The Team House - Littlebird Pilot Legend & Knifemaker | Greg "Gravy" Coker | Ep. 245

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

CW4 (R) Greg Coker served 22 years in the U.S. Army, 15 years as an AH-6 “Little Bird” attack helicopter instructor pilot who was specially recruited, assessed, and selected in the Army’s only Special Operations Helicopter unit, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. He was one of the senior Lead Instructor Pilots and planner responsible for planning and executing special operations missions in support of our nation’s most elite special operations units. Achieved 7400 hours of accident free flying, over 6200 hours of Night Vision Goggles and 1500 hours of Combat time. Supervised and directed teams of up to 300 soldiers in the planning and execution of numerous complex combat operations at the Joint Task Force level. Responsible for leading and planning scores of real world combat missions with significant tactical, operational, and strategic value during Operation Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom with 100% success in support of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) conducting 11 combat tours 2001-2008. He is also a knifemaker. We've have partnered with Greg to make a Team House line of knives.Grab a knife here:⬇️https://www.bladesforbrothers.com/Greg's book:⬇️https://www.amazon.com/Death-Waits-Dark-Guns-Dont-ebook/dp/B08QBNZDFQ?ref_=ast_author_dp---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------To help support the show and for all bonus content including:-AD FREE AUDIO-AD FREE VIDEO-Access to ALL bonus segments with our guestsSubscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseOr make a one time donation at: ⬇️https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouseTeam House merch: ⬇️https://teespring.com/stores/my-store-10474963Social Media: ⬇️The Team House Instagram:https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_linkThe Team House Twitter:https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePodJack’s Instagram:https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_linkJack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21Team House Discord: ⬇️https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6SubReddit: ⬇️https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here:⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links):⬇️ https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSampleWant to sponsor the show?Email: ⬇️[e-mail]#knifemaking #160thsoar #edcBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey, folks, I just want to take a minute to ask you to go in rate this podcast, let the Team House know how you think we're doing, go and rate us on whatever platform you're listening to this on, whether it's iTunes or Spotify or whatever else. Those ratings really help us out, and we really appreciate the feedback to let us know what you like and what you don't like. And if you do like the Team House and you'd like to support us, go check out our Patreon page and you can actually support the stream and well as get access to our team house. the team house and you'd like to support us, go check out our Patreon page and you can actually support the stream and well as get access to our bonus segments and bonus episodes. Yeah, if you're going to give us a great review, please do. And if you're going to give us a not so good review, why don't you just send us an email to talk about it. Special Operations. Covert Ops. Espionage. The Team House. With your hopes, Jack Murphy,

and David Park Hey everyone, welcome to episode 245 of the team house I'm here with Dave and I'm Jack and our guest on tonight's show actually coming back for the second time is Greg Coker Greg served in the 160th Special Operations

Aviation Regiment where he was a little bird pilot and he has become on his way to becoming an expert blade maker you showed us some stuff that's really impressive we're going to talk all about But where to start, I mean, we did a whole episode with you talking about your military career.

You want to like just go over, you know, a little bit about your background for just a couple minutes before we launch into where you are today. You bet. Yeah. And, you know, thanks guys for having me back. And it's an honor. And doggone, I love talking with you guys and sitting with you. But, yeah, I, you know, like most young men, we start out, we don't quite know. where we're going or what path we're going to take.

So I enlisted in the Army, and I was wanting to fly helicopters. So after a couple of years, I put in a flight packet and went to Fort Rucker, got accepted, flew Cobras for one tour in South Korea, 517 cab, and then I went back to the 101st. I enlisted, went to 327th infantry in the 101st in 86. and then came back to Camel, flew Apaches for a couple years, and then put in my packet to go to the 160th, and got accepted to come assess. I was successful in that assessment,

and flew A-6s and B-C company first bat for 15 years. And at my final board for the assessment, the command of colonel, had asked me, he says, well, last question was, Well, Greg, what do you want to fly? And I said, sir, I will fly kites out of a hot airplane if you want me to. And that pretty much set, you know, the rest for that career in the 160th. Greatest, greatest aviators, greatest pilots, crew chiefs, armate dogs. We call them dogs.

Or armate personnel. But they keep the guns of humming. The guys keep our helicopters going. But, yeah, it was, you know, again, that MD 530 is the great. greatest helicopter ever made and saved my life one day that, you know, you guys know. But, yeah, and then 9-11 hit, and we all got really busy for the next eight years for me. I did 11 combat tours, and got shot down in 04. And, yeah, I just, I loved it.

I loved every minute of it. Now, we had you on, like, over two years ago. It was episode 74, which is, like, reaching back. we talked about your book is it death weights in the dark correct yeah death weights in the dark six guns don't miss six guns don't miss I highly recommend you guys read it

it's a fantastic account of you know Greg's life in the 160th it is on Kindle right now and audible but there there aren't any hard copies out no correct they sold out but

I'm going to have some more printed first of next year. So probably hardback and a softback. And I'm going to say right now because I use the, I use Kindle in the minute all the time. Greg's book is free on Kindle, I think. And he still gets paid if you read it. So check it out. Read it.

Great book. Great episode, episode 74. But let's, you know, we, we don't want to redo all of 74 because we want to talk about your, your knife stuff. But for the people who have. haven't heard about, you know, who haven't watched the episode yet, even though they will. Sure. Can you give us a little bit?

Like, what was it like for you when you first got to the 160th? What was the training pipeline for you there? Well, when you go through an assessment, so it's a week long. And it's, it tests you mentally. It tests you physically. And it tests you your flight aptitude. So once you, you go. through the assessment and you're either a go or no go.

So back in the days, you know, the attrition rate was pretty high. I was, I had four guys in my class. I was the only one that graduated or finished. And, but it's always, every day's check ride and still today, you know, I would, I would just say, why am I here? And every day I would think, okay, I would get fired today because I would do some something stupid and so yeah it's a hard hard job it's a tough job and we support rangers and delta and that's this country's you know premier force to to go to war bar none but and and you come up

you come up through the 160th you're a basic mission qualified aviator for me i was a gun pilot but it takes us anywhere from 18 to 24 months to teach a guy how to shoot you shoot. So, and we're held of very, very high standards, as you all know, on our shooting and how close that we shoot to Friendlies. So all of our training is live fire. There are people running on the ground. And that's how we do business. And that's, that's why we're so successful in combat operations in this 20 plus year war. You know, we've, we've shot, I mean, I've shot, I mean, I've shot. less than 15 meters in front of Fernley's in combat. So, but the ground force trusts the AHs, and we trust them.

So, yeah, that's, that's, and as far as me personally, I was, I just want to protect my brothers on the ground. Yeah. That, we were, you know, they've called us angels of death, the killer eggs, you know, all, all the different, different names over the years. But when we got on station, it was, yeah, it was to help those guys. Can you tell us a little bit about the Killer A, the Little Bird? Sure.

It's history in the military because really it's probably the only place that it's flown, right, is the 160th. Well, in the 160th, right? Yes, sure. Yeah, correct. So, yeah. In the early years, well, the helicopter was developed by Mr. Hughes in 1956. and it came out and the Army designates all our helicopters with American Indian names. So this was the Cayuse.

And then the designation was 086, so observation helicopter. And then the six. But it's a Hughes 500 was the original nomenclature of it's a civilian helicopter. And over the years, it flew in Vietnam for many, many years. I've met several of the guys that flew the loach as another name. The grunts gave it. And, I mean, it just saved their lives. It saved my lives.

But Mr. Hughes developed that aircraft with safety in mind. And that if during a crash sequence, and if you look at the aircraft without the tail boom, it looks like an egg. And that was his whole concept for the engineering of it is for that cockpit to stay in contact. If it did roll, you know, end or run, side by side that the pilots in the cockpit would stay safe.

So over years, it transitioned into gun ships, and then the 160th took it in 1981 after the failed attempt of the hostage rescue in 1980 in Iran. And Colonel Beckwith, then the commander of Delta, wanted army aviators to fly army helicopters to support them. So, and when that came about in 81, that they chose the OH6, they armed it with many guns, and then they had the Blackhawks, and that's what was going to go on the next one. So, again, through technology, now it's the MH6M model. I flew the J models and the J heavies, and there's also the MH6 Littlebird.

So that's A company. B company is the gun company in the 160th. And then the MH6 little birds have the planks on them, and I still say customers, where the ground force will sit on the pods, and they can put five or six guys on there and a dog. And they put those helicopters in place. I would never even dream of landing, but they are by far the best sticks, best pilots on the planet. and yeah it was yeah they scared me watching them because we'd be overhead you know protecting the force

and i'm like they're not going to land there and they would land there so yeah they land on russ or streets what what what was the decision or why do you think the decision was to arm this very small observational platform maneuverability that thing that helicopter is and i always used It's the Ferrari, the Lamborghini of helicopters. It can get around. It can turn. It's fully aerobatic. And, you know, you hang a couple Dylan M-134 guns and rocket pods on it.

And now we can shoot. And in seconds, we can get right back on target. And we always fly in pairs, so a lead and a trail. And, yeah, it's, and the ground guys call it the fur ball. They're like, man, you watch the aches of the furball, because we're shooting. shooting and turning and yanking and banking. But we got to get, we got to get that helicopter around and re-engage that target if that's what that fire supporter wants us to do. And if there's a big battle like Haditha Dam, you know, it was just, there's bad guys, here's the friendlies, you know, we're going to shoot bad guys until we run out of ammo.

