted Metallurgist. I told him that there was a Japanese ingot steel made by Takefu, called VG-10, which is a really good all around steel, for which there is no American equivalent. The president of Takefu told me that he believed that Cobalt added to the alloy helped to enhance the results. I asked him if he could make an equivalent Cobalt based steel, powder it and tweak it for blade steel performance. After a few runs, he/we came up with SPY-27. We had already discussed the exclusive angle and that's how we ended up with the alloy.

Hope that helps.

sal
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A goal in life is to be consistent like the sun and transparent like the air. That's how trust is built... and trust is the true bottom line".

[JSumm]

Hi Shawn,

Sorry, got caught up in the VG-10, and forgot the ATS-154CM. Don't know if it's a Talkin' story, you decide. Lotta "hear-say" (Maybe Brian can add or verify)

I don't have as much first hand experience, but I'll share what I've learned. 154CM was a Crucible steel, that I believe was discovered for the knife Industry, by Loveless. As I understand, 154 was being made for Boeing by Crucible to be used for the jet fins. The 154 was developing "High Temperature Creep" (stretching) and hitting the jet housing. Crucible's metallurgists added Molybdenum, which prevents "High temperature creep". It was very highly refined and the steel, 154CM, also turned out to be exceptional for custom knifemakers. It became the "go to" steel for the custom guys. The addition of the Moly makes the heat treating and tempering temperatures much higher, which makes the steel more expensive to make.

Then Boeing went to Titanium for the fins which reduced the need for the very refined 154CM, so the level of refinement went down. Now it was no longer the very highly refined steel that the custom knifemakers wanted. Hitachi, in Japan, saw the need for the very highly refined steel to be used in blades, which is always in high demand in Japan, and they created ATS-34, which was the same as the refined 154CM. The knife makers jumped on the new steel. Even Spyderco used ATS-34 in production pieces. Crucible saw what was happening, and again refined 154CM, which was now USA made and highly refined. Spyderco ordered 154CM for something we were making and when we received it, we learned that they had powdered it, (which wasn't expected) and it became CPM-154, which was made by Crucible until they closed. I don't know the current status of the steel. Maybe Bob Shabala or Larrin might know.

Hope that helps?

sal