Ep 10: Aaron Gough on Quality & Sustainability in Knife Making

Welcome to the Rewild Gear Podcast. Modern life, society, and responsibilities have domesticated us, but now it's time to rediscover your adventurous side. Whether that's camping, hiking, hunting, fishing, or just spending time in the great outdoors, this is the podcast for you. Join us as we get back to the wilderness and rewild.

Welcome back to the podcast.

Welcome to the Rewire Gear Podcast. I'm your host, Seth Spears, and I'm here today with Aaron Goh. Aaron is a custom knife maker based in Toronto, Canada. He's been making knives full time for the past 6 years and approaches knife making in a modern way by trying to blend automation with craftsmanship. His love of electronics, programming, machining, CNC, and knives has hugely influenced his work. Before his knife making career, he worked as a software engineer. Aaron's Resolute knife is designed as the ultimate outdoor utility knife to handle your hunting and camping tasks with ease. Sculpted with CNC and finished by hand is the motto of Go Custom. Aaron, welcome to the show. So happy to have you here today.

Thanks very much for having me, Seth.

Super. I'd like to love to dig in just about kind of your background and how you really got into, into knife making and creating your own knives and doing amazing custom work because they're beautiful functional knives, which is what we're all about here at ReWild Gear. So love to tap into that story.

Sure. Yeah, I mean, know, I grew up kind of in the country, so it was like pretty regular to walk around with a pocket knife, you know, just kind of a normal everyday thing. And that kind of, you know, made me really like knives from a young age. And so like, I will admit my first knives were pretty much like shivs, not really knives. I was like buying like antique cutlery and then like grinding it down on my bench grinder until it was like the right size for me as a kid, you know, as like a little tiny pocket knife. So yeah, it kind of went from there. I actually contacted the Australian Knife Makers Guild and got set up with an Australian knife maker named Neil Charity. And I went to his house once a week for a couple of years and did like— I wouldn't quite call it an apprenticeship, but he, you know, helped me out. getting started with everything. And things kind of grew from there. It's interesting, actually. So I moved to Canada in 2006. And I hadn't made a knife for, well, probably like 5 years before that. And I didn't make any knives for like 5 years after that. And then I went through a really stressful time at my day job. And I ended up like basically having like a nervous breakdown. Like I, we were a software engineering startup and we went from a whole bunch of software engineers to just me trying to like lead a product all of a sudden. And it was just, it was just too much, you know, I ended up having to take like a month off. And during that time, I actually bought a membership for a shared workshop space. And You know, got to know some of the people there. And one of them was like, oh, you used to make knives? Can you make me a knife? So I made him a knife. And then I put it on Reddit, and other people saw it. And that was how my current business started. You know, like, I just started making knives for people that were asking for knives. And it all went from there.

So you launched it because of Reddit?

Yeah. Yeah.

Fascinating. Tell me a little bit more about that process. Because Reddit can be a crazy community. And if they think you're promoting something or being just self-absorbed, or just self-promotional, they will block you and troll you like no other. So tell me, tell me a little bit more about how that worked out.

Well, I think I get a little bit of leeway because I've been a Reddit user since, since Digg, the days of Digg. So I've been on Reddit for like 14 years, which is— it sounds crazy to say that about like a social media platform, right? Um, but yeah, I— before I started, you know, posting pictures of my own knives, I was already pretty heavily involved in the like Knife Club subreddit and the r/knives subreddit. So it just kind of happened naturally, you know, I was just like, oh guys, check out this knife I made. You know, there was really no conscious self-promotion at the start there, just kind of sharing something I was proud of. Cool.

Yeah, that's, that's great.

Yeah, you can get away with a lot more when it's, when it's genuine. You know, I think, I think some Redditors are definitely kind of cynical. But you know, if, if you're being genuine about sharing something you're excited about, you'll generally get away with it.

For sure. What was the first knife that you made that you posted up on Reddit that really started gaining interest?

Honestly, it was a pile of trash. Pile of trash.

It was everyone's first creation, though. It's kind of like if you're starting a podcast, the first episode or 2 are always going to be the worst. And if you're not ashamed of it, you know, in a couple years, then you're probably not growing or improving too much, right?

100%. Yeah. So it was actually— so my current— so I have a bit of a different philosophy with with knives and the knives that I make. So I only make one model right now, which is the Resolute. And the idea with that is that I'm trying to tune the design so that it's like, you know, the perfect all-round outdoors knife. And I really don't want to give in to fashion, you know, like most companies globally, they make slightly different versions of the same thing every year too, because there's like, outdating your old stuff is a really powerful way of getting people to buy more. But I don't want to do that. I think it's really wasteful. So I'm, you know, making one, one knife, the Resolute. And the very first knife that I posted on Reddit was actually like the very first version of that. And it was definitely like super shit compared to what I'm doing now. But yeah, you know, as you said, if you're not, if you're not ashamed of it in a few years, then you're not. You're not growing.

Yeah, I love that philosophy though, and that's really the same philosophy that we have at our company, is quality over quantity.

Yeah, 100%.

And it's also been an internal struggle when you talk about scaling and building something that can last and is sustainable and that is going to continue to bring in revenue over time, because if you're building the best possible thing, people aren't going to be using it up and having to buy another one. Yeah, however, That's definitely less wasteful and it definitely harkens back to an older time period. Yeah.

I mean, people didn't— back in the day, they didn't have money to buy, you know, a new thing every year. Yeah.

It was kind of this— it used to be this philosophy, I think, of you— we didn't live in such a mass consumer society, such a microwave society where we want everything right now. And so if something went bad or broke, you had to fix it and reuse it. And but things were built to last longer. I like to use the example of the Maytag washing machine, you know, and the Maytag man, like the old commercials where he's sitting there waiting for a call and would never get one just because they're built to last so long.

Right. Yeah. And I mean, as you said, it is an interesting balance to strike because I'm sure that I would get a lot more sales if I was, you know, introducing new models all the time. And as a business owner that, you know, when you're staring down the barrel of like, you know, not making rent or something, Yes. That can be a hard compromise or a hard, you know, philosophy to stick to. So like, I will be introducing a couple of new models over the next year or so. But the idea is that I'm going to have one model per use. So I'll have one outdoors knife, one kitchen knife, one folding knife, I'm not going to be doing like, you know, 3 outdoors knives, I will over time do variations of those, like updates of those. So I have the Resolute Mark III is my current version. And then I'm working on the Resolute Mark IV. But that will be like genuine functional improvements, not just like, you know, a little bit of a polish.

So sure.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's been really interesting. Like there are very few knifemakers that, that operate that way.

Yeah, especially the bigger the company, it seems like they just have to keep pumping them out, whether that's changing the color or the steel or the materials used, etc. And I think part of that goes into a lot of people probably like us, we love gear. And so we almost see it as a collection, we begin collecting knives or gear or things like that. And so they're not really designed for hard use, like everyday use. But it's, we're going to collect it and talk about it, maybe put it on the shelf or in a case.

Yeah.

And so I think it's a little bit of a different philosophy there too. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But It's a tool. The knife was the original tool. So if you're gonna make it and you want it to be used, use it well, right?