Then we'll go to M-4s and start dropping hand grenades on whatever case. I was always impressed with the advanced aiming technology you guys had on those birds. Yes, technologically advanced. Yes. And yeah, that's funny. I was just talking to some fellows about that the other day. But, yeah, I watched my tenure there at B Company that, you know, they're always bringing technology to us. Hey, can we, you know, Apache's got a HUD, the Cobre's got a HUD, Apache's got the HDU,

the guy can look and right point of gun. We use a grease pencil, an Army-issue, black, black, grease pencil mark on the windscreen. And to Fred Horsley once said, we had the engineers there, they were like, well, we want you to test this, and we think this is better and faster. And Fred summed it up. He said, the human brain is the fastest computer on this planet.

And the 86 gun pilot needs nothing but a grease pencil, and he held the grease pencil up. But yeah, that's what we used to shoot. And I could put a rocket in a door at 400 meters, because that's the standard that were held to. And we shoot a lot. We shoot a lot. Yeah, that's the Red Baron method of marksmanship.

Yeah. Yeah. The old Kentucky winage. Yeah, it is. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I've got a lot of stories in the book, and we've been real proud of the book. We've sold over 10,000 copies.

Wow. And, yeah, I read something not long ago. It says, and I self-published the book. and and they said that a first-time author that self-publishes sells three to four hundred copies in the life of the book probably yeah and we've sold over 10,000 and I thought about this and talked with my wife about this and we donate a hundred percent of all of those proceeds and we've donated over fifty thousand dollars to date the nonprofits that support vets first responders and

their families. That's cool. Yeah, we love doing it. So even though it is on Kendall and a limit, it's better people buy it, that they have it. Yeah. I like to hold a book. Yeah, yeah. I like to sit there and read it.

And then, who did the audible for? Who, uh, Darry? I read the, I read the audible. That's great. Yeah. Kyle Lamb, Sir Major Lamb, he was like, you got to read it. You got to read it. Yeah, yeah.

It's got to be you, you know. But I'd, you know, reached out to us a couple of buddies like, hey, could you read this book for me? Yeah, man. No, you need to read the book. Yeah, I read it. Yeah, it's been good. So get the audible because you get to sit with Greg's honeyed voice. That's right. Greg's honeyed voice on your drive.

And look, if you listen to it in bed, we're not going to judge. No, no, we will. But I get calls all the time, guys, be like, dude, I'm driving along and listen to your book, man. It's like you're sitting right here, you know. We're sitting at the fire with us or we're listening to it. So, yeah, it was good. It's hard. It was hard to do, too.

It took me like seven days to read that. You're only good for about three hours a day. But people love that. They love to hear your voice and hear the man himself telling the story. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah, it's good. When the next edition of the hard copies come out, we'll get a few for the studio here.

So when you retired from the Army, I mean, tell us a little bit about, like, transitioning out of the military. and sort of like what that process was like. Wow. I mean, for all of us, it's a tough process. And yeah, I went to, I went into my own, did my own thing. I did firearms tactics training, safety, security, emergency response. I worked for Kyle Lamb for a bit, Viking tactics as an instructor. And, yeah, and I just kind of, you know, went along and made my own way.

and tried to help other guys, you know, young, young vets that just either did their time and got out or guys that retired and to help them transition in. But it's, there wasn't anything easy about it. And I'm still not transitioned out. I mean, we all miss that, that, you know, our tribe, our teams or, yeah, so that comradery that we had in the military, especially in our organizations. Yeah, and then I guess about, it's less than two years ago, a year and a half or so ago, but had all these guys I served with or fellows that I knew started knife making. And several of them for years were like, hey, you got to try this, Gray. You got to try this.

It's, you know, it's medicine. It helps us. And so, you know, we all have lives. We get busy and we go through these different faces. and different walks. So I had a good friend of mine, Jared Johnson. He only lives about 20 miles away. They're in Jackson,

known JJ for years, Marine sniper. And he was a relatively new knife maker. He'd been making knives about a year. And he kept pestering me and pestering me. He's like, come over to the forge. Come over to the forge. Let's hammer some steel. So I did one day.

It was August. And I was like, Wow, this isn't too smart. It's August in Texas. It's 115. We're going to crank up a forge, just putting out, you know, 150 degree temperature. We're going to have her steel. All right, good.

So I did. I went over, and he had me a railroad spike, and he had a coal forge. And I told him, I said, I want to learn how to do this the way they did it a thousand years ago. And that's what he recommended, too. so it's all part of that learning process. So I did. I stuck at railroad spike in that coal forge and started hammering it. And I hammered it into something that somewhat looked like a knife.

My first one. But he's a, yeah, he's a great teacher. And I told him, I said, I do recall, you know, when I was a kid, probably 12 or 14, I found old law more blade and got dad's hacksaw out and probably broke a blade or two and cut something out that somewhat looked like a cutting tool and, you know, made made a knife. But so from that day forward, I was absolutely hooked. And it was, to be truthful, it was therapy for me. And I really got a lot out of that.

And then it hit me one day. I was like, okay. that's why all these guys are doing this. It helps us and it, you know, it's art and it's science and it's mathematics and it fires all these neutrons and things in our brain to help our brain and to help us as men. And so I spent probably a month working with Jared and learning different techniques and learning how to forge

and learning how to make a sheath. out of kidex or how to do pin placement, how to grind a knife and how to sharpen a knife. So these are all the things that go with knife making. And yeah, I came home. I bought myself a forge, a little video grinder off of, you know, some website somewhere, and an an anvil and a four pound or three pound hammer from Amazon. and started heating and beating steel. And then I'd sat down and I would draw designs, you know,

what I, you know, what I always used or what I thought would be a useful tool for anyone, everyone, a hunter, a police officer, you know, a soldier, a Marine, those type of things. So I approached it as, you know, what will be a useful tool for the person that, wants this blade. And I learned how to sharpen. I, unknowingly to my wife, I would go and get old kitchen eyes,

and I'd sit there on the grinder, and, oh, that would do it work, though, that in a bucket. Honey, have you seen my kid? No, I haven't seen any of those things, you know? And then I, you know, I started, I reached out,

and this industry is phenomenal because all these people want to help you. They want to tell you how to do, this unlike other industries that some of us are familiar with. But yeah, they just embrace you. And so I want to learn how to make Damascus. Well, who's, you know, who's the Jedi of Damascus in this country, Steve Schwarzer? So I met him, talked to him. He says, yes, come to Florida. I spend a week out there. John Horrigan. He lives about three hours away, unfortunately, for John. And I was like, hey, man, I need some help. Okay, come on. Or he'd call. I was like, hey, how

those prison ships coming. I was like, dude, come on, make, give me a break. They don't look like prison ships,

you know? And, uh, but John went hammer on me pretty hard. Um, you know, a dagger.

I want to learn how to make a dagger. The dagger is the hardest, most difficult grind of any knife. Because you have to grind four sides of that piece of steel. Uh,

all your lines are supposed to meet up, match up. And so Bill, Harsi. Bill Harsi was the best in the country, so I call Bill Harsi. Hey, Mr. Harsi, I'd like to come out and learn how to grind a dagger. Well, you come on, you know.

So, yeah, Ead and I went out there, spent a day with him. And, yeah, just so many, Chris Williams, you know, another Wilmot Griders. I went out and did a class with Chris for a week and learned more Damascus techniques and made a chef knife out there. So, yeah, it's very refreshing. That's amazing that all these super talented guys We've been doing it forever It's like, yeah, come out to my shop

And I'll show you Yeah, it just blew me away Because I was very standoffish I get you know, what do you want Or what do I have to do for you Or nothing. No, it's they want to Teach the skill

Yeah, they want to pass that knowledge on Yeah, it's not like Daniel defense or Glock Or HK are going to invite you out To like learn how to Right, right Yeah, and I would tell them I'm like, hey, I'm 20 years behind. I'm 63 years old. I'm 20 years behind everybody. I got to hurry up.

Yeah. Because I want to learn this. I want to, I want to be the best and I want to make the best tool. You know, I want to use good steals and learn what's right. And trust me, I've got buckets and buckets and boxes of stuff that didn't work. It didn't. Okay, yeah, that doesn't work. So, yeah. Don't harden steel and try to drill it. You know, I got, yeah. What do you think it is about blades, whether it's swords or tomahawks or knives that a certain like certain guys like a lot of guys just geek out about that we just I probably own 16 knives and I don't use them for anything other than to open packages sure right yeah I think it's in our DNA it goes back to when we drug knuckles yeah you know in the first last week you mean yeah the first you know pro magnon that chips a blade like something out of stone to go get food or, you know, whatever the case may be. But, yeah, and, you know, guys and gals both, they like a style, you know, how does it fit their hand?

What am I going to use this for, you know, am I a hunter or whatever the case? Am I going to open boxes all day long? Yeah. So, yeah, and there's, I mean, golly, there's just so many choices out there today. There's so many great knife makers. And so, yeah, it just depends on that person. Yeah. And what they're looking for and, you know, what's pleasing to the eye.

