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May 26, 2022 - Health Ranger - Mike Adams

35:11

USA knife maker warns of supply chain COLLAPSE and small business WIPEOUT

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	Welcome to the Health Ranger Report on Brighteon.TV.
	Today we are joined by John Roy from Dawson Knives, which is a USA knife maker that has been, from time to time, a sponsor of my podcast, by the way, but today's interview is not sponsored.
	This is actually, I'm asking him about the supply chain collapse that's taking place right now, and I've got questions for John Roy about, who, by the way, is a master maker of knives and swords and blades and tomahawks and all kinds of things using, in We're going to talk
	to John Roy next, right after this short break.
	Alright, welcome back to the Health Ranger Report on Brighton.tv.
	Thank you for joining me today.
	And we're joined now by John Roy from Dawson Knives.
	And John, this is our second interview.
	People really loved the first one we did.
	I want to thank you for coming back to have a little shorter conversation with us today.
	Thank you very much, Mike.
	I'm very happy to be back, bud.
	Well, absolutely.
	People love what you do.
	They love what your company stands for.
	Your ethics, also your work ethic, about literally making extreme quality knives and swords and blades and things by hand right there in Arizona.
	So you heard my questions in the intro.
	Can we start with, just straight up, what's happening with the supply of the special metal alloys that you are getting, such as MagnaCut and CPM and so on, or other metals?
	What do you know about metallurgy and the supply chain right now?
	Well, one thing that we have seen in our business is that...
	The availability of MagnaCut has been actually quite hard to get and that's because some of the alloys used in MagnaCut because of the supply chain restraints that we're seeing globally has affected this American smelter to be able to produce MagnaCut on a consistent basis.
	So what that does for us is makes it more difficult for us to have MagnaCut on our website, and we have to use other steels that are pretty close and comparable, like CPM3V, that are more readily available because it's been around on the market for a longer period of time than MagnaCut, which was released last year.
	So with that said, we've seen the price really skyrocket, honestly.
	Well, yeah, tell us about that.
	And just for background, MagnaCut is this really breakthrough alloy that offers corrosion resistance with all the other properties that people need in edge tools and blades, correct?
	Yes, exactly.
	It is really an incredible steel, and it's a whole new thought process on steel.
	The whole idea is if you wanted a stainless steel blade, we know that chromium So you would just increase the percentage of chromium and that would make your blade more stain resistant.
	Anything over 13% is considered stainless.
	But Magnica does a totally different approach to getting a stainless steel blade or knife.
	What it does is that the chromium is actually only 10.5%.
	So in common knowledge, that would make that a non-stainless blade.
	But because of the way they put all the alloys into the steel and how they arrange them and how they're used up, there are no free chromium carbides.
	So without the chromium carbides left over, then there's nothing really for the rust to penetrate.
	So that makes it a very strong steel because chromium can make things brittle.
	And so it makes a very strong steel and has very good edge retention, but you still get all the benefits of having a stainless steel blade.
	So the reason that people don't make combat swords and knives out of stainless steel with high chromium content is because they would just shatter, right?
	Yes.
	And there's actually a lot of tournaments and stuff that are connected to Bushido, the whole thought process of that.
	And we've had sword make people that use that.
	Come to us, and we've talked to them, and they said, look, we can't really use a stainless steel blade.
	So we used to do 440C, which was stainless steel or ATS-34, because they used to snap.
	And then it can be dangerous when you're cutting certain things like two Tommy mats and bamboo and things of that sort.
	But with this steel, you won't have that issue.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So you get your MagnaCut from a smelter in the United States?
	That is correct.
	Out of New York.
	Okay.
	And that smelter has to acquire minerals from around the world that go into MagnaCut.
	And does that include nickel at all?
	Or what goes in there?
	So in MagnaCut, luckily that does not have nickel, but there are a lot of steel alloys that do have nickel.
	But MagnaCut has vanadium.
	It's got all kinds of alloys in it, tungsten.
	You're looking at a lot of some rare earth materials in there.
	And so when you're dealing with that and most of your mining is overseas, it just makes it very difficult to get those alloys in the ratio that you want them to produce the steel that you need.
