I know Middletown very well; I used to drive over there after I was done with class at Miami to ride the "Coasters" trails. They were hidden behind a dam on the west side of 4, as I recall.
Being poor and white is the worst gig in America right now. You're the only fair-game target for discrimination, hatred, public assault, seizure of assets, and so on. Nobody wants to hire you or have you in their school. You're easy to fire with or without cause. You're the last person to be paroled or put on probation. The stores where you live are free to charge you poverty rates AND arrest you for shoplifting.
Also, every single piece of media in America is designed to stunt on you.
My older sister is in town for our aunt's 90th birthday party and is staying in the living. I have a nice 4K 55" tv (in my living room the difference with 8K would literally not be visable) to watch movies and my own 3D stuff, but I don't watch much broadcast stuff and I won't pay for cable or very much streaming content. My sister, though, watches a lot of television so there have been a lot of commercials on the tube when I've been talking to her. It's pretty obvious that the advertising industry has particular aversion to white couples. For some reason, YouTube's algorithms like to show me adds for CertaPro Painters. I was shocked to see an ad with a white couple, but of course when they meet with a CertaPro professional he is suitably melanin enriched.
yeah this is just virtue signaling that you WANT us to think you're slightly sorry, or you're aware that you SHOULD BE sorry for it. Either way, you ain't gonna not write it. The angel on one shoulder is not strong enough to stop the devil on the other. ;-)
I’m sitting in a deer blind in northern WI with a Buck 110 and a Buck 691T, both proudly made in the USA. 110 was a gift from my hunting mentor but is around $60; 691T was maybe $95. Not as many features as those automatic blades, but I’m less worried about quick action when gutting a deer. For quick action I’ve also got a USA made S&W M&P 2.0 9mm here with me, and a made in the USA Savage 110 in .30-06. None of this stuff is fancy, exotic, or impressive to anyone, but all is durable, and should last me basically forever, and I’m glad to have it.
That's like a list of what non-cosplay rural people own and use. Particularly the Savage. Delete your post before Wes Siler starts buying all this stuff.
I was at a range sighting it in, and a guy saw me get it to an acceptable group at 100yds and begin to pack up and leave. He said, aren’t you going to switch to the 200yd range and try that? And your optics are a little low rent…
I said, Sir a long shot on our land is 75yards, this is plenty good. I think we both walked away confused by one another.
I won a couple pin matches with a box stock Glock 21 right down to the stupid ball in box sights. This was not appreciated by my fellow competitors!
Fit for purpose goes both ways and also implies there's no sense making preparations for impossibility. And in any event if you're zeroed for 100 you can make a 200 yard shot.
I've been toying with the idea of buying a new Python. Then I found out Wilson Combat makes sights for it.
Something broke inside me.
Ever notice how nothing stock is ever good enough? Not just "not good enough," but borderline unusable without aftermarket support? Well, I've had it with "aftermarket support." If I can't use something out of the box without replace a bunch of parts, I'm not buying it.
The current state of the art 3D printer that isn't industrial level four figures and up like Stratasys or Ultimaker is the Bambu Lab X1 (because Prusa won't be releasing their own CoreXY based machine for almost another year). One knock against the Bambu printer is that it isn't open source so user upgrades are not as easy as with Prusa's open source ethos. The thing is, I'm not buying a printer to be a printing hobbyist, though I have built a Prusa clone and upgraded both of my Prusa printers. I'm buying a printer to make parts, out of the box.
S&W warranty replaced a gen 1 (year one, I think) full size M&P45 with a cracked frame for me a couple years ago.
It, uh, had seen a few rounds. Props to their customer service, I liked it so much I need to sell off one or two other things and get an RDS ready 9mm and l2shoot red dots on a pistol.
I recently got into watches, and was wondering if you would be reviewing watches made in the US. I understand there are a few, like Vaer and Long Island. Is Shinola still “Made in Detroit”?
I'll get my brother on for that, he buys more watches in a year than I do in a lifetime.
I was an early customer for Weiss and bought one of the first American movement watches. I also introduced him to Matt Farah. Ended up selling the Weiss. Most days I wear a plain titanium G-Shock.
"A plain titanium G-Shock." A veritable man of the people you are.