And, you know, does it stay sharp? Does, you know, for police officer, military, hey, can I pop a lock with this thing? Right. You know, pop a windshield or open an MRI box. Right. But I don't think there's been any knife kills probably since, you know, the 40s. of World War II. I know of a couple of knife fights in GWAT,

but yeah, I don't foresee anybody taking a dagger out and taking down centuries here. Yeah, yeah, it's, I think you've come to the conclusion pretty quickly that, because, you know, I think we've all, especially initially in the GWAT,

we all carried really nice, you know, fancy knives for that. I carry four or five. For that, for that trench, for that trench. For that trench warfare, yeah. But then after you realize, well, my primary has to go down, my secondary has to go down,

and then I'm probably in it. And so can I, you know, grabs, you know, is it accessible? Like, it really, like, just the practicality of it after, you know, a few ops, like, paris down. I would say, though, I mean, although, yeah, the possibility of, like, killing a crap in a foxhole is pretty low nowadays. there is a very like good and good reason and a lot of utility to carry a fixed blade knife. Oh absolutely. Yeah. Just for utility purposes and the types of things you need to cut.

Yes. Yeah. And they've transitioned from, you know, a 12-inch fighter now to what they call an EDC and everyday carry. Right. And it's probably one of my best sellers, but, you know, it's a six-inch knife, six-inch blade or a six-inch knife with a three-and-half-inch blade. And handle enough, you can carry it. horizontal, you can carry it concealed, and I see a lot of guys carrying those today, and they use them like a pocket knife. Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's what they're comfortable with or we're

comfortable with that, yeah, it's that fixed blade. And if I do need to use it for offense or defense, then yes, I've got a fighting knife that I can have. And even down to the little neck knives, I've made, I made a couple out of some scraps one time, and they just, people, was just scooped them up. Yeah. And guys bought them for their wives. They can wear them. Yeah.

They're running or at the gym or grocery shopping like a necklace. And it's just a very small, very sharp blade that, you know, they can use for whatever. And the, and I studied that thing and then talking to John Horgan, but they were, they came about back in the 1800s with the mountain men. and they were called a vest knife. And they made these little blades that they wore around their neck and they used them to pop the cap off their muskets. Oh, huh.

And it was faster than to get their big buoy out. But that's where the neck knife came from. I thought that was pretty cool, you know. But yeah, so there's just so much, so many different types of blades and technologies and steals and, you know, down to the handles. scales of the knife, you know. So, yeah, just, it depends on what fits and, you know, what you're looking for, what your job is,

or, hey, I just, I like to collect them. Yeah. Folders. Yeah. Yeah. Just to go a little bit deeper into, like, the process, because you've gone through this yourself, some of the techniques with, you know, we talked about Damascus steel, I'd like to go a little more into that.

And, I mean, starting at the beginning, like you mentioned, you wanted to learn how to make knives using a cold forge. I don't even know what that is. Can you explain what a cold forage is? Yeah, it's, so it's a pan, a steel pan, probably three foot by three foot. And then it'll have a place where you can induce air. So now we use blowers.

You know, back in the medieval times, they use big billows, right. I mean, hand ones to small ones. And, you know, and horseshoers use the same thing. back when they would form horseshoes and hot shoe. Yeah, and that's kind of where I started back years, years ago, learning to shoe horses and to shape that shoe and put it in that small forge and hammer forge that thing to fit that foot.

But, yeah, so it's about that size, and you put coal in it or charcoal, and then you get that lit, and then you induce air, which you need to heat that coal up to the temperatures that you need. So, you know, 15,600 degrees to heat that steel, so you can hammer it and shape it into what you need. As far as welding steel, so for Damascus, you need 2,200 degrees minimum. them. So that gets more into the propane and ducete, things like that. But they still did it a thousand years ago when they were making Damascus in Syria and places in the East. You know, you told us a story before the show, and I think it's a great story. I like you

to repeat it, but we were talking about a known Templar rendition operation when it came to Damascus steel. Yes, yes. So when the Crusade, began in the late 11th century, late 1000s. So the Crusaders were fighting against the Mideasterns, the Muslims, and they found that they had better steel in their swords. So I don't know how many years, it was in the 12th century, but they, so, you know, the Crusaders and the Templars were like,

okay, we need some better steel for our weapons. So they send a little clan Undescent unit into the Mideast, Syria, around there, and kidnapped two of their master swordmakers and brought them back to France, Europe, and learned how to make this Damascus steel, which was they had, you know, different ores and different materials and that they could learn, you know, where to get those, how to get those, and then make that steel that the people that were fighting. into their steel. So, yeah, it was very interesting to learn about that. Now, they said a special ops unit to go do a kidnap and bring them back. So when you make a knife out of Damascus steel, what's your methodology? How do you do it?

Yeah, so I learned to take, so I take 1080 or 1084 steel. So your good knife steel has a very high, and let me get this. straight through. I'm no expert. I'm still learning this. I've only been doing it about less than two years now. But I'm hungry for knowledge and I want to learn this stuff. And again, that's why I went to the best in this country that I could find. So I'll take a 1080, a high carbon steel and 15 and 20 steel. So that's a high nickel content. So, and then I'll make a sandwich. And it'll be, say, I'll use 20 layers. So I'll alternate. High Carbored. carbon steel so 1080 and then 15 and 20 1080 50 so I get 20 layers okay and then I weld that up with an arc welder into a bill that's about six inches long stack will be about

three and a half inches thick and an inch and a half wide is about the standard for to start a Damascus billet okay I'll put that in the forge I heated up to 2200 degrees and I pull it out and then I'll set that weld I have a coal iron press so after I I hammered my first 80-some layer of Damascus knife after two days of 10 hours a day, hammering the steel and folding it, cutting it, folding it, heating it, cutting it, folding it, and I think it was 84 layers, maybe 80 layers. So I bought a press. So there's power hammers and then there's presses.

So this press, I have a 16-ton press. So I can put that steel in this press and I can smash that steel down. okay so the first thing you have to do is you have to set that weld so it's not a very it's not a real aggressive you know smash on that steel but it's it's just bumping it through that billet to set that weld okay then I take it out put it back in the forge and then I'll start forging it all right so what you do when you smash that steel is it stretches it out and then it makes it a little bit wider and there's different techniques that you can use press or a power hammer

A power hammer just does so much more, in my humble opinion, and I've used both. I've learned to use both. One of these days I'll get a power hammer. So, yeah, so you can, there's more techniques you can use. You can turn it in different ways and then turn it on edge. But I love my press, and it does everything that I need to do or any of the guys and gals that come to my forge to make Damascus. So I'll smash that out

And again, I'll start with 20 layers Let's say I want an 80 layer Damascus blade And that's a That's a very, it gives a very nice pattern And And so I'll do that 20 layers And then I'll pull it out

I'll cool it off I grind it down, clean it up Then I cut it in half And I fold it and then I re-weld it again So I'll do that until I have 80 layers or 160 layers or I have one knife that's 1,600 layers. I have a couple of those daggers are probably 3,000 layers because we cut it and folded it, cut it and folded it over days

and forge weld it back together. And then you come up with these just beautiful patterns. And there are guys out there and gals that have, you know, they've really, I mean, they can do some of the craziest patterns that you've ever seen. Yeah. But it's how you put it together. There's mosaics. John Horgan's probably the master on Turkish,

I think it's called a Turkish twist, but just these incredible patterns. So forgive my ignorance. When you see the pattern in the Damascus steel, is that the layers that you have layered on top of each other? And then you've grinded it down. Different layers. So that you're seeing?

Yes. Okay. Yes. And so the steel with the high nickel content, which will come out brighter. So what happens is when we finish it, we get that knife forged out, and then we cut out the shape

or we hammer forge it into a shape that we're going to have. And then we grind it, and then once we get to that near that finished blade, then we're going to put it in ferric acid. Okay, and that's what darkens the high-carbon steel, which really makes it pop against that high-nickel. steel it'll be the brighter color in that steel shiny i guess you would say so and then there's different techniques some guys will buff it to to mirror polish yeah and really make that stuff pop yeah it's it's

it's interesting because i've always known what it you know i've known what a damascus steel blade looked like i can see one and say it's damascus but i never knew how it's made or what made it Damascus. I didn't either. I didn't have a clue until like a year and a half ago. I mean, they're beautiful blades. And the blades you've brought here, and we're going to show you guys some of these. So if you're listening to this on the podcast, when we start showing these blades, you owe it to yourself.

You owe it to yourself to like come to YouTube and check out the videos because they're beautiful. And also go to your website. Sure. What's your website again? Bladesforbrothers.com. Bladesforbrothers.com where you can see like, all of all of gravy's stuff so yeah and before we get a little deeper into the knives do you want to talk about blade for blades for brothers and where you're going what this is all evolving into you bet so

it was about it was last november and i and i got to thinking about it and i mean i've just i i've i mean knife may has just been such therapy for me and it's it's a happy place you know where i can go and talking to my wife about it And I says, you know, I want to give back. How can I help other vets, first responders, family members? So I was like, you know what? I'm just going to start a nonprofit. So I talked to a couple friends of mine, and we found Blades for Brothers was out there.

