recording to start. Okay, the recording is on. Let's just take a moment to pray together and then we will get started. May I request somebody to please lead the class in prayer? Could someone pray please? We'll start.  Sit kind of, we can't hear you. All right, I'm not sure, sit kind of praying. Can you all hear me okay? Sit kind of, we can't hear you. Or at least I can't hear you. Okay, John, can you pray please? Father, we want to thank you for this time, Lord, we submit us before your presence. We ask, O God, that you speak to us through the class today, Lord Jesus, help us to understand your scriptures in its beauty. Lord, we pray that you anoint a pastor to give you a word in its fullness. Lord, we pray that you enable us to understand your scriptures of God. We thank you in Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. All right, so we are in this course on interpreting scripture. We're learning various guidelines on how we should handle the scriptures, how to correctly understand the scriptures, interpret it, and then of course the goal of correctly interpreting it is so that we can correctly apply the scriptures. So the plan for today is we finish off a little bit that we were doing on the Old Testament in New Testament scripture. I'll spend some time on that, maybe just look at some examples of Old Testament in New Testament scripture and then we want to just talk a little bit about applying scripture. There's some little guidance on applying scripture. So the whole purpose for us to study the scriptures and to learn how to interpret the scriptures correctly is so that we can apply it in our lives correctly, personally, as well as we can share with others our congregations, our churches, how people can apply the word of God correctly. Then after that, we're going to go into the last chapter of this course, which is difficult topics. So what we're going to do is get into specific topics and see what the Bible has to say on that topic. Purposely, we will pick up not difficult topics. Some of it may or may not be difficult, but difficult topics in difficult passages. Example, we talk about the question is Jesus God understanding incarnation. What does it mean to be first born and first begotten?  Should women cover the head? Those kind of passages that a lot of people have arguments about and so on. So we will address certain difficult topics just as a way of saying, okay, we've learned how to interpret scripture. Now let's apply that to different passages or different topics so that we can, you know, not only understand the topic, but also basically it's like an exercise of applying these guidelines or this guidance that we have learned on interpret scripture. We applied to the scriptures to get an understanding on difficult topics. So that'll be our last chapter, which we will take up different topics and work our way through them. So let's pick up from where we paused last week. We were in this chapter. We were talking about the Old Testament in the New Testament. So what we said was that in the New Testament there are many references to Old Testament scriptures, many, many. And in most cases, you know, you could go back and say, okay, the writer in the New Testament is quoting from this place in the Old Testament. So you could do that. Now there is a little saying, which I think is very nice. I don't know who came up with this. It's been there for a long time, but the saying goes like this. It says, the New is in the Old Concealed and the Old is in the New Revealed. So I think it's a very nice statement. The New is in the Old Concealed and the Old is in the New Revealed. So it's very nice. So what's he saying? He's saying the New Testament is actually concealed in the Old Testament. It's hidden there. It's there, you know, but it's concealed. It's there. And the Old is in the New Revealed. That means the New Testament is opening up our understanding of the Old Testament. Right? So I think it's a beautiful statement whoever came up with that. But it just shows us how the Old Testament and New Testament are, you know, are, you would say, two sides of the same. They are two parts of the make up the whole. And so we should not create the Old Testament or New Testament separately. It's all Scripture. It's all God's Word. But we need to understand them together. Right? So if you want to understand the New Testament better, we need a good understanding of the Old Testament. If you want to understand the Old Testament better, you need a good understanding of the New Testament. So they go together. And so when we, when we're reading the New Testament, many writers reference the Old Testament. They point to something in the Old Testament. In fact, even the Lord Jesus, you know, after his resurrection, when he was walking down the M.E.S. road and even when he was speaking to his disciples during that 40 days, he used the Old Testament Scriptures. That was the only Scriptures they had available to show them that all these prophecies and things about himself that were spoken in the law and the prophets in the Psalms were actually fulfilled and they were speaking about him. So he just used the Old Testament. The early church, when they were preaching, they essentially used just the Old Testament Scriptures to preach about Jesus and the New Covenant. And of course, they had the teachings of Jesus, which they shared and preached to the people. So when we read the New Testament and we see references from the Old Testament, we must learn how to, you know, carefully explain truth that is referencing Old Testament. Now, how do we do that? So here are some guidance and that we will just highlight here. So whenever we we have reference in the New Testament to the Old Testament, understand the context, the New Testament context. Right? So don't just go and pick the Old Testament voice. No. Understand what is the New Testament context within which the Old Testament reference is being made. Right? So if you turn with me, the book of Romans, we will be studying the book of Romans, you know, in detail in our third year that we will go through Romans verse by verse. But in the book of Romans, almost, I would say like almost every chapter or many chapters in Romans, the Apostle Paul is quoting happily, he's quoting a lot from the Old Testament and he's using Old Testament language or Old Testament pictures in his writing. In fact, not just in Romans, but in many places, Paul's writings, but his epistle to the Romans is a great example where he keeps quoting from the Old Testament. So for example, in Romans chapter three, or so it picks up here in Romans two itself, so Romans two, he verse 24, he talks about the name of God is blasphied among the Gentiles because of you as it is Romans two 24. And just giving that as an example, you could follow with me in your Bible. So he's actually just, he's quoting from the Old Testament. But what is, he is using that script to speak to Jews or in this case, really speaking to believers, Jewish believers. So when he's writing to Rome, his audience includes Jewish believers and Gentile believers, there's a mix of them. But he's initially addressing Jewish believers to and he's trying to explain to them how God, although he chose the Jews, the people of Israel, it doesn't mean the Jews are better than those, just because they have the law doesn't make them better than those without the law. So he's building that up in Romans chapter two and Romans chapter three and he shows us how all have sinned and we all need Jesus, Jew and Gentile. So in his building up, so that's the New Testament context of Romans chapter two and three and in building up that understanding truth which Paul is bringing out, he's quoting many times from the Old Testament. So Romans two 24, Romans chapter three and was four and then Romans three, ten to eighteen is all quotations from Old Testament. But what is the context? The context is, he's trying to show his audience, that is the believers at Rome, that Jews and Gentile all have sinned, that the Jews are not better just because they have the law, all have sinned. So that's the context, so when we must keep the context in mind. Like this, you know, throughout Romans you can follow and see how many times Paul is quoting from the Old Testament, but there is a context in which he is making those references. So first one, understand what is the main idea? So when you say context, you're saying what is the main idea? What is the writer speaking about? And so every scripture has to be understood in its original context. The second thing when we are working with the Old Testament in the New Testament is go back to the Old Testament and understand what was being said then which is relevant to us in the New Testament. So we are looking at the Old Testament in which the verse was given while we are seeing the New Testament. So let's go as an example. Let's go to Matthew chapter 8, please. So I think one way to really understand it is for looking at examples that the thing is there are so many examples. So, you know, we just have to pick and choose a few. So if you go to Matthew chapter 8 and let's read verses 16 and 17, please. Could somebody read that for us? Just just giving an example. Matthew 8, 16 and 17. Could somebody read that for us? Matthew 8, 16 and 17. When even had come they brought to him many who were demon possessed and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet saying he himself took our impurities and bore our sicknesses. Okay. So here's an example in the ministry of Jesus. So Jesus, what is the context point number one? What is the New Testament context? The New Testament context where there is an Old Testament reference. So New Testament context is Jesus. It's the ministry of Jesus and he is healing the people casting out demons, all of that. And while he's doing that, the Holy Spirit is inspiring or has inspired the Gospel writer Matthew to quote and to point back to an Old Testament reference. And what is the reference? He's quoting from Isaiah chapter 53. So if we can all turn, keep your hand on Matthew 8 and you turn to Isaiah 53. And he's quoting from Isaiah 53 and verse four, the first part of verse four. So first part of verse four, Isaiah 53 is surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. But now if you go to Matthew 817, he's saying, he himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses. Isaiah, I'm just using the New King James English. The New King James is saying, Isaiah 53. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Matthew 817 is saying, himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses. Well, it doesn't seem like it matches. It seems like it's different. But then that's where you go back and say, hey, how can these two mean the same thing? Well, what does the Hebrew words mean? So now you're doing point two, which is I need to study a little bit about the Old Testament words that is being quoted because he seems to be quoting it differently. In Matthew 817, he's talking about sickness, infirmities and sickness. In Isaiah 53. He's talking about griefs and sorrows. In English, these words all mean different. You use the word grief and sorrow. Maybe even somebody has lost a loved one. You talk about infirmities and sicknesses when you talk about physical conditions. They seem to be different in English. But when you go back to the Old Testament scripture, that is Isaiah 53. You look up the Hebrew words, then you understand that Matthew is using the Hebrew, right? What does it say there? Surely he has borne our griefs. The word grief is the word surely. I'm going to be pronouncing the Hebrew word, right? But the Hebrew word simply means sicknesses. And carried our sorrows. The word sorrows is the Hebrew word makob, which means pains. So now when Matthew is quoting Isaiah 53. From the Hebrew, it is definitely talking about infirmities and sicknesses. So the original author, that is Isaiah, actually meant sicknesses and diseases, although in the English Bible, it's translated griefs and sorrows. The original words, he was really talking about sickness and disease. That is why when Matthew quotes it in the New Testament, the context itself is bringing out the meaning. The context is about healing people and casting out demons. And he is quoting the actual Hebrew words, which is infirmities and sicknesses. Are you with me so far? Let me just stop sharing and look into the classroom. Everybody's with me so far? You're understanding it? So you see how we're just using one example. There's a quotation in the New Testament from the Old Testament. So you compare the two. And in this case, especially in the English Bible, the New Testament is giving us more light on what did the Holy Spirit mean when he was speaking through Isaiah, the original writer. So this answers the question, is physical healing in the Atonement? Now you will find big books written by theologians. Theologians means, I'm talking about people who spend a lot of time studying the Bible, et cetera. They write books saying healing, physical healing is not in the Atonement. They will write their thesis and all the big books. They will try to prove that physical healing is not in the Atonement. That means it's not in the cross. And you will hear arguments like that. But for me, just the fact that the Gospel writer, Matthew quoted from Isaiah 53, Isaiah 53 is a chapter on the Atonement. It's a chapter about the cross, a complete chapter. Just the fact that the Gospel writer, Matthew quoted Isaiah 53, in the New Testament context of what of people being healed and delivered is enough proof that there is physical healing in the Atonement. Are you understanding? Because these theologians will try to disprove that. But look, hey, the Holy Spirit is writing to the Gospel writer, Matthew and saying, Jesus physically healed people. The Matthew 8.16 is, they brought people who were demon possessed and they brought those who were sick. This is about physical healing. He physically healed people as a fulfillment or fulfilling what Isaiah spoke in the Atonement chapter. So for me, this settles it. Physical healing is in the Atonement. Physical healing is in the cross of Christ. It's there. It's a blessing of the cross. No more arguments. I'm not interested because it's, you see how the New Testament writer by the Holy Spirit is revealing or is explaining Old Testament. See, the Old is in the New Reveals. So he's revealing something from the Old Testament. So the context this year, the context is very clear. So this quotation from the Old in the New, you look at the New Testament context, it gives us more light on the Old.  You look at it. So okay. Healing is in the Atonement. So now what we can do is when we study Isaiah 53, we can look at other places in Isaiah 53 where the same Greek words are used, where the Greek word Choli, and not sorry, the Greek word, the Hebrew word, but the Hebrew word Choli and the Hebrew word Makob is used in the chapter and interpreted the same way. That is Choli means sickness. Makob means pains, which has to do with physical ailments as well. So if you go back to verse three, you will see, I'm now in Isaiah 53. If you go back to Isaiah 53, he says a man of sorrow, that is Makob, and acquainted with grief, that is Choli. So again it's saying, when Jesus was dying on the cross, what he did for us on the cross, he bore our pains. He took upon himself our sicknesses. And you see the word used again. In verse 10, he has put him to grief. So the word is used again there. He has put him to grief, Choli. So Bb, this is verse 10. Let me just quickly look it up. I don't want to say something wrong here. Isaiah 53 in verse 10. I'm just looking up that word just to make sure it's the same Hebrew word used here for grief. He had put him to Choli. Yeah, it's Choli. It's a different word, Choli. But it also means to make sick. So this is in Isaiah 53-10. He has put him to grief. The Hebrew word is slightly different from Choli. But that word also can be, that's verse 10. The word grief in verse 10 can also be translated as sickness. And then this verse that we know in verse 5 and by his stripes we are healed. By his stripes we are healed. That means we are completely made whole. We can therefore use that to say, healing is in the atonement. Because verse 4 says, surely Isaiah 53-4, surely has borne our sickness and carried our pains. Then verse 5, the punishment for our peace was upon him. And by his stripes we are healed. So it's not just talking about healing, forgiveness of sins, healing, a spiritual healing in that sense. But he is also talking about physical healing. Because verse 4 deals with physical sickness and disease. You with me? Right? So that's one thing. One understanding. Now the second thing is this. Going back to Matthew 8, 16 and 17. So we're giving one example. Matthew 8, 16 and 17. Matthew is saying, Jesus healed people and he's fulfilling Isaiah's prophecy. But Isaiah 53 is all about the cross. It's about Christ being crucified. But in Matthew 8, Christ has not yet been crucified. That crucifixion comes later. Over in Matthew 26, 27, 28, it comes later. This is the beginning. Matthew 8 is the starting of the ministry of Jesus. Early part is crucifixion comes later, almost three years later. Isaiah 53, the full chapter is about the cross. Jesus did for us on the cross in the Atonement. But Matthew 8, the Gospel writer Matthew is saying, Jesus healed people. Jesus cast out demons to fulfill Isaiah 53, the cross. But the cross has not yet happened. So my question is, how can we understand it? How can we understand? Matthew 8, because the cross has not yet happened.  So how do we understand Matthew 8? Any thoughts? Anybody wants to share your thoughts on it? It's okay if you don't know the answer already. Just what do you think? How will we understand that? I think when Matthew sees Jesus doing miracles, he would have remembered what Isaiah prophesied and tried to correlate with what Jesus is doing. Say that again, John. I'm sorry, I didn't understand. I was thinking, Matthew saw what Jesus is doing as miracles and he would have read what Isaiah has written earlier. So he tried to correlate the promise that Isaiah, Jesus would come and do this. Yeah. So, Collins, please share your thoughts. You see, Pastor, it is actually very hard to detect what Matthew thought before all these things happened. Because he's writing this gospel many years after he knew all he knows, everything that had happened in the past. Because when you look at when he wrote this gospel, it is almost 20, if not 30 years after Christ had gone to heaven. So when a human being, much as they were being helped by the Holy Spirit, it's not easy for them to separate their knowledge. Because right now he's writing much as it is chronological it is from 1 to 28. It's not easy for them to depict, to say what was not supposed to be said at this time and what is not supposed to be said at the next time. Because they already know what happened. So I think he is just using the Esther. The Esther moral principle whereby he cannot separate, he's not separating what happened earlier and what, but is mentioning him in the same context of him being our Savior and dying for our sins on the cross. Thank you so much. Very good, very good. Good, thank you. Anybody else you want to share your thoughts? So our question is, or the question I put out was Matthew 8, it's the beginning of Jesus' ministry. How could Matthew say it's fulfilling Isaiah 53? So we're trying to understand that and any thoughts on it? Okay, very good. So Collins made a very good point. So we all know that the Gospels were written much later. So the first Gospel was the Gospel of Luke.  