100%. Yeah. And, you know, that philosophy has informed everything from my pricing to, you know, my packaging, like everything is influenced by that. You know, so obviously making like super high quality knives on a small scale is really expensive. And there have been a lot of times when, you know, I was making like negative money in the year, or like, you know, not, not much at all. And the reason that that was happening was because the knives were too hard to make, it was taking too long, my process wasn't working, you know, so like, by standard business terms, at those times, I should have raised my prices. But I didn't, because I really believe that where the price was, is kind of the ceiling for like, you know, what people are going to spend on a knife and then still use it. Right. So, you know, that really has— I like— I want my knives to be used. My primary market, my perfect customer is someone that buys a knife, uses it until it's a tiny toothpick. And then, you know, maybe at that point, they buy another one, right?

Like, how did you determine your price point? Did you do some market research beforehand? Do a poll on Reddit? What did that process look like?

Nothing that fancy, honestly. It was mainly just like an internal discussion with myself just being like, okay, if I was gonna buy a knife, you know, a really nice one, you know, and I'm sure that that's like demographically inaccurate. Like, I don't know what the actual like threshold is for that. But unfortunately, there's not like a, you know, an online poll service for that particular metric. So you had to just take a stab at it.

Did you ever calculate your effective hourly rate to see how long it takes to make each knife? And so what you're actually making per hour when it comes to producing one?

Yeah. And yeah, it was like, the first couple of years in the business was like, you know, $3 an hour or less. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, so I mean, that again has influenced the way that I make my knives. You know, like making knives completely by hand is great. But you can never make like a reasonably priced knife that way. I don't think like, not if you're gonna like have to pay rent and all that kind of stuff, right? So part of it was that I, you know, I wanted to keep that price and make it work, not by lowering the quality, but by making my process more efficient. So it's actually been really gratifying because the quality has gone up substantially. You know, even in the last couple of years, I've been able to really drive my quality up, which is great. And do it while continuing to reduce the amount of time that it takes me to make the knives. So I just— part of the reason my development process is so slow is because I have this like no compromise attitude to quality. Like I'll never ever do— I'll never ever make a process change that involves reducing quality. It's always going up. So yeah, it sure does make my life hard. My life would be a lot easier if I just made cheap, cheap knives, you know.

Then it probably wouldn't have the same appeal though.

Exactly. Yeah, 100%. And also, like, I'm not the kind of person that— like, I am pretty obsessive about things. I'm not the kind of person that would be happy with myself Compromising, you know.

So yeah, it's interesting. I went to Blade Show 2 years ago in Atlanta. And to just see the difference, the different companies, the different knife makers. And you've got some of these older guys have been handcrafting knives for, you know, years and years. Some of them are selling a knife for $1,000, $1,500, maybe up to $2,000. And each one is handmade. And it's a beautiful custom piece, but you're never going to use it if you're spending that kind of money on it.

Yeah.

And then you've got like these bigger companies who are just mass producing them. And you know, it's $20, $50, maybe as much as even $100 for a knife, for a knife. But you're gonna, you're gonna use it, you don't care. But it's probably not going to last that long. So it's trying to find that sweet spot like you're talking about, where it's usable, the price point is accessible. And it's going to last, it's got that quality.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, it's It's been a really fun process. You know, it's still something that I'm working on every day. You know, so I'm investigating a new steel at the moment. And I've been testing it for a while. Tell me more. So it's a steel that people probably know pretty well. It's called AEB-L. So the interesting thing about this steel is that it has a relatively low carbide volume. So, you know, most steels that have high percentages of carbon and chromium, they actually make they grow these like ceramic structures inside the grain structure of steel called carbides. And the higher the percentage of carbides that you have, the lower your toughness. And the larger the carbides are, the lower your toughness. And toughness is like— toughness of the steel is a really big priority for me because the tougher the steel, the thinner the edge geometry you can have. And then the thinner the edge geometry, the better the cutting performance. And with higher toughness, you can also have much higher hardness, which in turn leads to better edge stability. So your edge is less likely to fold over or dent or roll. So again, like, it's interesting that in my mind, at least, one of the primary metrics that can really drive edge retention is actually not like wear resistance or anything. It's toughness, because that way you can push up the hardness and so on.

Mm-hmm.

So AEB-L is like a really really surprisingly tough steel. It's like by far the toughest stainless steel. And it's actually about 20— 15-20% tougher than the A2 tool steel that I currently use, which is a high carbon steel. So I've overall, I've been testing that for a while, and I've been super happy with it. The problem is that sourcing the steel in any sort of reasonable quantity is absolutely brutal.

Yeah.

So that's where you go from the, like, you know, like making 1 or 2 knives, like, I think it's probably a very relaxing process. Trying to make many, many knives is really, really difficult because like, you even get down into the nitty gritty of supply chain, you know, like, right, one of the particular vendors that I was looking at, or I've been looking at a couple of vendors for this steel, one hasn't had it in stock for like 5 months at this point. And the other that I was like, oh, you know, when are you getting some more? And they're like, oh, we're getting some more soon. Like July 2022. You know, so like, that's more than a year from now.

Yeah, seriously.

So like, you know, I can't— I'm running a business where I need to be able to make knives. I can't just suddenly have my steel supply stop for a year.

So I want to talk a little bit more about the steel and kind of that trade-off as far as the toughness, you know, the strength, the ease of sharpenability, and the corrosion resistance. Because that's—

and trade-off is a really good word.

Yeah.

Because there's no perfect choice. Everything is a trade-off.

And that's the thing. The— so the knife that we're designing for Rewild Gear, we're using S35VN because we felt like it had kind of that— the best balance of all of those different features. Because corrosion resistance is also something that, that I'm big on just because I'm in Florida. And so being around salt water and whatnot.

Yeah.

You know, how if someone— if they're never around that and they're taking really good care of their knife, then that corrosion resistance isn't as big of a factor for them. But how did you determine which steel to use when it comes to the trade-off of all of those different factors?

Honestly, toughness is one of the primary choices for me, like one of the primary deciding factors. Part of that is because I really like the behavior of steels at really high hardness, you know. So most people, most like factory knives, they're heat treating their blades to like 58, 59 Rockwell, something like that. My A2 knives are heat treated to 62.5 Rockwell. And one thing that's worth noting with that is it's actually not a linear scale. It's a logarithmic scale. It's not exponential. So like 3 points higher is like way more than like, you know, 2% or whatever. It's more like, you know, 30% higher or something.

I didn't realize that. Wow.

Yeah. Yeah. So it makes a really, really big difference just bumping up a couple of points like AEBL, for instance. Heat treated to 60 Rockwell. I hate it. Totally a trash steel. But this is one of the things that people often misunderstand about steel is that it's not just the steel itself. You can take like the most expensive, fanciest knife steel in the world, heat treat it poorly, and end up with a totally crap knife. Or you can take, you know, a middle-of-the-road, meh, whatever steel and do a really good heat treatment on it and end up with a fantastic knife. You know, so I have people all the time that they're like, they see the A2 that I use in my knives, and they're like, you know, why are you using that? Why are you using this like crap steel? Why don't you use a super steel? And the thing is that I've actually tested my steel against many other manufacturers' super steels, you know, powder metallurgy, super expensive steels, and I consistently outperform them. And all of that is just to do with the heat treatment. So, um, yeah, like, as I said, like, one of the main deciding factors for me was toughness because that lets me really drive the hardness up. Um, and that kind of leads into a place that I really like because when you've got a really high hardness steel, you can put a toothy edge on and it'll hold it. You can put a polished edge on and it'll hold it. Like, um, some of the super steels really only are good for holding toothy edges at lower hardnesses. You know, they don't really like to take a polished edge because they actually get like tear out and microchipping at the edge. So yeah, I mean, honestly, there are lots and lots of good choices. You know, many people make great knives from different steels. It's, it's a very personal thing. And yeah, I just really, I really like high levels of toughness, high levels of hardness. So that kind of influenced my decision more than anything else.

