July 10, 2025

Does anybody else use their shipping label printer to make stickers for almost free? I get 8 of these band-aid stickers per 4x6 label. At $10 for 500 labels, that's 4 stickers for a penny! The QR code directs to the wonderful video I featured last week. These stickers get stuck on outgoing orders, on band-aids I give out at shows and markets, and pretty much anywhere else I randomly stick them.

July 3, 2025

A few years ago Drew from WittWorks made a wonderful video about (much more than) the xacto-ish knives I make. The video garnered a bunch of sales and contacts at the time and I still get orders and emails referencing it today. It's not a product review, or an unboxing video but more about life, joy, connection, and detail. I didn't quite realize I was sharing all that until Drew pointed it out and I am forever grateful. https://youtu.be/ijtqPY2IBb0 Also, never take a client or potential one for granted. Each of them can impact your success or failure.

April 24, 2025

March 27, 2025

I machine all the hardware for my xacto-ish knives on a couple vintage "Unimat" machines. These little lathes were made in Austria from the 1950s-80's and sold around the world. I remember seeing ads for them in the back of Popular Mechanics magazines when I was a kid and was lucky to rediscover one on Craigslist after I made some knife hardware with much less sophisticated tools. They're incredibly capable and versatile machines if used within their capabilities - if you make small, precise, metal things you should watch out for one! I have 4 now!

March 20, 2025

Since I'm new here, maybe I should introduce myself. My name is Kevin, and I'm a maker (is this a recovery group?). Until 2020, I developed and managed student fabrication resources in a design college where I helped students design and make things without hurting themselves. Now I'm trying to do that myself in a modest basement shop/studio in Minneapolis, MN. I like to make useful objects and I'm compelled to make them as well as I can. I started making "xacto-ish" knives in 2020 and they've evolved to more than I ever imagined they would.

March 13, 2025

Hello Makers!!! I was browsing around and saw an ad for Lyric. Platforms come and go pretty quickly these days and you never know which one might take off. They're increasingly easy to set up, so why not give it a try? I make replaceable blade craft knives that work great for woodwork, leathercraft, scale modeling, papercutting, taxidermy, marquetry, etc - really anything you'd use a standard common hobby knife for. They're like an xacto, but really freaking nice!