So they put it around AD 85, something like that. You know, towards the end of John's, the Apostle John's life, before hero tribulation, John and then the epistles. So Colin is right in the sense that, so Jesus died on the cross, approximately AD 33, somewhere like around that, these approximate dates. So Matthew and Mark and Luke, they are writing about 30 some years after the cross. Okay, so they're looking back. And for them, Isaiah, Ministry of Jesus, Cross of Jesus, it's all happened. It's all happened, it's already over, and they are recording it. They are writing down. So in their minds, what Colin is saying is, in their minds, they may not necessarily be separating this. For them, it's all happened. It's not necessarily done. So they're just stating that Jesus fulfilled as F 53. So when Matthew says in chapter eight, that Jesus fulfilled as F 53, it is a completed truth for him, because Jesus did die on the cross. Jesus was already crucified, which is well taken. That's a good answer. But it is also interesting that Matthew was quoting this in relation to the Ministry of Jesus. So he's not quoting Matthew 817, when he's talking about the cross of Jesus. He's writing this in relation to the Ministry of Jesus, which is in the early stage. Well, it is definitely, you know, it's a very valid thing to say that all these things have already happened. And Matthew's writing much later is recording these things for us. But it's also very significant that he would quote as F 53 in relation to the Ministry of Jesus. It's very interesting. And nothing happens by accident, right? It's not an accident that it is here in chapter eight and not in chapter 26 when Matthew's writing about the cross. So what does this mean to us? First, we said that, you know, we can definitely conclude that healing and deliverance is a provision that comes through the cross of Christ. It's a very strong statement that healing is in the Atonement. But another thing that we can conclude, which I just wanted to highlight is that the Ministry of Jesus, of course, it took place before the cross. How could Jesus heal the people and forgive the sins of the people before he had paid for it? You remember, and in fact we read it in the next chapter, we read about this man whom the four friends brought and Jesus said, son, your sins are forgiven. And to other people also Jesus said, your sins are forgiven. So, but Jesus has not yet paid for the sins. He was going to die on the cross. But he healed the people and he forgave sins before the cross. So what does that teach us? It teaches us. Of course, it really emphasizes the fact that on the cross he took our sins and he removed our sicknesses and diseases. So there is healing in the Atonement. But secondly, it also teaches us that Jesus gave them a down payment. He healed them in advance. It was like an advance payment because of what he was going to do for them on the cross. It's like saying, I am going to bear your sicknesses. I am going to take away your diseases and I'm giving you an advance. I'm giving you a down payment.  You got it. So how could he heal them before he went to the cross? Because he was going to do it for them. He gave them a down payment. He gave them an advance for them on the cross. So now when we are on the other side of the cross, that means the cross has already happened, we are looking back at the cross. How much stronger should our both administering to people and in our receiving what he has already done? How much stronger that should be? Because we are looking back. It's no longer a down payment, but I'm receiving out of the full payment of a payment that has already been made. If the down payment, if the advance could be so good, how much better would be when the payment has been fully made? Every due has been settled. Everything has already been provided and here we are receiving out of that. Did we all understand what I was trying to get at? On what basis did Jesus heal and forgive people before the cross? He was giving them down payment. He was giving it to them in advance because he was going to go and do it for them. Any questions so far on this? Here's just an example where in the New Testament there is a quotation from the Old Testament and then you start looking at it. You look at the context of the New. It gives us some understanding. You go back into the Old. You look at that. It gives us a little bit more understanding and then we put it all together to arrive at conclusions and interpretation that we say, here's all that we can understand based on this quotation in the New Testament of a scripture from the Old Testament. Here's all that we can understand. Like this, there are many other references to the Old Testament in the New Testament. The New Testament then explains to us what the Old Testament intended. I want us to look at one more example. It is a little bit more, I would say a little bit more, maybe I would use the word maybe complicated or maybe a little bit more difficult or thought-provoking. This is in Galatians chapter 3. If you go with me please to Galatians chapter 3 and we read verses 22 to 31. Galatians chapter 3, sorry not chapter 3, Galatians chapter 4. Galatians chapter 4 verses 22 to 31. I want us to do another analysis, another passage where Paul is quoting from Old Testament. He's making reference to Old Testament incidents and so on and he quotes Old Testament scripture. But it's a little more difficult to understand so it's good for us to work on this passage. So let's read this Galatians chapter 4 verses 22 to 31. Let me type it here. Galatians 4, 22 to 31. And let us try to understand. This is one more example of Old Testament being used in the New Testament. How do we go about understanding that? Could somebody read this passage for us please. For it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a born woman, the other by a free woman. But he who was of the born woman was born according to the flesh and he of the free woman through promise which things are symbolic. For these are the two governments. The one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to Bontage which is Hagar. For this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is and is in bondage with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free which is the mother of us all. For it is written, rejoice O baron, you who do not wear. Break forth and shout you who are not in labor. For the desolate has many more children than she who has a husband. First I will read it to anyone. Yes, please. Now we brethren as Isaac was, our children of promise. But as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born according to the spirit even so it is now. Nevertheless what does the scripture say? Cast out the born woman and her son for the son of the born woman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman. So then brethren we are not children of the born woman but of the free. Okay. So this is a very interesting passage and a little bit more complicated passage. Right. So let's try to understand. First of all, we need to know the context and then we need to get into the details of all the Old Testament references that Paul is making.  Then he's talking about two covenants. He's talking about Mount Sinai and Jerusalem. He's talking about Hegar and he doesn't mention the name of Sarah but he's doing a contrast just as he's contrasting Ishmael and Isaac. And so those are all the Old Testament references he's making. Along with that, he's quoting two scriptures from the Old Testament. That is verse 27 and verse 30. These are both scriptures from the Old Testament. So all these are Old Testament references. So pretty complicated. He's making so many references. You know, Abraham, Isaac, Ismael, Hegar, Sarah, Mount Sinai, Jerusalem and then two verses. All in these, in the short passage about nine verses, he's done so much. But what is the message he's trying to get to us? What is he trying to tell us? He's writing to New Testament believers. He's writing to us. So how do we understand it? So here's one example. Here's another example like, you know, there are many examples, but there's another example where Old Testament incidents, people, characters are referenced in the New Testament to teach us something. How do we understand it? How do we go about interpreting it? And what is the truth we are supposed to take from, you know, this kind of passage where the Old Testament is being used in the New Testament? Okay. So what we will do is we'll go for a break now. And after we come from the break, let us try to understand. Let us try to analyze this. How will we interpret this passage? Which has so many references to the Old Testament. And the first thing, first thing we have to do is, what is the New Testament context? Right? That's point one. So in order for me, before I jump back into the Old Testament and start talking about Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Hagar and Sarah and Mount Sinai and all that, before we jump back there, we have to say, we have to understand first thing, what is the context? That means, what is Paul redressing here in Galatians 4 and in this whole episode, what is the context? And then we have to understand the Old Testament. That means, what is he referring to? Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, all that. We have to understand that and then bring it together to see what is the truth we are to understand. And in the process, we will also understand Old Testament better. We will get New Testament revelation, but we will also get Old Testament understanding. We will understand the Old Testament better. So that's how we are going to go about it. So let's take a break and over the break time, if you want to think about it, do it. First is, we should think about what is the New Testament context. So when we come back after the break, that's the first thing we will ask. So think about it and let's discuss it when we get back. So we will be back in about 10 minutes. Thank you.


