The Knife Junkie Podcast is the place for knife newbies and knife junkies to learn about knives and knife collecting. Twice per week Bob DeMarco talks knives. Email Bob at theknifejunkie@gmail.com; visit https://theknifejunkie.com.
©2025, Bob DeMarco
The Knife Junkie Podcast
https://theknifejunkie.com

Transcribe Your Podcasts and Videos: https://theknifejunkie.com/magic (affiliate link)

Announcer [00:00:03]:
Welcome to the Knife Junkie Podcast, your weekly dose of knife news and information about knives and knife collecting. Here's your host, Bob The Knife Junkie DeMarco.

Bob DeMarco [00:00:16]:
Welcome to the Knife Junkie podcast. I'm Bob DeMarco. On this edition of the show, I'm speaking with Jacob Peterson of Exodus Knife and Tool. Jacob is a relatively new knife designer whose Adventure Craft and Jackalope Fixed Blade knives have recently caused a splash with some of the most trusted knife reviewers on YouTube. His knives are both beautiful and no nonsense. Each one designed to conquer everything from workaday EDC chores to bushcrafting tasks to critical survival applications. On top of that, he's enlisted one of the most respected knife companies in America to produce his designs. We'll meet Jacob and discover the inspirations and process that make Exodus Knife and.

Bob DeMarco [00:00:59]:
Tool what it is.

Bob DeMarco [00:01:01]:
But first, be sure to like, comment, subscribe and hit the notification bell. You can also download the show to your favorite podcast app so that you can listen on the go. Also, if you'd like to help support the show, you can share it. That goes a great length to do that, but also you can join us Become a Gentleman Junkie just by joining right here on YouTube right below or going to Patreon and signing up for a year at once you get 12% off, which is a hell of a deal. You can go to the knifejunkie.com Patreon or scan that QR code on your screen again. That's thenifejunkie.com Patreon

Announcer
Adventure delivered your monthly subscription for handpicked outdoor survival, EDC and other cool gear from our expert team of outdoor professionals. The knife junkie.com battlebox

Bob DeMarco
Jacob, nice to meet you sir. Thanks for coming on the show.

Jacob Peterson [00:01:55]:
Absolutely, my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Bob DeMarco [00:01:57]:
It's my pleasure and I I want to congratulate you on your your recent success. I've been. I've been seeing Exodus Knife and Tool the like I said, the Adventure craft. I've seen that a lot on the various channels I love to watch on YouTube. How did you get into this?

Jacob Peterson [00:02:16]:
It's a pretty long story. I'll try and probably keep it a little shorter. I believe it was 2017. I was working with my friend Ross Gammons at Dry Creek Forge. We went to Blade show for the first time. We released the Super Kook, which is a large kukri that we're kind of bringing back to market now. But I had come from also co owning a Nepalese kukri manufacturer. So I really like Kukris I became known for large knives, but I wanted to design a series of Puukko inspired knives in a medium small and extra small.

Jacob Peterson [00:03:01]:
Now my extra small Cuukko is what eventually became the Adventure craft. And universally everybody who I showed my drawing that I was so excited about said do not do this. It was too small, too thin, the dimensions were unusual. I drew some inspiration from the cold steel spike from back in the day when that was first released. I drew some inspiration from a custom knife that Ross had manufactured and we didn't make it, but down the road a little ways, you know, I started Exodus Knife and Tool. I was originally manufactured by Mineral Mountain Hatchet Works over in Arkansas and we got the ball rolling again. So this would actually be kind of my third attempt in the knife industry. I've been reviewing knives for 10 years now.

Jacob Peterson [00:04:08]:
Can't stay away from them. And every time I try to venture like this and failed, I came crawling back and, and this third try has been amazing. The adventure craft has been a game changer for me and not, not just as a brand, but actually in my personal life and as a knife reviewer.

Bob DeMarco [00:04:32]:
Really, how's it done that Harder for.

Jacob Peterson [00:04:34]:
Me to review knives now. I was very, very driven to constantly find this, this knife that gave me a long term satisfaction, I think in any other group of people, I think that would sound really weird. Hopefully I'm thinking people here may understand what I'm saying there. The Adventure Craft and the Jackalope kind of did that for me. Where in the past I would love knives of certain designs but wish something was a little different. This, that or the other. The adventure crafts I carry every day. If I'm not carrying an adventure craft, I'm carrying a Jackalope and if I don't, I feel naked and, and so there's less chasing down new knife designs to review because I'm not chasing anymore.

Jacob Peterson [00:05:30]:
So that's been weird. It's been weird. Little bit of a shift from I'm still no longer knife reviews but I've been shifting more towards skill demons version.

Bob DeMarco [00:05:44]:
Okay, before we get to that, I want to ask you as a reviewer and I come against this in the videos I do and I just personally, and I guess it's in my moniker, I love all types of knives, all types of knives, but there, there is a very slender fraction of the knives that I collect. I love to, to collect them and have all sorts of different stuff, but there's a very slender selection that I actually carry and use for you. What, what kind of Stuff did you like versus or do you like versus the kind of stuff that you carry and use what we look at them for in that perfect knife.

Jacob Peterson [00:06:24]:
So I've, so I mentioned I used to kind of be known for big knives. Now I'm known for the smallest fixed blade knives. But generally I like very practical designs. I think I've, and like most nice people, I've always been a nice guy. I found myself attracted to some visually appealing tactical knives before a combat deployment in about 2009. I, I, the, the only knife knives that I liked on deployment were a zero tolerance 0350.