I want to get the Full Metal in blue Stainless but that would make it the most expensive watch I own (though I have more money in my Ball/Elgin railroad standard pocket watch and my dad's vintage Accutron because of repairs/cleaning) and somehow a G-Shock doesn't fit that role. I did get the blue stainless Casioak (speaking of which they've released a bunch of new variants of the GA-2100 - I think they're overdoing it).
I don't think Long Island's house brand watches are assembled in the U.S. Bertucci makes some of their watches in the U.S. I have one of their [imported] titanium AT-2 field watches and I've been happy with it. If Shinola sold a reasonably priced pocket watch I'd buy it but so far they've only done a couple of limited edition runs that I think are a bit pricy in the aftermarket and they aren't currently selling any pocket watches.
Got a Benchmade as a wedding gift 8 years ago - still my daily carry, although I lost the first one a few years ago. I *think* it's US made? Just revived then handles of my Buck 307 in a mineral oil bath this week - got it in the late '70s. I love Made in the USA stuff too.
They also produced a line of NRA knives in the 2000s and I have, in hindsight, a knife I shouldn't have purchased but it's, let me think, 62 of 250 on production run one? Probably worth less than what I (read: my parents) bought it for
Ok but the towels. Do you still use them? I’m on a set of Canadian-made towels from 2006 and they’re finally wearing out, and I’m getting a bit concerned.
Since I harbor no fantasies about defending my life with a small pocket knife (I have a S&W Shield for that), I carry a knife that is a bit more utilitarian and cheap. Opinel #8 is available on Amazon for $18. Yeah, not made in USA, but is made in France. Light weight, good edge, easier to sharpen. You don't need to spend hundreds on a knife. Hell, the number of times I've either lost one, or dropped it over the edge of the boat, I'd shit myself for spending that kinda money.
That said, I do appreciate the made in USA features, but yeah, you still talk about stuff way more expensive than most people are willing to spend. And yes, I recently spent several hundred per knife for a good kitchen set - Wustoff from Germany. As long as they stay in the kitchen, not much chance of losing them.
Since you brought up the old versus new minimum wage, one thing to remember is back then people didn't have multiple TV's, cable/satellite/internet service, dozens of video subscription services, hundreds (if not more) in cell phone bills, etc. and so forth. We make more money (relatively speaking) but choose to spend it faster on all the above such that we really aren't richer than our parents, just more easily entertained.
I'd say it's all of the above and more: Women in the workforce, mass immigration of both skilled and unskilled labor, outsourced manufacturing, government regulation of every aspect of the economy, bachelor's degrees becoming essentially mandatory, etc.
There's an burgeoning market in premium Chinese products that compete directly with USA stuff. I want my readers to at least know they have a choice before they buy a $39 Taiwanese locking plier or a $299 Chinese premium folding knife.
You're not wrong about TV and whatnot but I think the insane increases in rent, property value, healthcare, and food cost have made a much bigger dent than $200 a month of Netflix and chill. The places that rented for $400 a month in 1994 are now $1800 a month. I had a lot of $2.99 meals back then as well. Burger King charges eleven bucks for a whopper and cheese meal.
Yeah, everything else has gotten insanely expensive, but we don't live like my parents. Even today, I think my mom still has a TV plan where she gets like 20 channels and that's it. We had to practically threaten her to get a cell phone so she can call us in an emergency. We today blow a significant chunk of our paycheck on stuff our parents would sneer at.
Sometimes I think about unplugging everything but my and the wife's cell phones. No cable, no cable internet, no amazon prime video, no HBO, no Starz, no nothing. We get enough internet through the cell phone plan and both our phones can do the 5g wifi hotspot. I'd save a significant chunk of a 2023 F-250 payment (Lariat, not Platinum, let's not get pretentious about a fricking truck). But no, my household would have a shit-fit and I'll keep driving a 10 year old Ram.
I should have added the word cost. My cost, my employer of course pays as well which makes the whole thing worse.
I will express that I am displeased with the state of health care from billing opacity to massive consolidation and sky rocketing cost under the ACA. It’s a system that seems designed to siphon funds instead of deliver quality care at reasonable cost.