So usually when people think about a, a good, really tough steel for knifemaking, 1095 is kind of the de facto standard. Did you look at that one at all or play around with using that steel?

No, and purely on the basis of corrosion resistance. So the A2 that I currently use has, from memory, it's like 4.5% chromium. And the chromium is the element in the steel that gives the blade corrosion resistance. So it forms a thin chromium oxide layer on the outside of the blade. And even a couple of percent actually makes a pretty big difference in terms of corrosion resistance. So A2 is not terribly prone to red rust. Like it will stain, it will get like that black oxide, but you have to be pretty mean to it to get it to rust red. Whereas 1095 will drop, will rust at the drop of a hat, you know.

Yeah.

So yeah, I like, that was one of the bigger things. And then like A2 isn't that far off in terms of toughness. And edge retention is definitely better with A2 than with 1095. So like, I've tried it out a little bit. I've used it in other people's knives, mainly like the Ka-Bar knives.

Yeah, yeah.

Which are fantastic. Like, they take really nice fine edge. But yeah, it was just a little bit too much maintenance for me.

That's, that's how I feel about ESEE knives. Those are— they're one of my favorite outdoor knife companies, and they make just fantastic knives. But the 1095 steel, it's great to eat, really easy to sharpen and very tough and everything, but they powder coat it, which if you're powder coating a knife, as you know, you can't scrape a ferro rod with it. So you lose that functionality. And the corrosion resistance just is not very good.

Right?

Yeah.

So I've been— my dog's barking at something. Yeah, so I've been testing, like, it's really funny, you know, like, there are obviously lots of really fancy tests for corrosion resistance and stuff. I tend to do my testing in 2 phases. It's more Like, you know, I'll put a knife in my kitchen, like literally one of my Resolute knives, start using it every day and just be really shit to it. So like, I'll wash it, put it back in the sheath wet and leave it there. So I have a knife that's been in my kitchen for 6 months. It has been put back in its sheath every single day wet. And it has just a couple of tiny little spots of corrosion on it.

Wow.

Yeah, out of AEB-L. And then I have another 2 blades in my shower. in the corner of my shower, you know. So my girlfriend and I both like taking long showers, so it gets pretty steamy in there. And the— I've got an A2 blade and an AEB-L blade next to each other, and the AEB-L blade has like a couple of tiny little spots on it. It's been in there for 6 months. The A2 blade, you like, you can't even see it anymore. It's just a, you know, it's just rust.

Yeah.

Um, so, and then after all of this kind of very informal testing has happened, then I'll go and do like a proper more scientific test and do a YouTube video about it and stuff.

Gotcha. But even that just basic kind of anecdotal test, I mean, that definitely serves as far as just to see what it can do in all kinds of different environments and atmospheres.

Yeah, 100%. And corrosion resistance has really been the only complaint that anyone has had about my knives so far, which has been really nice, you know, and it's nothing, you know, not people aren't ruining knives. It's just if someone puts a knife in their sheath, wet and they forget about it and then they're like, oh, it's, you know, it's stained or it's got some light rusting. Like, that's super unfortunate. You know, I would like to be able to make my knives tolerant to that, but I'm not willing to give it up any performance to do it. Right. So that's, that's kind of driven my—

It's always a trade-off. There's always a compromise somewhere when it comes to steel because there's no perfect one, right?

Yeah, exactly. Well, in this case, like AEB-L acts very much like my A2, but better and stainless, which is fantastic. The compromise is apparently that it's incredibly hard to source. So you can't find it.

It doesn't do any good.

Yeah, exactly. So fingers crossed on that one that I'll be able to sort it out.

Got it. Yeah. Aaron, how did you decide on like the blade shape and geometry and the sizing and all of that?

Yeah, so the Resolute is a drop point, you know, and I've had— I've literally had people chirp me on YouTube. They're like, why did you choose such a boring blade shape? And yeah, it's, it's, it's boring. It's—

Personally, I love it. I mean, it's clean, it's beautiful. And it's definitely my Nice style.

Thank you. Yeah. And when I say boring, the reason it's boring is because it gets used a lot. And the reason it gets used a lot is because it works. You know, like if you're, you know, skinning an animal or prepping food or whatever, like the blade shape just works. Like you don't have a super pointy tip to like accidentally pierce the hide when you're skinning. You don't have, you know, like if you were using like a tanto or something, then you can't even— you can't use that for a lot of outdoors tasks, you know. So, sure. It was very much driven by functionality, the choice to go with a drop point. And then the blade geometry itself is a full flat grind. And it's quite thin at the edge. It's about 16 thousandths of an inch at the edge before sharpening. And that was, again, just driven by performance. Like, you know, the ideal knife is like one atom wide, You know, like for its entire shape. But we don't have the materials technology to make that, obviously. So, you know, I try, you know, I— the ideal knife is as thin as possible, but then we have to balance that against strength and so on. So yeah, for me, the full flat grind is, yeah, you know, the reflection of those, those desires. I am considering going to a very gentle convex grind. So it would be a really large radius convex grind. So, and the main reason for that is that when you're cutting something like wood or cardboard, the— like, so if you're splitting a piece of wood, for instance, the wood when it splits will maintain contact with the entire face of the bevel on a full flat grind because it's a perfect V. So it just— the wood gets— or the cardboard just gets rubbed against the entire face of the bevel. And I think that that's creating more friction than necessary. And in turn, you know, reducing the apparent cutting performance, right? So I'm going to experiment over the next little while with doing a very mild convex just to reduce the amount of contact area when you're cutting stuff like that, because the, the material gets, gets forced apart and then is only contacting part of the blade bevel.

That's why a lot of axes typically have a convex grind, I think.

Yeah. Yeah. And also for toughness, right? Like for an axe, toughness is super important. And the convex is one of the tougher blade shapes or blade geometries. So, and that's actually something that's really cool because you can do a convex grind by hand, you can do it on a slack belt, you know, or a rotary platen, which is like a type of like a rubber conveyor belt that goes on your belt grinder. But doing them repeatedly, repeatedly, Repeatedly. There we go. Um, is very, very difficult, like really, really difficult. Um, and getting them like really nice, nicely finished is even more difficult. So that's where I can bring in my CNC process to be able to produce like perfectly— um, I can produce the exact same, uh, radius every single time, and I can have it, you know, begin and end in the exact same places. I can make it very accurately. So So it's exciting. I like playing with stuff like that.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Cool. So, so the design and everything is beautiful, very functional and all of that.

Thank you.

So how did you determine kind of the industry that you want to use it for? So as far as like a hard use outdoor knife?

It's basically like what I was going to use it for. You know, I won't, I won't claim to be like, you know, I'm not like climbing K2 or anything like that, right? But like, you know, if I'm out in the bush with friends or whatever, then, you know, I'm prepping wood for firewood, for a campfire. Man, I can't speak this morning. Prepping wood for a campfire or I'm, you know, prepping food or, you know, I love carving spoons and that kind of stuff. So like, I want something that's gonna be generally applicable. I don't want something super specialized. And then it was interesting, like I had military customers early on, and that kind of influenced me to add the window breaker on the butt of the knife. But I wanted to do that, you know, there are a lot of— there are not a lot, but there are some knives that have the window breaker on the butt of the knife, and it's very, very sharp. So if you were trying to hold the knife in a reverse hammer grip with your thumb on the butt of the knife, you can't do it. It's very uncomfortable. But a window breaker doesn't need to be very, very sharp. It just needs to have a very small contact area.

