A Look Inside My "DQMI" Knife Drawer or what's good enough

Dave Kelly

Dave Kelly

Joined
Dec 17, 2003
Messages
597
In a recent thread of mine I asked for an opinion on a knife I just finished. I mentioned that it would probably end up in my "didn't quite make it" drawer because I was uncertain about how it looked, majority thought I should sell the knife or thought I was crazy :) Maybe I would feel differently if I was able to go to shows, hammer-ins or personally interact with other knife makers, instead, I've been a medical hermit for most of my knife making career



I decided to have a look and see what knives I've put away in the drawer since I started making 5 1/2 years ago. I even surprised myself with how many were in there, I just sold 2 of them recently and I still have quite a few!


I was making knives almost a year when I found out about knife forums, knife shows and how popular handmade knives were. Planned to attend my first show and made a list of some top, popular makers and was excited to finally see what professional handmade knives looked like.


I was very surprised and very disappointed, some of the top makers knives on my list had glaring flaws that even an amateur like me could easily see, uneven grinds, gaps between bolster and scales, mismatched file work, etc. Then I saw some incredible, almost perfect to my naked eye knives, when I left the show it was very obvious to me which knives I wanted to make.


All are in the drawer for basically the same reason, every one of them had in my opinion an aesthetic issue or something that didn't go as planned, none have function or performance issues. I have to admit I did make excuses or say they weren't available when asked if most of these were for sale. My apologies for this, I just didn't feel good about selling a knife that I felt wasn't quite right and it was just easier for me to say they weren't available, that was wrong of me!


I thought I would just leave them to my family but looking at them, most of the knives I could probably take care of the items that bother me with not much time or effort. Just things with my health started to go downhill quickly and wasn't able to do some of the work anymore. I plan to spend time with each one of these, I would then feel comfortable trying to sell them.


No Matter if I sold, donated, gave away or put in the drawer, I thoroughly enjoyed making and learning from each and every knife I've made!



Is this crazy, should I not let my feelings about what I made get in the way of selling, I would really appreciate your opinion!

Thanks for listening to my babbling,
Dave


contents of my folder drawer, the top 2 are my 1st and 2nd knives made
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contents of my fixed blade drawer, one of these a customer didn't have the money so I put it in the drawer and forgot about it, I'm glad I looked now
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those r some pretty sweet "didn't quite make it knives".....it's good to see a maker with such high standards....i have gotten alot of knives from makers with what i thought were obvious flaws....ryan
 
holy cow. the 3rd pic of the of the folders..the wharncliff and the one directly below are gorgeous.
 
"Medical hermit"....I like that term, Dave, if not the circumstances that fit us into that category!

It's difficult to call a man crazy for setting a high standard for himself. It is admirable to have the conscience that prevents compromise for money. I agree with your thought that now that you can correct your "errors", you should do so and sell them.
 
Yeah, those are all just awful. Send them to me, it will prevent you the pain of just discarding them.



Or, seriously:

rework

n. (rē'wûrk')

To work over again; revise.
To subject to a repeated or new process.
To tweak or massage a flawed but otherwise kickass knife so it can find a new home
 
Dave, I'm Cliff, nice to meet you.
What ever the flaws are, they are not evident in the photos. Nice work sir. :thumbup:
As far as being crazy, not at all. It's your work, your standards, you do what you feel is right for you.
I would like to talk to you about that stag fixed blade and the one just above it, when you are ready. Very nice. :)
 
I'm not saying these are ugly or belong in the trash and I understand about character flaws in something handmade.

I don't think there's an answer to my question, I need to learn to deal with it or move on to something else. I try my best with every knife but maybe I'm just not good enough for what I know is possible. I would love to make a knife and say wow, that's a nice knife.

Thanks for the kind comments and offers to buy.


Sorry about this guys!!
Dave
 
Those knives look great. I hope that mine look as nice some day. I'm currently working on my 3rd, 4th and 5th knife. Each one is getting progressively better. Nothing wrong with aspiring to perfection.
 
Dave-


If the level of quality assurance was as high in everybody's shop as it is in yours, there wouldn't be too many knives for sale out there.