So I took it and what's the word I'm looking for? Yeah, I made that my nonprofit. it and got a website up. And our mission is to bring in vets, first responders, family members, and we teach them how to make a knife. And we offer a safe place where they can come and we fellowship and we tell stories and we learn something new. We learn art or we learn a skill.

And, you know, I tell them, hey, just use your imagination. What tool do you want to make? What knife do you want to make? You want a fillet knife? You want a skinner. You want a fighter. Whatever the case. Again, I'm no expert.

I don't have a clue what I'm doing, but I'm having fun doing it. Well, I would say your knives say different. Well, thank you. I don't know about that. So what, for you, like, what are your favorite types of blades? Like, what types of blades are you really drawn to? I love the dagger. And not many people do because it's very, very difficult to grind a dagger.

But, yeah, the, and one of my knives, and I name my knives to honor guys that I served with or guys that I knew. My Bob, Bob Fighter, I named after Bob Horrigan. And Bob and I were very, very good friends. He was killed in action in 2005 out in Western Iraq. but and his twin brother john horrigan is just a phenomenal i don't know what he is but his his knives his swords his art is just unbelievable and yeah and i'll lot to john he's helped me quite a bit i know he probably hates it every time my number comes up on his phone because i i call him and ask him and bill harsie and steve schwarzer and chris williams and all these kyle lambs is another one

Kyle had just started making nice too about the time just before I did and I'd call him and bug him all Hey man what about this? He's like Gary, you're so stupid man Just go have fun I was like yep Roger that But Kyle a phenomenal knife maker

You know go look at his stuff But yeah all these All these folks are just They just open arms and But yeah the fighter I really love my skin. I just love them all. Yeah. The dagger is very challenging.

And it takes a lot of focus and a lot of concentration to get those grinds right. And again, I've got buckets and buckets of steel that I've practiced on and ground. And then I'll go to Greg Medford. Yes, Medford Knife and Knife and Tool. Greg is a foreign marine. I've known Greg for many, many years. Phenomenal knife maker. and yeah, go check his stuff out. It's, yeah, he's helped me quite a bit. I've taken my knives to Phoenix.

And says, all right, tear him apart. And he will. And that's, I mean, that's just how we are. Yeah, it's like our debriefs and our ARs after a mission. I don't care what I did right. What did I do wrong? How can I do this better? Yeah.

Make me a better knife maker. Help me understand what I need to do. Yeah. You know, it's... Thank you. You say that it's a very open community and that people will just teach you. But I also believe that it's a testament to you to who you are as a human being, to your service and everything else, that you can literally just go sit at the feet of these masters of the industry. And they are willing to, because I'm sure that they're willing to, like if I were to call them, say, hey, I want to make a knife.

I'll be like, get bent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wrong number. It sounds a little bit like there is something to like, you know, this is the sensei and they're looking for a protege that takes it seriously. You bet.

Yeah. Yeah. That's what, and they've told me that, that Jim Poor, Jason Knight, other world-renowned knife makers are like, your excitement excites me. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I know and I get it.

But that, that's just, that's who we are. And that's where we came from. and our former professions as warriors and that, yeah, I want to do good at this. I want to be the best. Yeah. And they get that from guys. Once they kind of learn who we are and get to know us and they're like, oh, yeah, man, I heard about you. You crash helicopters out of the desert. I was like, no, man, I got shot down.

I didn't crash. You know, they still joke. Yeah. Now, Blaisford Brothers has chapters in different parts of the country, right, where people like veterans and first responders can go. That's my strategic plan. Okay. But good, yeah, thank you for bringing that up.

That's my, and again, we're in the infancy stages of Blades for Brothers. There is, there's a, there's another forge in South Texas that is doing this. And I've talked to the guys that run it and all over the country, but I just, I need to get out and network better. And yeah, I want to have chapters all over the country for Blades for Brothers. So if a vet or a police officer or firefighter from New Jersey calls and says, hey, I want to make a knife, well, they can't afford to jump on a plane, fly to Graham, Texas. Yeah. You know, and so that way I can, hey, there's two knife makers within 20 miles of you.

Let me contact them and I'll hook you guys up and, you know, do the vet vetting process. Yeah. And yeah, and hook those guys up. So that's my, yeah, it's a strategic plan for the future, near future is to get. And they don't have, you know, these knife makers, they're not vets or some of them are. Yeah. But they're just, they're like, yeah, send them to us, man. Have them call me.

Tell them come hang out for a couple days and just, yeah, we'll make a knife or they can watch or, you know, whatever case. Yeah. What is it about knife making that you found like therapeutic? I'd really like to hear sort of. What's the mental state that it puts you in when you're doing that? The focus, the focus, the intensity, and then to take a raw piece of, a raw material, a raw piece of steel, and turning it into a knife, a blade, a tool. And yeah, and then, yeah, I would say, and the attention to detail, and that's, and people get on me a lot because they're like, don't worry about that, man, just, you know, and I, and I talk. talk to Chris Stroop a lot, another phenomenal new knife maker knife company, Stroop knives.

And I'll call Chris and bug him. He's like, no, just grind that to 120. You're good. I was like, no, man, I got to go to 400, you know, all my grind. And I got to make it look. No, you don't. Just stop. Just, yeah.

So, but yeah, that's the focus. And, and, oh, goodness. Just the meaning of it. Right. And it gives me a mission. Yeah. And it's, and it's a hobby.

I mean, it's, it's not a business for me. My wife would have. My wife would beg to differ. It is a business. She goes out at one o'clock in the morning and says, honey,

it's time to come to bed. I'm like, oh, it's dark out. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Gravy's being humble. It is a business and we'll show you that here.

The other thing I want to mention, some of you told us for the show, is that you went to go see a neurologist, right? Yes. That it actually improved. Yes. improve my test scores based on the prior six years is when I started to see him

Dr. Brett Osborne in Florida and I go see him every year a foundation sends me that supports vets with TBI and PTS and yeah that guy is phenomenal and I highly recommend him if you get a chance to go and see him but last year when I went he said man because the first part of

my when I'm there cognitive testing and a lot of testing, you know, memory and things like that. And he walks in later that afternoon. He goes, hey, Greg, your test scores are off the chart, man. He said, whatever you're doing, keep doing it. Don't stop. That's amazing. And yeah, and he looked at Eadie, and he goes, what's he doing?

You know, at the time, he said, well, he finished writing a book. And he started making knives. And he goes, hmm, making nise. Okay. Art, geometry, you know, and he starts naming all these things. that help fire all these things in our brains. Yeah. And give us focus.

Yeah. And give us a mission. Because that's what we're looking for, man. Yeah. That's what we're looking for. And, you know, it's interesting because I remember when, you know, I went to go see a TBI specialist. You know, they're like, look, you know, we recommend that you try to learn some music, you know, learn how to play music or learn a language. Like, you have to find something to, like, start your brain back up.

And it sounds as though this is an overreact. overlooked field for people who are suffering from TBIs and things like that. It's a creative endeavor that maybe if they're not, you know, don't want to learn the guitar or whatever. Sure, sure. Yeah. Yeah. And as warriors, I mean, what's better than going hammer and steel?

Right. Right. It's like, yeah, I want to make something bad. Yeah. Well, it's physical too. I mean, it wakes you up. There's a physicality to it. Yeah.

Very much. Yeah. Yeah. It gets hot. Yeah. You got the forge going. You know, and here we are. Me and my knuckleheaded bros.

other Marine out. It's 150 degrees probably in August and Texas to work. Forging steel, man. Yeah. Drink water. Right. Edie's running out there with Gatorade's and body armor's like, you guys need to hydrate. Okay, yeah, we're doing it. See, you were, uh, as I recall, you were a big Ipsic shooter too, right? Yes. Yeah. I mean, did you find that as a shooter as well, the focus that goes into each shot? Absolutely. Yeah, it's, yeah, I shot USPSA. And then tactical three gun and shot professionally for a while.

I shot with the AMU to this day. I'm like, why did you guys bring me off? But anyway, but yeah, it's focus. And, you know, you're getting trigger time and breaking down a stage, you know, and all the things that go with that. I just recently got sucked into this 22 world shooting 22s. Oh, yeah? Oh, my gosh.

I have not had so much fun in my life. I mean Jim Por, Bill Por, Dan Warren, these guys in West Texas pulled me into that rabbit hole. And yeah, I got a 22 rifle. And we're shooting out to 250 yards with 22. What's the 22 rabbit hole? Like how is that appealing as opposed to like long range or what you were doing before? It's cheap, man. A box of 22 is $8.

You get 50 bullets and you can go have a blast. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. You're shooting steel? Yes. We're shooting steel. 75 yards.

The target's 3 eighth inches by 3 eighth inches. I'm not kidding. Yeah, in 250, they're just, I don't know what's it, but they're, I'm like, man, you are evil, dude. The guy that owes this rage, you know, but oh, my gosh, we have so much fun. Yeah, the 22s are. They're a hoot. Yeah, they are.

