Thanks Ken Onion and Tom Mayo

[Bobby Branton]

I have been fortunate to visit the shops of many makers. Most of the time it is only for one or two days. This past week, I had the pleasure of spending a week in Ken Onion's shop. I have been dabbling in folders a bit, but felt like I needed to kick it up a notch. Ken has been inviting me to come to his shop for the past few years and I never could find time to take the trip to Hawaii to spend a week. I basically wanted to go back to folder 101 from design to finish knife. Ken went above and beyond all expectations to make my trip a great one. Ken has a beautiful family and they took me in and treated me like I was part of their family. I will never forget this. I'm sure that I could have stayed two weeks just soaking up the knowledge that he was so willing to share, but unfortunately, I had to get back home to reality. While in Hawaii, I was able to spend one night with Tom Mayo. Being able to see how different makers approach knife making is always interesting and Tom is one of the best. Thanks Tom for the tips, hospitality and the tour of the North Shore and especially the breakfast that I won off of you. In addition to Ken and Tom, I want to thank my other friends who live in Hawaii, Jeff Park (imp), Bernie Pang, Marc Yamame (Omega man) Scot Matsuoka for their friendship and the cool swag they sent home with me for my wife and my self. I'll try to post some pics of my trip soon.

P.S. We did a lot of drawing and I will have some cool designs coming out soon. Maybe Tom will let me poke some holes in them

Bobby
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