Bob DeMarco [00:07:11]:
Okay.

Jacob Peterson [00:07:11]:
The original fat one, it was kind of like a, I think a strider.

Bob DeMarco [00:07:15]:
Yeah.

Jacob Peterson [00:07:16]:
And a Kershaw Leek. The other stuff that I had wasn't so good but you know, I guess I found myself becoming involved in survival and Bushcraft and moving somewhat away from tactically inspired knives or designs that I didn't find practical for my uses. And more into Bushcraft and survival blades I don't really have. I've got a couple knives that are pretty but very much. I stay fairly use oriented. Not because I have anything against collecting more because I can't afford to collect. I don't, I can't, I don't keep pretty things. You know, it's not my, I just can't.

Bob DeMarco [00:08:03]:
So yeah, yeah, I think, I think collectors have a certain DNA that, you know, if I could collect watches, if I could collect artwork, if I could collect cars and guitars and yeah, I think that's a mindset. But, but if you've got it nailed down to, to a use case that you can, that you can just really focus on that. That's, that's the grass, the greener grass for me. You mentioned Kukris and how you were co owner of a Nepalese kukri manufacturer. Tell me about that. How did that happen?

Jacob Peterson [00:08:41]:
That was weird. It was ex Gurkha Kukri House. It was early in my YouTube career. I don't know. I bought a few Kukris I was posting on YouTube. I believe I was posting, I don't think Instagram, I don't think I had an Instagram back then. Facebook, something like that. And ended up, I, I, I sent an email to Xkirka Kukri House with some ideas and I started talking with the owner at the time.

Jacob Peterson [00:09:20]:
We started talking back and forth. They actually came to America and stayed with me. I took them out shooting, did all kinds of stuff. They were over for Thanksgiving. I had to hide the cow skulls in the House type of thing, you know. Yeah. But we made a deal to where I handled all of the customer service for North America and Europe and I handled a little bit of technical stuff and ran an Amazon sales front and. And we split stuff and I also got to make my own knife designs at cost and sell those as well.

Jacob Peterson [00:10:02]:
And so, man, that was 2014, 2015, and it was wild. We had, we had a no questions asked lifetime guarantee, but I had some issues with quality control that were supposed to be fixed and repeatedly they weren't fixed and we had to separate because of that.

Bob DeMarco [00:10:27]:
Yeah, I guess something like that can ruin your own reputation, you know, even. Even if it's not your originally your venture. Well, I want to talk about the birth of Exodus knife and tool and your inspirations and everything behind that, but yeah, you mentioned military deployment. First of all. Thank you for doing that. Thank you for serving this country. I. I enjoy the fruits of that.

Bob DeMarco [00:10:51]:
So I want to thank you. What, what branch of the military?

Jacob Peterson [00:10:54]:
Army. Army, yeah. So as an airborne infantryman had a little bit of a weird career path. I ended up in a CAV unit. So long story short, infantry guys and Cav units usually do recon. It doesn't really make sense, but the CAV is weird. So I was doing Arista, which do reca outside of the cav. Um, long range reconnaissance stuff.

Jacob Peterson [00:11:27]:
But then. So I was often attached with special Forces. Um, but I also. We were the only maneuver element for the fob. We drove around PsyOps and Civil affairs quite a bit and I ended up getting involved in military intelligence. And it was a weird, weird little experience. And it also kind of helped maybe build the foundation for my future views on knife designs and practicality. Because the main knife that I paid a lot of money to bring was horrible.

Jacob Peterson [00:12:02]:
And so, you know, I'm out here trying to do almost anything with it and just like, man, this knife sucks.

Bob DeMarco [00:12:09]:
Are you willing to divulge what the night was?

Jacob Peterson [00:12:12]:
Yeah. Let me say in their defense, it was a different world back then in the industry and it was a different company back then as well. It was Tots Dart. It was one of the first darts ever made in S30 volts. As I understand it, it rocks the S30 volts quite quickly because the heat seat would get all jacked up. But you know what's interesting about that? This is 2009, 2010, before Laren Thomas. All right. The.

Jacob Peterson [00:12:44]:
The world was still very much based on like bro. Science, lifting, martial arts, metallurgy, knives, steels. I still come up across some of these really old knife steel performance charts from, from that era that are for some reason just still on the Internet. And I'll look at what they post and I'll be like where, where did they even come up with this? This is ridiculous. This is based on nothing. Back at that time tops knives you had to pay extra if you wanted to knife sharp. So you know there, I still hear this sometimes by the way. There was this belief that a sharp knife was weaker basically like if it was sharp.

Jacob Peterson [00:13:35]:
This idea of believing that sharpness had to do with the acuity of the edge. You know, a more, a thinner edge was sharper. We know so much more about edges or especially in the industry now. But it said right on the website we make work knives, they're made to be tough. You can pay extra for it to be sharp but it won't be as hot. It was awful.

Bob DeMarco [00:14:10]:
So truly sharpened pry bars at the time.

Jacob Peterson [00:14:13]:
Yeah, yeah, sharpened pry bar that I could never get sharp. I wasn't also wasn't skilled back and I wouldn't say that I'm skilled now but a whole lot better than I was then anyways. You know I, I have another tops dart now for the sake of we there, there's some, you know, some handle geometry kind of issues and stuff like that still are behind the edge thickness on it even in 5160s at like 70 thou around the belly. So still not a knife that I enjoy but the new one is much better than the one that I had there. Anyways. It looked really cool though. It was kukrish and the handle had a lot of hotspot issues. It was horrible to use.

