Mention the name Connor Toor to most knife aficionados and you’ll receive a knowing nod. That’s because the founder and CEO of Toor Knives Inc. has developed a product line of which any entrepreneur would be envious, and he did so in less than a decade. Add to that, in 2018 the U.S. Marine Corps sent the rifle squad leader to Afghanistan for a year-long deployment just as his fledgling business was beginning to take off.
Once he was back home in El Cajon, California, Toor picked up where he had left off — developing and manufacturing a leading line of tactical, sportsman and every-carry knives that Toor estimates has a 1.5% to 2% global market share of fixed-blade knives.
“It was probably back in 2013 or so that I built a forge in my backyard and started tinkering around making fireplace hooks and random cool stuff, so I decided to try my hand at knife making,” Toor said. “I watched some YouTube videos, made a few trips to Home Depot for some mild steel and got pounding. I scrapped a lot of metal along the way, but it finally started coming together.”
Toor admits that he knew little about manufacturing when he first fired up his forge.
He’s since attended the machine technology course at San Diego City College, where he learned how to write G code and what machine to use for which process, adding to his bachelor’s degree in accounting and business management from California State University San Marcos.
Toor initially only made knives for friends. But those friends told their friends, and it wasn’t long before Toor began posting photos on the craft marketplace Etsy. He built a website, started earning a little money and, over the next year or two, realized he might be on to something much more than a hobby.
We have covered Toor Knives a bit. Having read the backstory, I will keep a more proactive eye out for their stuff.
Read the whole thing at Cutting Tool Engineering Mag
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