The following is the transcript for the podcast when we sat down with KJ from Blackbeard Fire Starters.  No matter how you make fire, Blackbeard has done all the hard work in making that process flawless and easier now than it ever has been.

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Blackbeard Fire Starters

LIVE on THE Overland Podcast 12.3.24

 

Joey – hey everyone we are live on the overland podcast thank you for joining us it is Tuesday December 3rd 2024 and we are live. Tony’s in northwest Arkansas. Thank you, Tony for being here. I love your little Blackbeard patch you got propped up there on your mic that’s pretty cool…jealous of that…and joining us, we got all the way from Salt Lake City, Utah, KJ Thompson from Blackbeard Fire. KJ, thank you for being on here with us.

KJ – Thanks for having me on.

Joey – You bet. Well, we took last week off. We did not have a podcast last week. We took off to be with our families over the holidays. I did a little bit of traveling. My wife and I went to New Mexico, got to cross a few things off our bucket list. And, you know, I’ve been talking to everybody at work today about going up in a hot air balloon ride. And people are like, I don’t know if I could do that. I don’t know if I could do that. Tony, could you do that?

Tony – I don’t know, man. I mean, probably, probably.

Joey – What scares you about it?

Tony – Other than the heights and there not being a whole lot beneath your feet.

Joey – It’s just a wicker basket.

Tony – Well, and I guess the biggest scare that I have is the abrupt stop at the end of the fall.

Joey – It was an abrupt stop. I’ve got a little video of that that I will share on my social media in the next, in the upcoming days. KJ, you ever been up in a hot air balloon?

KJ – I have not. And I was going to ask you, do you guys have like a safety parachute in there or anything?

Joey – There was no parachutes. You know, that was one of the things that I asked. I asked two questions. I said, are there any parachutes? He said, no. Normally we come down slowly. I was like, oh, okay. Well, you know, that didn’t ease my mind at all.

Tony – But he had to use the word normally?

Joey – normally we come down slowly we come down slowly well it all depends on the wind you know he and he was telling us if you ever try to fight mother nature you’re going to just hate this job you just kind of have to go with it and you know we learned that because we were up there we never felt the wind not one time and he would go up and he would go down and we would just go with the wind but we ended up landing on the Pueblo Indian reservation because the wind blew us over there and we had to call the Pueblo Indian officers to come unlock the gates so we could get the chase vehicle in there to pack everything up and we just kind of had to go where the wind blows.  But I never felt unsafe.  The second question that I asked was has anybody ever dropped their phone because I was worried. I was taking videos, pictures the whole time. And I was worried about dropping my phone because you only get one chance at that. And, you know, if you drop it in the middle of Albuquerque City, it’s gone.

KJ – Especially from a thousand, two thousand feet.

Tony – I can’t drop it off the end table and it lasts.

Joey – I was white knuckling that thing. I mean, I can’t believe I didn’t crush it.  I was squeezing it so tight but anyway didn’t feel I didn’t feel unsafe not one time the basket came up you know pretty high you know I have a pretty good fear of edges but with the basket being so high I was just leaned over on the side floating on air.  It was one of the most peaceful feelings and I would encourage anybody just to do it once. It’s not anything like you would think. It’s not like jumping out of a plane. Not like skydiving or anything. This guy was really good. He took us over the trees. He set us right on the water on the Rio Grande and then shot us up about a thousand feet. And it was beautiful. I highly recommend if you do it in the wintertime, like we did get in the basket first, because that way you’re underneath the fire. And that way you’re not cold because that was my one worry was being cold. But we were not cold. My wife loved it. It was great. But anyway.

Tony – So what does he use for fuel? Is it propane?

Joey – It’s all propane. Yeah, he had three humongous propane bottles. And we were up in the air a little longer than what he thought we were going to be. So, he actually had to unhook one and hook the other. So, we were without fuel just floating for, I don’t know, maybe a minute. While he unhooked one and did the other. Now that was, I was watching him. The other people were like looking around and I was watching the guy and I was, I was kind of, this is kind of sketchy, you know, it’s kind of like running out of a, or your engines going out in an airplane, what do you do now?

KJ – So how high were you? What was the highest elevation?

Joey – I’d have to look on that. He sent us a thing that showed us. I think we were at twenty-six hundred feet.