I’m not very entertained by the tuition money I pay. Villanova University was less than 6k/year in 1982. It’s 78k/year currently. For Villanova University. The BLS inflation calculator says 6k in ‘82 should be 19k now.
I ran the numbers and got angry. I realized that if we hadn't made those bad economic decisions as a country for the last half-century, I'd be making about $600,000 a year. Instead, as a degreed white-collar professional in a designer role at a company that specializes in heavy manufacutring, I'm making moderately okay first-job-out-of-college money for 1992.
I carry a Spyderco Native 5 everyday for maybe seven or eight years now. I’ve lost it twice while doing an install at the dayjob, but both times found it days later hanging by the clip in the (snaggy) net I had just finished hanging. Both times I had replaced it right away with larger Spydercos (Manix and Military I think) which I didn’t like as much and returned.
IIRC I went with the Native because I liked how it’s American-made (also from Earth according the the blade) and wanted something from you neighbours to the south (I’m Canadian). It’s also the perfect size and doesn’t spook people around here (no one carries knives around these parts) when I flick it open.
I have heard about these from some knife collecting friends, they rate them highly.
As for made in America, I have been sorely tempted to start a company making some simple kitchen items, like crockpots and rice cookers, that nowadays you cant buy. most everything out there is stuffed with microprocessors and tons of worthless options and quickly break.
(sorry for any typos, had shoulder surgery last night. typing left hand only is hard!)
If you're looking for kitchen knives: I've been very impressed by Bloodroot Blades in Georgia. They restored the butcher knife that belonged to my grandfather, and the small chef's and paring knives I've bought from them are beautiful and hold an edge nicely. We've got a friend who is a professional sushi chef; works with Japanese knives priced well into four figures and he was deeply impressed by the Bloodroot knives.
Bloodroot Blades also makes belt knives, but I've got no experience with them.
Bloodroot Blades has very long lead times, so getting a bespoke knife will take ages. That said, get on the mailing list because the company holds monthly drawings that include about a dozen knives.
General question on all-things-made-in-America. (If it’s not germane, please feel free to ignore.) There’s now a nationwide shortage of Adderall. This is a big deal at my casa. Lately, it’s been Fritos, diapers, baby formula, etc. My wife’s a nurse and a few months ago they ran out of Propofol and had to use ketamine instead. Yikes! None of these are high-tech or new products. Without putting on a tinfoil hat, these “shortages” seem too frequent to be just random corporate idiocy. Are we helping, enabling or just being rubes for going out of our way for Made in the USA?
The next generation is getting plenty of training, only instead of for work they're trained in a weird mix of postmodernism and marxism for maximum destructiveness. Or is it deconstructiveness? Whatever, words don't mean anything to them anyhow.
About 50 years ago I was working on the brakes of my older brother's Mini Cooper. Before leaving to live on a religious kibbutz in Israel for a year, while he was driving the car it dropped a brake pad resulting in the caliper piston getting machined by the rotor. My dad and I could get the rebuild kit but nobody had replacement caliper pistons and back then you didn't order parts from the UK like you can now. The front of the piston was ground down at an angle, and because the piston had traveled beyond it's normal range much of it was exposed and it got corroded and pitted. I remember sitting it my dad's office at his veterinary hospital, getting out the various Detroit area Yellow Pages looking up various shops. We had a centerless grinder shop clean up the surfaces, then had a plating company put a thickness of hard chromium on them, and then returned them to the grinding shop to take them back down to spec. The region was full of little shops that were 3rd and 4th tier suppliers to the auto industry. Big enough to take on contract work but small enough to work on four small caliper pistons. How small were the Mini's brake part? Well the Mini has 10" wheels and when I took the rear drums, which I don't think were more than 6" in diameter, in to be turned, Mr. Bensky (who owned Grand Schafer North auto parts in Berkley and was alsos a Boy Scout leader of mine - I walked past the store on my way home from high school every day before I got my driver's license) said to me, "What are those off of, a go-kart?"
Mr. Bensky is long dead and so are most of those small machine shops that seemed to stretch for miles on Nine, Ten, and Eleven Mile roads as you traveled east of Woodward.