Beard? Life lessons in film and today we'll be making sense of life through the king Historical draw based around the English invasion of France and the battle of Agincourt There is battles and the battles are cool I like the one scene where the first wave of troops Runs into each other at some point.   I think of a big theme for me in that was Power and how that changes relationships with people a lot of it is it kind of centers around that not only in terms of The main character, which is king Henry the fifth. I think yeah, how for instance the relationship between The future king and his close friend for a while when he be after he becomes king You know, he doesn't even really see his friend. His friend ended up just hangs it out the bar a lot of the time They have to kind of rebuild that trust and support with each other also all the advisors that were part of his Father's Advisor team. I mean, I don't even know if they were even very trustworthy or close with his father They're not the most loyal I think that's the whole point of the movie to show The complexities of being in power and you see that in different ways for Henry when he does assume the role of king The relationship with sir john changes for a certain period of time And it's not because Henry feels like the relationship should end or wants it to end It's just because he's completely inundated with this overwhelming burden of Being the king twinning cut in an entire country And also the burden of his dad's legacy and him wanting to distance himself from from that people who knew that they had a relationship Point out. Oh, well, he's king. He has no business with you now You know, you were just for when he just was trying to have fun at east sheep And yeah, and he was just using you and now it's over because he has the power and he doesn't need you anymore Which is something that does happen. Sometimes with people I think that's where you know whether or not the relationship was solid Yeah, it was in this case because he comes back and to ask him if he'd be his Yeah, this is military advisor. Yeah, he's don't have friends. I like that line. He's like Things don't have friends. That was great too. I don't think he I think it aligns with what The reality is when you're in power The not having friends the people that you are surrounded by as a king There are also people who are in certain Positions of power like the clergy, for example And so these people all of them have vested interests in your ruling And these are your advisors, but they're not just because they're your advisors does not mean that they're altruistically Advising you or supporting you or even supporting you. They're just serving their own agendas, isn't it that might Mean you getting manipulated as the king because you're the ultimate. You're the person who ultimately You know signs off Whatever decisions isn't it people are dying and it doesn't seem to be going anywhere He doesn't even know why he's there because he wasn't manipulated as we later find out by one of the noblemen, right? And so he's he needs support and sir john is very realistic about well I can't chime in here. There isn't anything That I have to add and that's great too, you know, like because he does he does later talk about how You know a lot of people who are in these positions always just Have say stuff even if it's not Relevant they say it just to to maintain their position to seem like they're of value Because if you're an advisor to the king, you always have to come up with stuff You feel like you always have to come up with stuff Otherwise why are you an advisor to the king? But the problem is with a lot of people in those positions that will say stuff even if it's not relevant And that's also very true. I think because ultimately people do Worry about not feeling not being seen to be valuable and therefore becoming disposable, isn't it? Yeah, the the the the one advisor in particular that you find out really was out for his own interest to get more land. He's got the greatest Like schemie advisor voice. I noticed that You gotta the raspier the better classic like Snake like advisor that's whispering Non truths in your ear is great. Very good voice. It's it's it's a coming-of-age story Realistically when you think about it because this guy there's so many things He doesn't want the leadership And he doesn't want the darkness that comes to the leadership that he sees his dad was consumed by malice Mis-trust for everyone and the nobody in England exactly so and then England is you know in shambles basically like civil war Etc. He comes into adulthood and just Based disillusionment disillusionment really because I think he had a romanticized idea of what leadership could look like and Even as I remember he goes to go to get his brother His brother decides. Okay.  I think of him Transitioning out of youth into adulthood Because the more the movie progresses obviously he goes to war and everything and even afterwards when he kills the guy The advisor that had been that manipulated into war in the first place You know, he just does it just very like stabs him in the head, you know And it's never easy of course to keep to murder but just that instinct to do that, you know what I mean? That's where you're like, okay, this is final And he's just kind he's at that point come to terms with the reality of Of power It's a classic coming of king movie and another lesson that he he got I think is you know He tries to almost dies to save his brother and save a lot of lives from being lost needlessly By going doing the one-on-one duel and then he wins And then his brother still dies because his brother you can't you know, he's hoping he could control His brother's need to prove himself the brother still decided to go into battle anyway, and then he died You know, so it's that things like you can do everything you can to try and Protect people or dissuade people from things that they're gonna do what they want to do is they've made it up in their mind You know, yeah, you can only actually control so much. Yeah, I think it portrayed how hard it is to be Good in the way that people that we think goodness looks Um in a position of power because the guy I remember that the the bad advisor says you wanted peace So that's why I gave you more So you listen to the people the crowd is happy right now.   Yeah, and so you then have to do that where Either you're okay kill one person for the for the greater good Or kill an entire or just go to war with an entire country for your own personal Interest as a country And so those things are hard to do and those are things that uh hell wasn't aware of when he goes into it and I think it's also really tough for someone who is really good because People do there are a lot of people that go into politics. For example In the in the modern age these things apply still still, right? And people will go into power into politics altruistically And really try their best to to do good and to support their community and be transparent However, you aren't alone in politics You're dealing with a whole lot of people and a lot of other people Have their own interests and so then you have to every single day you are surrounded by people that are trying to Be forcing you to go against your value system And also in and sometimes you find yourself having to go against your own value system in order to Pursue something that is altruistic in the end And so I think that's I don't know like something that people that are good that go into power End up grappling with in a way his advisor was right and that you can achieve peace through victory But it's also easy to say from someone that You know is just an advisor. He's never he's got no skin in the game apart from vested interests, right? Sometimes people think I guess there's some skin like the clergyman is like let's move along the siege You know, I've got some money riding on this. So in a sense, he's got some skin in the game But it's not physical skin. You have a lot of wars um in history that were fought for companies, for example and A lot of wars that are still fought for companies because if there's war then there's are there's a need for arm Arms and then who makes that those a lot of conglomerates that benefit from these things and And sometimes these wars are created for that And so but then as people you are they're thinking that this is an altruistic thing, right?  Yeah, it definitely does speeches are good before battle Exactly There is a lot I guess that speaks to the propaganda behind leadership the need for propaganda in leadership You want a soldier to feel powerful and confident and so you are going to feed him or her what they need to hear To give them that purpose that's going to Carry them through the battle carry them through killing someone without thinking Of how awful it is to take another person's life And overall as citizens, even if you aren't going to war having Uh a leader that is good at giving you that sense of purpose and idealizing going to war It gives you that sense of security. You don't and or the comfort of feeling like you aren't Uh responsible for the deaths of so many other people But that's just the reality and I mean even after um hell finds out that they went to war for nothing I we don't see it, but you can see that he's not he's not going to he's just going to let it be Yeah, he's not going to tell everyone Yeah, he's going to marry this girl. Yeah, he goes and says all I want you to be is to be real and true with me and he has succumbed to the reality And then the advisor I think was also right in the way that he's like I gave you basically the legacy You were hoping for it to become a great king, you know, look what you did you united two kingdoms together Yeah humans Get so much from stories. It can be stories can help us learn lessons avoid mistakes Learn about who we are where we came from and also exactly stories can help us Um and it comes to propaganda stories. Um it can help us relieve our soul of certain compromises or things that we put ourselves through Or or decide to do right? It's all these stories that we tell ourselves whether they become Rationalizations, there's still stories.   