KJ – OK. It wasn’t that high, but it was a long way up.

Joey – Yeah. You know, you could tell you could see the city in the mountains and all that. And it was very clear that morning. We got to see the sunrise. He said we could see about two hundred miles that day.

Tony – Oh, wow. That’s cool.

Joey – So it was very peaceful.

Tony – How big is the basket that you guys are all in? The basket, I’m going to say, was probably about, I’m going to say about ten feet wide, twenty feet long. It held thirteen people, so it held twelve, and then the pilot. It was split down the center, so it was six on each side. And, it wasn’t anything like I thought it would be. I thought there would be a few less people there. I thought it would be a little more intimate, but it was not crowded. We had plenty of room to move around. I enjoyed it. I loved it. I’d do it again today or tomorrow. Not today. It’s too cold.

Tony – Hmm. Interesting.

Joey – Yeah, it was fun. I would encourage anybody to do that. It was. But, you know, taking off that week, it reminded us that we had a lot to be thankful for. Even though Tony, you spent the whole week working on vehicles. You still have a lot to be thankful for. Do you have three running vehicles now? Are you good?

Tony – They are all three running and only have one with lights on at the moment.

Joey – One with check engine lights on?

Tony – And one with a check engine light on.

Joey – Is that your wife’s Jeep now still?

Tony – Yep. Yep. Still got a check engine light on that for some reason. You know that whole thermostat issue that we had last winter? Same exact code as resurfaced. So… I don’t know if we’ve got a thermostat or something, but I got my daughter’s engine and transmission swapped out. And so, yeah.

KJ – If your check engine light’s not on, you’re not living, man.

Joey – That’s right. I agree.

KJ – That’s just like a rite of passage for all men. Like if your check engine light’s not coming on.

Joey – We’ve got three vehicles, and two of them, it’s always on. Always. And one of them, I always know why it’s on. Well, actually, both of them, I know why it’s always on. It’s not a big deal. You just have to get over the fact that it’s on and look past it.

Tony – Yeah. So, I mean, I get nervous when she leaves the house in the morning. I’m nervous until she gets to work or when four o’clock rolls around. I’m nervous if she starts calling. I’m like, oh, here we go.

Joey – Well, yours is a little bit different. Yours is a little bit different because she has called you in the last few months on the side of the road wanting you to come get her. We haven’t experienced. Well, I take that back. Mine. Mine quit. What was it? About two months ago, mine quit and I had to call a wrecker to come pick us up and towed us home.

Tony – That was July or August, wasn’t it?

Joey – Was it? Yeah. Yeah, I guess it was. But new fuel pump, we’re back good. We’re good. But July is over and winter is here. I don’t know how it is up there where you are, Tony, but it’s cold down here and it is sitting around the fire weather. Yes, it is. I’m loving that. Yeah. We’re scheduled this weekend to go down to… Denton, Texas to Outback RV is having a, I don’t even know what they call it, but anyway, there’s going to be a bunch of overlanders down there. I got a cooking thing I got to do and we’re going to be camping and it’s going to be cool. We’re going to get to have a little time around the fire.

Tony – I mean, there’s been rain, so there’s no more burn bans going on. I love it. It seems like we’ve had burn bans forever.

Joey – Well, it didn’t rain for like six months in Arkansas. Everybody gets to enjoy a fire this fall because we’ve had a lot of rain. That’s going to be nice. Everybody likes a good campfire. There’s no place like it. That’s where friends are made, stories are told, lies are told. It’s where we cook. It’s where we eat. We love it, but What we want to talk about tonight is how do you make that fire? How do you get that fire started? Are you a lighter fluid kind of guy? Are you a throw some gas on it and run kind of guy? I was that guy for a while. I still have my eyebrows. In my early twenties, I was that guy one time. And the atmospheric pressure drastically changed for a split second. I was like, yeah, that’s why you don’t use gas. No, you got to be safe. At our age, the time it takes to get away and run has significantly decreased. We can’t run anymore. Our getaway time is not very good. Our reaction time is not very good. So, you got to be safe. The healing time is not very good. So anyway, you got to figure out how do you start your fire?

