5 Reasons I Stopped Taking Orders

[oldanvilyoungsmith]

I've got two orders right now, but I'm not planning on taking any others for awhile. I took the two I have because they were fairly loose parameters, and were both something I wanted to make, but probably wouldn't have started soon without an order to egg me on. The main reason I'm not planning on taking more orders for awhile is the aforementioned one of selling today knives for yesterday’s price. Especially at my not so high skill level, every time I make one thing, I feel my skill increases dramatically, last year I would have been happy to sell a knife for 35-40 bucks. But now...


I will eventually take more orders, but I definitely don't plan on taking many. I like the method a maker on Dfoggs forum mentioned at some point. When someone was interested in a custom knife, he would tell them that he didn't do orders, but if they told him about what they wanted, he would put them on a list and contact them when he had a knife made they might like.


This is an interesting conversation, and I have a feeling that the preference of each maker in taking orders or not, lies in skill level, methods of making, money constraints, and just plain how they feel

 

[John T Wylie Jr]

And that's the beautiful irony of "custom knives"!!!!

Most all makers come up with a process and style and they want to work within those parameters (branching out to try things we want to try...) And something that doesn't fall within these self set parameters normally strikes us as crap we don't wanna do.

Most anyone in the world believes that something custom means you get to say just what you want... otherwise what's the point right?

Custom knives is really a misnomer.... But "one off knives made by a singular man/woman/craftsperson in his/her non-production facility/shop" doesn't quite have the same ring to it!

Wait... Nick told me years ago...

Created
Using
Some
Type
Of
Magic

something else about magnetic north , pigs blood and a Boyz 2 Men Cd.....but I can't recall exactly