ITISNTDAN
▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░ MATERIALIZING ideas/
A spot for pics, custom projects, digital experiments, handmade things, unfinished thoughts, & ideas that were too interesting to leave alone.
Mostly me, sometimes my son, but never Dan😅.
USAMB Sasquatch Bead v1
Every pic on this site good or bad is taken by me. Macro is the love language here. If it fits in a pocket or i think its cool, it probably gets a close-up.
I come from that bridge between analog and digital.
Thundercats after school. Arcades at the mall. MTV in the background. Knight Rider, Nintendo, gas station knives with my dad and the first time the internet felt like a secret portal.
Somewhere in there, a kid in an old movie had a Swiss Army Knife, and the whole world suddenly got mail.
The rest has just been life.
Design, code, and cameras for a living. Tools, lasers, wood, wax, weird objects, unfinished thoughts, and ideas that refuse to sit still for the rest of it.
A little garage, a little screen and a lot of, “I can figure that out.”
Point me at a problem and I’ll find the part everyone else walked past.
Do it right or do it twice.
— as my dad used to say
The Layer Cake is a multi-layer display and storage tray for pocket knives and fixed blades. Precision laser cut, steel hardware, engraved acrylic or walnut, custom cork or leather inserts. It holds your knives, bits, screws and pivots in one place, and every one is made to order in the USA.
A hand-poured conditioning wax for boards, blades and more, made right here in the USA by us only for USAMadeBlade.com. The recipe is simple on purpose: mineral oil and beeswax, the way my dad made it.
Small Tray runs sometimes but otherwise Mostly no. Occasionally, an experiment turns into something you can actually own. Hand-finished knucks, Squatch rings, laser work, knife accessories, and whatever else escapes the think tank. There is no fixed catalog or production schedule and alot of times i give stuff away and move on to the next experiment. This is a place for ideas, experiments, objects and experiences that are always evolving. When something does become available, usable or actionable, you’ll see it on Instagram.
Mostly no but sometimes an idea is hard to ignore. During the day the studio covers strategy, design and production but the queue belongs to whatever idea currently will not leave me alone. Most requests get a polite no. Every now and then, though, somebody brings something too interesting or fun to ignore. Interesting and fun jumps the line. If you think that is you...
Designer and developer by day, the linchpin lives in the liminal space between the idea and the thing, between the project and the outcome. Im just doing my own thing.
Nope. It used to be Daniel. Danny sometimes. That’s the "joke". For over 30 years, the more I said “it isn’t Dan,” the more everybody remembered "Dan". Now its mostly Dan all the time 😅 and ive come to appreciate it. As i make things and share the process with my son, the deeper inside joke from a Dads perspective is that sometimes he made the "thing". So its Mostly me. Sometimes my son. Never actually Dan. 🤣
itisntdan is not for hire in the usual sense. Most requests get a polite no, and the queue answers to whatever idea will not leave me alone. But interesting has a way of jumping the line. You get one pitch. Make it count.
Showcase trays, Backspacers, Layer Cakes, Knucks, Beads, Laser or 3d projects and random journal posts hit this list first.
Ready to learn the secrets of the Castle? When something new leaves the bench, you hear about it first here. Keep em slicey.