You know, I did something today and I’ve never done this before. I Googled fire history. And this was something that I’ve never looked up before. And I kind of wanted to do a little research on the show tonight. So, when I Googled fire history, there was a ton of things that came up. And what really struck me was the discrepancy on time era about when the first fire was, because it went from someone saying the Paleolithic era around four hundred and twenty million years ago was when the first carbon dating of the first fire that they thought. And I thought four hundred and twenty million. That’s a long time. But most of them said one to two million years ago. And still, that’s a long time. But, you know, they said it was used for all different kinds of things to keep warm, for protection, for making tools and signals for lighting, social gatherings. But it goes back to the first caveman, I guess, that we’ve been making fire a long time, a long time. And I don’t know how they started fire back then, but we have a much easier way to do it now. And I am so very thankful. We’ve got some of the best matches, some of the best lighters and some of the best igniters that we have ever had in history. But we want to talk about Blackbeard.

I can’t even remember what I did and how I started a fire before Blackbeard came along. I remember Scot teaching me how to whittle. some wood down and make a little pile, you know, and he told us stories about, and KJ, I want to point this out in your history. I read you are an Eagle Scout.  How cool that is because you don’t hear much of that anymore. And Scot, one of the guys that we camp with is an Eagle scout. And when he was going through the Scouts, he tells stories about his dad would give him, um, he would give him a little piece of wood. And he would give him one match when he left for work. And when he got home that evening, he would ask him every day, did you get your fire started? You only get one match. Did you get your fire started? So, every day he would build a fire. And he says to this day, and he’s in his late fifties, early sixties, he says that is one of the best things his father could have taught him. was how to start a fire how to keep the fire going because you never know if you live this lifestyle of being outside outdoors that could save your life it could help people find you um there’s so many things that you can do with that and um and he has used that um throughout his life and that that’s such a cool story to me um and I never had anything like that you know I Later on in life, I had to kind of teach myself, okay, we got to move away from, we got to figure out how to do a fire without the gasoline. That’s too dangerous. We can’t be doing that. I see too many TikTok videos of guys setting themselves on fire, you know, and I don’t want to do that. But everything has changed. Blackbeard’s around. So, let’s talk about Blackbeard Fire Starters. I am amazed by these things. So, KJ, tell us how in the world all this started, where it all started from. Give us an introduction of how this all began.

KJ – Yeah, so me and my brother, we love being outdoors. We’re here in Utah. Utah is pretty unique from the rest of the country in that you can drive. Within less than an hour drive, you can be in the mountains, and then you can also be in desolate desert. Like, it switches that fast. And so, the whole goal behind Blackbeard was to come up with something that you can get your fire started, doesn’t matter where you’re at. Doesn’t matter if you’re in the Uintas here in Utah, the mountain range here in Utah, deep in the mountains where there’s pine trees, forests, that kind of environment all around you. Or if you’re in the barren desert where there’s nothing around you. So, we wanted something because, you know, Mother Nature is king. No one can replace Mother Nature in all things. Whatever it be, medicine, you know, fire starters are no different. Mother Nature is always king. But at the same time, we wanted something that you could go up in the mountains. You could go to the desert. You could be in. Dry Utah, or you could be in humid Arkansas, you know, and it’s going to light no matter what. You could be high elevation Colorado or you could be at California sea level. And that would light up the same no matter what, every single time, you know, just that universal fire starter that will work in any environment, work under stress, working under the worst conditions. And so that’s kind of where it where it started. We wanted to make that fire starter. you know, something that everyone in the whole country could use regardless of situation, regardless of climate, regardless of any outside factors, it’s going to work no matter what. And that’s, that’s what we set out to do. And that’s, I think that’s what we’ve accomplished.

Joey – So, so cool. How you were both working together, building mountain rustic furniture. Do you still do any of that?

KJ – No, no. So, we actually retired from that. It was a long story. But anyways, it was a huge blessing. You know, a little bit while back, we were able to retire and just focus on Blackbeard a hundred percent of our time.

Joey – Yeah. Do you still do any carpentering though? You still use those skills at all? Or do you have time? You might not even have any time.