Yeah, shooting is, it's, I think, again, I'm, and I still love to shoot, and I still love to train. but it and I a guy quoted me one time I was doing a class for some SWAT guys and I had some writer out there but I said shooting is the most perishable skill of human has we use all of our senses we use all of our muscles and and thinking and thinking through this I mean just the most the simplest engagement you know you have to think they have stopped and think and hey is my stuff ready am I loaded just going through all those things just like a you USB or Ipsic match you know every time I walked up to the line I did the same thing every time it made sure what's the loudest sound in a gunfight click yeah yeah that's for sure

so yeah it's it's very much parallels parallel but it's expensive nowadays man yeah it's getting really expensive like the ammo is and with the the knife making seems like a little bit different in the sense that it's a craft or a skill but there's also an artistic side to it as well yeah yeah it's a hobby i mean a lot of a lot of the guys that have come through in the last just few months that i've met and wanted to learn and get started and you know it's a hobby form man they're just making beautiful beautiful blades yeah matchup yeah and a couple other guys are just yeah it's crazy man and it's i'm i'm very driven and i love to teach and i love to instruct i don't know how good i am at it but but it it's it's just something that you know i want to

help them and help them overcome that the dragons and demons or whatever you know is chasing them but yeah it definitely definitely helps It helps me. And I know these other guys have helped too. One thing that is really amazing about your knives in particular, I think, is for, for, you know, for the selection that you have, aside from just the ones you make, but is the history that you put in them. Yes. Yeah. So when I got shot down, I somehow got into my possession, the 12 barrels off my minigons.

Okay. And I carried around for years. And actually, there were some knives made. Greg Medford did this. And I met with Greg. I think it was about 2010. And he was a brand new getting started. I mean, his shop was probably not even as big as this building.

Now, it's just, you know, it's a mega manufacturing world-class facility. But I told Greg, and I'd approach some knife makers. I said, hey, what do you think? Oh, you're stupid or no, I don't have time. No, it can't be done. And so I set. Making the barrels into knives. Yes, taking those mini-gun barrels and making them into a knife, some type of knife.

And Greg looked at me and he was like, I'll do it. I said, okay. So he did. And he made some Damascus blades out of it, a folder. And I think it's called the TFF5 was the model number back then. And I think we only got like 13 or 14 knives out of the whole thing. And God bless Greg Mefferman.

He spent two years on this project trying to find somebody that could hammer forge of steel. Then nobody knew about the, you know, we knew. knew they were 41 30 steel, have a lot of chromium. They've got chrome line barrels, so that has to be bored out. But, yeah, so I had some folders made,

and he gave me some of them, and I took those, and I gave them to the guys that were with me on the ground that day I got shot down. Yeah. And so I had some of that steel left, some of those barrels left,

and I got into knife, I was like, okay, I want to do something cool with this. So I met Steve Schwarzer. John Horgan introduced me to him because I asked, who's the Yoda of Damascus Steel? Steve Schwarger. And so I met Steve. I told him my story and he goes, you're coming to my shop in Florida. I said, yes, sir, Roger that.

So I coordinated with Steve. Took the steel out there. It was last September. And had the mini-gum barrels. I already had chopped them up in about probably one-inch lengths. And then I'd already bored, drilled out the chrome liner in those barrels. I want to be ready. I want to be prepared.

I wanted to get to work. And so we started. So we welded those piece of barrel up. Got a billet. And then I was there on September 11th last year. And he and his wife, Laura, they had a chunk of World Trade Center steel. I mean, a big chunk like that, about that thing, that they gifted to me on 9-11 on that day. And they had a plan.

And I was like, you. And I love those guys. They're just amazing. And Laura, his wife, is an incredible knife maker. She is very gifted. So I chopped that steel up and I started to forge well the barrels. And I spent two days. There have been some people that say they can do it or said they can do it.

And I have my doubts because simply, one, the steel is very difficult to forge because of the chemical compound. It has a lot of chromium in that steel. for barrels to make them last and the heat that goes with those gun barrels. So I spent two days, two days forging those little pieces of gun barrel. And we welded them up, stuck them in the forge, got them heated up to 2,200 plus degrees, pull them out, there's a great big bubble growing on the side of it. And I was like, oh, no. And Steve looks at it.

goes, go pound it. So I put it in the press, pound, pound, pound, pound, smashed it back in the forge. I did that for two days, 10 hours a day. Wow. Just on that little piece of steel. Wow. So we got them to forge weld.

And what it was is that in his theory and what we learned is that you have to burn those chemicals out of that steel to and keep the high carbon. Right. In place. Okay. So we burned the chromium out and then we finally got a billet made and then took the World Trade Center steel, sandwiched it in, and then spent a day forging that. We got about 100 man hours and just making the original billet of mini gun barrel and Royal Tracer and Steel. Yes.

And I got enough steel out of that to make, I made four blades that in my mind, I said, okay, these have very, very historical meaning to them. Right. And there's no more of this left on the planet. Right. I mean, there isn't. And I made it. Yeah.

and Steve Schwarcher. So then I go, I get them back, I get back home. I got my billets made. I had four designs. I had Leon. It's not quite as big as a buoy, but it's bigger than a fighter. So kind of a mid-size. And so I cut that piece out and I want to make a dagger.

So I got that cut out. And then my Bob design, a fighter. and it's got a purple heart. I made the handles out of Purple Heart wood. Then I embedded two of my miniature Purple Heart metals on each side of the handle. So it's the Purple Heart Fighter. And then a mini-bob. So my EDC, all out of that original billet of steel.

Now, when I cut that out, I had pieces of that steel, and I kept them. So I made those four knives, and I made those. to auction off and to raise money to help other non-profits and help Blades for Brothers and, you know, help other folks. So, so I took those pieces and, and I made some more daggers out of those pieces, what we had to do. And Jim Poor, Flatland Forge, helped me with that. And you got, I'd talk to you guys about that project. And, and I think, Demetri asked me, he's like, We want 10 daggers. And I said, yeah, you and everybody.

Yeah, okay, whatever. Dimitri's all about go big or go home. Go big, go home. I said, well, I might have enough steel left for five. I said, let me do some calculations because I just, I had to have help. I don't, my little shop, I don't have the equipment, the, yeah, power hammers and all the other things to get. this mission done. But man, I was like, I have a mission and I'm going to do it. I'm not letting you guys down. Let Jack Dave Dimitri down. Well, let's not keep people waiting here.

Which knife you brought a whole collection here. What do you want to show people first? Oh, probably the big, yeah, one of the two original blades there. So I had a... So I think D is, is he in frame? Because D's going to use our $10,000 focus feature. So it's this camera here, Gravy? Yeah, this one. So if you want to kind of... Yeah, so this is one of the four originals.

And this one I named Leon after Master's Martin, Leon Hanson, my good, good friend. He was a fire supporter in B Squadron, and a Delta. and it took his life in 2015. So the sheath was made by a friend of mine, but I wanted to incorporate. So this is a piece of leather off of my boot that I was wearing the day I was shot down. So they incorporated that.

And this is 1,600 layers of Damascus steel that we made, that I made with Steve. And there's actually, there's four, different patterns in this knife. I mean, it's just, it's incredible. I made the handles or scales for this knife because I was thinking, okay, how can I make this thing just out of this world crazy? So I found some forms and I used epoxy. But in these handles, so there's a, there's a, and again, this is all recovered from the crash site when I was shot down no four. So this is a 762 bullet that came from my minigun ammo.

This is a 762 link that I smashed and put it in there. This is a button off of one of the 762 rounds. When I was cutting these off of this old burn-up brass, I looked at it and I was like, Lake City, 1974. I was carrying an ammo that was made in 19794 if you know how to read, you know, read the ammo buttons. and then there's a piece of the main rotor that I cut out. I have a piece of the main rotor.

And then on the other side is a piece of the teetail on this side of the handle. And then there's a tan piece. That's a piece of my uniform, my flight suit that I was wearing, that I incorporated into this handle in it. It probably took me, I think, eight tries to get this. Again, I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I'd get on YouTube and look and read and research. But, yeah, so this is the Leon.

Oh, you need your mother and more help you. That was the Purple Heart. She put her finger. Yeah, so in a Purple Heart knife, I'd just the poxies. I'd recessed those miniatures into the handle, into the wooden handles, and I'd brought it inside, laid it on the bar for the epoxy to set up. and God bless my mother-in-law. She came in and she goes, oh, that's pretty.

And she put her finger right in that wet epoxy. And I was like, oh, man, no. I left it. I left it. It's still there today. All part of the gravy history. Yes. So you've had, because not just the quality of the blade and, like, how, you know, the,

and it's an amazing, like, knife, like, just the way it feels in the hand and everything. but you've had this appraised by people in the industry and with all the historical significance and everything they've told you that this knife appraises out around 100 grand right yeah I mean it's incredible like there are things the things that you incorporate into some of your knives are like if you want to own a piece of history this is it this is it man yeah no I love that that it's not just a knife

it has like it's very much Greg yeah it's in there yeah yeah yeah it's a piece of of me yeah yeah yeah and leather from your boot part of your flight suit like the rotor uh is incredible yeah main rotor yeah detail uh yeah those pieces wound up in the back of my truck one day i got there but they came home did you want to see that yeah and then this is the the six gun dagger so that i did and this from the same steel we we hammer forged this and again it was my i hope that people will see in that Damascus. Oh, does it? Okay. I think we're videoing.

