At no time are they at Toor Knives more aware of their promise to you than when making their final engravings. They are the culmination of a process that is guided constantly by a lesson they learned from working in the special operations community: attention to detail with everything they do. Toor Knives knows the smallest imperfection can mean the difference between life and death. They take absolute pride in ensuring nothing but lethal perfection leaves the shop.
After continually encountering extremely expensive knives in the marketplace, with long production times always attached to them, Connor Toor decided to take matters into his own hands. He started by building a forge in his San Diego backyard and then began crafting blades with a hammer and anvil.
Connor’s initial inspiration was also fueled by a growing frustration of seeing teammates in the Marine Corps having to rely on mass-produced knives that were unfit for mission-specific tasks (after conversely being issued other premium gear and carrying customized weapons). This situation led him to begin tinkering with blades and his first designs came from improving military-issued and store-bought tactical knives, that he had accumulated over the years.
However, Connor soon realized that altering these mass-produced knives would only take him so far. From there, he broke free from modifying existing market knives and decided to develop blade designs, from scratch, that would meet all demands of his job in the Marine Corps. He mined his own experiences and pooled the wisdom of his teammates, and his Army Ranger brother, Cameron Toor, to develop a list of everything he felt a tactical knife needed to be—and began forging.
Admittedly, Connor’s first few knives weren’t pretty. But after banging on pieces of steel for months, and accumulating a heap of scrapped designs, he eventually created a family of blades that fit the needs of airborne operations, diving, close-quarters battle, law enforcement, scouting, and patrolling related missions.
In time, as Connor and Cameron both started carrying Toor blades on their own Marine Corps and Army-issued gear, others began to take notice. What started as one-off creations for buddies and teammates, soon grew to hundreds of orders a month – all of which were shipped out to special operators around the world.
At some point, during long evenings lit by the glow of our forge and many quiet midnight hours spent carving handles, we became obsessed with perfectly crafting a handle and strategically shaping a blade. That obsession still defines and fuels every step of our production process, today.
Before it arrives in your hands, each knife begins as a large sheet of stainless or high carbon steel that we source from a mill in Illinois. We then use our CNC waterjet to cut each blade into its mission-specific shape. From there, we use modern machining technology, and a series of CNC vertical mills for perfect repeatability in all of our dimensions and tolerances to ensure every single blade’s final profile is precise.
The blade is repeatedly normalized and relieved of stress before its final high heat cycle at nearly 1900 degrees Fahrenheit. It is then removed from the kilns in a controlled oxygen-free environment, and air quenched to draw the blade to its final hardness. Again, each blade is carefully inspected before receiving its final coating or steel finish.
Additionally, every Toor blade is given a truly distinct handle, with a FlexTech Kydex sheath designed specifically for your knife, guaranteeing it will be in your hands when you need it. With virtually endless options, we have narrowed our blades down to 3 strong, practical yet beautiful handle material options; Dymalux poly-impregnated woods, G10 laminate composites, and Grade 5 premium Titanium. The handles that adorn each blade give our products their distinctive look, a style that fits the special operators who carry them: Clean but filthy. Polished yet salty. Innovative but reliable. Carry a Toor Knife, and you have a beautiful handle visible above the sheath, and an exacting, lethal blade hidden within.
Finally, we offer each finished blade with a personalized engraving. Millennia ago, Hephaestus forged a great shield for the warrior Achilles to carry onto the beaches of Troy; on it, he carved an ornate world, with scenes of war and peace, marriages and battles, harvests and street fights. The closer you looked, the more the scenes he forged seemed to come alive. We view our engravings the same way: each motto, each insignia, each name inscribed onto our knives represents a history, a community, a story. They are mottos that bind together a quiet brotherhood. Unit insignia whose history your knife honors, and might soon be part of. The name of a brother lost to the fight whose memory reminds you to live the full life he could not. Each time, as our bezel carves steel, we are reminded of the lineage of service that these blades emerged from, and are crafted to support.