I went to high school with a rather dull kid named Randolph. He didn't care much about school because his dad ran a successful small machine shop that actually was located on 11 Mile not far from where I now live. Over the years, the business grew and expanded, each time adding another attached building until it took up most of the suburban block with this odd collection of building shapes. Randolph Machining has long since closed. The idiot son probably ran it into the ground or got put out of business like all those other smaller shops. The buildings have been redeveloped into a collection of bars, restaurants, and galleries that my city calls the "Social District".
Isn't it good news that Target gets down to business when necessary, despite the virtue signaling? There is hope.
I know Middletown very well; I used to drive over there after I was done with class at Miami to ride the "Coasters" trails. They were hidden behind a dam on the west side of 4, as I recall.
Being poor and white is the worst gig in America right now. You're the only fair-game target for discrimination, hatred, public assault, seizure of assets, and so on. Nobody wants to hire you or have you in their school. You're easy to fire with or without cause. You're the last person to be paroled or put on probation. The stores where you live are free to charge you poverty rates AND arrest you for shoplifting.
Also, every single piece of media in America is designed to stunt on you.
My older sister is in town for our aunt's 90th birthday party and is staying in the living. I have a nice 4K 55" tv (in my living room the difference with 8K would literally not be visable) to watch movies and my own 3D stuff, but I don't watch much broadcast stuff and I won't pay for cable or very much streaming content. My sister, though, watches a lot of television so there have been a lot of commercials on the tube when I've been talking to her. It's pretty obvious that the advertising industry has particular aversion to white couples. For some reason, YouTube's algorithms like to show me adds for CertaPro Painters. I was shocked to see an ad with a white couple, but of course when they meet with a CertaPro professional he is suitably melanin enriched.
I agree. I like neither tanto nor serrated blades.
Agreed. I bought my first “nice” knife, a benchmade griptilian in a tanto, simply because I thought it lookes cool, and almost never carried it.
But the shape is menacing and atavistic. Plus it’s so stabby!
I'm just a fuckin nerd that's what!
I'm bad at sharpening knives so I have a Spyderco Delica and a Spyderco Sharpmaker to keep the angle right.
Blame the samurai.
you aren't fooling us. you aren't in the slightest bit sorry for that joke. :-)
yeah this is just virtue signaling that you WANT us to think you're slightly sorry, or you're aware that you SHOULD BE sorry for it. Either way, you ain't gonna not write it. The angel on one shoulder is not strong enough to stop the devil on the other. ;-)
I'm a little battered and bruised from four unsubscriptions in the past 36 hours!
You didn't lose subscribers - you're just undergoing a process of distillation.
I’m sitting in a deer blind in northern WI with a Buck 110 and a Buck 691T, both proudly made in the USA. 110 was a gift from my hunting mentor but is around $60; 691T was maybe $95. Not as many features as those automatic blades, but I’m less worried about quick action when gutting a deer. For quick action I’ve also got a USA made S&W M&P 2.0 9mm here with me, and a made in the USA Savage 110 in .30-06. None of this stuff is fancy, exotic, or impressive to anyone, but all is durable, and should last me basically forever, and I’m glad to have it.
Buck 110 is still made in USA.
I was just reading their site. They’ve partnered with Taylor guitars to get sustainable ebony for their handles. The sheaths are imported though.
A Buck 110 with Crelicam ebony? Now we're talking!
That's like a list of what non-cosplay rural people own and use. Particularly the Savage. Delete your post before Wes Siler starts buying all this stuff.
I was at a range sighting it in, and a guy saw me get it to an acceptable group at 100yds and begin to pack up and leave. He said, aren’t you going to switch to the 200yd range and try that? And your optics are a little low rent…
I said, Sir a long shot on our land is 75yards, this is plenty good. I think we both walked away confused by one another.
I won a couple pin matches with a box stock Glock 21 right down to the stupid ball in box sights. This was not appreciated by my fellow competitors!
Fit for purpose goes both ways and also implies there's no sense making preparations for impossibility. And in any event if you're zeroed for 100 you can make a 200 yard shot.
I've been toying with the idea of buying a new Python. Then I found out Wilson Combat makes sights for it.
Something broke inside me.
Ever notice how nothing stock is ever good enough? Not just "not good enough," but borderline unusable without aftermarket support? Well, I've had it with "aftermarket support." If I can't use something out of the box without replace a bunch of parts, I'm not buying it.