KJ – You know, if I’m being honest with you, I do not have any time and it kills me too, because I’ve got my house and you know, when I, my last year, working at Utah mountain furniture as a carpenter, I was, I had all these grand plans. I’m going to make myself a dining table. I’m going to make, all my kids’ beds, I’m going to make, all this furniture. I honestly just haven’t had any time, man. It just, I mean, that’s, that’s how life goes, I guess, but I would love to do it, but I just haven’t had time.

Joey – I know you travel a lot. There’s so many shows these days that you have to attend to get the word out, sell your product, and do things like that. I follow you on social media pretty close, and I know you all attend quite a few of them. The travel is just crazy throughout the year, so I know that takes up a lot of your time. I love your social media. Your social media is, goes right along with kind of what I do. You do some serious talk about life, practical things, but then you do some crazy funny videos. And I love that. It’s fun. It’s entertaining. It keeps people going. And, you just are lighthearted. You enjoy life and, really enjoy that about you. I just wanted to compliment you on that. I just absolutely love that.

KJ – And we try not to take ourselves too seriously.

Joey – Oh, I absolutely love that. Um, so the Blackbeard Fire Starters U.S. made…and it’s, it’s crazy how you have to say that there aren’t too many things that are U.S. made these days. Made right there in Salt Lake City, Utah, and using a hundred percent American made materials and ingredients. I love that. But one thing that really blows my mind when you look at the about and you look on your Web site at what these things are and kind of how they’re made. I love I love mashing it with my fingers because it’s soothing to me. Infinite shelf life that blows my mind, totally blows my mind that these do not go bad. It seems like everything these days goes bad. at one time or another. But, you know, for people who are preparing for the apocalypse or the zombie invasion or whatever, you need to stock up on these because they do not go bad one of these days. You know, when you’re putting your freeze-dried food in there, throw some Blackbeard in there because they, whether unopened or opened, do not evaporate, deteriorate, or dissipate. And the first ones light the exact same as the last ones. That blows my mind.

KJ – Yeah, that, that it’s funny, because we always laugh, like, man, we are the worst businessman ever, we created a product that lasts forever. So, people just literally just have to buy it one, depending on the person, you guys are going to use it a lot more than the average everyday American. But, you know, the like a lot of people, they buy it for like their seventy-two-hour kits, fifty fires. A lot of people there’s a lot of people in America that will never light fifty fires in their lives. So, in essence, what we did is we, you know, killed our own business. So, but, you know, it is what it is. When we were making this, I was telling you earlier, the worst-case situation, was in mind when we were, when we were developing this. And, one of the things is it’s got to have a shelf life, you know, it can’t be some little rinky dink product that you buy and then in a couple of years it’s expired. What happens when someone, when the emergency finally happens and someone in their family, they’re relying on our product to get it started and they open it up and it’s, I don’t know, a pile of dust, it’s deteriorated or it’s, it’s whatever it is, like, we can’t have that. And so that was like a big thing that we set out to accomplish was creating a product that’s going to be just rugged and strong and just last because, you know, a lot of people, um, you guys, the overlanders, you know, you guys are always out doing stuff. A lot of our audience too, is, is going to be like the preppers or, you know, the seventy-two, you know, just, just throwing their go bag or their glove box in their car, you know, where, where are they, or their junk drawer? But we wanted something that would be ready, no matter what, didn’t matter how they store it. Didn’t matter if it was in the hot car, didn’t matter if it was in a cold garage, you know, didn’t matter. We had to have something that would work.

Tony – Or if you’re some of the folks out east that, you know, have been suffering through the, the hurricane that came through there and maybe they’ve had water in their house or something and they come home for the first time. they can pull out their bag of plugs and they can still have a fire right there, even if it’s been underwater.

KJ – We’ve actually, we’ve gotten some like reviews and it’s been really cool because they, we’ve gotten this a couple of times actually, where people have told us that, you know, they had a backyard fire and they had our Blackbeard fire starter and, they’re doing fires in the fall. And then, you know, they left all their fire gear outside, left their Blackbeard outside. Winter came, it snowed, you know, they forgot about it out there. Spring comes, all the snow melts, thaws out. They go back out there. They find their Blackbeard fires. Oh, yeah, I remember this thing from last fall. They cut off a little piece and it lights right up. And we’ve had, like, several people, like, comment that same exact scenario. So, it’s awesome to hear that. Something that’s been sitting on the ground underneath the snow all winter.