No, no, no, I'm, no. Yeah. But I like the coffin handle. A bit of history about the coffin handle. It originally was on the buoy. So the guy that came up with the coffin handle was a good friend of Jim Bowies. And that was one of the original handles on the buoy knife. Because they said, this blade will put you in the coffin.

I was like, okay, that's good enough for my knife. But yeah, I went down to John Horgans, and he, you know, he helped me a bunch with, you know, my final grinds. And again, the dagger is the hardest knife to grind. I mean, all these lines match up. And I'm just, I was really, really proud of this blade. And, yeah, it's a hidden tang on this one.

one and yeah because I kind of screwed it up the red has some significance too doesn't it yeah so the pins and all my eyes the pins I use look like the end of a mini gun barrel so that's it's got six little barrels on it and then the red comes from our red six were known B company first one 60th are known as the six guns because of the two mini guns that would carry on the AH and then the red designates our red six and then the the blood of those that have gone before us and that have sacrificed so yeah i i try to incorporate history and and things that i think about and then you also had this one appraised out right yes yes and what did they tell you that this one appraised out at oh man um yeah they said 50 to 50 to 60 grand and they asked me you know when i when i first had i showed

these four blades of different masters. And they says, well, what do you want for these? And I said, man, if I can get three or four grand for all of them, and they're like, you're stupid, man. No, no, these are history. Yeah. This has a World Trade Center steel. Yeah.

It has many gun barrels that killed a lot of terrorists. Yeah. You knucklehead. And that's something that we may have left out, is the steel, the Damascus steel, if you can see it folded in there, it is World Trade Center. center steel, steel from the World Trade Center, you know, and mini guns. Yes. My mini gun burrows.

Yeah. Yeah. From tail number 364 and then these first four I serial numbered all four of them. But I used my tail number, 364, and then one through four. So it's 364-1, dash two, that's three, that's four. So yeah, that's the, and then it's got my name. logo, which is a Crusader Shield, and then American Black.

They're amazing. It's beautiful. Thank you. So now, D, the blaze that D made you make, compelled you, you've got to make these. I was like, oh gosh, man. I'll get

these ones out of your life. So they're, they're all a little varied. Yes. But they have similar trace. They're the daggers. Yeah, I picked the, he picked hardest one. Yeah.

Thanks, Dee. Good job. I was like, go to my website. Jack and I both said definitely no daggers. Yeah. Okay, so buddy's half a word, huh? Uh-huh.

But, and I mean, they're beautiful. I don't know. Can you see Dee on the camera? Can you see the Damascus, the patterns in these? If Greg pulls them up, I have them on show. Not you, Dave. Like, because they, because they have different patterns and they're just stunning. Yeah.

And there are six of these, right? Yes, sure. Yeah, and I had enough, I mean, materials are just hard to get nowadays. But I had, so this is all G10. I use G10 and all six of these. So it's a very, very strong composite that's used in a lot of things, but knife handles, firearms, different things out there. industry today, but this stuff's harder with woodpecker lips. And it's very durable, you know,

acid won't hurt it, weather, any of those things. But I actually had this G10 made for one of the knives I did with the original company in Dallas makes this, but it's red and black and I thought it would really, I made two, put these on two of the daggers, and then the other four daggers had the black G10. But yeah, I just, I just, I like really nice. The black, again, designates, you know, that's where we operate. We operate at night, and we are nightstockers, and, you know, we fight at night. We are the world's premier night fighters in our communities.

But this particular, let's see, yeah, this is a random Damascus here that Jim Porr helped me with. I went out to his shop because he had the equipment and he had, you know, logistics and support to make this stuff. And, you know, I made this steel. I cut them out. I ground them all right there at my shop in Graham, Texas. These six, I numbered W.S. Whiskey Sierra for Warsteel and one through six. So they're laser engraved. And these all have certificates of authenticity for each night.

knife, that's a random. This was a, I did a canister, Damascus on these. It was something different, something I thought about. So I took pieces from the original billets and I used a four inch by four inch square tubing. Okay, that's my canister. It was about two inches tall. And then I cut these pieces in about an inch and a half. And I stacked them in this canister. And then I poured high carbon powdered steel inside that canister. It's got a bottom and a top. I welded it up tight. And then I put it in the forge.

And then you forge that canister to welding temperature, 2,200 plus degrees, and then I pull it out, and then I start forging it, start hammering. Now I hammered it into a billet. I hammered six billets.

Again, it took, you know, several, several days. And, yeah, these just came out these are phenomenal but all this steel in here is world trades the darker steel is lower carbon steel so that's many gun barrels and then world trades in our steel and that's why the pattern has it has more of like a horizontal look to it yeah and it's how i it's how i hammered it yeah it's how when i took it out we stretched it and then and i had to get it at least because these are full tang knives i mean you can see the pattern all the way through but it had to be two inches wide,

so a lot of care had to be taken into getting that steel the right width, the right length, because if it's too short, then you're screwed. And I couldn't get the blade that I needed to get. That's a beautiful design. Yeah. Yeah, and again, I went, and when I started making daggers, so I went in research, and I looked at the LSS daggers,

and I looked at the fairbairns. and the only thing for me is a point of index. So the original dagger had a completely round handle on. How do you index that night? It's like a 1911. Right, right, right. So I said, I'm going to go with a coffin handle or a flat handle dagger. So at night, whatever the case, you know, I can index it at night as I'm sneaking up on that century.

And so that's why I chose that. The length is in my, again, in my medical research, so it's five and a half inches to the aorta in the center part of our body in a frontal attack. So I made, I included outer wear, and so I made the blade seven inches to ensure that if I do go in, and I know, man, that people are like, dude, you're crazy. You're, you know, you're thinking too much about it. I was like, no, man.

That's what that's how my brain works. Right. You know, I want to get that, I want to get that aorta when I go in through the front. Well, it's designed to be practicality. Right. Yes. Yeah. It's a fighting knife.

Yeah. The other, the Furbrown-Syx knife, I don't, it didn't have a crossguard either. It just, wasn't it just, I'm trying to remember now. No, they did. Oh, did they? Okay. I must be thinking of the Pentagon by the, uh, yeah. Yeah.

It was a half-tang knife with the, yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're great knives, great blades. But this is my knife. Yeah. And this is my art, my style. But yeah, the people tell you, you overthink things, man. Stop thinking about this stuff.

Yeah. And now, you know, these are the knives that you've done with World Trade Center steel and mini gun steel. You also, for people who may not be high-end collectors or investors, sure um you also do you know beautiful knives that are that are not of of such rare material no no no the major steel i use 80 CRV2 it's a it's a very good knife steel it's it's you know 80% carbon and then it has chromium in it so that you know that adds to the hardness of the steel the eight the edge retention of that steel for a high carbon steel now i've looked at learned and, you know, just looking at other knife makers and just, I mean, I look and look and look,

because I learn everything. And actually, a funny story when I, when I drew up the fighter, so I want to call it the Bob. Well, it looks a whole lot like the Horgan fighter. Yeah. And, you know, Bob developed that knife when he was in the unit. And every operator in the unit carries the Horgan fighter. So I was like, man, I didn't know about. you know, copyright or if I can, you know, can I even do this?

So I call John. I say, hey, John, I've drawn a knife and I love you. I love your brother. And it looks a whole lot like the Oregon fighter. I said, is it okay if I use this design? He goes, man, you're stupid. I said, okay, okay, Ranger, Oregon. He goes, no, there's no.

Yeah, everybody copies everybody in this industry. And he said, thank you for asking. He said, you're the first cat that's ever asked if they could copy this. I said, oh, okay. So I made a few little changes. But again, it's to honor Bob and all the guys that, you know, we work with and have gone before us. And we'll come, you know, for the future. So, yeah, but that's, yeah, that's kind of how I operate and how I think.

And, yeah, so it's, you. Yeah. And then there's the mini-bob. That's the EDC, the everyday carry. It's like a six, seven-inch? Mm-hmm. Total length. And, yeah, it's the mini-bob.

Yeah, I got the gravy gutter. So that's my skin and knife. Hunters out there? Yes, yes, sir. Yeah, and they range. The mini-bob is 225 up to, but I'm slowly transitioning into stainless steel. So, you know, why stainless? Well, gosh, it's faster to make.

It's easier. The heat treat process is a lot better, and it doesn't rust. So a lot of my knives go to guys that, you know, military, police officers in austere environments. And, you know, from what I hear back from industry is like, hey, man, these knives rust, or I got to keep sharpening. Or stainless doesn't. So yeah, I chose AEBL. That stainless steel was invented in like 1954. It's an old, old stainless steel.

It's originally used for razor blades. Yes, AEBL. And so now I'm transitioning into stainless knives. But the Rockwell harness is that's what they use to measure the hardness of steel. So mine, my recipe for my hardening technique, is about 57 to 58 rock well for my ADCRV or high carbon steel knives, and then stainless or 62 Rockwell. So they're very hard, and they keep a good, good edge.

And I'm told that my knives are extremely sharp, and some of the sharpest knives they've ever read. And I put a Band-Aid in every box that I send, and I've had probably four or five pictures sent to me. It's like, hey, man, your knife's sharp. I was like, dude, no. I told you it's sharp. Do you want to show people these prototypes you're working on?