Jacob Peterson [00:15:03]:
It was. You had to use a lot of pressure to use the knife because it was dull because the edge was so thick and then you had the squarish handle. So when you are using a lot of pressure, pressure on the knife, the problems from hot spots are much worse. And so my idea of what a tactical knife was had to become after some of these experiences much more practical than tactical.

Bob DeMarco [00:15:38]:
Interesting because you know they, they built their, their business and their reputation on being you know a soldier's knife, being a high speed, low drag knife. And I love tops and you know as, as a collector, I love tops and you know as a guy who sometimes batons wood in the backyard, I love tops. But you know I've, I've never been out on patrol or done recon or whatever the kind of jobs were you were doing that. But yeah, it is interesting because you would imagine that really what you need is a knife that cuts. So let's talk about how your experiences both with that kukri business and with your experiences on deployment with, with other knives that didn't really do the job for you. Let's talk about how that led to Exodus knife and tool.

Jacob Peterson [00:16:33]:
Well, I went for this adventure craft. I went for this very minimized and personalized Kuukko inspired design. There were another thing that inspired the design of this knife at that time was your traditional Bushcraft knife was always a Scandi, a zero ground Scandi. And I didn't understand it at the time like I do now, but there are all of these rules for these Scandi ground Bushcraft knives. You can't baton it, you can't cross grain baton, you can't do this, you can't do that. You're going to destroy the edge. Well, it's because the knives are zero ground, of course. But I remember thinking if, if we can't do all of these things with this knife, why, why not make it a third the size and weight and still not be able to do all of those things? But it's easier to carry.

Jacob Peterson [00:17:36]:
So, so what? Ultimately, for the sake of practicality, what we came up, what, what I came up with, this ended up being under 3 ounces with the sheath. It's as easy to carry, especially with an Ulti clip as a folding knife. But I baton these knives constantly. I can't tell you. I bet you I've made multiple thousands of feather sticks. I sell my knives, I believe to every segment of the market. But I think the core for my brand is the Bushcraft industry. And, and so what, what ends up working is the, the survival knife that you have in a survival situation is, is the knife that you have on you.

Jacob Peterson [00:18:30]:
So if you carry a knife or a survival knife every single day because you enjoy using it and carrying it so much, then that's probably the one that you're going to have when you're in an emergency. That's part of the idea with the adventure craft. Just ease of use, modularity with the sheath. I've got one that I keep attached to my fillet knife or fishing and it just, all, it just all works together or there's, there's nothing, there's nothing on the adventure craft that, that is aesthetically designed that detracts from any kind of practical use in any way. And we've got long handle, the design of the handle locks into the hand despite being so thin. I can use this for a very long time. Comfortably with the way that I use knives and it's just easy to carry. So it's what I use.

Bob DeMarco [00:19:34]:
You know, hold that up close to the camera and tell us about the dimensions.

Jacob Peterson [00:19:40]:
You know, we've got 7 inch overall length, 3 inch blade, but we're only half an inch tall. Full flat grind, 8th of an inch thick, but our behind the edge thickness is below 20,000. So being a full flat grind coming up to a eighth of an inch, we've got the beef to, to do the things that I love doing when I'm descaling fish. It's stiff enough so that that's not a problem. I don't like descaling fish with a fillet knife because the blade flexes so much when I'm popping the scales off. Don't have that issue with the adventure craft, but, but our behind the edge thickness usually varies between 16 to 18 thou. The guys at White River Knife and Tool do the most amazing production job. I mean, I'm, I'm so blessed to work with them.

Jacob Peterson [00:20:41]:
I still don't think that I deserve to work with them. It's, it's been amazing. But we, we still have what I would consider and I think what normal person would consider for production. I have great slicing capabilities, so I'll scrape gaskets for my jeep, I'll prep food all. I'll. I'll descale the fish, cut the fish's head off, prep the whole fish for grilling and then I'll go and make a fire and baton. My kindling up is. And make my feather sticks and strike my ferro rod, make my fire.

Jacob Peterson [00:21:23]:
So it's only recently that I've started carrying this trout edition. I try, I don't try to keep any special edition knives. I try and keep one of all of my standard options so that I use my standard colors so that when I show it off every day, it's something that people can get.

Bob DeMarco [00:21:43]:
Oh yeah, that makes sense.

Jacob Peterson [00:21:45]:
Yeah. I tried doing custom colors and stuff all the time. Custom options, handle materials and everything. And people tend to get frustrated when I show them my knife or post pictures on Instagram or do whatever it is that I do. And they're like, where can I get that? And I'm like, well, you can get something like it, but actually this color hasn't been available for two years and I don't know if it ever will be again. Well, what the crap, right? Right.

Bob DeMarco [00:22:11]:
Yeah.

Jacob Peterson [00:22:11]:
But this. So I've only started carrying that recently. I've got a mammoth cave version over there that I keep standard. But my standard is the high visibility that I carry the most. Not for aesthetic reasons, but red is the last color the human eye can see. As the rods and cones and rods shift to a low light situation. The red and white is high contrast. So this is my high visibility option.

Jacob Peterson [00:22:37]:
This was inspired by Kentucky. I'm here in Mammoth Cave and everything here is fluorescent neon green and orange. And so the traditional colors I didn't feel worked the best for me actually in the woods. And this does. So that's what I carry the most and use the most really.

