Product Integrity
PRODUCT INTEGRITY
We’re Proud to be American Made!
We are United States Marine Corps (USMC) veteran owned and operated American custom knife company. We are a small business run by a small family in the NW. Ga/Chattanooga area that takes our faith, and being a Veteran owned knife company seriously. We know exactly what quality and dependable knives are. We design and build all of our knives here. Our knives are made to be the best quality blade you’ve ever used. We back that up with a lifetime no questions asked warranty. This ensures that your knife will be of the highest quality and last for generations of extreme use. We specialize in EDC knives, concealed carry knives, custom knives, hunting knives, custom tactical knives, military knives, and more.
Our ‘Life Of The Knife’ warranty is pretty simple.
If we made it, we guarantee it for life. It doesn’t matter if you destroy it doing things a knife is NOT intended to do, or if you destroy it doing what it is DESIGNED to do; we guarantee it for the life of the knife. You can blow it up, melt it in a fire, shoot missiles at it, drop a grenade on it…and pass it down for generations to come.
We will repair, replace, rebuild your knife no matter what. The only cost to you will be trying to cope without your trusted sidekick until it returns home. We can offer this warranty because we know how to build a knife that will last for generations.
Can’t sharpen your knife? We will do that too…for life. Use our contact tab to get started and you’ll be on a very very very short list of warranty seekers. Claims are extremely rare, but we always honor our commitment to you.
Blade steel and how we treat it.
WHY
I often get asked the question ‘why don’t you use other steels?’. Basically when I started making knives I thought about what knife of the hundreds I’ve used in my lifetime had the best all around performance. I have never been interested in showcase knives so stainless wasn’t a prerequisite for me, and I’ve always used tools and machines, repaired my vehicles, cleaned firearms and built things so caring for a tool with a little oil wasn’t an issue for me. The first Ka-bar I used was bought for me by my father as a boot camp graduation gift and is the same that was issued by the Marine Corps for many many years, it was 1095 steel, was a work horse, took an extremely sharp edge, cut forever without needing a re-sharpen and was easy to re-sharpen with simple sharpeners when the time came. I wanted a blade that was indestructible that the common man could afford to carry and would stand up to and out preform knives costing 3 times as much. So I started with 1095 and set out to extract all that I could from the steel. After making blades for years with 1095 exclusively we tried 80CRV2, AEB-L and Nitro-V and were blown away! There aren’t many steels that can take the razors edge that these steels can. It is also ductile enough to withstand serious beating without breaking. It simply excels when it counts.
HOW
Thanks to your support of our growing business I was able to invest in precision heat treatment. But first I studied tirelessly about the exact metallurgical procedure of heat treatment.
First we use a method called ‘salt bath’ to heat to and hold for 10 minutes the exact temperature to ensure the steel is in full solution and hardens perfectly in the quench. Salt Bath heat treatment is the absolute best process for guaranteeing even heating and precise temperature control.
Next is our extra long temper process that includes a triple temper. Multiple temper cycling is debated a lot. Most of the debate against it comes from companies that don’t want to invest the time in doing it because it cost time and time is money. I don’t want just ‘OK’ blades I want exceptional blades.
Lastly and because of our relentless pursuit to make the best blades on earth we recently added another 36 hours to our process. Through a revolutionary, and unique deep Cryogenic process, we create an orderly rearrangement of material grain crystals, increasing internal bonding energy and achieving a consistent structural balance throughout the entire blade, not just a surface coating or a temporary physical treatment. This process greatly increases strength, stability, and the wear life of our blades. This isn’t your bathtub YouTube cryo, this is done by the leading cryogenics provider on earth and done in lab grade equipment that holds the blades at -330F for over 30 hours.
What you get from our blades because of this.
