Before this story get out of hand let me say something about the RTAK development. Jeff Randall had ordered one of my knives known as the Recon Combat Machete (RCM) to use on a trip to the Amazon jungle in Peru back in early 1999. After some period of time he called me again, and said that he had designed a knife, and wanted to know if I was interested in making the knife. I said I would look at it, and to send the knife drawing to me, and I would take a look at it.
Basically from phone conversations about the project what I understood of the verbal agreement was that the knife was mine to do with as I pleased, and that Jeff could get any made he wanted at a very reduced price. Not only would this collaboration benefit me by having a new knife in my selection to sell, but also it would benefit Jeff Randall, and promote his endeavors in the travel and tour business.
When the drawing got here from Jeff I called him and we discussed the knife design and I told him that I could make the knife. Upon closer examination of the drawing, and after laying it out on steel I noticed that the handle design that Jeff had sent did not fit our equipment.
Now let me tell you what I mean by not fitting our equipment. Most people when they design knife do not understand the manufacturing end of the process. This is in evidence by some of the knife drawings we get form people both solicited and non solicited. Most of our equipment for grinding, finishing, and producing knives is on specialty machinery with certain INDUSTRY STANDARD parts such as certain size rubber contact wheels, platens, jigs, etc. If you are doing a custom knife you might be able to cut a single knife or two by hand one at a time and have it looks like Mickey Mouses face, putting your fingers in his eyes as the handle, and have his teeth be the cutting edge. BUT when doing production work or even benchmade work as we do here certain standards have to be adhered too.
With this in mind what I did was to take the drawing for the RTAK knife as it was named, and modify the over all design on the handle to fit the standard production equipment we use. I informed Jeff that I had to change the handle design slightly to meet these criteria, and he saw no problems in that. After all he understands the problems of production, etc. I made the first couple of these knives and sent Jeff a copy to play with. The very first knife made or the prototype RTAK is in my collection and is dated 9.8.1999.
So who invented the RTAK knife? Well Jeff Randall did the drawing and concept design work. When it got to me I did the tweaking of the critical handle manufacture, applied my over all finish, and the signature three pin handle work. So if you want to get technical, and look at this in a legal content, it could be viewed as a compilation of both Randall and Myself.
Now am I going to get any money out of this if the knife sells like hot cakes..........NO! I would doubt it, and have not considered the notion at all before these questions were asked above.
Have I asked Jeff if he is going to consider given me credit on any aspect of this knife.......NO! An most likely will not.
Would I ask him for credit on design work, promotion, etc when the production knife is made, sold or advertised? Most likely not. Jeff understands that where credit is due it should be given, and rightfully should be, like in photographic work, writings, art, and other endeavors, etc.
Is this a big deal..... NO!
Newt Livesay
maker