Sal Glesser is an American knifemaking pioneer who has done much to revolutionize the pocket knife industry with his company. He founded Spyderco with his wife Gail when they first started selling their Tri-Angle Sharpmaker™ knife sharpeners. Spyderco is now one of the leading knife manufacturers in the world and they continue to innovate with new designs, materials and manufacturing.
Knife industry leaders: Louis Sal Glesser. Born United States of America. Married to Gail and they have two children. His son Eric Glesser works at Spyderco.
Sal Glesser Quotes
I’ll start with pencil and paper, CAD it, make plastic models with Peter from CAD drawings, often for months until I get as close as I can at the time to my “idea”. Like carving an elephant; take a piece of material and cut away everything that isn’t elephant. Once the design is close to it’s “pure form”, I’ll refine the materials based on the original idea and run with it. I don’t have the “eye” of a (Bob) Lum, so appearance plays little in the fished outcome.
Sal Glesser
Performance is our primary focus. We’re not making pretty knives. We’re making knives that cut well for a long time. Reliable, high-performance is our marketing pitch. A lot of our market is military, law enforcement, firemen and other people who actually depend upon a knife.
Sal Glesser
We have always tried to “leave shiny footprints” where ever we go. I personally have tried to avoid negative comments towards other companies. (No, I’m not perfect either) I think it serves to keep thoughts about Spyderco and other companies more positive than negative.
Sal Glesser
I learned how to open knives with one hand when I was young and I thought it would be really nice if we could create a knife that would open with one hand, without any springs or buttons. So we started out by adding things to a blade.. studs and little discs and things that you could use. But they always got in the way of sharpening. So then we started removing things from the blade. We started out by roughing up the blades so you could get some traction. And then we created a little dip in the blade so you could open it. A dip on both sides became a hole.
Sal Glesser
My designs begin with an “idea”, hard to put into words. The final design says it better than words can. I also refine that design (idea) over time to make it closer to the pure form originally envisioned.
Sal Glesser
Most people, even if they buy a knife for self-defense, don’t use it for that. They use it for opening mail and packages and preparing food. Just peeling an apple requires a knife. You don’t need a big knife for everything.
Sal Glesser
I don’t think that one (knife design) makes me more proud than another. We work on all of them until we’re satisfied that the model serves the intended purpose and is as good as we can make it. When we learn of changes or improvements, we do those as well.. to all of them.
Sal Glesser
We don’t plan to pin our knives or make it impossible for you to take them apart. We will continually try to make them stronger so if you do take them apart, it will be more difficult to damage them.
Sal Glesser
We had these aspirations of being a global company and Golden, Colorado, USA had a nice ring. Now it’s Golden, Colorado, USA, Earth because we’ve got even bigger aspirations.
Sal Glesser
More on the American Knife Maker
Let us know what you think about Sal Glesser in the comments below. Do you own any Spyderco knives with the Sal maker’s stamp on it? They include some great Spyderco models like the Shaman, Stretch and Chaparral folding knives.
Find Sal Glesser designed knives on Blade HQ or Amazon Here
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