Sure.

So that kind of drove the decision there. In terms of like, which market I was aiming at, you know, again, like, my philosophy really is to like make the knife that I want. And then if that resonates with other people, then that's great. I try not to make too many concessions to, you know, singular demands or like individual customers in terms of demands for changes. Because I think that if you're not like using the knife yourself, and you're not, you know, experiencing every part of it as much as possible, then the quality and the usability is going to suffer.

Yeah.

So that really is the biggest drive, you know, like, it's, it's kind of my perfect knife. And if, if other people think it's their perfect knife, then that's fantastic. But I don't want to, you know, if a whole bunch of people tell me like, oh, the handle shape sucks, then I'll absolutely work to change it. But if it doesn't work for one person, then I'll do what I can to make them happy. I'll, you know, take the knife back or whatever. And I've had to do that with only a couple of customers out of the thousands of knives that I've made. You know, they have really big hands and the handle just doesn't fit them. I'm like, that's totally fine. Like, you know, it's, it's not going to fit everyone. And yeah, that's, that's kind of just what drove the design, really.

Got it. Tell me a little bit about your outdoor experience. What, what are your favorite activities to do out in nature? Because you mentioned carving spoons and things like that. So is bushcrafting a big, big fun activity for you?

You know, if you were to ask me, like, what my favorite outdoor activity would be, I'd probably say, like, I don't know, go somewhere and build a cabin. You know, I don't, I don't want to, like, I'm not really the kind of person that wants to rough it and like, you know, sleep on a rock for like 3 months. Um, my girlfriend is, she is super hardcore. Um, you know, she'll take like multi-week canoe trips. She's been in, um, like Iceland by just her and her sister for like weeks at a time, not seeing another human being, just traveling around. Um, but for me, I'm very much like, I want to like, you know, settle. I don't know why I want to like, you know, build a cabin or something. But in terms of like my favorite outdoor experiences, like I love rock climbing. Outdoor rock climbing is something I find utterly terrifying. I am— I love rock climbing, but I'm really afraid of heights.

Ah.

And being outdoors really exacerbates that.

So yeah.

Yeah, and then just, you know, just sitting around a campfire with people, like carving a spoon or something. Like, I tend to, I don't know, I guess those are mundane tasks, but I tend to enjoy that kind of stuff more than, you know, forcing myself to go on a ruck, you know, across hundreds of kilometers wearing a heavy pack or something.

Sure.

Yeah. So in your pre-interview questions, one of the things you asked was like, what's your favorite outdoor experience? And I had to think about that for a little while. And I think it's actually an unexpected, a little bit of a different one. So there is a small town in Australia called Byron Bay, and it's very famous as a surf beach, surf town.

Yeah.

So just like imagine the most beautiful beaches you've ever seen. And if you're there during the day on like a weekday, there's like no one there. The whole place is empty, but it's like a 10-minute walk from town, like just absolutely beautiful. So I was up there staying with a friend And there was this huge thunderstorm outside and I was like, oh man. So when I say thunderstorm, like in being in North America and Canada, I immediately like, ah, I don't want to go out in that. It's going to be cold. But in Byron Bay, it's like 35 degrees in the middle of a thunderstorm. It's like super nice and warm. 35 Celsius, I should say. So I was like, I'm going out in that. Do you want to come? And my friend was like, hell no. Like, that's stupid. So I actually walked to the beach in the middle of this massive thunderstorm and then just kind of floated myself out in the ocean. You know, so there are big waves, there's like thunder and lightning happening. And I was just like floating on my back watching like sheet lightning overhead. And yeah, to this day, when I think about like my most powerful experience outdoors, I think that was probably it. It was just Just experiencing that power, you know, in a very like exposed way was like pretty awesome.

And just really seeing nature in its full fury and just the power of it.

Yeah, yeah, I really— yeah, like thunderstorms and stuff, I, I don't know why, I just, I find them really relaxing. You just kind of have to wash yourself away in them. Um, the end of that, the end of that, uh, experience was actually even funnier because it was In tropical parts of Australia, there are occasionally very serious hailstorms. And I got one at the end of that ocean floating session. So there are hailstones coming down that were like 3/4 of an inch in diameter.

Wow.

So I had to like walk back to the house, you know, shielding my eyes because hailstones were hitting the ground and bouncing up and getting you in the face. Oh, that's a problem.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was— oh, it was awesome though. I would do it again any day of the week.

Nice. I'm the same way with storms. I love a good thunderstorm and I'm just sitting on the porch and just watching it come down. Um, there's something incredibly relaxing, like the harder and stronger it is, it's just— and just seeing nature in its full fury.

Yeah, 100%.

Fascinating.

And one thing that I really miss from Australia— so my parents still live there and I grew up there, but I moved to Canada when I was 21, um, is, uh, iron roofs, like corrugated iron roofs. So here all the roofs are shingled, so when there's like a big thunderstorm, you don't hear too much. But in Australia, it's like amplified by the iron roof, you know, you really hear the, the rain and the thunder. Um, yeah, so good. I miss that.

Just that reverberation off of it. Very relaxing.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Aaron, have you ever had any crazy outdoor experience that you never want to repeat?

Yeah, it was related to the rock climbing actually. So like, I love rock climbing, but I'm mainly an indoor climber these days. And I mainly do bouldering, which is where you're climbing short walls, no ropes, you know, so if you fall, you're like, you might break a finger or something. I had a buddy that broke a thumb trying to catch his fall on the way down. But you're not gonna like smash your head open. Probably, probably not.

And you've usually got mats underneath you as well, so.

Yeah, exactly.

It's much safer.

Yeah, and for some reason, like, I know that bouldering is less safe than climbing with a rope, but I feel like it's less dangerous. And I think that a lot of that is fueled by my, like, I have a really, really strong fear of heights. Like, really, really strong. And so when I went rock climbing for the first time, it was actually outdoor climbing as a kid. So I went, my parents are kind of hippies. So I went with a Reiki group to go rock climbing. And we went to the Grampians in Victoria in Australia, which is like quite famous for its rock climbing. It's a really, really beautiful area of the world. And at the end of the second day of climbing, there's like a really big cliff face. I would say it was probably like—

100 meters.

50, 40 meters tall, 50 meters tall, something like that. Like, uh, 100 feet, more than 100 feet. Um, and I was halfway up or 3 quarters of the way up and I kind of froze and then slipped. And the climbing— the guy that was the climbing instructor, the guy that was belaying me, um, so he had the rope, you know, control of the rope that was holding me up. He decided he was gonna cure me of my fear of heights by dropping me. Oh, so I fell, I fell the entire way. And then he stopped me, you know, when I was, you know, like, 8 feet from the ground, 10 feet from the ground. And yeah, it didn't cure my fear of heights.

Might have made it a little worse.

I didn't— I don't know. I don't know. But yeah, I don't think I want to do that again. Being, being belayed by someone that you don't trust to actually stop you is not a fun experience. I think honestly, I haven't had too many. Oh, actually, I just thought of another one. I just thought of another one, one that you absolutely don't want to repeat. The first time I ever went camping. So I went camping with my parents when I was a kid. I was probably like 10 or 12. And I was like a sickly child, right? Like I had hives and eczema so badly, they didn't realize that I also had chickenpox.