Come on This is all made up. We've all just decided that it's legitimate. Yeah People who are actually in leadership positions and their Children or families, they're very well aware of how little Their authority Means versus the people they rule over the people they will uh over put them on this pedestal as these Things entities be that are above humans. I think of course There is also the fact of if you are someone who is in that position Obviously depends on as well on on the personalities because like the dauphin and hell's brother You if you have people like that that come from privilege, right? They are very narcissistic, realistic way, right? And they are happy to be in that position where people do place them on this pedestal and they are they completely You know, just milk the heck out of this Family these families that they've been born into those are the kinds of you do have that too If you do have um a monarchy, you would probably want someone like uh, like how taking over as king versus the brother Yeah, yes, you can walk the walk You'll put himself in the mud. Yeah, so that's basically all I have to say about it. All I have to say about that What'd you guys think of the king? You know with some some other uh, things about power that uh, that you noticed about it Let us know And until next time that's a wrap


Paul, how are you brother? All right, good dose yourself. Yes, wonderful mate, I mean we're here to talk about certainly one of the subjects I'm fascinated in and I'm a little bit involved myself and certainly not to the extent that you are but it's everything blades isn't it? Everything sword making, knife making, armaments in general. Yes, an interesting world, everyone likes shiny things. Yes, I'll just tell you my story very briefly but I went to a bushcraft weekend about 15 years ago with a mate and we camped the weekend and went to all kind of lectures while we were there and one of the chat was a forger but a forger in the sense of being a blacksmith and he not only knocked up his own blades but obviously did all the handles and everything and he had a load of parts you could buy so I bought some deer antler and some of these kind of pre, I don't know what you call them but like prefabricated discs that you can use for making handles and stuff. And I knew I wanted to make a knife and it took me 15 years to actually make it but there it is. Good job mate, good job. Yeah that's, it's actually got my name and my bear claw logo etched on the blade but it's come off when I sanded it so you can friends at home you can just about make out the logo there. Nice one. Yeah and I managed to find something that looks slightly bear clawish on eBay but yeah I'm a great believer in you know follow your dreams, make them come true even if it did take me 15 years. I will say that doesn't look much but that's about three and probably three and a half thousand pounds worth of equipment all in just to make that knife. Countless, countless hours of work. Someone said to me, someone said to me, Bloody Alchrist that's good and I said it's not my skill it's just that if you don't get it to a certain level of good you have to throw it away and do it again so it doesn't take you for anyone out there you know to get started in this you don't have to be you know I don't know some medieval Japanese sword maker something but so that's my story over to you mate how did you get involved? Really just as you said at the start it was following my own dreams and passions really I came to Edinburgh in 92 for university originally realised quite shortly in that I wasn't going to do that course for the rest of my life and that found something much more engaging along the way and that was fencing originally sport fencing that's all there was at that time but I just had a real natural fascination a kind of magnetism if you like towards the blades and towards the steel and at that time I found a couple of knife and dork and skein do the traditional Scottish knife makers on Edinburgh Edinburgh's Royal Mile they took us in teaching us you know various skills and one of them offered me full-time work finishing uni a couple of years later so yeah that got me on that path and I've followed it ever since starting up my own armories in 98 and very much working with the parallel path of the martial side of it as well in studying traditional swordsmanship and European martial arts and teaching that along the way as well incredible I was fortunate to go to a couple of museums in Tokyo one of them was the history of sword making and it was sort of set out at let's just say 12 stanchions the first one showed the raw ore coming out the rock the second showed where the swordsman the craftsman would like melt it down the third showed worried weld it onto the end of a rod and all the friends who've seen YouTube videos out there will know that the process hasn't really changed but the technology has and then finally folding this blade you know just hammering it flat then folding it over and hammering it which allegedly if you believe the film Highlander they can do a thousand times I'm not sure if that's the truth but then to go to the I think it was the National Museum and see the actual katanas there in all their glory so the original samurai swords all preserved lots of handles lots of what's the protective bit called the the super what I call a handguard and I just love it mate I love the whole ancestry in fact I'm going to tell you one more bear with me folks we are going to let Paul speak but I was at a party once with a uni mate I think we just graduated we were all a bit worse for where at this party and he went Chris look at this he reached under the sofa and he pulled out a Japanese sword and it was his great grandfathers had been handed it by prisoner of war in Burma and I didn't realise a lot of these Japanese officers were of samurai lineage so this sword would have been handed down over centuries and what they would do when they joined the armies they would just change the handle part to have it sort of military standard so to speak and all it had on it was the scabbard was snapped in half I remember thinking at that time should I offer him a grand for it or something because it would just be my dream dream to own one I didn't and I met up with him recently and I said I haven't still got that sword mate for any chance have you now mate sold that 50 quid nooo good lord wow we diverge diverge diverge diverge we go off track but yes incredible so how did your career develop what sort of stuff did you start producing well before I started my own armies I was really just making mild steel wall hangers for tourist market things that kind of looked like a sword from the other end of your room but weren't very functional and I think I had a real I just had natural fascination for the marshal side and accuracy in reviving the martial arts and to do that the only right way you can do that is to have the right weight the right balance tool in your hand so you know the swords have to be right so I was always interested in making something more historically accurate and the only way I could realise that I realised in the end was to start my own armory start my own business and you know learn as I went which I think with any craft you're always learning and every day is a school day you know you never stop learning that way but yeah I had to take that plunge and started the Armory's 98 historically accurate swords and knives that was the focus to start with I didn't have a main product at that time but that certainly changed along the way as my interest grew and became a bit more focused as well and it wasn't until 2008 myself and a good friend who was involved with the Academy of Arms at that time decided to start a World War 2 based living history group focusing on the original commando training from the Highland training centres and the close combat was the focus of that and it was quite evident that the FS fighting knife the famous commando knife was right at the heart of that too so that led to a path of quite intense focus on that knife to remake it again and as accurately and as closely as the original World War 2 examples and that has now become very much a main product Is it fair to say because I've handled one of these Sykes Fairburn can we call them replicas, is that what they're? Fairburn Sykes, yeah re-creations I got given one for a Royal Marines event that I organised and the lads very kindly chipped in and they gave me the one that's in the frame and took me about three years before I looked at it one day and thought is that plastic? Right, and I started Anyway, I digress but what I'm trying to say in it is that it's the black dagger it looks like it's formed from one piece of metal Yeah, it'll probably be something like this That's right, yeah That's what we call the third pattern, FS knife and that was the last pattern that was developed in World War 2 and it's the only pattern really that's been produced in numbers since that thing since 1943 Bringing that forward a bit when we spoke, I did a charity Speed