copfish
Basic Member
- Joined
- Oct 2, 1998
- Messages
- 1,419
Copied from the "other" forum. As most of you know Tom Mayo is a bit modest when talking about himself and knives... 
"History 101:
I have been making knives for almost 20 years. For much of the time I made standard pattern fighters, hunters, and folders in the tradition that I had been taught. I stopped going to knife shows a number of years ago because, frankly, there were so many good guys making the same type of knives as me that I became discouraged. Coincidently running into Duane Dwyer a number of times and at the insistence of Ken Onion I was pressured to start going to shows again and Ken kept telling me I needed to come up with something unique. That was well over three years ago. Then Ray from Austria commissioned two integral framelock tantos and the idea began to gel. I had the handle design in mind for quite a while (the profile outline) and then Copfish (John Fisher) contacted me about putting a Talonite blade in one of his Sebenzas. Thus was born the first TNT. A lot of other strange coincidences fell into place to make everything come together at the right time, not the least of which was Rob Simonich popularizing Talonite and me trading him some 6k that I had laying around for 15 years for some Talonite that he was distributing. The first few knives were really experiments and took a LONG time to make. As things get refined more and more, I plan on putting out some new designs and ESPECIALLY focusing on making a lot more blade steels available, as well as the carbon fiber TNT (pictuted at the bottom of Page 2/TNT section of my website) and I am constantly working on coming up with some trick lock ideas that are simple and functional."
http://www.knifeforums.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=14&t=000371
"History 101:
I have been making knives for almost 20 years. For much of the time I made standard pattern fighters, hunters, and folders in the tradition that I had been taught. I stopped going to knife shows a number of years ago because, frankly, there were so many good guys making the same type of knives as me that I became discouraged. Coincidently running into Duane Dwyer a number of times and at the insistence of Ken Onion I was pressured to start going to shows again and Ken kept telling me I needed to come up with something unique. That was well over three years ago. Then Ray from Austria commissioned two integral framelock tantos and the idea began to gel. I had the handle design in mind for quite a while (the profile outline) and then Copfish (John Fisher) contacted me about putting a Talonite blade in one of his Sebenzas. Thus was born the first TNT. A lot of other strange coincidences fell into place to make everything come together at the right time, not the least of which was Rob Simonich popularizing Talonite and me trading him some 6k that I had laying around for 15 years for some Talonite that he was distributing. The first few knives were really experiments and took a LONG time to make. As things get refined more and more, I plan on putting out some new designs and ESPECIALLY focusing on making a lot more blade steels available, as well as the carbon fiber TNT (pictuted at the bottom of Page 2/TNT section of my website) and I am constantly working on coming up with some trick lock ideas that are simple and functional."
http://www.knifeforums.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=14&t=000371