Oh, no. Like, yeah.

So I'm sure if you've got kids, you know, you, you know, like it's hard to miss when your kids get chickenpox. So anyway, so like camping's not a great time at, at, you know, the best of times for me at this age. And we were camping, uh, in a big old school canvas tent with a steel frame, you know, very much car camping, right? And we were outside of, um, I forget the name of the town, but it's It's Wilson's Promontory, Wilson's Prom in Victoria. So a really beautiful area, lots of campgrounds and stuff. But the first night that we were there, one of the locals shot and killed another guy and then dumped him over the bridge.

Oh, wow.

Okay. So the police surrounded our campsite and had like generators going and big lights and like the sniffer dogs trying to find this guy that had murdered someone. And so we're all like, you know, trapped in our tents wondering whether this guy is like gonna whack someone else, you know? Yeah, so I— and you, you know, it's not small wonder that I'm not really that big on camping, I guess.

Yeah, that would definitely throw you for a loop and make you a little hesitant about going back out.

Right. But it was a good time other than that. We were, um, I guess you don't have them anywhere else. I'm trying to think of the name. So do you know what a yabby is?

No, what is a yabby?

No, it's, um, like a crawdad.

Okay.

Uh, so like a little kind of crab lobster thing, you know, like 6 inches long. And, uh, you find their holes in the beach and then you have like a little pump that like pulls them up out of the sand. Uh, and then you chuck them in a bucket for, for dinner that night. You know, running around finding, uh, yabbies for dinner was, was fun. Until one of the other kids decided he'd put a bunch of yabbies in our tent while we were asleep.

Do they bite?

Not really, but they smell really bad when you squish them accidentally under your camping mat.

Nice. Yeah.

So I've had a few interesting camping experiences. Let's put it that way.

Sounds like it.

Yeah.

And what would you say is the biggest life lesson that nature and the outdoors has taught you over the years?

I think just the finiteness of it, you know, like if we are— it's something we have to look after, you know. And like, obviously running a manufacturing business, I am destroying to create. And that's a really hard thing to think about, a really hard balance to strike. Like, I can't, you know, I can't make any knives without digging steel up out of the ground. digging iron up out of the ground to make steel. Yeah. And that kind of runs back into my business in terms of people. A lot of like modern economists and modern businesses expect limitless growth. Like, you know, numbers have to go up every year, year over year. Otherwise, like the company's dying. You know, I don't want that. I'm not interested in that.

I want sustainability. Yes.

You know, and I think that that's super important. And it's something that comes from the world back to me because it's finite. Like we don't have infinite room to grow. There's not infinite steel. There's not, you know, like it's all finite stuff, you know. So yeah, it's interesting. I guess in some ways that's like a lesson that I'm unlearning. that like nature is helping me unlearn because, you know, particularly my generation when we were growing up, you know, it's like you can have everything, you can buy whatever you want. It's very, as you said, consumerist, you know, like everyone wants to buy new stuff all the time.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm not perfect, but like it definitely, that's definitely a lesson that I've taken away from nature more recently, I think.

That's a great point. And one of the things as a company that we are really focused on is sustainability and conservation. Where do you see the biggest need there, whether that is in manufacturing processes or in use, anything within there?

Yeah, so it's a big focus for me too. It's interesting that it's been kind of politicized. Yeah. You know, I kind of mention it in passing on my website rather than making it like a primary thing because It's interesting, you know, like people will like go out of their way to potentially not buy from you because they think you're like a hippie, you know, or something, right? Like it's very—

Which is crazy to me. It seems like that's something that we should all agree on.

100%, man. 100%. So yeah, you know, I'm basically, I try to focus on like reducing my footprint however I can, right? Like minimizing energy usage, that kind of stuff. And yeah, I mean, I think that once someone has bought a knife, you know, I don't think that beyond that point, if they just have the knife sitting in their drawer or something, they're not actively doing any harm to the environment. You know, it's not like a car where like parts of the design are reducing emissions to reduce longer-term impact. So yeah, for me, the focus on minimizing environmental harm is all in the production process and in the sourcing of materials. I think sourcing materials is a really important Part of that. So for instance, I don't buy any part of my materials from China. They all come from either Europe or the United States to make sure that these materials are getting made within the boundaries of strong environmental laws. Right.

How are you— how are you able to ensure that that is actually happening, that those materials, that there's not passing through a middleman that's actually coming from China or somewhere else?

Yeah, unfortunately, if a company really wants to dupe you, Then they can, you know, because my understanding is that if someone wants to say made in the USA on something, basically what you have to do is add 51% of the value, you know. So if you buy raw steel from China and then you cut it up and you, you know, make it the right size, and then you're like, okay, the price is now just, just slightly more than doubled, then at that point you can say made in the USA.

Yeah.

So yeah, basically I have to like, whenever I'm vetting a new potential source for steel or whatever, I have to call them and I have to get, you know, like, or emails, like I have to get like written confirmation that like the melt happens, the melt of the steel happens in the US, the pouring of the steel happens in the US, the rolling of the steel happens in the US or in Europe. And most companies are very forthcoming with that information. When all of that stuff is true, you know. If they're trying to like hide anything, then I'm immediately extremely dubious, and I don't normally do business with anyone that can't tell me exactly where everything's coming from.

You know, that makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, and it is hard. Like if I was to source steel from China, it would be so much easier and cheaper. You know that ABL that we were talking about. Yeah, kind of hard to get in North America. It turns out it's an extremely common steel in China. I could buy sheets of it very easily, but I refuse to do it.

Why is it so much easier to get it in China as opposed to the US?

Because China's like the largest steel producer in the world at this point. So for a very long time, the Chinese government was subsidizing the steel industry in China and they basically You know, dumped inexpensive steel onto the global market and drove a lot of other steel mills out of business by doing that.

Kind of what's happened in the US.

Yeah, exactly. So, um, yeah, you know, it's just that like a lot of the steel mills that make large quantities of steel are based in China now because of that. Um, yeah, so, you know, like, I, I won't go into the politics of all that too much. Like, sure, I have zero against the, the you know, Chinese people. I just, I think that some of the government practices are obviously not optimal. So yeah, and I mean, as I said, like, it's, for me, it's mainly about like making sure that like the people that make the steel are being treated well and that the environment is being treated well while that steel is being made. I think it's super important.

Yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense. I think the old adage of reduce, reuse, recycle is pretty Yeah. Because it seems like especially in the US, you know, we're all about recycling things as much as possible. But then the dirty secret is most of what we're quote unquote recycling is actually still ending up in a landfill or a dump. Yeah.

So being burnt.

Yeah, exactly. And that, that was happening here where I'm at. We didn't have like a, like a citywide recycling program. So there was like a private company that was doing it. They were charging people to come around once a week with— or once every 2 weeks or whatever it was, and pick up all your recycling materials. and then they take it and then recycle it. Yeah, um, I put that in air quotes. Yeah, what was actually end up happening, they were charging for it and then they were taking it to the dump.

Yep.

And so, and I think that happens a lot more than we'd like to know. Um, and because China is not taking a lot of those, it's primarily single-use plastics.

Yes.

Yeah, that seems to be the biggest, the, uh, the biggest issue there.

