A Decade Late and a Decision Short…

Shortly after beginning to make knives as a teenager, I started selling them through a shop in Craig Colorado called Spirit Pass. Chris, the owner, was a good lady to work with and gave me a much needed confidence boost by purchasing my at-the-time very ugly knives.

I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the sheaths as I made them for the knives, and they were a pretty ugly mixed batch. Most were right-handed, the ones I accidentally made backwards were left-handed; usually they were made to be worn straight up and down on the hip, but a few were made cross-draw.

One day as Chris was purchasing a new batch of knives from me, she asked why I didn't make more of the cross-draw style sheaths. I shrugged and said I didn't see many of that style being worn. She replied that maybe if more cross-draw sheaths were made, more would be worn.

I didn't think much of it and again shrugged off the notion.

A few years later while working for Pine Ridge Knife Co, I heard a lot of people compliment the cross-draw sheaths that were one of Pine Ridge's signatures. I think that Pine Ridge was one of the first major knife companies to popularize the cross-draw knife sheath. I see that style all over now. Chris' words came back to me: "Maybe if more were made, more would be worn..."

I realized that I'd missed the boat to be one of the first on the ground floor of the cross-draw craze.

When I started my own business I began to promote my own style of cross-draw sheath (COC-D). It's a two-position sheath that I personally prefer (more about that in "The Whoops That Worked" blog story).

The COC-D sheath holds its own against the more commonly seen pancake style cross-draws, but I started to have people ask me about horizontal sheaths.

I haven't seen many of those walking around, but Chris' words came back to me again. This time I didn't shrug it off. I've recently designed a horizontal sheath for a specially designed knife, the first of which I called the Monument Ridge.

Horizontal sheaths are a bit trickier to make than conventional or cross-draw, since you can't depend as much on gravity to keep the knife where it's supposed to be. The knife has to have some kind of catch on it, and the sheath has to be molded or formed to that catch to keep the knife from working it's way out while being carried.

My Monument Ridge style knife has a finger groove in the handle that not only gives the index finger a place to rest while holding the knife, but also gives the sheath a place to hold the knife as well. This is just the first of what will probably be several horizontally-sheathed knives in my inventory. Hopefully I'll be able to help initiate a horizontal hullabaloo similar to the cross-draw craze.