forward by: Daniel M. Certo
In the past ten years, I've made many knives, I started doing this as a hobby, and liked it so much, I wanted to do it full time.
The reason behind it was not to make valuable collectibles, or pieces of art.
No, I started it due to a very unfortunate and rather dangerous personal experience with a very large knife that snapped the blade flying though the air and hitting me in the head....luckily the flat part and not the sharp edge.
This lead me to wanting to make a knife that would with stand the rigors of hard work and field use.
Since then, I also built this web site to share as much of my work with you as time permits.
I have also asked my readers and customers to respond with photos of their adventures especially were Relentless knives are involved.
Truthfully, many are shy or to busy, and so, reports from the field are more rare than I would like.
Six months ago , the guy below contacted me through my web site and  ordered the knife in the photo's below. He wanted
all of the strength options that were available, and the results are below in his great writing about his wonderful vacation and great adventure. To me, it is a dream vacation.....and I'm so glad to have been a small part of it.
The letter below and the photos were unsolicited, other than me asking the guy for a few photos of his trip. It's to good not to share. Thanks Brian not only for your order, but for the Great vacation.



Email from: Brian Session

 Dan-
Well, I gotta say- you make one helluva knife.  I just got back from a week's worth of floating and motoring on the Mississippi River.  We did about 160 river miles, and about 50 extra miles of exploring back rivers and creeks and swamps.  I was really pleased with the trip as the section of the river that we chose (Millington, TN. to Dyersburg, TN.) was almost vacant of people, with the exception of barges.  We only saw a handful of fisherman, and no homes at all.  The rivers and creeks that branched off the river took us into woods that had some of the oldest willow trees I'd ever seen.  Some of them were 4-5' in diameter. The swamps were peaceful and full of wildlife.  We saw deer that seemed to have no fear of humans, beaver that would come right up to the boat, gar that were the size of logs floating in the water, and snakes everywhere.                                                                                                      
                                                                                                     
“In the past, my buddy and I have caught what we eat- but as the Mississippi is so polluted in this region, the fish are not consumable.  So, we brought MRE's.  2 cases of MRE's.  Enough MRE's to give two full-grown men the shits for a lifetime.  We took that and a couple cases of bottled water.  So, we had that, a 16' john boat, a 15 hp motor, 20 gallons of gas, 2 sleeping bags, a tent, some coffee, and a bag of clothes each.  I brought my Glock 17, the knife you made me, and a hat.  My buddy brought a toothbrush and some sun block.  He turned out to be the smarter of the two of us.

The river averaged a 5 mph current, and was about 3/4's of a mile wide at most spots.  Our motor would scare the buffalo fish and they'd jump out of the water as we went by.  We had 6 of them jump into the boat with us and flounce all over our stuff.  They smelled worse than any fish I've ever handled, and everything they touched stunk the rest of the trip.  After grabbing the first 4 with my hand, I started knifing them and throwing them out.  One of the pictures I've included is of the largest of the fish.  It was about a 40 pounder.  I wanted to eat it, but it looked to be mostly bones.
 
The other picture is of a water moccasin (cotton mouth) that I caught.  It was the biggest I'd ever seen.  We used to eat them, but now it's illegal, so we turned it loose again.
Other pic is of a gar that I shot and then grabbed.  I had tried for hours to catch one with my hands (they'd lay at the top of the water), but couldn't so I finally shot one.
Then, the sunset over the river.  Some fires in Alabama and Florida had made the sky hazy, but it was pretty none-the-less.
Then 3 of a leech that got on my leg.  It was really pretty, and would stretch out to about 2 inches.
 
Now, for the part that will most likely interest you most:
When I first got the knife a couple months ago I opened the box, and thought "Holy shit that's a big knife!".  I picked it up and examined it and thought that there was no way that was the knife I'd ordered.  I measured it, and it was.  Exactly.  I thought "Well, crap.  It's beautiful, but too big.".  I wrote you and said that it was perfect as it was exactly as I had ordered and you had done your job to 100%, but inside I was thinking that it was going to be too cumbersome to use.  I took it out on a few short trips and it grew on me.  It was balanced perfectly.  And when I say "perfectly", you can be assured I mean it as I'm a critical guy.  The balance made the 9" of 1/4" steel feel like a much smaller and lighter knife.  It made it feel more like an extension of my hand than a blade that constantly made my buddy laugh and refer to as a machete.  Before my trip I did a couple things- I put some neatsfoot oil on the sheath as it was bone dry, and I took a dremel tool with a fine grain sanding wheel and smoothed out the edges of the rear of the guard and the butt.  They were sharp 90* edges and the guard gave me blisters after using the knife a bit.  So, I did that.  It took 15 minutes and made the handle of the knife much more user friendly.  I also put a razor edge on the knife.  I like my knives sharp and if they need touched up from hard use, that's fine with me.  I did that and thought about removing the keeper on the sheath.  The blade was held in tight by the sheath and even with the keeper unsnapped, the blade didn't move when I shook the sheath upside down.  I thought about it, but hated to do it so I left it alone.
So, on the river I used the knife for everything.  I mean EVERYTHING.  I carry a multi-tool, but tend to reach for the sheath knife.  I opened about a hundred MRE packs (the aluminum and plastic too), I broke up blocks of ice, I used the point to pry various things up and out, I hacked limbs and carved in trunks, and I used the butt of the knife to crush my coffee beans in the morning.
At one point we saw an old, abandoned plantation-looking home on the side of the river.  I climbed the bluff to it and looked inside.  It was early 19th century construction and pretty interesting to me.  I was looking through it and saw a king snake by the wall.  I went to grab it and it slithered in a hole in the wall.  Without thinking I reached for my knife and started prying the boards up.  They turned out to be 1" thick hardwood.  I got one up and as I was shoe-horning my point into the seam to remove the next board, I thought "This type crap is how I broke the tip off a dozen Buck knives.", but if something's going to brake- I'd rather it broke when I expect it than when I really need it to hold.  So I removed a few of the boards and caught the snake.  I looked at it and then turned it loose and as I was pulling my knife out of the wall where I had stuck it, I thought "That's one helluva knife.".  It is.  I did all manner of crap with that knife that I could never do with a Gerber, a Randall, a Buck, or any of the other brands I've owned.  At the end of the trip the only wear the knife shows is a little of the bead blasting worn off the tip from me sticking it in logs as I sat there eating MRE's.  There were absolutely NO chinks in the edge at all.  None. And that's impressive considering how many times I hit rocks trying to cut through something. 

After I get blood on a knife, I wipe it on my pants leg and then sheath it.  This practice has left me with many blades that have rust spots on them from the salt in the blood.  When I got home, I cleaned the knife up really well and noted that there was some blood in the saw teeth that had been there since the first day.  I used a tooth brush to get it out and there was absolutely no discoloration of the steel.  It was nice as that last Randall I had would get etched to shit in a matter of hours.
So, to sum up- I love that knife.  I love it more than any knife I've ever had (and I've had every brand on the market).  I'm tickled pink that I like it so much and it's so tough, as I hate to get attached to a knife or gun and then it fail over time.  That knife was put through hell this last week and came out looking much like it did the day it arrived. 
 
Thank you again.  If I drop this knife in the river (as that's the only way I can foresee it being destroyed) then you'll definitely hear from me to buy another.  I'm that pleased with it.