Sure. For the folders? Yeah. So this is my newest hobby. So Mr. Jim Poor, Flatland Forge. He called me one day, and I've been working with Jim because he's close. He's an hour and a half away. So he said, hey, I want to take a guy like you that doesn't have a machine shop,

that doesn't have a mill, you know, all these high-end toolings to make a slip joint pocket knife. I said, oh, okay. So I go out there, spend the weekend, and a couple weeks prior, I want to learn how to make feathered Damascus. So it's a very popular Damascus steel for folding people that make folding knives. And Jim Poor Feathered Damascus is very, very well known. I mean all the top pocket knife guys or they buy the steel that he makes the Damascus steel So this is the very first one it's it's literally two pieces of steel So it's a blade and I don't know if you can see that but this is the feathered amazcus that I learned to make

And then there's this piece here and then I use G10 handles So there's four pieces to this knife not including the pens. So this is the very first one I made that weekend with Jim. And they're very difficult. Well, they're very precise because they have to be hand-fit, hand-ground. And Jim Poor has a jig, and there's other fellas slip joint guys that have made jig. Just Jim has his, and he gave me one of his.

So I use this. It's got a dial indicator on it. And when you're fitting this thing, you have to be within six to eight thousandths in each. So open and then half close and then close. So you have to be six to eight thousandths tolerance in each three of those positions. Wow. I was going to say, Greg, that's like a pretty squared away first effort right there. Yeah.

Yeah. It's a beautiful blade. That one's really hard to open. That is pretty baller. Yeah. This was the second one. This is a cat's claw that I made. This one's much smoother.

And I was taught by the masters that make these. And there's a group in Texas. They're called the slip joint cartel. And these guys are awesome. And they, Bubba Crouch and that whole crowd, Mr. Bill, but their master, master, slip joint, pocket knife makers. This is the second one. It's a lot smoother. This one I forgot to polish the ends on it. I kind of got excited, but this one's a lot smoother. But yeah, they're very they're very light and again, there's, you know, there's three pins. There's a pivot pin and these are steel pins. Everybody carries a pocket knife.

But and then this is I did a little redesign on this. I moved. This is, this is, this is, these are eighth inch G10. This is 316th G10. So I'm thinking thicker, a little stronger. Not much difference in weight, but I moved this pin back, 0.125 to try to get a little bit less stress on this piece right here.

Yeah, I think it's okay, but this one's a little bit easier to open. But the masters taught me, they said, your pocket knife, it has to be able to be opened by a lady. And I was like, oh. And a couple guys says, I lost sales because a lady couldn't open the knife. Interesting. Interesting. Makes sense.

So, yeah, we're refining this. And, yeah, but they'll be. So yeah, this is this I just love making these things. Yeah. And just again, the precision, the focus on them. And it's a lot of work. Yeah, I can see that. But yeah, they're cool.

They're simple. And, you know, and the average, you know, new knife maker can make these because you don't need a mill. You don't need a machine shop. Need a little grinder. And yeah, you can make a pocket knife, man. Slip joints. They're cool. So, so.

We had you make six of these blades. Dmitri. Yeah, Dmitri. Why didn't you tell us about this, Dmitri? Oh, gosh. So are these going to be team house exclusives that we sell through the team house? Is that how we're doing this, Dmitri? Yeah, six daggers, yeah.

With World Trade Center steel and mini-gun steel? Right. Yeah, these are beautiful, Greg. And I mean, when listening to Dee talk about it and we'll get us like, you know, tell us about all this. I had no idea what you were going to make or what it was going to work like. No, no. I thought you were charged this, man. No, no, this is beautiful.

Their contribution was we want daggers. So it's therefore. No, Dee said you were just going to laser print some stuff out for us. Water jet these things out, sharpen them. No, they're good. honest that God never could have like envisioned something like this they're they're incredible thank you thank you yeah they i'm very very proud of these blades they they're just they're you should be they're amazing i i had great help and but i had to man i couldn't have met this t o't without that help so but we did

it plus minus 30 seconds right i mean I mean, she actually has to break out the checkbook because I think we should buy all these. There you go. It's good to have a first customer. Yeah. Yeah. And these are just for people, just so you guys know, you know, they have Greg's brand on them, which is the Crusader Cross. And then they also have the Crusader Shield. Yeah. And they also have the American flag.

And then they are numbered W.S. 1 through 6. One through six. Yes, there's only six made. War steel. War steel. It's what I named it. It's on, stories on the website,

so if they need to, you know, refresh or go back, look at the other original four. And then these will also, we will work it out, because we haven't talked about what we're going to sell them for.

But we, they will come with a... Certificate of authenticity. Right. We'll say that, you know, everything that it is. And obviously,

these aren't your EDC, knives. These are collectibles. These are collectibles. I have so much greed in my eyes right now. Greg has some great EDC knives on Blasher Brothers. Yeah, if you want

an EDC, I mean, definitely check out the Bob Mini Fighter. It's honestly one of my favorite knives out there. It is an amazing knife. Man, if I were still out there on patrol, I'd want to carry one of these. I'm just saying. I would pack it. I would

take it. I would never take it out on hot because I'd be afraid to get like sand or scratched or whatever. You're not going to scratch a bad. They're tools. Yeah, they're meant to. If you wanted to or needed to, you could carry them. You can go stab some. Dave, I'm going to pour you a little bit of this. Okay. You're going to like this stuff. This is the Japanese? Yeah, yeah. You want some of that, Greg? Me too, please. Absolutely, man. We have a couple questions real quick. This is the Nika coffee grain whiskey. Oh, nice. Very, very smooth. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers.

Thank you. So great having you back, man. Yeah, thank you so much. So Nationwood, thank you very much. Thanks, Jack and Dave for making this pod. It's inspired me to enlist post-college grad. Unfortunately, yeah, unfortunately, Air Force Spec Recon has given the best pitch so far. That's not unfortunate.

Look, you can't go wrong with Air Force. No. Best lifestyle. They live the best, they eat the best. Yeah. They fly the most technologically advanced airfare. And I don't know anything about special recon. That's what, like, it's evolved into.

Yeah. Yeah. But I will say that CCTV and Pararescue, they used to have the best training pipelines you could get. Like you, everybody would be jealous of their training pipeline. So, I, like, again, I don't know anything about Special Recon in terms of what it is now. But I know the Air Force back in the day. Air Force spec ops, you couldn't go wrong. Yeah, AFSOC, I mean, by far

produced, you know, our CCTV guys, or Pera guys. Yeah, yeah. I would tell him to get serious, but then go to the Rangers. Be a Ranger. Yeah. But, you know, if he did that, and then when he gets in and he sees how the other side lives, he'd be pretty mad at it. Yeah, he would.

The thing with Air Force Specops is you can go, like, do all the Rangers stuff. You can. Without, without, like, sitting on a wooden stool with your balls out, just hitting it with a hammer for hours on end. Putting quarters in trees. Yeah, pushing for a Coke.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, all right, is throwing you M&M and M's in the Huey. Yeah.

Do you're trying to eat his patrol cat because he thinks it's a pancake? Yeah. Jeff E., thank you very much. Thank you for the great content on the awesome channel. Well, thank you, Jeff. We appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah, so, oh, somebody, this episode is just amazing.

Thanks for bringing us the great content. And Mr. Coker, sir, so much respect. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, this is a great episode about the knives, but it's also like a great expanded story about your transition out of military service. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's critical.

Yeah. It's key. It's important that, yes, you can be successful. And do something to be successful. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I don't care what you choose, but, yeah, choose something.

Reach out. Reach out. There's hundreds, literally hundreds of foundations out there that can help you transition. And, you know, just, yeah, don't ever give up. Just never quit. Never quit, man. Yeah, we've talked about this before the show that we've all lost people to suicide and, you know, kind of chasing that dragon and everything.

and it is challenging in our world because, you know, all the things like in high school and they tell you about, you know, depression and people who are, you know, who are at risk of suicide, like all the signs that, you know, they say goodbye to people or they give all their stuff away. Like, none of that happens in our community. No. Like, you will talk to a guy one day. Yes.

And then the next day, there's no indication. Yeah. And, you know, and you've mentioned that, like, finding this purpose. And, you know, like you're bringing. vets down and showing them and stuff like finding a new purpose finding it a new reason to be yes and i think it's really important too uh it can't be understated just the neurological effects yeah the advantages and benefits that you gained from from doing this because especially when we start going into blast injuries and tb i that that that sort of that uh neurological or whatever

sort of cascade or deficiency, you know, however it happens that, you know, the brain is one of things I say about hearing. When you start losing your hearing, you start losing your speech. You start losing your thinking, things like that. And it's the same way with the TBI is not, not necessarily that exact thing, but the world gets darker and you don't exactly know why. And you don't understand. Right. You don't understand physiologically. Okay, what's going along with me. I know there's something. Right. But, okay, I need to reach out and get some help.

Right. Talk to somebody. Right. Whatever the case. Right. Yes. But here you found this hobby. Yeah. You hadn't even you know, you had no, it's not like you wanted to be a writer or a musician. Like, you know, you. I didn't want to be a writer and I wrote a book. Right. Thanks, Jack. Here for you. Yeah. Yeah. But you find this

hobby that turns into not just a hobby, but, you know, but a new business and also a means of therapy for you. Yes, absolutely therapy. Absolutely. Helps my brain helps me in my everyday life. I'm sleeping now. That's my wife. And yeah, yeah, it's incredible. It really is.