March last year, Upper Acne Carry Oh yeah, another one, yeah We took those, about 10 of us elite veterans, elite forces veterans and we recreated the original Speed March, the original 9 miler carrying all the gear in the 90 minutes and the lads did really, really well and we raised a lot of money for the Royal Marines charity but someone, and I am going to do a bit of googling to try to remember which company it was but they very kindly donated a Sykes Fairburn replica and it raised over a thousand pounds at least and the point I was coming back to, Paul, was to look at it, I'd say that they made it way better than it probably was back in the day Yeah, yeah When you look at the closely, at the wartime originals you do see, you know inconsistent grinds, the center lines of the blades being slightly off or squiggly, and grind marks down the blades, you know, because it was wartime and they were mass producing as efficient hand crafting but still mass producing as efficiently as they could to keep up with the demand back then So yeah, I've realized that along the way myself and I've come to terms with I don't have a problem in saying that the blades that I make are of a higher quality than the blades then and I'm still looking towards still paying tribute really to the original makers and to, you know the original personnel that carried them to Yes, it's the ultimate tribute isn't it, is when you take something and you make it better is and back in the day then, were they just sort of so friends at home the original commandos, Second World War when they went behind enemy lines, they were issued this dagger and in essence it was for stabbing the hell out of your enemy or taking out that windpipe or other such horrible horrible ends but it looked very basic, Paul, as you just shown is that any sort of form of carbon steel or can that just be any of that? Yeah, I mean carbon steel hasn't really been improved on since the Iron Age you know, for good sword or knife blades and the form of the knife everything about it, it was all designed very specifically as a fighting knife not a knife fighting knife but as a knife designed for silent killing for basically entering the body and exiting causing as much trauma on the way out as possible and doing that job efficiently, you know it wasn't a can opener, it wasn't a bushcraft or a steelcraft knife every knife in its own way is a specific tool for a specific job and that means that every knife in its own way is a compromise as well because it's not good for certain other jobs so that's exactly what the FS knife was designed for and the FS of course, Fairbairn Sykes named after William Fairbairn and Eric Sykes who are two close combat instructors the original instructors that first established the close combat syllabus talked to the commandos and subsequent SF Yes, if they really knew commanders well they'd have put a lanyard on it there must be loads of those left in occupied France or something Oh they're absolutely, in fact I have one down stairs that's framed up and it was excavated in Sword Beach in 1968 the second pattern and the blade and the guard are extremely corroded but the brass grip is very much intact and so that's proudly framed up along with an image of Four Commando going forward in the beach that day Do you have any more there Paul to show us? Yes certainly do I've got a brief history of the FS knife Please, I think friends at home would love to hear it The story of the FS knife starts where Fairbairn and Sykes first were before the Second World War and that was Shanghai they were officers in the Shanghai Municipal Police and this was exactly the type of knife they developed for the police at that time so this is now known as the first pattern Shanghai knife and you can see similarities to the FS knife it's got what you call the coke bottle shaped grip it's a bit shorter overall though but it's got this tapering diamond section double edge blade and straight guard so the similarities are there but obviously the police are not using this for silent killing that's kind of frowned upon but it was basically a self defense knife for the officers you know it was getting yourself out of a clinch if you got one or two lads on you already and pinning an arm or two against your body and they accessed it by carrying it in a scabbard like this upside down rigged to their shoulder harness inside the jacket so all you need to do is put a hand inside your jacket and access your knife and cut your way out a clinch to overcome a situation that was the very first origins of it then moved to brass grips for a bit more efficient production again the brass grip formed the basis of the FS knife production that came to that how do you get the gnarling on that handle? yeah brass grips are turned and knurled this is a second pattern FS knife this is one of my own and yeah this is done by machine the original grips were cast and they were cast so they could have a rectangular recess for the tang of the blade to continue up in and then they were turned to smoothen the surface and then they were knurled by machine and you have to follow the contours of the machine by hand as well this is a little bit different to the third pattern you might be used to but this is the iconic first pattern FS knife right here so these were only produced in a very small number this is an original piece made by Wilkinson sword company and these were made from from about January 41 to August 41 only and only by Wilkinson sword and after that time they moved to the second pattern until October 43 when all production moved to the third pattern so by brief comparison there's your first pattern the first pattern has the very slight S shaped cross guard to it as well as this blunted area here the recastle and the second pattern in comparison hopefully you can see the slight difference there's a straight guard doesn't have a little curve on it more or less the same type of grip knurled and turned with the edges of the blade went all the way to the guard this time and the third pattern similar to the second same blade and guard really but the only difference being the grips went to being cast in zinc alloy and you can cast this concentric circle form if you tried that with knurling you would then have to you would interrupt the knurling it wouldn't work out so much Fairbairn actually wasn't a big fan of the cast grip in the end he said it could actually turn in the hand if it's wet you know water or blood or such as opposed to the knurling which tended to bite into the fingers a bit more so it's got its own story and I do like to pay tribute to that by using heritage materials and heritage wood especially so this is Acnecari wood this is Spalted Beech and from one of the trees that formed part of the original rope work course at the CBTC the Commando Basic Training Centre which is where all the recruits went through for their training at Acnecari between February 42 and the end of the war Wow and are you aware of the the top price one of these has fetched at say auction or similar Yeah I donated one of the the heritage knives to I think it was the Royal Marine Charity recently and I think it fetched two grand auction for them so it did well at that Stupid question time What's the fascination with these now? Why are they so beloved? Yeah they're still revered in a way amongst the forces communities because I think you know it really symbolises the nature of the job you know about going forward by stealth when you get there it's as much damage devastation as you can and extracting with you know fewer or minimum casualties it's about that you know the essence of who dares wins if you like you know going forward with bravery to close with the enemy and that takes it takes balls isn't it and that knife as always I think symbolised that job Took balls because you know a lot of these young lads didn't come back did they? Yeah absolutely Myself and my mate Mike I'd mentioned we'd started the Second World War Group in 2008 and we were very lucky at that time when we did start it that there were still enough World War II veterans travelling to Fort William and Spain Bridge every year for remembrance weekend events that we could sit down with them and engage with them and they were invariably happy to share the stories of their training and their experience in theatre as well and it just incredible these lads you know the stories they came out with and you know a lot of folk will look at the knife today and not realise there'll be a disconnect between this nice pretty shiny thing and the job it was designed for because the job it's designed for is not a pretty one it's a messy one quite literally and yeah you know these lads were using these knives and they're still used today in fact you know I think any form of theatre will always end up in some way in close combat and when it comes to close combat then we only the ancient ways and the ancient tools still work you know that's never gonna change so there's always room for and a place for a good knife in any theatre that way do you think the lads got to keep their knives or do you think they had to hand them back in when they finished their service yeah a lot of them kept the knives and a lot of families have been contacted by a lot of families that have their fathers or grandfathers knives so yeah if they were in they kept them Are you familiar with a chap just get his name up Kyle Royer Not sure Oh wow I just mention it because once you start knife making suddenly your YouTube starts throwing up loads of knife making videos and this chap's in America and I've never seen such exquisite knife maker I'm sure if I would if I came to your workshop but this guy works in his father's workshop over there in America and the swords he produces and the knives just beyond