Yeah, and there was a time when China was taking a lot of those recycled materials, you know, because the cost of labor there is so low, they're able to manually sort them by hand and then, you know, melt them or grind them and remake them into other types of plastic. But yeah, the Chinese government stopped or banned the import of waste plastics because it was doing so much harm to their environment. Funny, they're worried about that. Yeah. And I mean, you know, if it's at a level where it's, it's something that they're really concerned about. So like, to be clear, that, you know, I don't think the Chinese government is terribly great in a lot of ways, human rights being one of the biggest ones. But like, sure. You know, they are working to improve their environmental awareness. I think like they've gone through the process of becoming a developing or developed nation in very, very quick, accelerated fashion, which means that all of that all of those emissions have happened in a very short period of time. But yeah, as you said, you know, and unfortunately, because China stopped taking all of that plastic refuse, other countries have started taking it, or other companies in other countries have started taking it, and they don't have the same pipeline developed for processing it. So a lot of it's getting burnt or dumped or, you know, it's—

Yeah.

Yeah, it's super unfortunate. And that is something that really concerns me. Like, so my packaging is all cardboard, but I do have a foam insert in my packages. And I've been trying to work out a way to get rid of that. And it's, it's actually like super hard. Even the cardboard packaging, you know, like, Yeah. I reached out to the vendor that makes my cardboard packaging. And I was like, can you guys tell me what percentage of recycled material is in the cardboard? And they said, no, we can't tell you that. I'm like, what are you talking about? And they're like, well, you know, other, other mills make the cardboard for us, the boxes for us. So it's not really our responsibility. We're not going to tell you. So I'm, yeah, I'm going through the process of trying to replace them as a vendor. The problem is that they are a really big company and they're by far the easiest source, but—

And they hit economies of scale, which is going to make it less expensive for you, which is less expensive for the end consumer.

Exactly. Yeah. So yeah, there's a lot of like very— one of the terms I've been thinking about a lot recently is perverse incentives. You know, like money is the biggest perverse incentive of all, right? Like if something's cheaper, you're incentivized to do that thing rather than the more expensive thing. But very often that cheaper thing comes with a larger environmental cost or, you know, some other issue. Yeah, so it's just like, you know, I wish that I could make everything perfect right now, but it is a very slow process of like trying to find the vendors that are, you know, willing to certify that their goods, that their like cardboard is 100% recycled.

Yeah.

Almost no one in the packaging industry actually does 100% recycled, recycled rather. There's only one company that I know of that really does this, which is a company in the States called EcoEnclose.

Okay.

So if you're looking for packaging, like I don't use them yet because they're in the States. It— I would be paying so much for freight and I'd be like, you know, so much fossil fuels and stuff for freight to send all this stuff to me. But they do like 100% post-consumer recycled cardboard. They do all their printing in-house, you know, like companies like that that are really transparent about what they're doing. I just, I wish I could deal with companies like that at every stage of my process, you know?

Yeah. You know, there's some new packaging coming out that I'm really interested in that is very much sustainable. It comes from mycelium. So from mushrooms where they're growing it in a lab, which is completely sustainable. It's a little expensive right now, but I think long-term it's something that can really help revolutionize the packaging industry because, you know, you can grow it. It's totally compostable because it's a fungus. It's mycelium. It comes from a mushroom.

Right.

So there's a couple of companies that are doing some interesting things there. The names are escaping me, uh, right now.

Cool.

But it's pretty fascinating what they're doing.

Yeah.

So long term, that may be a viable option.

Yeah, cool. Well, I mean, one of the other things I'm considering is part of the problem is like every time I use an outside vendor for anything, even something as simple as packaging, there's always like back and forth and compromise, you know, like it's always a little bit frustrating. And so I'm always tempted to like just bring everything in-house, you know. So I'm, I'm genuinely looking at making my own steel at the moment.

Whoa, that seems like a very big process.

Yeah, maybe, maybe is the answer. You know, like, I'm not 100% sure how small I'd be able to scale it down. Um, you know, but if I could scale it down, then it gives me immediate, um, benefits both in terms of like sourcing my materials and in terms of reduction of environmental harm. Because when I buy steel, I have to buy all of the steel that isn't a knife. And then I have to only keep the steel that is a knife, you know, so I'm machining away like 60 to 70% of the steel that I buy.

Mm-hmm.

And I try to recycle as much of that as possible. But right now, it's very difficult because the steel and the G10, like my composite material for my handles, all gets mixed together. in the machine that's doing the cutting operations, and then recycling places won't handle that. Whereas if I was making my own steel, then I'd be able to take all of that scrap metal and put it right back into the melt and use it in the next batch. So it would just become a closed cycle. I would never buy any steel, or I'd never consume any iron or anything that I wouldn't end up becoming a knife.

Gotcha. And then you're also controlling your own supply chain.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So yeah, it's, it's interesting when you're like really focused on quality and trying to get, you know, to minimize environmental impact as well. Like the lengths that you have to go to are, you know, potentially quite insane.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah, that's, that's a lot to consider.

Sounds like fun.

Yeah. Big project too. But, but I like where it's headed. Tell me a little bit about the handles. So I know you said you use G10. Why G10 over, say, micarta, wood, or a newer material like Terratuff?

Yeah, I haven't used Terratuff. That's the only one I don't really have much experience with there. But so G10 is a fiberglass and epoxy composite. So it's, you know, hundreds of layers of fiberglass fabric that have been infused with epoxy resin, and then they're put in a big heated press and compressed until the epoxy cures. And because of the nature of epoxy and fiberglass, they don't absorb any moisture. Like, they're, you know, everything absorbs moisture except for like metals, I guess, to some extent. But the moisture absorption is like 0.000 something or other, right? Whereas micarta is a cotton or paper or linen fiber embedded in a phenolic resin. And then cured. And unfortunately, both phenolic and, you know, those natural fibers all absorb moisture. So micarta will swell a little bit over time as it absorbs moisture, it will warp if one side absorbs more moisture than the other. And all of those things have basically driven my, my decision, like G10 is incredibly durable. It's basically completely resistant to moisture, UV, all that kind of stuff. So in terms of like forever handle materials, that's pretty much it. You know, and so the biggest issue with wood and with a little bit with micarta, less with micarta than with wood, is that as the humidity changes, you know, you imagine if you're in Florida, and then you had, you know, like a friend in Canada, and you were traveling back and forth with your You know, knife, the, you know, in Florida, it would be swelling because it's absorbing moisture. And then in Canada, it would be drying out and shrinking because it's getting drier. And as that happens, it's, you know, over repeated cycles, it's slowly breaking the glue bonds, and it's slowly potentially pushing the fasteners, you know, like displacing the fasteners in the handles. So yeah, the biggest reason that I chose G10 is because of its stability. It doesn't— it's not affected by environmental issues really in any way, which just means that it's gonna last forever. You know, like, it's the good thing about plastics is they last forever. The bad thing about plastics is they last forever, you know.

100%.

Yeah. And I think in this case, it's just one of those times when you use it because it's intended to last forever. Like, as you said, you know, single-use packaging is like, just brutal. Like, you're making something that's gonna last for 1,000 years. But it's meant to be used once and thrown away. Like, yeah, that's crazy to me. But yeah, you know, using a material that's meant to last for 1,000 years for a knife handle that you hope lasts for 1,000 years. In that case, I think it makes sense. I would love if there was another material. I just, I haven't found Anything else as of yet. You know, I am looking into— so there's a couple of different ways that you can stabilize wood. So you can put it under a vacuum and draw all the moisture out and then replace it with a resin of some kind.

Mm-hmm.