Bob DeMarco [00:23:01]:
Mammoth Cave. I remember my dad and I went there on a. A bonding trip years ago. And I've. I've always been a little cave phobic, but. But man, that was. That was so beautiful. What a beautiful part of Kentucky too.

Bob DeMarco [00:23:17]:
But those caves are just outrageous. Oh, what. What makes the Mammoth Cave edition Now how. How do you make that?

Jacob Peterson [00:23:25]:
Yeah. So I collaborated with Troma to do my brick builder edition scales, My trout addition scales, and these Mammoth Cave edition scales. And so due to the lighting, it might be hard to tell. But it's a topographical pattern built into the scale. And it's an actual map of Mammoth Cave national park on the scale. How cool. And the completely or fast. I would thing near say indestructible.

Jacob Peterson [00:23:59]:
I've never had anybody break one or wear one in any way. But also nicely grippy. So. Yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:24:10]:
Yeah. It looks like the topographical pattern on that is in relief.

Jacob Peterson [00:24:14]:
Right?

Bob DeMarco [00:24:14]:
You can.

Jacob Peterson [00:24:15]:
Yes, correct. That's actually a tactile. Yeah. So yeah, it's. It's been cool. It's been cool.

Bob DeMarco [00:24:25]:
So what are your regular. You know, you have. You have these kind of limited editions like the one you're holding in your hand. What are your standard offerings?

Jacob Peterson [00:24:34]:
So this. The. The only standard that I have had is hi Vis. I've had to change my other standards up over the years as things changed. I used to have what was was called a low vis. And so we custom blended Cerakote to make a parkerized color. And our Cerakote guys are like, hey, I don't like doing this. And it.

Jacob Peterson [00:25:00]:
The blend got messed up sometimes to where it just looked black. And so we moved away from that. Going forward, what we're going to have is two standard options. One will be high vis. And you know, red and white is not the best seller. And when you're around normal people, Red and white's going to be a hard sell. Right. People don't necessarily want think of adventure and Think of this.

Jacob Peterson [00:25:29]:
But our standard will be a nice stonewashed blade, liberty wood scales and a walnut color. Uh, so Liberty wood is a premium Baltic birch plywood. It's what skateboards are made out of by the same company usually. So it's completely dimensionally stable, incredibly tough, won't warp, shrink, swell, crack. I want to give the vintage vibe that I'm looking for, the, the, the, the, the look, the vibe. But I want to have modern materials that are low to zero maintenance, ideally zero maintenance, and that are just going to perform with no care in horrible conditions.

Bob DeMarco [00:26:24]:
And that walnut look will. And the wood, obviously the wood grain and the walnut look will really like you said, the red and the white might not be what most people think of as adventure outdoors, but that wood will really evoke that.

Jacob Peterson [00:26:40]:
Yeah, it does. You know, I recently I was very blessed to talk to the folks at Turnbull and the firearms side of this crazy world we live in. Turnbull? Oh gosh. Turnbull Refinishing is the premier refinishing company that exists. So if you have this old Winchester or Colt firearm from the early 1900s that's just beat up, you've got two options if you want to maintain its value. Leave it beat up is best for value or send it to Turnbull who will literally make it like new using oftentimes traditional methods and will actually maintain value or increase value. They're the only people that I know that do that. Been following them for years.

Jacob Peterson [00:27:34]:
They came to the first ever blade show. Texas. No, the second I think. And I went over there and talked to him and I was able to get a bunch of knives, gun blued by them, which was just insanely cool. So you know, yeah, I want to go, I don't, I don't want to trace, chase any trends. I don't want to add any feature for visual appeal to get someone to purchase a knife. Especially if those visual appeal based features can take away from any practicality. So, so instead if I'm going to get visual appeal, it'll simply be by materials and colors, you know.

Jacob Peterson [00:28:24]:
Yeah, yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:28:25]:
But all, all within a practical range. What is the Jackalope?

Jacob Peterson [00:28:34]:
So the Jackalope began as my small Fuko. And so what, what we're looking at between the adventure craft and the Jackalope here is we're looking at a balance of hard use, practicality versus variability. And I have become so used to using the adventure craft that I really don't have any comfort issues. I can feather stick with this thing for a long time and my hand won't get Tired muscle memory. All right. When a person first gets this knife, do one or two feather sticks with it, their hand starts getting a little bit sore, but it's really easy to carry. The idea with the Jackalope we want to achieve the same thing but we want to tip the balance towards comfort for use and we lose a little bit of the balance. For the everyday carry comfort we're a little larger, a little bit heavier but we're still at around 3 ounces.

Jacob Peterson [00:29:51]:
You can still everyday carry it. You can still in pocket carry it with an Ulti clip or in pocket shoes and you're going to have a little bit more, more long term comfort when doing high pressure knife uses. And it really. Even the Jackalope itself still being relatively short at 3/4 of an inch tall, this could be a primary belt knife in almost any situation. But it's still a very small knife.

Bob DeMarco [00:30:28]:
Yeah, that's, that's what I was thinking. The, the adventure craft is kind of your edc. You always have it on you period. And the Jackalope is your camping knife or your backpacking knife or, or that kind of thing. Just a slightly larger. Is that blade about three and three quarters inches?

Jacob Peterson [00:30:47]:
This blade is about four inches. Four inches.

Bob DeMarco [00:30:50]:
I mean that, that, that is very edc. Well depending on what you carry. But I usually have a, about a 4 inch fixed blade on me.

