Thank you for your replies everyone, much appreciated.
I have had this situation before. I would just take the knife back and credit the amount paid toward the knife/knives they re-ordered. If the knife cleans up OK, just re-buff the handle, sharpen it, and re-sell this one.
I would suggest you take a lot of looks at the top quality chefs knives in The Exchange and other places and see what chefs call a Chefs blade. Your knife is pretty, but it is a very basic utility slicer. It would get little use in a commercial kitchen. The handle is pretty, but will soon be ruined in a commercial kitchen, too. Use a handle material that takes wear , abuse, and lots of washing. Micarta, rosewood, ebony, etc. all will hold up to full time use. I sell five Micarta handled knives to real chefs for every one fancy handled blade.
There is nothing wrong with a 1084 knife and a pretty handle, but for what I see in your photo, it is worth about what you got. Using better steel, and tougher handles may increase the price.
I am going to pick up the knife from him on Tuesday, since I will be in his area. I do know that this individual literally babies his knives, so that is why I let him go with the redwood.
I used Redwood stabilized by K&G, I was under the impression that this stuff was essentially waterproof, or could be thought of as a solid block of plastic, but I may have some confusion?
I do have experience with the toughness of rosewood and ebony, through my musical instrument pursuits. I have some rather nice macassar ebony stock here that I can use for my next one.
I'm just wondering, what makes the price on this knife so low? It is an 8" knife with stabilized wood handle, even though it is only 1084. It just doesn't jive with what I've been getting on my smaller knives. Does length become a profit sink? I'm wondering because I enjoyed making this, but it will be hard for me to take a hit on that much extra labor and material considering I'm just starting out. I may want to stick to nothing but 4-5" hunters if that is the case (not being sarcastic).
I post a couple examples to illustrate my worries:
I just had two local makers appraise this one (5.25") at either $230-$240 or $250 if sheath is included, or $190-200 without sheath. I tried to sell it for $180, but the customer insisted on paying $200. It used roughly half the blade steel, took about the same amount of time, same exact cost in stabilized wood, but I made 30% more on it.
This one sold for $155, it is a 4" hunter/skinner, so used roughly 30% less steel and probably 10-20% less time, for 10-15% more on sale price. It "appraised" at $150-160 without sheath, or $190-200 with sheath. I personally would have probably been more in the $140 range without, or $170 range with, but it sells for what it sells for, I guess.
I agree with Stacy and Benjamin here. Customer relations is very important. I want to add that padauk is holding up very well in the kitchen knives I have made. I also have ebony and zebrano holding up well. Edit: black walnut holds up well in the kitchen too. Honduras mahogany is one of my favorites, but is a bit on the soft side. Brazilian tiger wood is another good kitchen choice. I give a small vial of Danish oil and a small vial of beeswax to the owner to maintain the handle.
Well, I have at least 3 out of those you mentioned, so that's nice
Kitchen knives are so function driven that there is not a lot of room to 'experiment'. You didn't mention how thick your blade is, but IMO, even 1/8 is too thick in the kitchen except on boning knives. The best ones I've made are from 1/16" thick stock. They are so prone to mishap during the finish grinding (at my skill level at least - low skill) that I have made only a dozen or so. Most of those are in my kitchen or my mom or sisters. The good thing is that I have a really good idea of what works, and what I make for the kitchen. AND, these are my knives I actually get to use. The bad thing is that they are so hard for me to nail that I basically don't offer them.
As to the situation, this could be an excellent way for you to learn to nail the functionality. You can work with this guy and find out exactly what makes a kitchen knife perform well. BUT!!!!!! A touchy feeley, nitpickey, return the knife again and again customer is not profitable! Be careful not to loose your shirt.
After making my own kitchen knives, I only use g10 or micarta and SS for kitchen knives. You need to explain up front that this is not intended for the dishwasher, and your warranty does not include the guy's wife washing it in a non -custom knife- way and certainly not the dishwasher. The wear and tear on kitchen knives is amazing. Even SS's and g10's don't like the diswasher.
I think kitchen knives may be even worse for me, as I've historically preferred the thinner amongst the production knives. I wish I had been more into customs/handmade when I was doing all of my knife purchasing.
I have a really good eye for thicknesses of things. At my old-old work, I used to be able to slide sheets of stainless off the rack by eye, within about .005". So basically you could ask me for a .015", a .035", and a .050", and I could go pull them like second nature. My old boss and I used to play a game to impress visitors (trust me, not my idea), where he would set a pair of calipers to a certain random thickness, and I would have to guess what it was with the calipers turned backwards towards me.
edit: sorry, I forgot to discuss blade thickness again. It is 1/8". Please keep in mind, this knife was originally designed as a camp knife. The edge is ground to .030" thickness, with a beefy convex secondary. This knife was originally intended to be able to de-limb firewood just as well as it chops potatoes or quarters a whole chicken.
The customer requests:
Knife 1: VERY tough slicing/carving knife, something that he could swing into a rib roast like a baseball bat, and not worry about damaging (not that he would actually do that).
Knife 2: Thin, slightly flexible, slim profile chef's knife, ~8". This one I had planned in 1/16" already.
The only reason I let him take this knife is that it is almost exactly what he asked for in Knife 1, except that it is too short. He really liked it and wanted it, so I let him take it.
Whatever you do with this customer/ situation, I would highly recommend having a critique of your work and feedback from someone who specializes in high end kitchen cutlery. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to understand by just viewing pics online. Also many knife makers make "kitchen" knives but don't make something that someone would want to work with shift after shift, week after week in the kitchen. Someone who really makes top of the line knives can teach you much faster about things like profile, grind, thickness behind edge, proper distal taper, convexity, food release, wedging ect... than you will learn by trial and error. Also get your hands on top quality kitchen knives and see how they cut to get a feel for what you knives will be compared to. Good luck!
One good thing is that I've been around kitchen knives almost my whole life. My grandparents had a beautiful collection of vintage USA made kitchen knives, which was passed down to my parents. My old boss buys classic style kitchen knives from this small place back east, I forget what they're called, but they've been at it for a long time. He has quite an impressive collection as well, some VERY high end. I personally own something like $1500 in production kitchen knives.
edit2: finally found that place my old boss got a lot of his knives from:
http://www.warthercutlery.com/ Their stuff is really nice, and the prices are quite good as well.
I met my fiance in the service industry 8 years ago (she was putting herself through nursing school), and made a good deal of friends in "restaurant row". I've talked knives many, many times with veteran cooks and chefs.
I would actually say cooking is my number one hobby, in front of knives and musical instruments. I have a really firm grasp on what makes a good kitchen knife
