STR
08-23-2009, 06:36 PM
I am sure if you are new here or not heard of me that you would like to know a bit about me. I use my initials as my screen name on most forums I belong to unless the system they use at the forum I register on refuses to allow me to use just three letters, but I am known by Steve to my friends. My full name is Stephen Taylor Rice. I am a veteran from the Air Force. I am married and my wife and I met in the Air Force in the Dental Corp. We both worked as professionals in the dental industry in the service all our lives and I worked for two smaller companies both bought out over time and then moved on to become part of an employee owned company, Patterson Dental Co where I worked until retiring myself when I then sold out my interests in the company which were substantial enough to allow me to play and enjoy my life. My blood pressure has been normal ever since.
While I separated from the service after my first six year term in the Air Force, my wife stayed on moving from active duty AF to active duty Indian Health Service and no we are not Indian but we lived in Arizona, New Mexico, Washington State, Alsaska, and other states like, Iowa, Illinois, Florida, South Carolina, and Texas before that in the Air Force. The IHS is a branch of the Coast Guard believe it or not and April, my wife eventually retired from active duty service with them as a Commander receiving the pension of 50% of pay grade after 22 years of service. We've lived all over the country as you can see and seen the world thanks to that experience and some other experiences we created on our own.
My son Brandon, our only child is a Federal Agent now, 28 years old getting ready to turn 29 soon and married. He served in the National Guard for close to 10 years while going to school at the same time and did a tour of active duty for 18 months, 14 of which were spent in Iraq. It was the worst 14 months of my life and I am heart felt glad he got home in one peace. Some of the men that went over there with him did not. My wife and I currently live in N.E. Oklahoma and and I grew up in West Virginia being born in Cumberland Maryland. Ironically my son now lives in West Virginia working for the government just one zip code over and just ten miles from my boyhood home where I grew up just 45 feet from the Potomac River. Brandon works in Maryland very near there.
Since April and I said goodbye to dentistry and all to do with that except taking care of our own teeth all I do now is what I want to and mostly I just work on folding knives which has been a passion of mine since my grandfather gave me my first pen knife at an early age. I specialize in the locking one hand opening closing pocket clip equipped folders like you will see me working on here in my forum for end line users or in my other forum on blade forums. I rarely touch fixed blades anymore for work, refer most slip joints these days as I really don't enjoy those as much to work on although I do like them a lot. I rarely touch slip joints for work these days but I sure worked a lot of them over in the 70s and 80s. Mostly I stick with what you see in my blog or my forum since thats the majority of what I get mailed to me by end line users and since that seems to be what is mostly in the hands of end line users, and since they are the type I seem to drift to personally for my own uses.
I sign all my knives and my work with my runic lettering traditional punch I had made up with my STR signiture. Most of my work is going to have that stamp somewhere on it. On production conversions or modifications to factory knives sent to me to get up and running again or modify I sign them on the inside somewhere using this punch and I am sure to put it where its easily found without the need to take the knife apart. My custom knives are usually signed on the outside unless the design or some grooving prevent this in which case I'll stamp it on the inside. I also sign all my custom pocket clips on the underside although some early ones did go out unsigned. Prototypes may end up signed or unsigned. It all depends and there are some of both out there.
Please note I do not work on automatic knives or balisongs so please do not mail those types of knives to me. I no longer work on fixed blades also referred to as sheath knives. Unless it is really a simple fix I will always refer out most of the slip joint work coming my way as well as any other pinned type folders because I don't enjoy working on them for repairs so if this is what you have please touch base with me for a list of names of some folks I have referred to in the past that may be able to help you with those type of knives. I no longer do any scale work to replace your scales but I do have a contact for you for someone that does and does it very well so don't let my turning that type job down discourage you. I also no longer offer any frame lock conversions for liner locking folders. I have not even been doing any conversions like this for myself so if that is what you had in mind save yourself the trouble of asking me to do it but again don't be discouraged. I have recommendations there also. I would recommend Reese Weiland if you need that kind of work done to a knife you own. Reese is good people. Get in touch with him and tell him I sent you. Doing frame lock conversions could easily be a full time job and the problem with that is that I don't want a part time job let alone a full time one. What I want is to do my hobby playing with knives and to have fun. Working isn't fun. Getting behind is not fun. A pocket clip or pry bar, Wave mod, jimping your folder for some added traction, anodizing something for you or bead blasting it or something else like that now and then is great so long as its not an everyday thing. This will allow me the time I need to focus on my custom folders which have taken a back seat for far too long to all the production manufactured knife work I've been doing.
The truth is guys that I don't do this for the money and I don't need the money or the stress of having a back log. I also enjoy doing the smaller jobs and helping you guys out if I can get something done and in and out of here for folks without breaking my back or breaking the bank so the nickel and dime stuff is really fine with me and that falls in line with this being a hobby. Really all I'm trying to cover is the cost of the materials and electricity and shipping on most all of what I do. I'm not looking at this as an income and it certainly doesn't pay the bills around here. In the future all I plan to do is maybe a few custom knives of my own now and then just to keep my hand at it. My main goal is to keep this just a hobby and enjoy retirement with my wife while we can still afford to do it. I don't want it to get so busy that I'm feeling like its a job. I hope that comes off in a good way. Thanks for understanding.