Jacob Peterson [00:31:01]:
So just the, the blade height. I, we don't see a lot of short blades and typically when we do they are more EDC focused. They're maybe more fancy, more like letter openers. But I love SE and I love the ESEE3. But this knife is a lot easier to carry than an esee3. Like way easier to carry. So. But you, you can use it the same way.

Bob DeMarco [00:31:32]:
Yeah, that, that's probably half the width or half the height of an Etsy 3. Yeah.

Jacob Peterson [00:31:38]:
It's a dimension that we don't talk about very often. So it sounds kind of weird. Yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:31:44]:
But, but you can see it a lot in, in your blades and I think and you mentioned the, the early spikes as a, an inspiration. That's one of the, one of the first fixed blade knives I ever carried were the Spikes. Because of that they, they fit easily on you and you still get a great length out of it.

Jacob Peterson [00:32:04]:
Yeah, that off topic but since we're nice nerding cold steel broke my heart. In 2009 the first knife I ever purchased was a cold steel. So true flight thrower. In about 1995 or 6 bought it with my own money. We went to Blade Tech in Tacoma, Washington, when they were a very new company making Kydex, which nobody had heard of at the time. And I had a Kydex sheath made for it. I think for my birthday my dad had that done. Um, but in.

Jacob Peterson [00:32:41]:
When I first got to Afghanistan, I ordered the spike and at that time it had. Cold steel had just gone through closing its American manufacturing. And I didn't realize that. And also that era of cold steel spikes did not come sharpened. They were just for penetration. And so that was a. That was a heartbreaking experience. I can't say I've had any experience carrying the spike or using it because the only one I ever had I got rid of real quick.

Jacob Peterson [00:33:14]:
It wasn't a knife, it was a stabbing implement. Kind of weird because originally when I first saw, as a kid first saw them, they came sharpened, they were a knife. They didn't for just, I think a very short time. And then they went back to having an edge. Probably because nobody wanted to buy it. Just to.

Bob DeMarco [00:33:32]:
Yeah, I have, I have some of the new generation spikes that came out like 2008 or something like that, but I have one of those originals and it was the. The Hawk Bill. Yep. And it is, it is sharp, but it is 316 of an inch and it is zero ground and it's very shallow. So it, it almost feels like it's not sharp.

Jacob Peterson [00:33:54]:
Right.

Bob DeMarco [00:33:55]:
With some, with some juice behind it. And you know, you could, you could make it work. But yeah, not, not so much cutting tool. You're not, you're not cutting the salami with that.

Jacob Peterson [00:34:04]:
I think I traded mine to a Czech soldier. I don't remember. Anyways, but so, but aesthetically though, man, and like you said with the, the, the Talon, I remember, I think they had three different blade shape options. I remember the Talon and I think the one that I liked the most was basically a Puukkove straight spine. But yeah, yeah, that was interesting. It's an interesting little tidbit of the market too.

Bob DeMarco [00:34:34]:
So I want to talk a little bit about how you got the word out as a business Exodus knife and tool. How first of all, how long have you been making the adventure craft? That was your first knife, right?

Jacob Peterson [00:34:49]:
Yeah. So we've been. I've been having that manufactured for me since I believe believe 2018. And. But originally, again, it was manufactured by Mineral Mountain Hatchet Works. Mineral Mountain Hatchet Works is a company that I still love to this day, but they specialize in massive knives. And Ted Frizzell believe still owns it, although Kyle Kidder makes the knives now. But Ted called me one day.

Jacob Peterson [00:35:18]:
I had a pre order. We were already late on the pre order. So I think I. I think, I think I had about $6,000 worth of pre orders and I think we were about two months late. And he called me. I remember I got excited thinking he was going to tell me that they had shipped. And he was like, hey, we're not gonna make your knives. And his brother died, who was a co owner.

Jacob Peterson [00:35:44]:
They had a bunch of machines go down and he said they ruined as many knives as they made because they were so short. They would roll a little bit and there wasn't enough meat there in the knife to fix it when they made a mistake and they'd have to throw it in the trash and it was not profitable for them. Again, I will still buy from Minimal Mountain Hatchet Works. They're great guys. But that brought me to White river, who I had just given nice manufacturer of the year after Blade Show. And I thought that they were too good to even reach out to. But after talking to Jason Te, I reached out and they were into it and it's just. It's been amazing ever since.

Jacob Peterson [00:36:33]:
So how I got the word out. You know, I have a small niche on YouTube. I was known for hard knife reviews and survival videos and Bushcrafting. I did the boot camp for season two of Alone. So I knew a lot of the Alone from the History Channel guys. And I don't know, man, honestly, it's been, it's been amazing. It's been. It's been a huge blessing.

Jacob Peterson [00:37:05]:
It's. It's far exceeded my own capabilities. The designs themselves, I think exceed my capabilities. And it's. It's been amazing. I thank the Lord for it. It's been made the path for me for sure.

Bob DeMarco [00:37:23]:
Absolutely. Mineral Mountain Hatchet Works. Just as a. An aside, I have a small neck knife from them and I bought it at a. Not a swap meet, but at a.

Jacob Peterson [00:37:37]:
What do you call it? Gun show.

Bob DeMarco [00:37:39]:
It wasn't a gun show. Yeah, for. For lack of a better term, it was basically a gun show.

Jacob Peterson [00:37:44]:
Right.