	Exactly, exactly.
	And so do you believe that some of this supply chain, you know, shortage is due to the situation with Russia and the economic sanctions that have been unleashed against Russia?
	Oh, hugely.
	And it's a funny thing because these sanctions, in my opinion, and from what I've seen and the people I've talked to in the industry, because we're all scrambling to get the steel that we need and move things around.
	The sanctions are actually very ineffective against Russia because they only end up selling it to China, who's selling it back to us at a higher price.
	So really, it's not really stopping Russia from making money.
	It's just making it more costly for us and it's actually enriching China.
	So that's my opinion on it, I mean, from what I have seen, because it's still coming through, but now they're charging our smelter way more for the same material that we used to get directly from them.
	Okay, yeah.
	Russian minerals pass through China with a markup and double the transportation.
	Well, actually, you know, Russia is having a banner year in terms of its profits from oil and energy.
	It's having the most profits ever.
	I mean, Putin, it's incredible.
	Putin is funding his entire war from all the profits caused by the sanctions put in place by Biden and the West.
	So I think you're right on track there.
	But anyway, that's not the topic of today.
	Let me get back to the metals.
	Does this mean that you have longer wait times in addition to higher costs?
	And how much higher are the costs for the raw metal, percentage-wise?
	I think we've seen almost 20%, honestly.
	Well, that doesn't sound that bad these days, actually.
	I mean, I've heard much higher in other areas.
	Yeah, so for the material we're getting is 20% on the actual material.
	And then when you're looking at the shipping, that has gone up almost 50 to 60%.
	Oh, shipping's a lot for the metal, right?
	Yeah, so you got to break it down.
	You got to see, okay, this fuel price is really killing us.
	Because we're in Arizona, so we're right next to California.
	So for them to refuel, our diesel right now is over $5 a gallon.
	Even if they get their brakes, they had brakes back then.
	Yeah, right.
	So the metal has to be shipped from New York all the way to Arizona, a lot of road miles, and there's a trucking supply chain problem in America and in China, by the way.
	So yeah, okay.
	So the bottom line is what you're paying for that metal is substantially more just to get it into your door.
	Absolutely.
	And that's also caused a lot of us businesses, just with our own in-house operations, just talking about that trucking, is to do as much as we can in-house.
	Now, we've always done everything in-house, but there's a lot of companies that don't and they're really paying for it because a lot of the stuff, when you're looking at manufacturing and the kind of metals and the raw material we use, usually comes from back east.
	So here on the west coast, we're really paying a lot for it.
	So it makes it very difficult to stay profitable without raising prices drastically, which if you do that too much and you just run yourself out of business.
	So it's a balancing act.
	Okay.
	What about the labor situation?
	So here in Texas, there's a labor shortage everywhere.
	And I think this is true in many, most areas across America.
	Are you able to get the help that you need or is it also a challenge for you?
	Oh, it's an incredible challenge.
	I think one of the biggest reasons is, yes, we have a labor shortage.
	And those that do come in the door, we also have what I call a morality shortage because half the people can't pass a drug test.
	So then I still can't employ them because they're working on machinery and I still have to be, you know, monitored and supervised by the government, you know, to make sure that I'm up.
	Yeah, OSHA. OSHA rules.
	Yeah, OSHA will come in and wreck your life.
	Oh, yeah.
	If somebody loses a finger in a machine or something, right?
	And if they do that because they're high, then they're going to want to know why I hired them.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Well, it's interesting.
	I'm hearing this from sheriff's departments, law enforcement.
	In California, I hear they're able to hire.
	They just said, well, we'll just hire for the police force.
	We'll hire people who have felony records.
	It's like, well, what kind of police are you going to have?
	Yeah, my brother lives in San Jose, and he tells me all kinds of crazy things.
	And yeah, I've heard news of that, too.
	Well, and also you have to deal with probably issues of, you know, potential theft.
	If you hire somebody who doesn't have ethics, they can start walking off with, you know, $1,000 of metal in their pocket, you know, or backpack or whatever pretty easily, I would think.
	Yeah, and that's the other thing is, like I said, moral character.