STR
While I separated from the service after my first six year term in the Air Force, my wife stayed on moving from active duty AF to active duty Indian Health Service and no we are not Indian but we lived in Arizona, New Mexico, Washington State, Alsaska, and other states like, Iowa, Illinois, Florida, South Carolina, and Texas before that in the Air Force. The IHS is a branch of the Coast Guard believe it or not and April, my wife eventually retired from active duty service with them as a Commander receiving the pension of 50% of pay grade after 22 years of service. We've lived all over the country as you can see and seen the world thanks to that experience and some other experiences we created on our own.
My son Brandon, our only child is a Federal Agent now, 28 years old getting ready to turn 29 soon and married. He served in the National Guard for close to 10 years while going to school at the same time and did a tour of active duty for 18 months, 14 of which were spent in Iraq. It was the worst 14 months of my life and I am heart felt glad he got home in one peace. Some of the men that went over there with him did not. My wife and I currently live in N.E. Oklahoma and and I grew up in West Virginia being born in Cumberland Maryland. Ironically my son now lives in West Virginia working for the government just one zip code over and just ten miles from my boyhood home where I grew up just 45 feet from the Potomac River. Brandon works in Maryland very near there.
Since April and I said goodbye to dentistry and all to do with that except taking care of our own teeth all I do now is what I want to and mostly I just work on folding knives which has been a passion of mine since my grandfather gave me my first pen knife at an early age. I specialize in the locking one hand opening closing pocket clip equipped folders like you will see me working on here in my forum for end line users or in my other forum on blade forums. I rarely touch fixed blades anymore for work, refer most slip joints these days as I really don't enjoy those as much to work on although I do like them a lot. I rarely touch slip joints for work these days but I sure worked a lot of them over in the 70s and 80s. Mostly I stick with what you see in my blog or my forum since thats the majority of what I get mailed to me by end line users and since that seems to be what is mostly in the hands of end line users, and since they are the type I seem to drift to personally for my own uses.
I sign all my knives and my work with my runic lettering traditional punch I had made up with my STR signiture. Most of my work is going to have that stamp somewhere on it. On production conversions or modifications to factory knives sent to me to get up and running again or modify I sign them on the inside somewhere using this punch and I am sure to put it where its easily found without the need to take the knife apart. My custom knives are usually signed on the outside unless the design or some grooving prevent this in which case I'll stamp it on the inside. I also sign all my custom pocket clips on the underside although some early ones did go out unsigned. Prototypes may end up signed or unsigned. It all depends and there are some of both out there.
Please note I do not work on automatic knives or balisongs so please do not mail those types of knives to me. I no longer work on fixed blades also referred to as sheath knives. Unless it is really a simple fix I will always refer out most of the slip joint work coming my way as well as any other pinned type folders because I don't enjoy working on them for repairs so if this is what you have please touch base with me for a list of names of some folks I have referred to in the past that may be able to help you with those type of knives. I no longer do any scale work to replace your scales but I do have a contact for you for someone that does and does it very well so don't let my turning that type job down discourage you. I also no longer offer any frame lock conversions for liner locking folders. I have not even been doing any conversions like this for myself so if that is what you had in mind save yourself the trouble of asking me to do it but again don't be discouraged. I have recommendations there also. I would recommend Reese Weiland if you need that kind of work done to a knife you own. Reese is good people. Get in touch with him and tell him I sent you. Doing frame lock conversions could easily be a full time job and the problem with that is that I don't want a part time job let alone a full time one. What I want is to do my hobby playing with knives and to have fun. Working isn't fun. Getting behind is not fun. A pocket clip or pry bar, Wave mod, jimping your folder for some added traction, anodizing something for you or bead blasting it or something else like that now and then is great so long as its not an everyday thing. This will allow me the time I need to focus on my custom folders which have taken a back seat for far too long to all the production manufactured knife work I've been doing.
The truth is guys that I don't do this for the money and I don't need the money or the stress of having a back log. I also enjoy doing the smaller jobs and helping you guys out if I can get something done and in and out of here for folks without breaking my back or breaking the bank so the nickel and dime stuff is really fine with me and that falls in line with this being a hobby. Really all I'm trying to cover is the cost of the materials and electricity and shipping on most all of what I do. I'm not looking at this as an income and it certainly doesn't pay the bills around here. In the future all I plan to do is maybe a few custom knives of my own now and then just to keep my hand at it. My main goal is to keep this just a hobby and enjoy retirement with my wife while we can still afford to do it. I don't want it to get so busy that I'm feeling like its a job. I hope that comes off in a good way. Thanks for understanding.
STR