And, you know, and I'll just talk a little bit about Bladesford brothers, so about I don't know, five, six weeks ago, my wife comes in on a Wednesday and says, we have this big three bay building, big, like, 18 foot ceiling. She goes, you need to clean that building out. I was like, excuse me? He said, everything needs to come out of it. I said, okay, called JJ, Jared Johnson. I said, hey, man, I need some help.

He goes, okay, Sarge, I'll be there. So we spent the whole day, we cleaned the whole thing out. out and then the next morning Thursday morning I'm in my little knife shop truck pulls up about 730 and I'm like who's this guy I look says spray foam insulation so I walk out you know young kid I'm like what do you want he goes well sir we're we're here to spray foam building on whose authority and he's like miss cocker I was like okay so I start laughing you Okay, come all, man. So, yeah, she had coordinated this to, she got spray-foned.

And then she had Mrs. Coker can get some sleep at night. And then she had, one of the new knife makers, Matt Chup, was a combat engineer. So she pulls him in and says, I need this, this, this framed, and this is my vision. And so we have a new shop. Wow. being built. And we got a few of the walls up. It's going to be an amazing place.

We have a bunkhouse. She planned a bunk house upstairs for vets. So when they come, they have a place to stay, a safe place. They can sleep. And, you know, we can work on nyes or whatever they want to do. We have a huge hog problem in Cram, Texas. And we have feeders. So come make some nines.

We'll go shoot pigs that night, you know. So if you want a deer hunt, whatever the case. But electrical is about halfway through and we're out of money. So I made some knives then so we can raise some money. And we'll also help some other nonprofits for whatever we've raised with these blades. And I just, I love helping my brothers and sisters and their families, gold stars and all those folks. So, yeah, but we're excited that the shop is going to be absolutely phenomenal when it's finished, and it'll be a cool place. And I want you guys to come.

Even Dimitri. I'd love to. And I'll show you guys how to make a blade. Dimitri didn't tell you what you need, what we wanted you have in your shop, did he? He didn't, like, set up the architecture, did he? No. You end up with a jacuzzi? No.

We do have a pool, so you come over time. Yeah, we definitely need to come down. That's a nice area, too. Yeah, it really is. It is. Yeah. Sky's country. Yeah.

We have a question on Patreon. Sure. Can you give one or two tips for helicopter student pilots? Pilots, stay beautiful, Dave and Jack. Get a shave. Jack. Oh, they didn't hit me up, didn't you? For Jack, I think.

For helicopter pilots. So is he doing his, you know, where is he in his train? training. You just say, can we give one or two tips for a helicopter student? Oh, okay, so he's a student. Yeah, continue, continue through. I recommend, and I tell those to all the young folks that want to fly heloes, do as much cheaper do you in Fix Wing, and then do your Rotary Wing transition. So go to Fix Wing, get your privates, get your commercial, get your instrument, then transition to rotary wing because it's so expensive to run helicopters.

It's probably four times the amount to run rotary wing. So that's one of the things I do. But yeah, go all. Make sure you get your instrument rating. If they're looking to go into the military, then, yeah, that's going to be a huge, huge checkmark in that block when they go apply for that. I don't know.

Yeah. Good question. Yeah, I get a lot of questions from young folks that either want to, they're either started out in aviation and want to transition to the military or, you know, they want to go into the Army because the Army is they're the only service that offers in high school to flight school. I mean, you can literally go from high school to, I think it's Fort Neckoning. Nova Cell now, but used to be Fort Rucker, and we had two guys in my flight school class

are 18 years old. I'm not kidding. Wow. And, you know, here we are a bunch of older dudes. And once we got to where we could go off base for the weekend, they'd be riding skateboards because they're only 18. They can drink beer. And we'd be like, see you guys later, you know.

Yeah. Does Mr. Do you want ice? No, I'm good. I'm fine. Thanks. So. So these high-end knives, we need to find you, we need to find some collectors for like the really high-end ones.

I think they would be honored to own history or anybody. Yeah, absolutely. There's no more of the steel left on the planet. Yeah. And there never will be. Yeah. Yeah, I just, yeah, I pray that, yeah, somebody would, you know, be honored to to own one of the these pieces and trust me if if i had the money i would i would i would i would buy it a heartbeat

i would buy it in a heartbeat it's um you know the the people are out there you know the people are out there um maybe you know um 60 000 of our or 30 000 of our viewers can pay two bucks each and like share it sure you know sure um yeah we'll figure it out yeah it'll right person right place right time yeah good lord willing and yes they will yeah they'll have new owners yeah yeah absolutely yes sir yes yeah yeah so um so everybody make sure you check out gregg's uh episode to hear like all about his time in the 160th um about his you know getting shot down um and other adventures and other adventures uh yeah all the time i have actually i have actually i have all of those clipped

on clips on the team so you can check it out yeah so Greg's episode is episode 74 plus you can look for the clips the shorts um check out Greg's book uh buy it download it death waits in the dark six guns don't miss you can get that on

on Amazon and check out Blades forbrothers dot com um for uh look if you want some amazing yeah all the stuff is down in the links below but if you want amazing knives, you know,

like, check out great stuff. You'll love it. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, shout out too, to Arizona knives, Brian. I've had these,

the originals, they were kind of scattered about trying to raise money and get auctioned off. And I called another day. I was like, hey, man, I need these blades back. I need to take them to New York.

He's boom, punched on it. But yeah, thanks, thanks, Brian. you guys so yeah we'll get there awesome is there any place else anything else you're working on or any place else anybody can find you that you want to point out no i think yeah that these pocket knives have just got me sucked in yeah yeah and uh i've got a new tomahawk design so i'm all about that i show it to a couple guys and they're like okay it's no yeah there's nothing out there like it.

Yeah. So I learned a few things when I was deployed. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just saying, not saying. But yeah, yeah, I think it'll be cool. It'll probably come this winter. Yeah, again, I've got a manufacturer that's Greg Medford has said he would help me

with these. And, yeah, I look forward to doing a team house knife, a blade, you know, whatever. Hey, maybe ask, you know, I'm. Ask our viewers, what would you like? Yeah. Yeah. What would you like to see? Yeah.

So if we're going to do a limited edition, or maybe not even a limited edition, but maybe an EDC for the team house. Let us know down in the comments. Yeah. What kind of blades are you guys into? You bet. And this Friday, we will have William Yeski on the show,

82nd Airborne. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you wrote a book that I can't recall the title of off the top of my head. Good call there, Dee. Yeah. Good, Dee. So we will have him here on Friday to discuss his book and his military careers. We're excited about that.

And, oh, and check out our Patreon. The links down in the description if you want to get access to these episodes ad-free. And that's really it. And Greg? And bonus episodes where you get to hear Jack and I just shoot the shit. I have so much to say about. You have tea to spill? Oh, I have a lot to say about my warrior.

Go on. He's wonderful. You heard it here first. Thank you, dear. He's amazing and so smart. I can say. You can say he's fucking smart on our channel. We're 18 and over.

Yeah, we're 18 and over. Yeah, it's so fucking smart. It blows my mind. You can't, you can't have a military channel where you drink on live stream and not curse. Yeah. He's a wonderful one. If you guys didn't hear that, Gravy, a testament from his wife, which is really the toughest testament you can get honestly yeah that he's a wonderful wonderful man dedicated to the community and

just so fucking smart and we agree with all that yeah so solid endorsement yeah and i'll close with you know the knife making so every penny spent on a knife goes back into blades for brothers and it's 501c3 i i have not spent one penny one dime everything goes back into the shop or it goes into steel or materials to bring vets in, grinders, you know, whatever I can do to help these guys and gals and family members that you don't want to do this or, or, heck yeah, man. I don't need any money. You keep saying guys and gals, but there's not been a gal yet. We're working on it.

We'll work. I appreciate so much that you say guys and gals. yeah well it may be a goal star mom yeah a sister or sister or yeah i just i just had a conversation with russ ripto his sister she reached out to me through social media and i i'd known russ for years he was the fs oh i've got killed at haditha dan yes yeah yeah yeah and yeah russ and oh i had a wonderful conversation with her for hour and a half yeah i met his father years ago yeah Yes, Colonel Ripto. Yes.

Yes, sir. Yeah, I'm at him. Super nice guy. Yeah. Like, you never meet a bigger advocate of the Rangers than, no. The Colonel Riptoe. Yes, sir. Yeah.

Yeah, that was just, it was heartwarming. And, yeah, I was honored that I could. She just wanted to know about Russ. That's cool. Yes. And I, yeah, I get people reach out to me all the time. And I'm honored to do that. Yeah.

I told her, come now, make a night. We'll do it. Well, Greg, thank you again for, you know, you and your wife making it all the way up here to New York. Thank you. And working on these and, you know, we hope that we can help you with all of this. I'll help you. Yeah. Well, we're excited about it.

Yeah. I'm very excited. Thank you, Jack. Yeah. Thank you, Dave. Thank you, great. Thank you, Dimitri. Thanks for the daggers.

Yeah. And so, yeah, more to follow. And we will see all you guys on Friday. So take care out there. Adie you.