	And it's very important, especially for our business.
	So we're a Christian business, and we're family, generational business, and we try and keep a high standard.
	And we're very careful about who we hire.
	And with a small pool, I mean, if I can't find it, then I have to go to Plan B, and Plan B is more machines.
	And now I think that's interesting, because when you think about it, we're This is the way I'm thinking, but I believe a lot of small businesses are also thinking the same thing.
	So if I can't find the people to hire, or they're just not meeting the standard because of our school system, the way they're churning them out, then that puts a burden on me.
	And so how I'm going to...
	Rise to that occasion and solve that problem.
	So I'm going to go ahead and look towards CNC machines.
	So if I'm bringing the CNC machines, that means that job is now permanently taken away for that person to come in, at the same time exasperating the financial situation here.
	And I've been giving that a lot of thought.
	Yeah, you know, there are gun manufacturers in Texas that have warehouses full of CNC machines.
	And they use CNC just to make every part you can imagine lower receivers and barrels and trigger systems and so on.
	I mean, they're running literally hundreds of machines.
	But as you know, each machine costs like three quarters of a million dollars, right?
	If you're running a business, you look at that cost and you look at the time and what you're losing and you're saying, you know, that's an investment I'm willing to make at this juncture.
	Well, if you do get CNC machines, let me know, because I run 3D CAD software and I build parts that we 3D print.
	I'd love to send you some parts and pay you to run them in aluminum or something.
	That would be a fun experiment.
	Absolutely.
	I'll let you know, Mike.
	Okay.
	All right.
	I've often wanted a CNC machine myself, but I just can't justify it, you know, unless you're manufacturing.
	All right.
	Let me ask you about the skill sets.
	So for the people that you do hire, are they able to get up to speed with the skills or are you having trouble with people because sort of society today, especially in the younger generation, are not really hands-on as much as maybe you and I were when we were growing up.
	This is all online.
	What are you seeing?
	Yes and no.
	I'm going to say yes and no.
	For me, I can only speak for myself, but I know there's a lot of companies that are having issues.
	But for me, when I go to hire somebody, and to be honest, I pray about it.
	I've just gotten to the point where, you know what, I got to pray about it.
	How is this person going to work out?
	The people so far that the Lord has brought to me have been exceptional people.
	And usually they're people that nobody really wants.
	And it's not because of a moral issue.
	It's just they just don't think that they're going to have the skill set.
	And I've had them come in.
	We've trained them.
	And I've seen a passion for it.
	And what I've learned is if you take care of them, they're going to take care of you.
	And they all have achieved this amazing skill set that I didn't even think was possible.
	Well, that's actually great news to hear, and we've experienced that too.
	Sometimes we've hired people who, I mean, for example, in years past, we hired somebody who was stocking groceries, and he's worked for us for, I think, 15 years.
	He writes JavaScript code for our website now.
	I mean, talk about underutilized skills, but that exists out there, so I'm really glad you're able to find good people.
	Are you able to scale up?
	Because I know you have a lot more demand lately.
	I mean, you're kind of sold out on...
	I mean, the inventory is gone all the time.
	I know, because I'm on your website, because I'm one of your best customers, by the way.
	And I'm always on there looking at all your cool stuff, and it's all gone, you know?
	Well, we're scaling up.
	We are.
	We're hiring more people.
	We're making our processes more efficient.
	And like I said, we're bringing in machines.
	We're doing a lot to meet this demand.
	It's funny because we actually list knives every week.
	And we've actually found ways to lean our processes a little bit just to be more efficient and which can produce X amount of knives a day.
	And so we've been really excited about that, but it just takes a little bit of the rolling and a little bit of training.
	But I would say probably in the summer we'll be able to meet that demand a lot better.
	Now, some of what makes your blades so unique is that you came up with this incredible heating process that is not generally known or used anywhere else in the industry using MagnaCut through this special process to give it the properties, right?
	So is that something that only you do or you teach other people how to do that process based on your discovery there?
	That's a really good question.
	And we mainly keep him in the family, but I have someone that I trust a lot, and he's our shop manager.
	He's a great guy.