Tony – Joey, have you used any of the rope?

Joey – I don’t have any of the rope, no. I’ve got to get some of that from you.

Tony – What’s the difference between the rope and the plugs in terms of what… What’s better for certain situations or whatever?

KJ – So, the rope is going to be a little bit more rugged as you as you can see the rope. It’s very it’s very solid in your hand. So, it’s 100 percent cotton. It’s very it’s like a stick. And so that so we take that rope and we pack that extremely, extremely tight. We take our special blend of oils and waxes and make sure it’s impregnated and we pack that sucker tight. So that thing is super rugged. The biggest difference is going to be the shelf life. So that rope right there has a shelf life of one hundred years, whereas the plugs, the plugs have a shelf life of about thirty years.

Joey – So, yeah still a pretty long time because these are these are squishy these are not hard like the rope.

KJ – so the rope is going to be a little bit more rugged a little bit more durable but I mean thirty years at the same time thirty years is pretty good.  And then the other difference is the plugs to process the plugs. You can do it with your hands. Whereas the rope, what you want to do, it’s recommended you want to cut off a piece with your knife because I mean, you could unstrand it. But once you unstrand it, you’ve got, thirty strands of like you got a big spaghetti mess.

Tony – Yeah. So that’s how I did it. I just cut off just, you know, just a little piece.

Joey – So yeah, the biggest difference shelf life and then how you process it…waterproof and windproof. I love your videos of how you’re constantly jumping in a swimming pool or like you said, people have left them out, for almost a year, go and light it. I don’t even know how that’s possible. That just totally blows my mind. You know, years ago there was just nothing like this. And, but now, you can pretty much just store it outside. And for people who constantly worry about things getting wet all the time, this is one thing that we don’t have to worry about getting wet. And I love that. Makes a huge difference um windproof will not blow out um another thing totally blows my mind but when you extinguish your fire you do it just the way um you normally would because uh your fire burns normally once it gets started

KJ – yep so, the fire starters themselves they are you know waterproof but the fire they create is not I like it right

Joey – another thing that I really like how you, how you’ve done with this, you really researched and materials and made with non-toxic chemicals. And, so you don’t have to worry about this hurting you now, just like with every other, smoke, you don’t want to just stand there and inhale it, but it’s not going to be toxic to you if you do get a whiff of it. The very high flashpoint. This blows my mind beyond comprehension because something that does not have a flashpoint but still lights every single time. I paid a little bit of attention in science class. That’s so cool to me. It lights every time, but it does not have a high flashpoint. It has to have a spark to ignite. It will not self-ignite.

KJ – That was another thing. And a lot of people like on our Instagram or Facebook, they’re always like, so I have to have a I have to have a flame or a spark to light it. Got it. You know, but it’s like you don’t want this self-igniting. Trust me, you do not want to fire. That’s not good. No, I don’t care who you are. That is not that is not a not a bet, not a game that you want to be playing.

Joey – No, if I have this in my backpack, I don’t want to be walking along and all of a sudden, I feel something warm and my backpacks on fire. You know, I want to, I want to do that myself. But when you can light it with a ferrule rod, it’s easily lightable. Yeah. Because anything that you can light with a ferrule rod is, is easily lightable.

Tony – Joey, do you ever use a ferrule rod or you always use matches?

Joey – I always carry a feral rod just in case. I have a very small one that I have as a necklace. I wish I had it to show you, but it’s a necklace that I have. It’s really small. I got it on Etsy. Yeah. You’ve got a really nice one. That’s a really nice one that I keep one of those in my FJ. Yeah. Because I’ve had so many lighters that quit on me.

Tony – This one, you can’t, you can’t really tell. I haven’t, I haven’t had to use it that much. I kind of keep this one as a backup because I usually use the lighter.

Joey – Yeah, that’s a really good lighter. That’s a lot like the lighters I use for my cigars because it is a flame-throwing machine. Angry Owl Outdoors says that feral rod pushes sparks so easy so many rods are hard and take so much force and that is true.

KJ – yeah that’s the man right there… Angry Owl Edgar.