anything you can imagine everything down to the last detail I think he made one recently Excelsior was that a sword Excelsior Yeah I think it was a sort of along those lines Excelsior I think he called this one Excelsior but it was what's the name where they layer the the steel in such a way that you get that incredible pattern down the blade Damascus or Popper Weld Yeah and friends at home this might not sound a lot but you have to set your when you fold the steel you can layer it in a certain way that when you bash it and then you fold it and then you extricate is that the word when you make it go when you bash it long you get this incredible pattern down the blade like it's interwoven and then the all the rest of it was just made to exact perfection I mean there's no words for it Carl Royer folks if you just have a Google of this chat and finally he's laying gold 24 karat gold using a little chisel to chip out his name across the handguard and then he's bashing gold into it and he's even explaining this is a crap 24 karat gold it's not you know it's not working properly and then when he machines it off or sands it off it's just you know it's like the Rolex equivalent of a yes absolutely fascinating there are a lot of top top makers out there you know and there's a lot of impressive still still in the knife and sword making world and makers are relatively few and far between you know but yeah there's a lot of top lads out there well it's great that it's a skill that's come back and it's being reborn because obviously swords are not a big thing and not everyone I mean there was a time wasn't there when probably most fighting men age men had some sort of sword or in Scotland the Claymore sure to give you an idea of the demand and you know this qualifies that this is not a shameless plug for my company please do because I stopped taking orders a few years ago because my demand I basically have about ten years worth of work lined up at the moment and I think that's not unusual for high quality you know makers is your demand you know once your reputation starts to spread where the mouth and so on especially in military circles where it spreads quick your demand you know is going up and if you're only one pair of hands that becomes harder to keep up with you know I was telling folk that five years was the lead time for FS knives and ten years was about the lead time for custom work and folk were still saying that's fine I don't mind waiting so I made the decision when does that end I've got to cap that so yeah so took that decision and I think it's not unusual for high quality knife and sword makers that way to reach that point where the demand's going up and up and you have to say you know what I'm going to cap things for the moment and play catch up for a number of years yes exactly and also Paul I look at these guys and say they're making some sort of you know bushcraft knife and they're putting I don't know like at least two days effort into it if not longer and then when you look at the prices on the internet of these knives they're pretty bloody low I mean you can get them from a tenner to if you really were taking your bushcraft seriously you could spend four or five hundred quid not quite easy yet but after you take out the machine time and the materials and all of that there's very little profit in it for the knife maker yeah yeah there's very few shortcuts really to making a good knife certainly by hand you know if you're making everything by machine then it's all you know laser cut and you're using big kit to do it there's big investment involved in getting all that kit in the first place so but if it's small scale production there's very few shortcuts you know to essentially making that right shape of blade getting that heat treatment right using the best quality steel as you can and you know fit and finish of all the components leather for the scabbard and doing all that work again by hand there's very few shortcuts to it you know so it's all it's heavy it's heavy investment in the time that it takes to do it and that's that you know has to be reflected in the cost somehow yes I'm talking of leather that's my first effort there at a sheath or a scabbard oh yeah good work this is the precursor to me making the one for the actual for our actual bushcraft knife yeah so I thought I'd make my son one for his leatherman yeah my son's brought up with nice his first birthday present was a pen knife next one and he's been you know using it since he was one excellent he was driving a car by the time he was six I mean on his own not with me on his lap I just want him to you know I want him to be hands on and it might sound reckless to people out there but if you go to an indigenous community something you know the inuits in the north they need to give their kids a knife to play with it's just completely normal sure you know obviously you teach always cut away but you know these all these skills are being lost on and notice I mean no disrespect but you know the playstation generation I mean we might remember I remember my grandma I mean I was about six when I got my first pen knife and she'd bought she bought me one with a slightly kind of hook blade on it and that was it that was your weekend you're out whittling stuff you know making yourself bow and arrows yeah absolutely we used to rob bamboo from a neighbour's garden and make ourself blowpipes with James Bond but that's my first attempt it's not meant to be good Paul hence the zigzaggy what it is what it is I wanted to mirror this one so this is just your typical I got this when I was in training in the Marines that friends at home that there is the strap you get when you parachute it comes off you find them on the ground it's called a tie in the military if you can nab one you use it to put on your knife Swiss Army knife maybe we can talk a little bit about it because they just absolutely love this this knife this tool just they last so long and they're so precise but anyway I digress so I was trying to mould the lever like that and as you're going to I'm sure you well know it's not as easy as you think I tried doing it in hot water and I actually cooked I boiled the lever and it shrunk half the size and went rock hard so in the end I cheated and I did it in strips I just cut out U shaped strips that's why the stitching has gone a bit wonky because when I did it on the drill press and I brought the drill down and it was coming out the outs so I was like fuck it I'll just put a lot of layers there but it's an art in itself isn't it every different material is different scales it's different knacks when you're working with different materials and if you're a small scale maker you're kind of obliged to do that you've got to work with different steels you've got to work with brass, bronzes and woods and leathers as well and they all have their own issues when it comes to going wrong so you learn the lever is funny because it's actually a dead animal it's got quirks in it different animal hide types they act differently under the knife or when you soak them in so on as well when we talk about the swords what's the most popular sword what swords most in demand to be recreated that's a good question one of the swords I've made more of perhaps than anything else it's the He-Man Sword of Power the He-Man cartoon series right from that I've been a He-Man fan for years and I thought if something takes my fancy I'll give it a go that's an interesting one designed it up but with the form of it it's quite wide and thick if you made it an iron or steel it would be ridiculously heavy so did it cast aluminium for the whole thing you can polish up to practically a mirror finish so that was the right material for the job I made quite a few of those you see I don't tend to make batches of swords I'll make one or two swords at a time because there's a lot more time invested in them but I've made quite a few I don't know if you can see the basket hill swords behind me here very much associated with the Jacobite Risings through 17th and 18th century and because I'm Scottish based I get involved in quite a lot of research on the Scottish history side I've made quite a number of these along the way I bet the claymore is popular as well yeah I suppose over the years I've made a few of those the big two handed Scottish swords fairly popular not many pubs in Scotland haven't got a claymore on the wall I'll say everyone likes shiny things can we talk about sharpening because somebody I learnt an awful lot about sharpening blades was Ray Mears he used to not a lot but he did a few at least a couple of episodes on this sort of thing so I invested in some Japanese water stones and they're incredible and I got the little sort of clamp that sits on your table to stop them like your dad's wet stone when you were a kid and it would fly away and you'd get a little tiny stone and you soak the wet stones in water overnight or whatever to get them to work and then you get a slurry stone don't you and you make slurry and that slurry is so fine that it really gets the not even the final bit on the blade after stropping it on leather Ray Mears runs it down the edge of the window in his vehicle yeah but yeah I bought these stones it's easier than it looks I remember I bought a Japanese chopping blade in the fish market in Tokyo and the guy had a wet stone it was the size of my desk it was incredible and he just got my blade he said do you want it sharpened and I said yeah and you could see this guy just knew he'd probably done this hundreds of thousands of times yeah so yes how do we deal with this yeah sharpening is absolutely its own knack you know and it is something you certainly if you're working with blades over time you get a feel for you know the right angle and the right pressure and