	And so we have showed him this process, and this process is very unique, like you said, because It's taking ancient processes and putting them to powder metal, which is really not made to do any of that at all.
	And no one has been able to find a way to do that.
	And we've been very blessed to have that knowledge and be able to carry that out to such a superior product.
	Well, yeah, it's kind of your secret sauce, really, because, you know, other companies can take the same metal that you're buying, but they may not produce the same blade.
	Not even close.
	But, you know, Hollywood, by the way, I mean, this is the general public's perception, is that you have a sword.
	I mean, this is what you see in the movies.
	You have a sword, and you thrust it into the coals in the fire, and it gets red hot, and you just beat on it with a hammer for a long time for some reason, and that's it.
	Is that how it works, John?
	Yeah.
	Maybe if we lived in the medieval ages, I mean, we could keep doing that, but I mean, we're beyond that, and we make better steel than that.
	I mean, there's forgers that do a certain way, and they make good steel, but they're not using these super metals.
	I think that's the next evolution, and I think that these super metals can do incredible things.
	When he treated right, they're almost unstoppable.
	Well, you're going to be really proud of me, John, because I bought a metal smelting device that can melt up to three kilograms of metal.
	It's got all these big, thick gloves and face shields.
	I'm going to be melting silver, by the way.
	And I'm pouring silver into molds to make silver jewelry because that's the best barter item so you don't flash a bunch of high-dollar silver coins around, you know?
	So I'm gonna be melting metal.
	I might be calling you for tech support.
	Is that okay?
	Oh, absolutely.
	And I have a whole lot of knowledge because the funny thing is, my Uncle Barry, who founded this business, the first thing that he was doing was jewelry.
	And so he did a lot of working with jewelry and working with metals and how to the temperatures and working them out.
	So I would be more than happy to definitely work with you, Mike.
	And that is a very wise idea.
	Oh, wow.
	Cool.
	Great.
	Because I don't know anybody who knows how to do that, so I was kind of just going off of books and videos and such.
	All right.
	Let me ask you about your tomahawk.
	I hope it's okay for me to mention it, but I know you were working on at least a tomahawk, maybe in development.
	That's something I want to buy when it's available.
	When is that coming out, or is it?
	It will be coming out.
	So we have these surface grinders that we're working on right now, and they're just about up to speed.
	So we should have them running by the end of this month.
	So with that said, that means that the rest of the process will be finishing out.
	But we've already got a design.
	It works really well.
	When you see it, it's going to look like Something totally different, almost kind of something from the future.
	But there's a lot that goes into it.
	We've worked out vibration, so it almost has like a tuning fork built in.
	So that way when you hit something, the vibration doesn't come back into your arm.
	The other thing is we weighted it so it can be thrown.
	And with this new MagnaCut and the way we heat treat it, it's super sharp and super strong.
	Okay, you're filling me with all kinds of joy now.
	I'm going to have a MagnaCut throwing tomahawk from the future.
	I mean, this is the best of everything.
	I can't wait.
	All right.
	Fortunately, I have a lot of tree stumps around.
	I'll turn one on its edge and just draw a target on it.
	We'll have fun with that.
	No, seriously, I can't wait.
	Now, let me ask you about China now.
	So, right now, I mean, most of the blades that people get, kind of consumer-level knives and everything, it comes out of China.
	Some of it comes out of Taiwan, which is a little better quality, and then even better quality comes out of, you know, Japan, I would say, typically.
	What happens in America if China's exports really continue to be stalled?
	That's a really good question.
	My hypothesis on that is that a lot of these blades and manufacturers have gone to China to try and keep the costs down because we see rising inflation.
	We see all this here in the United States.
	So once you stop those imports, you're going to create a knife shortage.
	Now, most people are like, well, they have them here and there.
	No, everything is just in time.
	And that's what people don't realize.
	They're not keeping a stock.
	They're just just in time.
	In fact, they have it down to a science how long it takes for a container to get there.
	Everyone that I talk to in supplies, and I know a lot of these people personally that own these companies, that produce well-known knives that you see in Walmart or other places like that.
	They're good friends of mine.
	The issue is, they're not coming in.