Joey – yeah cool guy we’re going to have him on the show first next year so I’ve already planned that out

KJ – that guy’s the real I don’t know if you guys have seen what he does but he is the real deal. I really enjoy watching him and the stuff he does. The situations he puts himself in is insane, man. It’s crazy. And he’s another one of those guys that just goes out there and they just thrive. They know exactly what to do. They thrive in the worst conditions.

Joey – Yeah, that’s true. I just want to know why the owl is so angry. That’s the question. Why couldn’t it be a happy owl? Happy owl outdoors. Why isn’t it a happy owl? I love how nothing’s charred you know when you deal with char you get stuff all over you and everything becomes black nothing’s charged, so it’s a longer burn time on your website you have several different options to choose from and we’ve talked about this already so with the with the Fire starters like Tony has, you get fifty plus fires from one stick. So that one stick that that Tony had up there, you get fifty plus pliers, windproof, waterproof, infinite shelf life over a hundred years. You won’t live longer than that. And you just cut what you need and save the rest. So, like you said, it’s just one of those things can last you a long time and probably longer than most people will. we’ll be able to use one.

Tony – Terrible for business, man.

Joey – Terrible. And yet, and yet with your Black Friday sale, you’re almost out because you’ve sold so much because it’s a good product. Thank you. Yeah. Curious about the history with the baseball background. What’s he talking about?

KJ – We don’t follow.

Tony – Well, you mean baseball background and we’ll answer your question.

Joey – Now, I love the fire starters that Tony has. I keep those in the vehicle. Those are really dense, really hard, really heavy. With backpacking, I was telling these guys a little trick that I did with the fire plugs. Now, this fire plug, this is one fire plug. It has an eight-minute burn time. Waterproof, windproof, also. Thirty-year shelf life. And they come in a little pack like this. There’s fifty or a hundred in there. There are fifty fire plugs. Yeah. And let me tell you, these last a long time. Fifty fire plugs. So, this is my backpacking… is my backpacking stove that I boil my water in it’s about five ounces empty and what I do is I cook with a little stove that uses Esbit tabs this is an Esbit tab and this this is enough to boil water and it takes a long time to light these and so especially when you use matches or micro bic or something like that so what I have done is I have taken the little fire plugs And I cut them in five sections and then I take a little mallet and I smash them down flat and I can put them in these little, put them in these little baggies and I can take about five or six of them with me and they weigh nothing. And they light the Esbit tabs every single time. It takes just like that. You just light them up and then you’re done. And you don’t have to worry about your match burning down, running out of matches or anything like that. You don’t have to worry about weight and you can get a ton of lights out of one little plug. And so, it has been, and you know, one of the terms that I absolutely hate that we use all the time is game changer, but it has been a game changer for me because I mean, I used to have to worry about my lighter running out of fuel because I’d sit there on the Esbit tab trying to get the thing to light. They’re not waterproof. They’re not windproof. And you’ve got to have some help. It’s got to have some help. And that is the absolute perfect help for the Esbit tabs. And so, it’s just been an amazing turn of events. I’m not going to say game changer again.

KJ – We use that a lot on our Instagram. I apologize. I won’t use that anymore.  Yeah. I mean, talking about fire, it’s, it’s, when you talk about it, it’s easy enough, but when you’re doing the outdoors doing, making fire, if the wind’s blowing, it’s a whole new ball game. If the wind is blowing or if it starts raining on…

Joey – Going back to the hot air balloon ride, the guy who was in charge, the guy who had our lives in his hands was telling us, when you learn that the elements are in charge, then it changes everything. You can’t fight them. You have to go with them. And so, when you go out there, you can’t change the facts that it’s raining. You can’t change the fact that the wind is blowing. And, you know, a lot of times the wind is blowing and you just have to deal with it. But when you have things that make it easy on you to deal with, then it makes life so much easier. So KJ has some cool bats that they present on social media every so often. Just was not sure what the story was behind it.

KJ – Oh, okay. I think, angry out. He’s talking about, we did a giveaway with Mitchell bat company one. It was, uh, I think it was last, was it last? It was last year, twenty, twenty-three for the world series. Let me grab it real fast. So, we did a giveaway. And part of the giveaway, we didn’t give this away, but they made us this, this baseball bat right here. This thing is super sweet. And Mitchell Bat Company, they’re awesome, man. They do like… they do like all the MLB teams, all the collegiate teams, like they’re the real deal when it comes to bats. So, they made us that bat. And so, I think that’s what he’s referring to. We did a bat giveaway last year and it was awesome.