the right grit and material to be working with and really that's all sharpening is about you know it's about finding that right angle for your edge about realising how blunt your knife is in the first place you know how much sharpening it needs and because sometimes you just need to just subtly hone an edge and just you know refine it and if it's been well used then you're going to have to take some steps back and start with you know a bigger grit basically surface finishing you know putting a finish on any surface of steel and sharpening is it's a similar process in a way you got to move through the grits consistently and you've got to be thorough at every stage you know think think about the surface of a blade because the edge you know acts the same if at any stage you're leaving you know rough grit and you go on to the next stage well that next stage isn't going to you're still going to have rough scratches if you like in the surface so you've got to be as thorough as you can in the first stage then the second stage and then the third stage and so on to get everything reducing evenly and dealing with the edge is exactly the same in a way as dealing with the surface of the steel it's simply about knowing how much you have to sharpen and getting the right sharpening materials for that with a relatively blunt blade you're not going to do too well if you just take that straight to a fine diamond surface you're going to be there for weeks so you've got to start with something rougher and just thoroughly work your way through and it's getting a feel for the right angle see different knife types will be slightly different you'll have more acute or more obtuse angles depending on what you're dealing with some blades will go from the spine all the way down to that edge what you call a zero grind so it'll just go straight to the edge you can get an extremely sharp edge with that but yeah takes a bit more work to carefully get an edge back on it most will have what you call a bevel edge so it'll go mostly to an edge and then you'll get a secondary angle on that and that's easier to maintain in a way yes because you hear talk don't you of the Scandinavians have their Scandinavian grind which is like the triangle my one I don't know what it is Paul because I think after I did a bit on the belt sander which is an art in itself and obviously when you've gone to the trouble of cutting out your blade and shaping it and everything you just one wrong grind you're just going to screw the whole thing up I think I got the sort of rough bevel started but then I set up two electric drills two sanding pads those big round sanding pads I brought them in close and I synchronized the speeds so they were whizzing around at the same time and then I just I dragged the blade through it and I could feel it pulling the steel off it's a real satisfying feel and I could feel it pulling the steel off and finally it's got to this because it reflects slightly it's the perfect contour on each side so there's no grind I don't know if I'm going to find out to my costs I mean even it haven't even sharpened it and it's probably sharpened the most knives that I've ever used so yes fascinating is that a grind there's no it's like literally it just tapers to a point I was happy with it it was just right I'll lose my convex that sounds similar to I'll see if I can find it one of the best bushcraft knives I think it's ever been designed and made type D survival knife this was originally Wilkinson Wilkinson only made these and this is a convex grind to it which means that as you impact it splits it's great for bushcraft work because of that grind and it also means there's actually quite a bit of meat still on the blade and you're not intentionally reducing the weight of that blade as much as possible you're maintaining as much weight as possible and at the spine these are about 7mm thick actually quite hefty it's almost like a hand axe but it's short and compact so that's pretty much what you want in a bushcraft knife you want it to be compact you want it to be meaty and weighty as well for doing those kind of jobs yeah I built this for show really not show I just wanted every feature that I'd ever thought about in a knife in this one so for a proper bushcraft obviously you wouldn't have the saw the serrated edge because you want to be able to hammer down on it with a log don't you to use it as a chisel yeah that's a great thing about a thick spine you can hammer on it yeah for solid splitting it's almost like what they called in a navy a gullock I don't know if you've heard that term yeah I've heard yeah there was a development of this it became known as the M.O.D survival knife for a while but it was basically a much cheaper version the fit and finish of the grips were not great if you're using it in a tight grip for a while it'd blister up your hands in no time and the grinding the blade wasn't as smoothly convex as this it came to pretty much a kind of chisel grind down here yeah it was a you know it was a kind of cheap version yeah I was on the ship for a year and I think there was 12 of us marines on board and one day the buffer came up to our mess and he went with his knives and he gave each and every one of us a knife just like that like I say I think we called it a gullock he said I've only got 12 women I ain't giving them to my Mat Lowe's so yes Paul this has been an absolutely fascinating chat I can put your details below and all your social media below our YouTube videos so people can at least follow you even if they can't order stuff but not a problem so if you can just send me all your links that would be great what's the future for you is there a retirement plan in knife making does it that laugh might tell you something never had a retirement plan I really hope in a plan to just keep cracking on because I love what I do I really do and I feel lucky for it I've very much chosen this path because I love it and I feel that I can be quite happy doing it for the rest of my days and I have known knife and sword makers that have done exactly that and they've kept working till the end and I think that's a great thing to do yes old knife makers never die they only blunt their blade just get sharper one last thing have you got a YouTube channel I don't and I probably should by now I have done little videos now and again for the Facebook group and I quite enjoy doing it you've just given me a wee spark I'm more than willing to help you with that I've actually done a couple of knife videos I haven't tried to do any polish or anything I've just put up a few photos and said that's what I'm doing this bit but it's one of those things like if you don't start it's never going to happen and once you start then you start to learn the little bits and bobs but I mean they're so popular if I go back to our man here he's getting like millions his episode 12 of his it's got a million views and it's a half hour video so to give you an idea he's probably made a couple of grand on that video and all it really means is having a GoPro setup looking one down at your work one looking at you a lot of it he just narrates over it afterwards and it's satisfying having a YouTube channel but also I think it's great for our young people to see these skills and to realise that if you spend six hours on Xbox you literally okay you might have had a bit of you pass the day but there's nothing you get nothing at the end of it except for the score if you spend six hours in a workshop you can come out with it with something that's improved your skill made you happy demonstrated the opposite sex that you know how to bloody defend yourself you might get a few chicks there boys like you say with your lads and that's invaluable learning in life and I think it can give you a taste for that as well and it can help direct your own interest in life as you go as well should just to be fair do you come across many female craftsmen you know jewellery makers and such but actual and makers not many there's only one I know in Scotland and there's an exceptional scissors maker in England Grace Horne she's absolutely incredible next level craftsmanship but you know there's not too many out there so that means there's only room for more yes do you remember probably wasn't so much the old days but people go around in vans and they pull up in your street and you take all your scissors and knives out and they have you come across this you get the sharpening person comes around once a month and you take all your I mean I've seen it I can't even remember where I've seen it it's not something that happens in my street it used to be somebody went around Edinburgh right enough but I don't know if they still do it's something I offer just as a local service sharpening and I get folk bringing along gardening tools and axes and all sorts so you don't know what type of edge you're going to have to deal with from one day to the next but yeah yeah we didn't even talk about that our next project is an axe for my boy Viking stuff and yeah how are half the kids cartoons these days of people hacking each other yes so we're going to move on to a double bladed axe so yes Paul it's been incredible mate like I say I'll put your links below the video this has been a dream come true of mine to chat to somebody of your stature in the knife making profession so thank you ever so much it's been an absolute pleasure thanks very much for having us brilliant, brilliant so and Paul just stay on the line while I say goodbye to everybody friends at home you can follow Paul McDonald Armouries on social media I suggest you do something pop up in your feed that's not a photo of someone's someone's lunch so yes I'd encourage you to do that and massive thank you all for tuning in for another episode of bought the t-shirt podcast