Bob DeMarco [00:37:45]:
But I, I bought it. Didn't know what it was, but it was small and I liked it. And for years I couldn't figure out what the logo was. And then after I started this channel, I asked someone and I found out who it was and I went to their website. I don't own anything else by them, but I was awed by their. Their cool. I mean, that's so my style. I love those big kind of Just agro style knives.

Bob DeMarco [00:38:06]:
Beautiful work too. And, and also kind of cool because they're not a name you hear every day.

Jacob Peterson [00:38:11]:
Right. And they're great prices for what you get. So I was, my first ever preppers convention was in Mountain home, Arkansas in maybe 2014ish. And I was scrolling Craigslist, who knows why, because I'm dumb. And I just saw an ad for knives from Mineral Mountain Hatchet Works and it said we'll trade for guns. And that's how I found out about them was being in Arkansas and being on Craigslist. And so, you know, I don't, I don't know if maybe you were ever on. There was this group meeting of the prepared minds on Facebook.

Jacob Peterson [00:39:00]:
There's obviously a ton of other groups on Facebook, but there's this like golden era of social media where these Facebook groups were amazing and you could find out so much. So you know, I got a Facebook group and people are like, oh yeah, I have a Mineral Mountain. I have, you know, people are, was. It was weird how amazingly social media worked as compared to now. And yeah, very niche. Very niche. Very cool though. Just great prices on.

Jacob Peterson [00:39:34]:
Ted Frizzell sent me a knife to review my Bullnoser. I still love it. And he was like, I don't care what you do to it. Like you can beat it with a steel hammer. I don't care. Like it's going to be fine. And it's just been amazing for, I don't know, seven years now. Great knives.

Bob DeMarco [00:39:55]:
Well then you find, you find yourself with White river knives or you don't find yourself, you, you got yourself in there. And I got to say, you're in great company. I mean there's some, they do a lot of beautiful in house stuff and then they have a lot of really accomplished designers that, whose designs they make. So that's a feather in your cap right there.

Jacob Peterson [00:40:19]:
It's amazing. Like I said, it's better than I deserve. Certainly. I think they have much bigger fish to fry and it's awesome that they give me the time of day. You know, they, they made for cold steel. I don't remember the name of the model.

Bob DeMarco [00:40:38]:
Oh, the Republic.

Jacob Peterson [00:40:41]:
Yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:40:41]:
Is that right?

Jacob Peterson [00:40:42]:
Yeah, yeah. They've made for se. They've made for, you know, countless other massive brands and again, I think, I think they're just going to get busier and busier. They are honestly great people and crazy hard workers. Um, I had an investor talk to me about starting that manufacturing plant here in Kentucky and I told him, you don't want to do it like. And I would not want to be in the Commangos to work as hard as they do. I mean, the guys, I don't know how they do it, especially when it comes to the shows. They'll go to the shows and they'll be up later than I'm up.

Jacob Peterson [00:41:30]:
They'll be up earlier than I'm up. They'll be working all day and they'll fly back. They'll be right back to work and I come back from Blade show and I need like a day or two.

Bob DeMarco [00:41:41]:
So decompress.

Jacob Peterson [00:41:43]:
Yeah, like I, I need some time, man. They're, they're, they're just, they're hard working people that are just as good as it gets.

Bob DeMarco [00:41:52]:
So they, they manufacture your knives that you sell, but they also have, they sell your model out of their shop too, right?

Jacob Peterson [00:42:01]:
Yeah. It's a very unique business relationship that we struck. They have the rights to distribution. So they have standard models that they sell on knives, ship free DLT everywhere, all across the world. We've got European distributors and, and all kinds of stuff that I, I get royalties on their sales and then I get the freedom to do what I want. And so that won't necessarily be the case for every model. Well, we've got some irons in the fire right now, and I'm not sure necessarily that that will be the agreement that we have. The Legionnaire combat knife that I'm working on right now, they might only have a version of that knife as a thrower, which would be really cool.

Jacob Peterson [00:42:55]:
They. John is involved with the nice brain stuff over there, or they might carry it. It's just, it's just gonna depend. We'll go forward as we go forward and they'll be organic. But again, yeah, it is, it is a bit of a unique business relationship.

Bob DeMarco [00:43:16]:
So tell me about this Legionnaires combat combat knife.

Jacob Peterson [00:43:19]:
Well, I feel like an idiot now for not having the prototype on me. But I was watching, I'm. I'm a history guy. I was watching the. And I'm about to butcher this, which I believe it's the Siege of Jardinsville. It was a movie on Netflix and French Foreign Legion guys the bad guy in this movie and he's got a knife that looks like one of the 1900s bayonets, but it's shorter. And I started doing some research and I, I learned that the French Foreign Legion, or France itself, purchased World War I bayonets, mostly, you know, American and British, like Remington bayonets by the train truck load and Chopped half the blade off and used that as their combat knife beyond the year 2000. So we're talking about.

Jacob Peterson [00:44:19]:
These knives have been in service from the early 1900s in World War I and are still in service after the year 2000. Nobody knows about. Ironically, very short blade profile like the knives that I have now. And so I want to do a production knife that pays homage to that. It will not be a bayonet, but shares 99% of the DNA outside of the bayonet mechanism, but with modernized ergonomics and geometry to make it very practical to use as a combat knife. You know, it's a project that I'm incredibly excited about.

Bob DeMarco [00:45:03]:
What's the blade profile? Is it a drop point or a spear point or so the one that.