It's not the plane, it's the pilot.
The current state of the art 3D printer that isn't industrial level four figures and up like Stratasys or Ultimaker is the Bambu Lab X1 (because Prusa won't be releasing their own CoreXY based machine for almost another year). One knock against the Bambu printer is that it isn't open source so user upgrades are not as easy as with Prusa's open source ethos. The thing is, I'm not buying a printer to be a printing hobbyist, though I have built a Prusa clone and upgraded both of my Prusa printers. I'm buying a printer to make parts, out of the box.
All right, 3D printers are an exception - but guns and cars are mature technologies.
To be fair, he's probably too busy taking pictures of other guys banging his wife to read anything you have to write.
S&W warranty replaced a gen 1 (year one, I think) full size M&P45 with a cracked frame for me a couple years ago.
It, uh, had seen a few rounds. Props to their customer service, I liked it so much I need to sell off one or two other things and get an RDS ready 9mm and l2shoot red dots on a pistol.
I recently got into watches, and was wondering if you would be reviewing watches made in the US. I understand there are a few, like Vaer and Long Island. Is Shinola still “Made in Detroit”?
I'll get my brother on for that, he buys more watches in a year than I do in a lifetime.
I was an early customer for Weiss and bought one of the first American movement watches. I also introduced him to Matt Farah. Ended up selling the Weiss. Most days I wear a plain titanium G-Shock.
"A plain titanium G-Shock." A veritable man of the people you are.
I want to get the Full Metal in blue Stainless but that would make it the most expensive watch I own (though I have more money in my Ball/Elgin railroad standard pocket watch and my dad's vintage Accutron because of repairs/cleaning) and somehow a G-Shock doesn't fit that role. I did get the blue stainless Casioak (speaking of which they've released a bunch of new variants of the GA-2100 - I think they're overdoing it).
I don't think Long Island's house brand watches are assembled in the U.S. Bertucci makes some of their watches in the U.S. I have one of their [imported] titanium AT-2 field watches and I've been happy with it. If Shinola sold a reasonably priced pocket watch I'd buy it but so far they've only done a couple of limited edition runs that I think are a bit pricy in the aftermarket and they aren't currently selling any pocket watches.
Got a Benchmade as a wedding gift 8 years ago - still my daily carry, although I lost the first one a few years ago. I *think* it's US made? Just revived then handles of my Buck 307 in a mineral oil bath this week - got it in the late '70s. I love Made in the USA stuff too.
The Blur is also USA made. Kershaw has several quality USA made knives at substantially cheaper prices than Benchmade.
There's a sister brand, Zero Tolerance or ZT, for people who insist on paying more for a Kershaw. Not gonna lie, they make some wicked stuff.
Almost everything Benchmade did and does is USA.
They had what they called a “Red Line” out a few years ago that was Chinese made. Their production was divided into Black, Blue, and Red lines.
I believe Benchmade makes everything in the USA at the moment.
They also produced a line of NRA knives in the 2000s and I have, in hindsight, a knife I shouldn't have purchased but it's, let me think, 62 of 250 on production run one? Probably worth less than what I (read: my parents) bought it for
154CM blade though.
I might have bought the same knife. Fixed blade, kraton handle, decent black leather sheaf?
This is a folder, NRA Outdoors Gaucho Osborne with a plain edge.
https://www.knifecenter.com/item/BM12800P/benchmade-nra-gaucho-osborne-axis-lock
Tanto!
Ok but the towels. Do you still use them? I’m on a set of Canadian-made towels from 2006 and they’re finally wearing out, and I’m getting a bit concerned.
Still using them!
Just 16 years from a towel? Dispute the charge on your amex.
Towels by Gus has those American made bath sheets for 26.99 at the moment. A Black Friday deal I believe. You’re welcome.
Hold on, upon further inspection... Made in Turkey. My apologies.
https://americanhomeusa.us/products/made-in-the-usa-grand-teton-monogrammed-towels for the towel win in my opinion...
Thank you-
Reasonably priced to boot! Thanks.