You can roast it. So they call that like torrefied wood where you basically heat it up to the point where the lignin in the— and the sugars in the wood like caramelize. And so it becomes kind of a—

Kind of like fatwood. So like if you're using to make a fire.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So there are lots of different ways to treat wood to potentially make it more durable. I haven't yet seen one that eliminates the shrinking and swelling like completely. It'll reduce them. So yeah, at some point I might find you know, more a material that's more naturally sourced for the, the handles. But I mean, the problem is then you're gonna have to infuse it with like epoxy or something else that's not natural anyway. So yeah, I'm kind of still on the fence about that one. Just basically, I chose G10 for its durability and its appearance, and I have yet to find something that I like more.

Got it. Now that makes a lot of sense.

Cool.

And a question I like to ask a lot of guests is to do like a pocket dump as far as like everyday carry. What do you have on you right now?

Honestly, almost nothing. Since COVID started, I basically stopped carrying, you know, because like everything in my pocket, I'm gonna have to handle and wash and whatever. So yeah, very little. In the past, I was like pretty— I was always carrying a pocket knife of some kind. And I think probably one of my favorite ones of all time was the CRKT M16, which is a tanto-bladed flipper, very much not like an outdoors knife. It's very like, you know, EDC carry knife. And I like that one just because it's really slim. I've also had a Boker, Boker Plus Mini Kwaiken, which is like a titanium handled knife. Again, very slim. That seems to be kind of one of my defining factors. And I'm actually making— I'm designing a folding knife at the moment.

Oh, cool.

Very much in the same kind of vein. Very, very slim, very pocketable. You know, when you put it in the corner of your pocket with the pocket clip, you, you know, you can put your hand in your pocket to get your keys out or whatever, and you don't— nothing gets in the way. But yeah, honestly, like, I don't really carry that much like EDC gear. I'm very— I tend to destroy my jeans fast enough as it is. I don't need more stuff poking holes in my pockets. Got it.

Yeah, I hear that. But what about as far as essential gear if you're spending time in nature? As far as if you're hiking, camping, backpacking, what do you consider essential gear?

Well, a Resolute, obviously one of my knives. It's the first one. I have a really nice military-style 3-day pack that I love. So that's like kind of where I carry everything. Knife, knife on a belt loop on my belt so that you can't lose it. My air rifle if I'm somewhere that I might see a rabbit or 2. Yeah, apart from that, like there's nothing that I'm like super fastidious about, you know, obviously I want a little tent and like a little sleeping bag or something, but like— I'm not like super wedded to like one brand or the other.

Yeah.

And I'm still learning. Like, I went winter camping a couple of years ago and like froze my ass off. Like, I think I was like, you know, not far away from losing some toes, you know, like it was really bad.

That cold?

Oh yeah, it was really bad. And I didn't realize I just made a big mistake in bringing a foam sleeping pad. Everybody else that I was with had inflatable ones, you know, very thin. They're like 2 inches thick, but I guess much better insulation.

Something with a higher R-value.

Yeah, exactly. I, yeah, I froze my ass off. I, I was turning like a rotisserie chicken the whole night trying to keep myself warm, but whichever part was facing downward just froze. And that was even with, um, I put some like pine boughs underneath the tent, um, to try and, you know, provide a bit of insulation. No, didn't. No, froze my butt off.

Yeah.

I'll say next time I go out, I'll definitely be buying— in winter, I'll definitely be buying a nice inflatable sleeping pad.

Yeah, for sure. You had mentioned carrying your knife on your belt. Do you have a favorite way to carry, to carry your knife, whether that's the Resolute or another one, especially like when it comes to the sheath and the attachment point?

Yeah, so I like— I make a standard belt loop. for my sheaths, which are made out of a really heavy, stiff nylon webbing. So like, I see that some Kydex sheaths come with like a Tek-Lok, which is like a rigid plastic thing that snaps onto your belt.

I'm not a fan of those.

No, me neither. Or they come with rigid Kydex belt loops, which again, I'm not a fan of. I feel like, you know, a leather belt loop or a really stiff webbing belt loop is, is the the perfect kind of attachment mechanism because it lets the knife move to get out of the way. So I can sit down in a car while, you know, so like, I'll have the Resolute attached to my belt just behind the side belt loop on my jeans. And I can still sit down in a car, you know, with, with the knife there, it's not going to get in the way or anything. Whereas I think a lot of the like more rigid attachment options, they Just kind of make the knife get in the way all the time. Yeah. Yeah, either that or upside down on the strap of my pack. However, I don't like that as much because if you get separated from your pack for some reason, or I know, I feel like the knife is the one thing you have to have on you in case a wolf comes out of the woods and you have to defend yourself.

Exactly. Do you ever try scout carry?

I actually have been trying that more recently just because people have been requesting it. So I've actually been working on 3D printing some scout carry adapters. And yeah, I mean, I don't mind it. The one thing that I would worry about with that in Canada is that you could potentially run afoul of concealed carry laws up here doing that.

Different there than here.

Yeah. And Like, they have like a kind of a blanket concealed weapon law, which is, you know, like if you carried a knife, you know, you're camping, you go into town, you have a knife on your belt and it's in the open, then that's a different story than if you were carrying it concealed. But I think that would only be really a problem if you like got into a fight with someone or something.

But— Sure.

I don't know. It's one of those things where like I still prefer to carry it the other way just because I'm less likely to forget about it. And, you know, have a cop see me concealing a knife accidentally in town, you know.

That makes sense. Aaron, who do you— what other companies do you think are doing a great job, either with their quality of production, their sustainability efforts, conservation efforts? And that could be other knifemakers, other people in the outdoor space, anything there?

Well, yeah, so I was looking at, you know, this is another one of the things that you sent me on the prep list, just kind of like thinking about who I'd recommend you talk to and who I thought was doing a a good job. And I couldn't really think of anyone. But funnily enough, during our conversation, we talked about EcoEnclose briefly. And I think that they're a really interesting company because they're very, very forward in terms of like helping people work out how to do— how to create more sustainable packaging. And I just, I feel like there's not that many companies that are doing that. It's kind of kind of nuts. That's not really a thing. So yeah, they come to mind in terms of sustainability. They really come to mind as, as someone that's doing a really great job. In terms of like other knife makers and stuff that I admire, there's a Canadian knife maker by the name of John Grimsmo. And he makes mainly folding knives. And I am super jealous of his process. He has some very, very fancy machines and is very very fearless with his investment. You know, like some of his machineries are just worth an eye-boggling amount of money and he's basically in it because he's like, well, this shit's fun. I wanna like, making a business is fun. Like why wouldn't I buy fun toys? You know? So yeah, I really admire that approach. I can't do it myself. I'm too gun-shy when it comes to debt for stuff like that.

Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know. I think it'd be— as a next guest, I think it'd be really interesting to get someone from EcoEnclose to talk to. You know, it's, it's something we don't often think about, that there's so much packaging that just gets like chucked in the, in the dumpster after, after you open something.

Yeah, no, that's a great point. I'll have to reach out to them for sure. I'm definitely going to do a little research on their packaging for our own products.

Oh yeah, if you're in the States, like, they seem like a no-brainer. Like, they do short-run custom packaging for like very reasonable pricing. The only reason I haven't done that is just because I'm, as I said, concerned about the impact of like shipping everything up from so far away.

Yeah. What state are they in?

Oh, I have no idea. No idea. Sorry. I know the US is a big place.

Yeah, it is. No problem. Aaron, what book has had— book or books have had the biggest impact on your life?