	And they're having, or if they are coming in, it's a big mess.
	And even if they get there, a lot of it's just sitting off of LA. And that problem really isn't...
	You know, fixed.
	Even though we're led to believe it is.
	It's not.
	Not even close.
	Well, no.
	And Shanghai is all locked down.
	You know, China says it's COVID. They've got little robot dogs creeping around with their spider legs, ordering people to stay in their buildings, locking them in the apartments and everything.
	So those people can't go to the factories and make knives.
	That is correct.
	So those factories are shut down.
	And so what that does for their business is going to create a demand.
	That's one reason why way back when I made sure that we're doing everything here in America, all around material in America, because I had those relationships, I still get material.
	Because now you're in a line.
	And if you don't have that relationship, you're not getting anything.
	You're not going to get...
	That's not going to happen.
	And so we established these relationships back when it wasn't cool or trendy and to buy American raw material and to produce it in the United States.
	So that means that our product, something, the knife and coming up knife shortage is going to go through the roof because we can only make so much.
	Yeah, exactly.
	It is going to go through the roof.
	And you know what?
	The other thing that we've seen in the industry of gear and goods, and this happened to a major manufacturer of storable food, who I'm not going to name, but the Department of Defense came in.
	And just demanded, oh, we're going to buy everything you produce for the next six months, period.
	And it's not a negotiation.
	It's like, you're going to sell this to us or we're going to find a way to shut you down, basically.
	And then that company had to make a public announcement like, oh, we're not going to have any food available for six months because of supply chain shortage.
	Actually, it's because the Pentagon was buying everything.
	They could do that even to a company like yours or even mine at any time.
	In fact, we run a high risk of that happening because with what's going on in Russia, if this war ever involves U.S. troops, then they're going to want U.S. product.
	Absolutely.
	Knives is super key.
	So they could say, we're taking all your production and everything you produce goes straight to us.
	Yeah, that's actually under the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act that Obama signed in 2012.
	They can absolutely do that, and they have done that.
	They've also done that with night vision suppliers.
	They've come into night vision companies and just said, oh, all your inventory are belong to us, which is a joke about the video game quote from Korea, for those of you who know.
	But anyway, all your base are belong to us.
	They just took all their night vision gear.
	Just took it all.
	I mean, they paid for it.
	But everybody who had ordered that stuff, thinking they were going to get it, they didn't get it.
	No, you're put off for a long time.
	I know a lot of guys that work in big manufacturing companies or run it in ammo.
	And so you've seen that with ammo.
	They just come in, they buy it all up.
	Absolutely.
	Yeah, good point.
	That's actually the best example.
	So, alright, I have a public request.
	I want you to hide a tomahawk for me under the pillow or something.
	Like, just put it in the floorboards.
	Save a tomahawk for me because I have to have the tomahawk from the future when we're in World War III. I've got to have it.
	I will be sending you one of our prototype tomahawks, actually two, so you can play around.
	It's a really cool American ingenuity piece of hardware, because it's the only one that's actually native to this continent that was developed here and everything, and it's pretty cool how it's used.
	It's pretty nifty.
	That's cool.
	That's cool.
	I'm part Native American, too, so I'll just claim this is my ethnic weapon of choice here.
	And a good weapon of choice it is.
	Indeed.
	Indeed.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So I've asked all the questions I had set up.
	What else do you want to add to this discussion on any of these issues, supply line, or how do people get in line if they want something from you and it's out of stock right now?
	Yeah, so I've had a lot of questions that people say, do you take orders?
	And why don't you take orders?
	One reason for that is because of the supply chain issue.
	And it's not just in steel.
	We also use phenolics.
	And when you use those phenolics, the shortage right now is the resin that goes into the phenolics.
	That's produced in China and that comes over and then they actually make the whole G10 or fiberglass sheet here.
	So you're seeing that in carbon fiber.
	You're competing against the space industry.
	So you have all these things.
	So I can't...
	If I take an order for blue G10, I may never get blue G10. It might be pewter, red, or whatever color.
	So that's why we don't take it.
	We take our supply.