• Substantial increase in wear resistance, toughness, edge retention and overall tool life
• Transformation of retained austenite to hard and stable martensite
• Formation of additional fine carbide particles within steel microstructure
• Maintains hardness characteristics for resharpening
• Has the ability to double blade use life and reduce stress-related failures
We spend 10 days on just the heat treatment of every blade to give you the best blades in the world. All I can say is that my blades durability and edge retention sky-rocketed when I started triple tempering and added deep cryogenics. I have to guarantee a consistent unequalled blade performance. A proper heat treatment shows immediately when you cut with our blades, you’ll notice instantly how sharp they are and how long they keep the edge. Its not magic but it does take far longer to make a blade the right way. I simply will not put my name on a blade that isn’t built to the best of my ability. T.Kell Knives are carried in Battle by our warriors, by first responders, LEOS, and many other professions that we depend on for our safety and protection. Many hunters, fishers, outdoors folk, providers, workers, subsistence livers, and so many more people groups use our knives for tasks that literally depend on a knife for survival, protection, and food preparation. I make a knife that you can depend on for life no questions asked, and that means something to me. The steels I use are among the best steels for a knife in the world if heat
Yes, the belt sheath is very important!
We designed our sheath completely different than everyone else. We know we keep saying that but honestly, other knives didn’t make sense to us. So we innovated what made sense.
The unique style sheath:
- Reduces the width of the sheath buy a significant amount
- When carried cross draw, scout, horizontally along the belt the width is so narrow that it disappears against your belt and can be carried without alerting anyone to it actually being there
- Can quickly be switched from IWB left, back or right side carry
IF you’re not a fan of horizontal carry or desire other carry options we developed a vertical mount ‘Multi-Clip‘ that you can add to your order.
- Uses the same mount point as the horizontal included clip
- Height adjustable
- Swappable for tip up or tip down
- Easily converts to left or right side carry
- Easily attaches to MOLLE
Whatever your carry style, we have you covered. Like all T.Kell products, the possibilities to customize your knife exist in the sheath options too.
Sharpening the Blade. Our Proprietary Process.
IF you care about the Blade like we do, then you care about its performance for life. We warranty it for life. So it needs to be able to back that up. Keeping an edge is very important to us. But how do you sharpen a hardened knife quickly to a razor and not ruin the temper?
We take the extra time to temper twice to give you a durable blade… so why would we risk the temper by grinding our edge on a belt like everyone else?
Sharpening on a belt or similar abrasive material causes a spark. A yellow spark is 1800+ degrees. Even if you don’t see a spark, extensive published research supports that the abrasive material all belts are made from… super-heats the steel at the point of sharpening.
The temperature we temper is between 400-600 degrees. You tell me if the edge is compromised at 3 times the tempering temperature? The sharpener we developed is made form a material that is nearly as hard as diamond, produces no heat, no spark, turns at a very slow speed to keep everything nice and cool, but removes material equally as fast as the common belt sharpening method used by most every knife company. Again we couldn’t find what we wanted and didn’t care about what everyone else is doing, so we had to make it. This sharpening system is a huge part of the reason we can offer the Nickel Boron blade coating that no one else has been able to. The NiB is so hard that it normally would produce too much heat on a typical belt sharpener and ruin the blade hardness. Or it took too long for them to sharpen. We wont name drop, but factually, some other major companies tried NiB and couldn’t get it to work with their current sharpening methods.
We know that making a knife that has a guarantee for life, and actually holds up that long, doesn’t make much business sense. But our name on every blade means something to us. We cracked the code on the sharpening and that’s why we offer lifetime sharpening. If you’re an at home hand sharpener you’ll have no problems sharpening our blades if you so choose. We can just do it in seconds for you. Click the contact button and get started on sending us your blade for a tune up.
WHY OUR KNIVES
Unequalled performance at an affordable price
We go to great lengths to insure that every piece of our products are made from materials made in the USA. From the Kydex to the screws, it’s important to us.
oo many knives are designed to look a certain way and function is the last thought. We start at what the knife is to be used for then design around what will make it perform better at that task. We take the extra time to perfect our knives using innovative methods that give unequalled performance at an affordable price. From balance to edge geometry, weight to handle shape, a grip that won’t let you go no matter what is on your hands, even lanyard holes and grips are carefully considered to make your knife the best you’ve ever used. A knife you can count on all the time. A knife that is so comfortable and well balanced that it surprises you.
