The first time he told me I still detected a little bitterness in his tone.....He seems to be all better now though!
Patrick, did you have specific uses in mind for this blade? I know you said you like the simplicity of the Kephart, but when Jeff asked you to design a knife, was there any specific tasks you had in mind you felt this blade could carry out versus others? If I were asked to design a knife, I know I would go for the larger blade, just because I primarily use my knives for wood processing. Were you thinking of anything in particular use wise?
I have always liked the length of the 4, the thickness of the 3, and the spear point of the laser strike. So I just wanted a knife to do "knife stuff". Such as cutting, anything from meat to string. I usually have an axe of some sort to do the heavy chopping/wood processing so I wanted something to handle everything else.
I do love the spear point of a Kephart. Are there any plans in the works for more designs from you? Is this something you're interested in pursuing?
You need to make sure they give you your own forum. Also, I think it would be a cool idea, if say, yourself and Reuben got together, and made some videos on youTube, perhaps going over the various ESEE blades, demonstrating the various tasks they're capable of, what blade excels at what particular tasks, etc. Demonstrate feathersticking, spoon carving, etc. You get the drift. Maybe even throw Jeff in the mix. Not too sure about getting Mike in there though, grumpy old bastard probably scare everybody off.
Beautiful knife. Great Design. Just too similar to my BlackBird SK-5 . I'll probably get one one day, but i'm too broke to justify it right now.
The part of the PR-4 story that makes me smile was an offhand comment about a mole in the ESEE organization that had leaked Patricks design to Warrior and Warrior had posted a Kephart-like rendering. That joke caused some turmoil at first since Patrick's blade had yet to be announced. In the end it was treated as the joke it was.
Ah, the good ol days. It took Jeff some work to get Mike calmed down, haha. All kidding aside, Jeff was kind enough to email me and explain what was going on behind the scenes. I understood why Mike got upset, believe me.