	I have a supplier, and I'll give their name because they're a really good American company, Atlas Supply.
	And he's a good friend of mine, a good relationship.
	And he just came to me.
	He says, look, here's the reality.
	We're not getting the resin.
	So I'm going to just send you.
	Let's walk down my warehouse and you let me know what you want to take.
	And here we go.
	And so I took pretty much anything I thought was good except for hot pink.
	Nothing against hot pink.
	It's just I just didn't think that that was the way to go.
	And so I took everything that he had.
	And so...
	You know, that's why I couldn't take orders, because you never know.
	It changes.
	Well, you could also have the option on your website, like, you know, super combat knife, color our choice, and you send it, and then you end up with Navy SEALs with hot pink knife blades, knife handles.
	I'm sure that'll fly.
	Or like the rainbow theme on the knife, you know.
	That'll go over real well.
	Colored, you know, yeah.
	Right, multicolor, like rave colored with maybe a little unicorn emblem on there as well.
	Yeah, it identifies as blue.
	Yeah, exactly, right.
	So, who knows where this could go, but I think it's interesting that, so you're kind of having to stockpile some of your raw materials then, to be able to make the whole knife, because it's not just the metal, it's the handle and other elements, as you just said, the resins.
	Yeah, and that's the thing.
	We spend actually about a quarter of our facility just for raw material that we're stockpiling because we've had issues with leather.
	That comes from this country.
	And if you're having beef problems, guess what?
	On the other end, you're also having leather problems.
	So you're having all these issues that are coming up.
	We have to stockpile.
	And you don't know.
	I've had just screws.
	Let's just go for screws made here in the U.S. One guy came up.
	I went to reorder.
	He's like, hey, we'll get some screws to you six months from now.
	Whoa!
	And so we have a lathe.
	So we just start working on those issues.
	Yeah.
	You mean you're having to actually cut out the threads of screws?
	Oh, yeah.
	Well, luckily we found another supplier, but we had it all set up because we couldn't find someone else in the United States to do that.
	You know, screws, that's complex.
	You have to know the pitch, the depth, the angle of the channel of the thread, all that stuff.
	It's really complicated.
	Oh, yeah.
	And then you have to do it so it's actually worth your time.
	Right.
	Right.
	You can't spend eight hours making four screws, you know?
	Exactly.
	Oh my goodness.
	But you see, this is what U.S. companies are experiencing across the board.
	People are having to figure out all kinds of improvised solutions just to keep their doors open and keep running.
	I mean, we're doing that to some extent as well.
	I know you're doing that.
	We had to change our packaging because we couldn't get certain types of lids and nozzles and spray pumps for the tops of bottles and things like that.
	So you have to change.
	You have to adapt.
	Yeah, and if you don't, I've seen just, we just ordered an oven recently for heat treating, just to expand our heat treat.
	And we talked to the sales rep, and he was like, a lot of these ovens, ceramic companies that make these ovens, they have gone out of business because they couldn't work through the supply chain issues.
	So they're just gone.
	And some of them have been around for 30 years.
	If you can't navigate the supply chain problem, you're going to be out of business.
	And you have to be able to Create relationships.
	I say the two most important things in business.
	Actually, I'm going to say three.
	It's always your customer, but employees and your suppliers.
	Suppliers are gold.
	And if you don't have those relationships with them, you're not going to break through.
	And being a new entrepreneur, you're going to have an extremely difficult time to get what you need when you have guys who've already established relationships.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Exactly.
	Exactly.
	We've seen the same thing.
	It's just extraordinary what you're doing.
	Your facility, that's on the top of my list of places to tour.
	If I ever make it back to Arizona, I would love to come take a tour.
	It would just be fascinating what you're doing.
	Oh yeah, I would love to show you all the little ins and outs, little tricks.
	We've come up with a lot of things that the industry said you couldn't do with a machine or you couldn't do in heat treat.
	And we've found really good workarounds or solved that problem.
	Next time we talk, I was thinking that I could do a virtual tour of the facility so you can see what we're doing and what we're making.
	That would be cool.
	Or even better yet, we have a lot of acreage not far from the Austin airport, and you could have a whole new operation in central Texas on our land and just expand, man.