Since I harbor no fantasies about defending my life with a small pocket knife (I have a S&W Shield for that), I carry a knife that is a bit more utilitarian and cheap. Opinel #8 is available on Amazon for $18. Yeah, not made in USA, but is made in France. Light weight, good edge, easier to sharpen. You don't need to spend hundreds on a knife. Hell, the number of times I've either lost one, or dropped it over the edge of the boat, I'd shit myself for spending that kinda money.
That said, I do appreciate the made in USA features, but yeah, you still talk about stuff way more expensive than most people are willing to spend. And yes, I recently spent several hundred per knife for a good kitchen set - Wustoff from Germany. As long as they stay in the kitchen, not much chance of losing them.
Since you brought up the old versus new minimum wage, one thing to remember is back then people didn't have multiple TV's, cable/satellite/internet service, dozens of video subscription services, hundreds (if not more) in cell phone bills, etc. and so forth. We make more money (relatively speaking) but choose to spend it faster on all the above such that we really aren't richer than our parents, just more easily entertained.
I'd say it's all of the above and more: Women in the workforce, mass immigration of both skilled and unskilled labor, outsourced manufacturing, government regulation of every aspect of the economy, bachelor's degrees becoming essentially mandatory, etc.
There's an burgeoning market in premium Chinese products that compete directly with USA stuff. I want my readers to at least know they have a choice before they buy a $39 Taiwanese locking plier or a $299 Chinese premium folding knife.
You're not wrong about TV and whatnot but I think the insane increases in rent, property value, healthcare, and food cost have made a much bigger dent than $200 a month of Netflix and chill. The places that rented for $400 a month in 1994 are now $1800 a month. I had a lot of $2.99 meals back then as well. Burger King charges eleven bucks for a whopper and cheese meal.
Yeah, everything else has gotten insanely expensive, but we don't live like my parents. Even today, I think my mom still has a TV plan where she gets like 20 channels and that's it. We had to practically threaten her to get a cell phone so she can call us in an emergency. We today blow a significant chunk of our paycheck on stuff our parents would sneer at.
Sometimes I think about unplugging everything but my and the wife's cell phones. No cable, no cable internet, no amazon prime video, no HBO, no Starz, no nothing. We get enough internet through the cell phone plan and both our phones can do the 5g wifi hotspot. I'd save a significant chunk of a 2023 F-250 payment (Lariat, not Platinum, let's not get pretentious about a fricking truck). But no, my household would have a shit-fit and I'll keep driving a 10 year old Ram.
My healthcare for the family runs about $10k before I get any actual, you know, health care.
I should have added the word cost. My cost, my employer of course pays as well which makes the whole thing worse.
I will express that I am displeased with the state of health care from billing opacity to massive consolidation and sky rocketing cost under the ACA. It’s a system that seems designed to siphon funds instead of deliver quality care at reasonable cost.
If hospitals were honest, they'd have a menu board above the front desk with all the prices on it, like McDonald's.
I’m not very entertained by the tuition money I pay. Villanova University was less than 6k/year in 1982. It’s 78k/year currently. For Villanova University. The BLS inflation calculator says 6k in ‘82 should be 19k now.
I ran the numbers and got angry. I realized that if we hadn't made those bad economic decisions as a country for the last half-century, I'd be making about $600,000 a year. Instead, as a degreed white-collar professional in a designer role at a company that specializes in heavy manufacutring, I'm making moderately okay first-job-out-of-college money for 1992.
Love the knife post!
I carry a Spyderco Native 5 everyday for maybe seven or eight years now. I’ve lost it twice while doing an install at the dayjob, but both times found it days later hanging by the clip in the (snaggy) net I had just finished hanging. Both times I had replaced it right away with larger Spydercos (Manix and Military I think) which I didn’t like as much and returned.
IIRC I went with the Native because I liked how it’s American-made (also from Earth according the the blade) and wanted something from you neighbours to the south (I’m Canadian). It’s also the perfect size and doesn’t spook people around here (no one carries knives around these parts) when I flick it open.
My wife has the pink-handled version.
“Bounce ball”, love it! I would pay to watch that. You’re right, he would be in jail today. In actuality he should get a medal!
I have heard about these from some knife collecting friends, they rate them highly.
As for made in America, I have been sorely tempted to start a company making some simple kitchen items, like crockpots and rice cookers, that nowadays you cant buy. most everything out there is stuffed with microprocessors and tons of worthless options and quickly break.