Joey – That’s so cool. You know, that’s very unique. You just don’t see that. Yeah. Yeah. Especially in this industry, you don’t give baseball bats away. That’s very unique.

KJ – It’s cool. It’s a wood bat too. So, it’s like a, it’s not like some synthetic metal or anything. It’s wood. It’s real wood. It’s cool.

Joey – All right. Well, that answered his question. He is satisfied. I’m glad he’s actually in a place where he can watch us tonight. Fire starters, fire plugs. You also have kits that you do, the ferro rods, the lighters, quite a few things that are on the website. And if you go to the website, it is www.blackbeardfire.com. And they have so many cool things that you can get on there, especially right now with the… the sale that they have going on Black Friday, fire kits up to fifty percent off. Get them while you can. Get them while you can. How long is the sale going?

KJ – So our Black Friday, I should say our sale, I think we might have had to take it down already just because we sold so much of it. If you scroll up, yeah, it looks like we had to take it down. So, I think that happened today…just sold too much. We still have all, all these products that you see right there are all on sale, but all of our special black Friday sales, that was like the buy one, get one free. Okay. You know, the buy, buy two black or fire starters, get like a t-shirt and a lighter and a whole bunch of other stuff. So, we had, well, unfortunately we had to take those down, but everything. We still have a pretty good sale going on.

Joey – Bestsellers, kits, fire plugs. I mean, you get fifty fire plugs for fifteen dollars. I mean, come on. Yep. That’s ridiculous. And I promise you, if there’s anybody that’s listening to this podcast, they will want that. That’s something that they will want.

KJ – And that’s American-made, too. That’s not the El Cheapos at Walmart. Oh, my goodness. I love it. American quality craftsmanship right there.

Joey – Yeah, we don’t get our stuff from China, Mark. We get our stuff from the U.S. of A. I love it. That is so cool. I love the history. I love how you and your brother… got this together and are taking it off. And, you know, you really put it out there about how you came up with the logo. Y’all just sat down on your lunch break one day, drew something out, and you really come clean about how it all started on the About Us page. So cool. Hand-drawn logo, the little Chinaman black beard that you have going on there.

KJ – We’ve even got our oil measurements on there too. All sorts of stuff.

Joey – That is so neat. Materials on there, but yeah. So neat. I love it. Chasing your dreams. Well, I’m really happy for you guys about how you were able to, you know, retire from the other jobs that you were doing and do this full time, because this is this is something that benefits everybody in the community. You know, everybody that we know loves to sit around the fire and you’re making it easy on all of us. So, it’s very beneficial. How has how has the community accepted what you’re doing? Have they really bought into what you’re putting out there?

KJ – Oh, man, we’ve we’re so blessed, man. Ever since we started back in twenty nineteen, it’s been nothing but just good people, you know, just good people coming into our lives. We’re just we’ve got the best, you know, we’ve got the best customers. We’ve got the best audience on social media. You extremely support it like it’s awesome. And I have no complaints. I’m just we’re blessed and we’re grateful to be able to create a product that everyone likes. And, you know, and how it’s to say other than we’re blessed you know everyone’s been so kind to us accepted us supported us shared our stuff you know people you know stick our stickers everywhere it’s awesome man

Joey – well one of the best things that that you have going for you is how people use your product post it on social media and tag you on it because that is a test a testimony of how it’s working and you get that all the time.

KJ – You know, you post all the time on Instagram. We love the pictures that you’re sending. Keep sending them. Keep sending them.

Joey – And the one that I posted on our social media today to advertise about this podcast was actually one that I stole from you that you stole from somebody else. So, I mean, just keep it going because everybody’s doing it.

KJ – Well, it’s so, it’s so cool when people do that though, because like, you know, we’ve got our ideas on what kind of like content or pictures we want to make or videos or whatever, but then like someone like, you know, across the country and, you know, in, you know, Massachusetts or, you know, somewhere, wherever they do stuff, like they’ve got fresh ideas that we didn’t even think of. And when they do it and then like, we say like, dude, that’s amazing. Like that looks, I never even thought to make a video doing this or take a picture with the, you know, the product right here or try the really cool because, it goes from like having just me and my brother’s small little minds, you know, we’ve got all these great minds like doing their things and it’s, it’s, it’s awesome just because like it just opens up endless possibilities with it.

