Custom commissions: how long of a wait is too long?

RX-79G said:
I'm not sure what you wanted people to respond with. Just agreement?
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Point taken. I'm naturally defensive and that was just me being silly about it. I don't take criticism well, apparently even if I literally ask for it :P
 
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RX-79G said:
So, 10 days ago you received an email showing a picture that confirmed that the maker had started work on your knife, and you cancelled after he did that work?

Frankly, that doesn't sound awesome on your part.
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Couldn't agree more.

At OP, you don't even ask the guy " hey any idea when I might see a finished product? ". It sounds like you started stomping your feet because you didn't get instant gratification and flaked out on a guy doing you a favor by modifying something he normally makes a certain way, and he's willing to do it specially just for you. Very bad etiquette on your part. Id be pissed off if I was the maker and blacklist you.
 
stonproject said:
Couldn't agree more.

At OP, you don't even ask the guy " hey any idea when I might see a finished product? ". It sounds like you started stomping your feet because you didn't get instant gratification and flaked out on a guy doing you a favor by modifying something he normally makes a certain way, and he's willing to do it specially just for you. Very bad etiquette on your part. Id be pissed off if I was the maker and blacklist you.
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"Hey why don't we kick the guy now that he's laid down," said in sarcastic voice. Anybody else gonna pile on. [emoji33]
 
I had a similar problem with a very nice guy. He had an issue with saying "I'll send pics tomorrow" or "I anticipate the knife being done in two weeks." Month after month this went on. A month before I went to the blade show in 2013 (and about 4 months after his own quoted deadline) I told him that if he couldn't get the knife done then I was canceling the order so I could buy one at Blade. He sent me an email giving his personal guarantee that it'd be done. Well, Blade came and he said "one more week." I went to Blade, had a great time, missed out on several knives that I wanted, and went home. The following week, still nothing. No pictures, no specific info as to what needed to be done to complete the knife. As nice as the guy was, it was 5 months after his initial deadline and he broke his "personal" guarantee. I cancelled the order.

Had the guy never made promises he couldn't keep then it would be different. Seems disrespectful to me.

Anyway, I heard a maker say that he'll tell a potential client straight up that there will be no guaranteed completion date, and no ballpark guesses, either. He'll give a generalized time frame of how quickly things normally get done but with the strict caveat that things may not happen that way with this specific build. It may take two weeks, two months, or two years. If the client cannot handle that, he's free to find a different maker who may or may not live up to the client's expectations.

I think that's probably the right way to do it. Anything less is setting the client and/or knife maker up for disappointments at some point or another. If you're a knife maker in it for the long haul, the last thing you want is to be considered a flake, a liar, unreliable, or any other pejorative word. Might as well get the things under control that you can, like quality, and leave some room to breathe where you can, like timeframes.

One of the worst things to do is to over promise and under deliver in any capacity.
 
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well we do live in a world of "NOW". I've been waiting 18 mo to have somebody build me a knife lol.
 
When I'm commissioned to make a fixed blade, my turnaround is usually under 2 months. The longest part is waiting on my stuff to come back from HT. This will change once I get my Evenheat.
 
I'm only a small time fry. But if I start on a comission people get CONSTANT updates about it.

Going 5 weeks from the start of the knife without communication is in itself not good in my eyes.

Dropping a project ten days after the last communication seems a bit hot on the trigger. But on the other hand the guy hadn't communicated for 5 weeks before that. So I can understand the annoyance.

Patience like respect comes slowly but leaves quick.
 
When I order a knife I don't expect any communication until they ask for payment. I ususally only order 1 or 2 a year and even for beginner makers with reasonable prices it is a couple months.
 
Comeuppance said:
The overwhelming consensus seems to be that I had unrealistic timeframe and communication expectations. I suppose that initial burst of progress and that it was nearly completely designed from the first day had me hoping for faster progress and unprompted updates.

Am I to understand that a fixed blade, in a style the maker does in large batches and with some frequency, should still be expected to not have begun any significant work within six weeks? I may very well not have the patience for customs if that is the case...
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Fixed blades, especially if they are pre-cut blanks (waterjet, edm) don't take very long to finish. I can cut a fixed blade on my bandsaw, profile and heat treat in half a day, then just doing the handles is pretty easy. If you are making guards etc that could take a little longer.

The important thing is to establish a time-frame when the order is made. On my builds I send updates every time I make progress on the build, the reason I do that is I don't want any surprises between the customer and myself due to miscommunication. The updates help the maker because any issues the customer should bring up immediately when seeing the pictures.

That being said, I cancelled my order book which was about 700+ people because I realized very quickly that having all these people wait on a list and not communicating with them because their orders were so far out was not fair. I switch to only doing one build at a time through a lotto spot instead and that allows me to focus on just one customer at a time, so it's real easy for me to send updates. Some makers just have too many orders and stuff and they just can't keep up.

It could also be because he does batch work, meaning getting all the stuff cut then sent to heat treat, so he has to finish all the knives to a certain point. This method you get a ton of progress then wait for a couple of weeks, that is why I heat treat and do everything in house, but that is not economical for some guys.

Long story short, the expectations should of been made up front, not really yours or his fault.
 
What matters is who has skin in the game. If you've already paid a deposit or in full (full usually being a bad idea), then a timeline and visible progress is reasonable. If the knifemaker is only going to collect payment at the point of completion, a wait is reasonable. Also take into account whether they are full-time or part-time knifemakers.
 
When I order knives the time is usually years ...... Welcome to the world of custom knives :)
 
Apec said:
What matters is who has skin in the game. If you've already paid a deposit or in full (full usually being a bad idea), then a timeline and visible progress is reasonable. If the knifemaker is only going to collect payment at the point of completion, a wait is reasonable. Also take into account whether they are full-time or part-time knifemakers.
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I had a maker send me knives without payment, saying "make sure you like them first". Now that is a stand-up guy:thumbup:
 
JParanee said:
When I order knives the time is usually years ...... Welcome to the world of custom knives :)
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Speaking of, I need to call Reese Weiland. I been waiting on a folder since 2013.
 
You're both at fault. You for being too impatient WITHOUT asking for a timeframe and the maker for failing miserably at communicating. As such, I'm not sure that either of you need feel bad about it. Just a deal that didn't work out.

Timeframes are what they are. The maker should be up front about it and give a conservative ETA so that you can decide whether it's something you can live with. You should also make sure you have enough information to make that decision.
 
I was really hoping this thread would just wither and die and be lost to the archives, but it's managed to get bumped onto the front page every subsequent day. I might as well give this thread some closure in the form of the email I sent out the morning after making this thread:
 
. . .
I owe you a pretty significant apology. Shortly after sending that email, I got that feeling I get where I feel like I’ve done the wrong thing but don’t know exactly why. After asking around a bit, it turns out:

- I was being incredibly impatient
- I had not taken into account that I had not requested a timeframe and you had not stated one, so how can I get upset about time?
- Even if there had been a stated time frame, six weeks is generally considered a drop in the bucket for a custom order of pretty much any variety
- There isn’t exactly a knife shortage out there and it’s not like I need a custom one NOW NOW NOW just so I can effectively cut things in my day-to-day life.
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The last bit:

So, I apologize, in a very sincere and embarrassed way, and would like to un-withdraw my commission and do not want to step on any toes or cut in line as far as your other orders go. Please approach my order at your leisure!
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I had to break up the message into chunks as I've been prevented from posting in this thread all day because of some server timeout issue. Shorter chunks of text go through, for some reason.
 
Just wanted to say that's an upstanding and respectful apology. Kudos, man, eating crow is friggin' awful and that's the way to handle it when you have to.
 
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