(sorry for any typos, had shoulder surgery last night. typing left hand only is hard!)
Toaster with real nichrome wire, and is easy to clean crumbs from.
Maybe a clone of the GE waffle iron that makes real American small square waffles not this fluffy Belgian crap.
I had a toaster develop a short and went to go open it up.
Tamper resistant screw heads. On a $30 toaster. C'mon!
We bought a crockpot from 360 cookware, made in wisconsin. Very expensive but worth every penny.
Oh, and i have a friend who makes knives. There not folders, theyre sheath knives, but damn they are good.!
Shout them out, yo!
https://mewe.com/group/5f6d176c457f57616f8ff4d0
https://www.facebook.com/BjornBladeworks
I don't think he has a website yet, but i have a couple of his blades and they're great.
If you're looking for kitchen knives: I've been very impressed by Bloodroot Blades in Georgia. They restored the butcher knife that belonged to my grandfather, and the small chef's and paring knives I've bought from them are beautiful and hold an edge nicely. We've got a friend who is a professional sushi chef; works with Japanese knives priced well into four figures and he was deeply impressed by the Bloodroot knives.
Bloodroot Blades also makes belt knives, but I've got no experience with them.
Bloodroot Blades has very long lead times, so getting a bespoke knife will take ages. That said, get on the mailing list because the company holds monthly drawings that include about a dozen knives.
General question on all-things-made-in-America. (If it’s not germane, please feel free to ignore.) There’s now a nationwide shortage of Adderall. This is a big deal at my casa. Lately, it’s been Fritos, diapers, baby formula, etc. My wife’s a nurse and a few months ago they ran out of Propofol and had to use ketamine instead. Yikes! None of these are high-tech or new products. Without putting on a tinfoil hat, these “shortages” seem too frequent to be just random corporate idiocy. Are we helping, enabling or just being rubes for going out of our way for Made in the USA?
Yes.
What you're observing is the gradual falling apart of systems built by and for a completely different culture, decades ago.
I'm interested in helping my neighbors and countrymen. This probably makes me a rube. I can live with that.
The next generation is getting plenty of training, only instead of for work they're trained in a weird mix of postmodernism and marxism for maximum destructiveness. Or is it deconstructiveness? Whatever, words don't mean anything to them anyhow.
About 50 years ago I was working on the brakes of my older brother's Mini Cooper. Before leaving to live on a religious kibbutz in Israel for a year, while he was driving the car it dropped a brake pad resulting in the caliper piston getting machined by the rotor. My dad and I could get the rebuild kit but nobody had replacement caliper pistons and back then you didn't order parts from the UK like you can now. The front of the piston was ground down at an angle, and because the piston had traveled beyond it's normal range much of it was exposed and it got corroded and pitted. I remember sitting it my dad's office at his veterinary hospital, getting out the various Detroit area Yellow Pages looking up various shops. We had a centerless grinder shop clean up the surfaces, then had a plating company put a thickness of hard chromium on them, and then returned them to the grinding shop to take them back down to spec. The region was full of little shops that were 3rd and 4th tier suppliers to the auto industry. Big enough to take on contract work but small enough to work on four small caliper pistons. How small were the Mini's brake part? Well the Mini has 10" wheels and when I took the rear drums, which I don't think were more than 6" in diameter, in to be turned, Mr. Bensky (who owned Grand Schafer North auto parts in Berkley and was alsos a Boy Scout leader of mine - I walked past the store on my way home from high school every day before I got my driver's license) said to me, "What are those off of, a go-kart?"
Mr. Bensky is long dead and so are most of those small machine shops that seemed to stretch for miles on Nine, Ten, and Eleven Mile roads as you traveled east of Woodward.
I went to high school with a rather dull kid named Randolph. He didn't care much about school because his dad ran a successful small machine shop that actually was located on 11 Mile not far from where I now live. Over the years, the business grew and expanded, each time adding another attached building until it took up most of the suburban block with this odd collection of building shapes. Randolph Machining has long since closed. The idiot son probably ran it into the ground or got put out of business like all those other smaller shops. The buildings have been redeveloped into a collection of bars, restaurants, and galleries that my city calls the "Social District".