And the most stressful part of knifemaking is.....

Finding a small divit in the blade after youve hand sanded it to 800 grit.
And worrying if i made everything as perfect as i can so the customer is satisfied
 
waiting for the customer's response after you shipped the knife (to make certain they are satisfied)
then would be the the finish grinding
or cracking or chipping stag when doing domed pins on a frame handle
 
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Raymond Richard said:
I was forced to take a break from bladesmithing due to old body parts breaking or just getting worn out. Pretty sure hand forging is out of the picture for me but I did get my desire to make knives again. Since the first of the year my time in the shop has really increased. One thing I had forgotten is how frustrating it is when things don't fit together right.
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RAY

Good to see you're still kickin
 
Fun stuff guys! Interesting how some have such different stressors. I actually like hand sanding and sharpening for example. And I install my scales very similar to LarryZ10, finishing the shaping to about 95.2% ;) before the first scale is installed. In my fixed blade only stock removal world I can't imagine what the stressors are for folders and I don't forge yet. It's well up on my bucket list. Taxes and P&L is always tough for the real pros. Mr. Marchand speaks for all 'Mericans there. This hidden tang in question turned out great by the way at 24 hrs, I'll go 48 before final finish and clean up. Same with the little full tang B&T, Whew.
 
For me, the stressful part is everything up until the first preassembly of a folder and initial handle profiling, when i finally see what the knife actually looks like. At my current skill level, and my desire to not waste time on crap knives, i bin about half my knives at that point.
 
Grinding, without a doubt. Once the grinding is done the rest is cake. That being said all I have made thus far is stock removal full tang knives, havent stepped into the harder stuff yet.
 
My biggest stress is between the paying job and the rest of my life, when the heck am I going to have time to work on knives? It takes me 6 to 8 weeks to make a single knife right now. o_O

Other than that, the thing that gets me the most is just when I think I'm starting to get good at this, I'll overheat the tip of a blade grinding post-HT. I'm pretty much only making thin chef's knives on a 1x30 with a tiny platen that heats up crazy fast when I'm not careful enough. :poop::confused:
 
Funny you bring up a 1x30 grinder. I'm actually thinking about building one for just grinding edge bevels in combination with a ceramic lined rest.
 
I do not stress what I govern. It causes me stress that I do not govern: wait for materials that do not understand why they stop and are not carried over, send knives, put the knives in the hold of the plane (unfortunately I happened to have to put on show table the display "lost case").
 
When I first started making slipjoints there was a serious stress factor on godawful lot of the steps involved. ( 20ish years ago. )
I don't have to give too many away any more.
Ken.
 
Perfect sabre grinds stress me out. I used to do them a lot when I first started, but have since gone to brute de forge flats or full grinds. After getting decent at them and still stressing, I started to look around at what yall are putting out and realized that sabre grinds are kind of rare. No need to perfect a style that isn't "in" at the moment in my opinion... If it comes back into fashion, I'll probably go from free hand grinding to jig grinding for sabre grinds.
 
Not so much stressful, but my two least favorite parts of knifemaking are finishing a tapered tang fine enough to mirror polish while still keeping it flat enough for bolsters to fit without gaps, (I really need a magnetic sine plate on the surface grinder...) And plunges. I just find both of those very tedious and annoying to do, and they are both fairly easy to make a mess of if you're not paying attention.
 
Interesting perspectives and some great advice (Larry)!
Any part of making can stress me, but I find the stress an indicator that I am too anxious to get to the next step.
Slow down and take serious the step I am on. That is the key for me.

The one point I find difficult not to stress over is the knife order. No deadlines, no expectations. That is the key to happiness, but it's always nice to get an order. :)
 
Epoxy, I find that I enjoy making a knife, either full tang or hidden tang, up to the epoxy state and that I leave it at that state and work on an other knive untill all I have are knives ready for epoxy.

Also I decided to finnish all older projects that I never finished. Some are years old and done with less thought and skill compared to where I am now.
I find it frustrating to work on those again, but it does clear the head to work towards a clean slate.
 
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