	Wouldn't that be awesome?
	I might hold you to that someday because I'm from Texas originally.
	I'm from San Antonio.
	Well, there you go.
	Come out and take a look.
	If you want to set up another operation out here, we'd love to partner with you on something like that.
	We need domestic production.
	We've got to get back to kind of the post-World War II domestic production.
	That's how the United States was abundant.
	That's how the economy was working and everybody was doing well and people were employed and you could afford to buy a house in terms of the number of hours you had to work to pay for the house.
	Whereas today, who can afford to buy anything because there's not the value here because the money supply is all trashed and we're importing everything.
	We're a consumer society.
	That's got to change, man.
	We've got to make stuff.
	I completely agree with you.
	And that's kind of our philosophy.
	But if you're looking at America, we have a twofold problem, production and education.
	So if you don't have the people educated to be able to produce something, you're not going to have the workforce that you need, which is what we're seeing right now.
	I mean, we have a lot of guys that say, hey, I want to produce something, but the workforce isn't here.
	And I think that a lot of companies, including myself, we're starting to do our own education programs where we're taking people in or we're building it up.
	So that way we can have people coming in, we can train them.
	And in that time period, we can see how they're doing, even if it's like a seven day course, if they have an aptitude.
	And then we invest in the ones that we think are going to be able to carry through.
	Well, that's the way apprenticeships used to work in industry, the tradecraft, right?
	A younger person would come in and they would learn how to do whatever, you know, how to make a suit out of cloth and scissors in a sewing machine.
	And then if they could do it, you know, maybe they would move up and actually get a job.
	But it was people learning the trade.
	And I agree with you, John.
	That's what we've got to get back to.
	Oh, we are out of time.
	I'm sorry.
	But this has already been tons of fun.
	We've got to do this again.
	Any final thoughts as we wrap this up?
	My final thoughts is that I believe that America can get back to greatness if the people have a plan and we look domestically instead of globally.
	And I think we can make a great business if we do a great product.
	Well said, and your products are amazing.
	The website, folks, is DawsonKnives.com, and everything they make is just mind-blowing.
	I've got quite a few of their items, and every time I unsheathe one of those swords, I'm just blown away.
	Wow!
	Seriously.
	So yeah, check out DawsonKnives.com.
	And John, thank you so much for joining us today.
	God bless you and your family and everything that you're doing there.
	So thankful for your safety and the fact that you're able to operate and help people get squared away with the gear that they need.
	Thank you very much, Mike, and God bless you and your operation and your family too, bud.
	All right.
	Thank you so much.
	And for those of you watching, thank you for your support of Dawson Knives as well as our platform, Brighteon.com.
	Dawson is a sponsor from time to time of my podcast, also on Brighteon.
	And...
	Feel free to repost this interview if you'd like to.
	You can put it on your own channel.
	You can put it on other platforms.
	It's all good.
	Just spread the word.
	Share the good news.
	There is good American-made gear that can help keep you alive in the chaos that's coming.
	You don't have to buy the cheap stuff that's going to break on you.
	And I have a lot of that stuff, too.
	I didn't know about Dawson Knives until a year ago or so.
	So you got a lot of cheap stuff?
	Use that for barter.
	Hold on to the good stuff.
	Thank you for watching today.
	I'm Mike Adams, the Health Ranger.
	Take care, everybody.
	Take care, everybody.
	In this nearly eight-hour audiobook, you will learn life-saving secrets of how to use food, nutrients, plant molecules, trace minerals, and chemical compounds to save your life, even in a total collapse scenario.
	I'm Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, and I'm the author of Survival Nutrition.
	I founded and run a multi-million dollar food science laboratory, and I'm the author of the best-selling science book, Food Forensics.
	I'm also a prepper, a patriot, and a survivalist.
	I can teach you how to survive what's coming by growing your own food, medicine, and antibiotics that can help keep you healthy and alive even during the worst of times.
	At survivalnutrition.com, you'll be able to instantly download the full free audiobook as MP3 files.
	Keep a copy of all these files on your local hard drive and print out the full guide just in case we lose the power grid.

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