Jacob Peterson [00:45:07]:
We'Re going to be working on is going to be a. A very simple bowie. It's got a swedge, but it will be a flat swedge. And that is because the one that I personally own is that way. And what I like about it is you have like, like you had on the bayonets, you have the fully rounded spine which is an incredible feature for strength. But then the swedge, the swedge can be sharp on the spine so that you can strike your ferro rod off of it. However, originally I think they had some private chop these blades apart and regrind them. So you can find examples of this combat knife that are drop point, that are bowie, that are all manner of different things.

Jacob Peterson [00:45:59]:
As long as it'll fit in their sheath. They didn't seem to care too much. So yeah, I'm gonna have to, I'm.

Bob DeMarco [00:46:07]:
Gonna have to look that up. That sounds really fascinating. The whole idea of. Because there are myths around like for instance, the sax. Oh, that's a broken sword. And that's why it looks like that. And I never thought that that was. I mean I know people have, have used broken swords as knives, but.

Bob DeMarco [00:46:27]:
But you hear these kind of myths, but this is an actual, a real knife that's been crafted from something so much older and is still in use.

Jacob Peterson [00:46:37]:
That.

Bob DeMarco [00:46:38]:
That sounds pretty cool.

Jacob Peterson [00:46:39]:
Yeah, it's a one. I also thought that was kind of ironic that when we think of a combat knife or really internationally, a lot of people when they think of a combat knife, they think of the Ka Bar. There's nothing wrong with that. But really in more conflicts all around the world and a lot of little conflicts that we probably never even hear about, the. This French foreign legions combat knife was probably more used more prevalently and for much longer and so, you know, again, I like the, the size package of the knife with the very. It is a early bayonet. So again, very short blade makes it packable for the length of it. The downside is for Bushcraft, if you're doing cross grain batoning and trying to make certain things, you don't have the blade height needed to get the depth that you would want for crafting certain notches and stuff like that.

Jacob Peterson [00:47:52]:
But at that point you're getting pretty deep into Bushcraft anyways. But yeah, the carryability and the practicality of the design. Now if you buy one, you could. They're not that expensive actually. Once you've read the history, you know the niche and you look for it, you can find them because they made so many of them and so cheaply. Nobody wants them that much, I think because they're horribly impractical. That, that bayonet edge.

Bob DeMarco [00:48:21]:
Oh yeah.

Jacob Peterson [00:48:23]:
I don't know if that thing is a tenth behind the edge. I mean thick and so. And when it comes to pure collector's value, people would generally rather have the original bayonet, which is more rare because France did this to so many bayonets. Yeah, yeah. So I don't know, a hundred bucks, not that bad. It's cool little. Cool little niche.

Bob DeMarco [00:48:53]:
Well, tell me about your overall vision for Exodus knife and tool in terms of. I was, I just was looking at your website and you have pretty interesting kind of stipulations what you want these to be capable of. Describe that.

Jacob Peterson [00:49:11]:
So, yeah, I want what, what, what makes a nice practical. You know, because it's one, one thing that is odd to me is a, a Bushcrafter someone or a survivalist. Typically a Bushcrafter or survivalist is not a knife person. They have a knife, they use the knife, but there's no emotional investment. It's another tool. And, and I simply like knives more than that. But they will make do with whatever knife they have. And a lot of times, you know, I went to, I've gone to Randall's Adventure training.

Jacob Peterson [00:49:55]:
A lot of times it's an as seen 1095 or a TOPS or something like that. And as much as I, I love the knife nerd dive that we do with new steels and hardnesses and all of that when, when you get away from our love of knives. The truth is, is you could normal knives, you could make do with a cheap knife or even a box cutter for 99% of the stuff that we nerd out about. All right, so what I want to offer are knives that Are like totally practical that are not too heavily invested in any trend or any, any current thing. There was a series of years where everything had an accent. You go to all the folding knives were 80 thou behind the edge max toughness. I don't ever want to fall into something like that. So I want to release, I want to have a line of knives.

Jacob Peterson [00:51:07]:
I want all of them to be manufactured to our standards and I want them all to be completely practical for or the rules that they are intended for. And ultimately that practicality breeds versatility. So I will likely never have a fillet knife. I love my White river fillet knife, but a fillet knife is not a versatile tool in my opinion. It is a purpose driven tool and I want to have a line of knives where they could all be a one tool option, meaning you never plan to find yourself in an emergency with one tool. But if you find yourself in an emergency and you have one tool, if you're in an emergency and a few of your tools break, is every single tool versatile and practical enough to be used in ways in which it was not specifically intended? That's how I look at a one tool option. I want every single product that I release to be versatile enough to fit within that realm.

Bob DeMarco [00:52:19]:
So yeah, the term timeless keeps coming up in my mind when you talk about this because you know, you aim to buck against trends or not even to buck against them, but just ignore them all together for practicality. But your knives are also really nice to look at too. And that's a, to me, that's a nice side benefit because I'm shallow and I love the way knife knives look, you know, beautiful.

Jacob Peterson [00:52:49]:
I'm guilty myself. I want to mention one more thing. I don't. First off, I don't want to do anybody a disservice by being inspired by them and not mentioning it. I think that there's no shame in admitting, admitting that you're inspired by someone else. So that's something that's important to me. And I was so in the early years of my knife junkie ness, I was a member on Blade forums and the way that I saw the world, the premium custom Bushcraft knife was Fiddleback. Oh yeah, they were out of my price range.