Bravo my friend :)

Might have to work out a trade on one of those... that is a great line-up of kick ass work :)
 
Hi Dave,

Regarding your question re standards of excellence and/or marketability.... Hmmm, seems to me one has to be able to afford to be able to stick his knives in a drawer. I never seemed to have that luxury with my creations. Whether it was jewelry, sculpture or my pending foray into knife making, I have always seemed pretty pressed to get something out of my investment in time and material.

Also, for me, a piece for sale is different than a custom order. It might be that one's work in those two different categories might be able to be evaluated by different standards. I also found that even with custom orders, I had to tow a clear line endeavoring to balance expectations (both of the customer and the artisan) with standards and costs. For instance, if I was hired to make a $1000 piece of fine jewelry, I could not put all the materials and time in it as I would in a Faberge Egg (not that I could make one, although I bet you could).

Here's another what if. What if I went to a local community festival and crafts fair? I might be able to bring along a few $1000 knives (hypothetically speaking) and, on the outside chance, sell one. Or, I might take a long a couple dozen $50 knives and sell most of them. If I did this, when I made those $50 knives, I'd not want to compromise my integrity as an artisan, but I'd also not be able to afford to make them with the same intensity of perfection, craftsmanship and materials. That's not to say, I couldn't be creative and make some fine stuff never-the-less.

I guess I'm rambling now, and, my wife wants her computer back, so I don't even have time to read through all this verbage.

Anyway,thanks for sharing your work. Absolutely amazing! I fell in love with your stuff the minute I saw a thread showing a smallish, yet stylish, hunter with copper liners, etc. The recent thread in the (custom forum) discussing one of the variations of the three of those you made was most interesting. I think I learned as much from looking at your photos and reading through the critiques in that thread as I have just about anywhere. Thanks again! Oh ya, I resurrected that thread of the hunter just for grins. I never tire at looking at the details of your build out of the piece.

Wishing you well and all the best, Phil
 
Dave I had to get my wife in here to look at your pics .......... it went something like this ;)

Hey, JoJo, come in here for a minute ...........look at all of the knives this maker gets to keep :grumpy: ;)

Seriously though, great looking work bud, in fact, AMAZING !!!!

Thanks for sharing them with us :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:


Farmer Phil said:
.... Hmmm, seems to me one has to be able to afford to be able to stick his knives in a drawer. I never seemed to have that luxury with my creations.
Click to expand...

Phil, does it make you feel any better to know that you're not the only one ?? ;) :D

I have the same problem ...........


NickWheeler said:
... that is a great line-up of kick ass work
Click to expand...

You ain't just a whistling Dixie ................................ :thumbup:









:cool:
 
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Dave I don't have much to add to what's been said but I sure appreciate your high standards. I guess we've all made knives that didn't make the cut and had to decide what to do with them. For me, they're mostly the knives I've kept! Which is not a good deal necessarily, because when someone learns I make knives and wants to see some - that's what I have to show them, the failed projects. A few times I've just defaced my mark and given them away, because like you said, they're still serviceable.

That being said, those are fine bunch of DQMI knives! I know photographs don't show everything, but I sure wish I had a drawer full of them. You have a fantastic eye for what works well together, and assuming you post most of your work in the other forum, I'm going to have to start visiting there occasionally. I've been missing out!

Thanks for sharing and for starting my day out on the right foot.
 
Hey Dave, wanna trade knives? I just finished up a super beater full of scratches. That one fell into the DQMI category. I plan on treating it like I stole it.
 
Dave.

I've always found that the ones that don't quite make it are excellent candidates for destruction testing. I recently did this with a damascus blade that I screwed up during final grinding/clean up. Friends of mine thought I was nuts to put it in a vise and snap it, but once I explained how I'd rather break a "DQMI" piece of my damascus rather than one I liked, they began to understand.

That said, it looks like you'd have to do a lot of testing on your own to destroy all of those knives. Send me a few and I'll get to beatin' on 'em real good for you. Of course, it looks like you make a darned fine knife, so it could take several years for me to destroy them :D

-d
 
Nathan the Machinist: "Yeah, those are all just awful. Send them to me, it will prevent you the pain of just discarding them."


Ignore him, send to me and I will give them to the needy (me).
 
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