That is a really hard question, man. So I would say I could divide this up into 2 categories. I think one is very practical in terms of like how I make my knives and what my process looks like. There's a really great book called The Design of Everyday Things, which is about industrial design and kind of how when something's wrong, we often tend to blame ourselves when we should be blaming industrial designers. And how to make things that mesh better with people, you know, that just work without you having to think too much about them. And a really good example that they have of that is the positioning of door handles. You know, if you see a long, wide horizontal door handle, you know that it's meant to be pushed. If you see a vertical door handle, you should know that it's meant to be pulled, right? But sometimes designers don't play by those rules. They'll use those door handles in the opposite configuration or something, you know. It's And then we're like, oh, I'm so stupid. I always forget that this door opens the other way. But we're not stupid. Whoever designed that door is stupid, you know. So the book's just really interesting in terms of talking about that.

Yeah.

The other really practical book is, it's called The New Science of Strong Materials. And it's like a primer. It was written in the '70s by a material science professor. And it's like a primer on how materials work. Like how wood is strong, how steel is strong, how these things work, what determines their toughness and so on. And it's an absolutely fantastic book to read if you're interested in learning more about metallurgy and engineering materials. And then in terms of like the books that have had the biggest effect on my like overall life, so I read either nonfiction, so like those books you just mentioned, or I read science fiction. And there's nothing else. And so yeah, I'm a massive science fiction nerd. And I think that that's hugely influenced my view on the world and where I would like things to go. You know, I think that maintaining the environment is really, really important. But I— right now, we have to do that through reduction. But at some point in the future, like garbage dumps are going to be like the most valuable commodity in the world because It's all of these like pre-mined and processed resources that right now we aren't able to, you know, reprocess. But at some point, someone's going to develop a little, you know, bacteria that eats plastic and poops jet fuel or something, right? And then, you know, those garbage dumps are going to be like hugely valuable. And just things like that, thinking about that. You know, how we could potentially get to post-scarcity and an economy where everything is 100% actually recycled, like reused, and the only input is energy, and the energy is free from solar panels or fusion reactors or whatever, you know, it's all very inspiring. I sometimes get a little sad that we haven't gotten closer to that ideal, you know.

Yeah, that's interesting. You mentioned about being able to eat up plastics and things like that. I've been reading up on that a little bit, and it seems like there is a possibility coming really quickly, mycelium. There's certain strains of fungi. Paul Stamets, who is a mycologist, he's done some work with this. Really, really fascinating how some of this could work. So, I don't think we're— we're not there yet, but I think long-term there's going to be some options there.

It sounds like you're a mushroom guy. You like mushrooms.

I know a little bit about them. I've been studying up on them a little bit over the years.

Have you read How to Change Your Mind?

I am in the process of reading it right now. I'm about halfway through. Michael Pollan is a great author. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. So I think that like sci-fi is probably, in terms of like books that have affected my life, sci-fi in general, you know, it very much affected my outlook and how I think the world could be made a better place. Technology is the answer for everything by the sounds of it.

Yeah, for sure. Definitely seems like it.

Except for when it's not. Yeah.

Aaron, do you have a favorite podcast?

Well, my own, of course. I have to plug my own podcast at this point. So yeah, I have a podcast called XYZ. And it's about technology. Funnily enough, it's about automation, CNC technology. It's just fun, you know. So I originally started this with a knifemaker from France, of all places, named Craig. And he had to drop out because of family commitments and stuff. So now I'm actually My co-host is Nick Frank, who is a guitar maker from Toronto, a good friend of mine.

Oh, cool.

So it's awesome because we just get to catch up every week and talk about what we're doing. We both use— we both have a really interesting blend of like automation and craftsmanship in our day-to-day process, you know. So we get to talk about all that kind of stuff. And yeah, it's great. Other than that, like, I don't listen to that many podcasts because I just, I find it too distracting if I'm trying to work and pay attention to something that I'm listening to. I tend to mainly listen to stuff like music that I can zone out to.

Sure.

You know, and then when I'm at home, I tend to read more than listen to podcasts. So I feel like kind of I'm a traitor to the cause here, given that I'm plugging my own podcast.

But yeah, you know. We'll check it out. What's one piece of advice that you would give to our audience just in closing here?

Oh, that's a very open question, man. Yeah, you know, do you want to narrow it down for me a bit there?

Sure. Yeah. When it comes to the outdoors, or when looking at knives, if someone is— they're trying to find the knife that's for them, or, or a tool, or something, something that craftsmanship that's gonna last.

Buy once, cry once. That's kind of the thing I try to stick by whenever I can. Like, cheap stuff is really tempting. And sometimes I will just buy cheap tools or whatever if I'm trying to like decide whether I even need that kind of a tool, you know. And honestly, in my business, like sometimes when you're saying like, oh, I'm buying a cheap tool, it's like $5,000 rather than $50 or something, you know. But yeah, for everything that's, you know, close to affordable, I tend to go with buy once, cry once, you know, buy something really good, cry when that bill hits your wallet. But then when you're using that tool, you just never think about it. Like you totally forget about the price because, you know, that thing's really nice. Whereas there's been tons of times when I cheap out on something and then every time I'm using it, I'm like, oh my God, this thing's a piece of shit. I wish I'd bought the more expensive one, the better one, you know. And the other thing too is like sometimes the more expensive stuff isn't better, you know, like it's really, I don't, these days it's so hard to know which reviews are unbiased and which aren't. You know, but yeah, do, do your diligence. Buy once, cry once if you can.

That's a great point. Just a quick personal example. When I think every single time that I made a decision purely on price and not on quality, and I've gone with the cheaper price, I've ended up regretting it and wished that I would have bought the more expensive option because the quality was much better. Yeah, I think that probably happens a lot.

Unfortunately, yeah. Yeah, 100%. And there are sometimes like, so recently I had to buy a hammer drill to drill some holes in my floor. That's a big thick concrete floor. I need a big crazy hammer drill. And the like really good hammer drills are really expensive, like easy to spend like $1,000 on a hammer drill. But this is a tool I'm gonna use like once a year, you know. So in that case, I compromised. I bought something that I thought was good that was like $150. And, you know, it will last me the rest of my life. I'm sure, because I'm not going to be using it that much. But yeah, for things that you're using every day, yeah, it's hard too these days though to find stuff that's, you know, more expensive because it's better quality rather than more expensive because it has a fancier brand.

Yeah.

You know, or something, right? So—

That's a great point.

Yeah. Easier said than done, right?

Indeed. Aaron, thanks so much. This has been a lot of fun. Really enjoyed talking to you and learning about your experiences and talking about the sustainability side. Where can our audience find you online?

Yeah, if you just go to goughcustom.com, G-O-U-G-H-custom.com, you'll see all my knives. And if you just search for Gough Custom, you'll find my YouTube channel, which I, I really love sharing with people on my YouTube channel because I actually show— I don't have any pros, any secrets, you know, I show everything in my process on there. It's a lot of fun. And then if you want like more bite-sized day-to-day updates, my Instagram is It's the place to hit up. And I'm just @Aaron.Gough on Instagram.

Perfect. Aaron, thanks so much.

Thank you for having me, Seth. Thanks for listening to the Rewild Gear Podcast. You could check out the show notes for today's episode at rewildgearpodcast.com. If you're ready to spend more time in the wild, our line of high-quality minimalistic outdoor gear can help you do just that. Check us out at rewildgear.com.