Joey – Yeah. And when you’ve got, When you’ve got a product that can be taken apart and manipulated and conformed to how people live their lives and make their rigs and how they camp and whatever, whether you’re a Bushcrafter like the Angry Owl guy or whether you’re an overlander or a backpacker or whatever, you’ve got You’ve got a product that can be manipulated, just like me cutting it apart and smashing it down and cutting the weight and making it how I need to make it and doing it what I need to do with it. You’ve got so many people out there that are doing their own thing with it as well. And so that creates that much more.

KJ – And see what you did, me and my brother never would have thought about that in a million years because we don’t have your exact, your foster can set up. You know what I mean? And so that would never have crossed our minds. It’s like so cool to come across you and see that that’s how you’re using it. It’s amazing.

Tony – Yeah, I don’t have anything, you know, earth shattering like Joey. I just… I use it, you know, kind of in a conventional way. It’s just, you know, the first thing when I get to camp, I set up my popup fire pit. Like I’ve said, I started the reverse building of the fire stack and I light one of those plugs and set it on the wood and I go about my business and I turn around and the fire’s going and it just makes life so much easier.

KJ – Nice. Yeah, it does. And, you know, it only takes just a small portion of it, and you’ve got that much more. So, you know, to make a product so good that you say – we made that too good. You know, we’re hurting our business because people only had to buy it once. But you’re making a product so good and you stick with that and you stand by that.

Joey – That’s highly respectable.

KJ – Thank you.

Joey – Especially in this climate these days because, you know, a lot of people are about the almighty dollar, but, you know, you’re out there about putting a good product out and I love that and I’m sold. I’m sold. I love it.

KJ – Thank you. Make sure and follow them on Instagram at Blackbeard Fire, on Facebook, Blackbeard Fire Starters. We said it already and showed it www.blackbeardfire.com, where you also have a blog and you also have different videos on there that you posted about people that have used your product in different ways, showed how, once again, how you can leave it underwater for so long and then bring it back up and it lights again. It’s just interesting, interesting stuff. So I want to highly encourage everybody to go to the website and do that YouTube also Blackbeard fire starters with more of the videos.

KJ, man, really appreciate you coming on and sharing with us about that, especially about your history, where your family came from, and how you sailed in there. I love how you put on your website about, you know, this is a family business. Me and my brother do this, wife and several kids, and family. This past weekend has been Black Friday, but it’s also been Small Business Saturday was in there. And we want to support small business and those who are out there supporting our community. And we really appreciate you.

KJ – Thank you guys for having me on. I really appreciate you guys.

Joey – You bet. Well, we will help you out any way that we can because we are huge fans. I want to, encourage everybody before we go. Oh, I want to show everybody this. I got my very first one of these. Look at this. I got me a, I got me a medal for running a race this past weekend at my Turkey Trot

Tony – on purpose.

Joey – Pretty proud of that.

Tony – You did that on purpose.

Joey – I didn’t even have anybody chasing me. Yeah. That involves running. Yeah. And if you hadn’t done it yet, Timbers new book out there, a memoir of a wild man. He, sent this and, If you holler at him, he will actually sign it for you.

Tony – Right on. Right on.

Joey – Anyway, good dude. And I promise you, he will be using Blackbeard Fire Starters. Hope everybody has a wonderful week and take care. It’s the time to be thankful. We all have something to be thankful for. I hope you spend some time with your family because one thing that we are never guaranteed, and that is time. So, take advantage that you can. Spend some time with your family. Tell them you’re thankful for them. We’re getting into the holiday season. They’re going to need some presents. Blackbeardfire.com. Get the kits. Get the plugs. Start a fire. Sit around. Talk to each other. Have a good time. KJ, thank you. On behalf of Tony and myself, I hope you have a wonderful week. Look out for number one. And don’t step in number two. We’re out. 

Below is a copy of the notes we used on the show, just in case you wanted to dig deeper as to how in the world the Bro’s do it (definitely not the pro’s).