Jacob Peterson [00:53:30]:
I actually got my first fiddle back recently and I won it. I should have bought one a decade ago, but I regardless. But I looked at the sales they'd have on blade forms, couldn't afford them. But I was like, that is my idea of this. So one of my the things that I think makes My designs work the best. Little swell on the pommel here allows the back of the knife to fit into the hand, into the palm, lock into the palm, despite the short blade height really well. And I got that from Andy Roy at Fiddleback Forge. You'll see my hand falls one right.

Jacob Peterson [00:54:21]:
Yeah, that little contour there. There are some things that I believe with these knives ended up being well proportioned and visually appealing. And I would say that a lot of that came from influence from designers who are better than myself, like Andy Roy. And in Form Follows Function, it worked out well, thank the Lord. But you will never see a bottle opener on one of my knives. And although they may have their places for certain people, you'll never see a saw. I want to keep the design as clean as possible. And I do a of lot, lot of batoning.

Jacob Peterson [00:55:18]:
More than most bushcrafters probably. It's literally if I see a problem in the woods, I will often think about how I'm going to baton my way out of it. I think for me it's become an energy efficient way of accomplishing larger tasks. A lot of times with a smaller knife, however, that's not the purpose of my knives. Purpose is to cut. I like thin edge geometry. One knife that I absolutely love is my Mako from Gary Creeley. And we're.

Jacob Peterson [00:55:51]:
Oh yeah, yeah, we're about 10,000 behind the edge. It's thin, I love it. But it is fully invested in being a thin slicer. You likely won't ever see that from me either. You know, I want about 15 to 17 thou behind the edge. I want acceptable slicing performance for real world tasks and uses. Not that his doesn't have that. So I'm saying.

Jacob Peterson [00:56:21]:
But I also will generally have toughness as a priority as well. I likely will never do a zero grind unless it's with certain whatever. I'm not gonna be doing a lot of zero grains, if any. And so, you know, again, I'm, I'm not a specialist. I'm looking for versatility.

Bob DeMarco [00:56:46]:
Well, as we close, tell me about your the name Exodus knife and tool.

Jacob Peterson [00:56:52]:
Oh, that's fantastic. Well, I'm a Christian. That is the first and last way that I would define myself. Knives for the final Exodus was my original slogan. Something that I still go after. My eschatology would be historic free mill, technically dispensationalist, but not dispensationalist by current standards. That is to say that Christ is still coming, but the tribulation comes first. Okay.

Jacob Peterson [00:57:34]:
Not that that's going to matter to most people. But the idea in this theology and eschatology is there's a time where Christians will not be able to buy, sell, trade or own. And you'll need versatility if you're going to live in that world world. The tools that you're going to need are going to have to be versatile and practical and easy to carry and easy to use. And that's what I want my knives to be.

Bob DeMarco [00:58:01]:
Really.

Jacob Peterson [00:58:02]:
I mean, I should have led with that actually at this point, that's kind of a key principle. The X that I do for Exodus knife and tool is a cross that is diagonal as a cross that is being carried. And so that is a core principle here. The bomb is the ordnance logo. Long story short, my original logo was a barrel proof stamp for an M1 Garand. When a firearm or a cannon was proof tested to make sure that it passed inspection and was safe to use, it was stamped with the ordnance logo that said that it's been inspected, it's passed inspection, it's ready for use. And that's what I want every product that carries my logo to be. How cool.

Bob DeMarco [00:58:53]:
I love it. And I love your explanation of, of your name. That's, that's pretty amazing. It's pretty, well, it's pretty deep. You know, it's a, it's, it's not just like you sound. You found a name that sounds cool, but you really found something that defines yourself and your brand. And I appreciate that.

Jacob Peterson [00:59:17]:
I'm kind of a nuanced person. I'm kind of a detail oriented person. Again, we're nice people. So a little, little bit on the spectrum or something there maybe, I don't know, just care about details that our people don't. But it has to be, things have to have meaning for me. So.

Bob DeMarco [00:59:35]:
All right, maybe we'll crack that open in our, in our interview for Patreon Patreon patrons. But until then, Jacob, thank you so much for joining me on the Knife Junkie podcast. It's been a fascinating conversation and you've given me a new appreciation for your knives. I, I, I really admire them. So thanks for coming on the show, sir.

Jacob Peterson [00:59:56]:
My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

Announcer [00:59:58]:
Knife themed shirts, hoodies, mugs, water bottles and more. Thenifejunkie.com shop do you like the sound.

Announcer [01:00:05]:
Of the alphanumeric combinations M390, 204p and 20cv but bristle at 8cr, 13mov and AUS8. You are a knife junkie. Probably worse.

Bob DeMarco [01:00:18]:
There he goes. Ladies and gentlemen, Jacob Peterson of Exodus Knife and tool. Like I said up front, I've been seeing his work a lot in some of the hands, in the hands of some of the most trusted people out there. And, well, I can't wait to get one in my hands. Be sure to check him out on YouTube and you can check him out at exodusknife and tool.com also on Instagram. And get your get your hands on one of these beautiful knives. All right. For Jim working his magic behind the switcher, I'm Bob DeMarco saying until next time, don't take Dull for an answer.

Announcer [01:00:55]:
Thanks for listening to the Knife Junkie podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please rate and review it. Review the podcast for show notes for today's episode, additional resources and to listen to past episodes, Visit our website thenif junkie.com you can also watch our latest videos on YouTube at the knife junkie.com YouTube.