Cliff Stamp
BANNED
- Joined
- Oct 5, 1998
- Messages
- 17,562
My first post addressing Darrels quote was mainly sparked because it reminded me of how my grandfather worked. When he was young and strong all of his work was by hand (he worked in wood), no power tools. As he grew older he generally adapted to using power equipment as without it he would not have been able to work the amount that he did. Now does this loss in "handmadeness" translate to a loss of value to his work? Function wise obviously not, but I have some of the purely handmade work he did and I feel differently about that. A lot of it is nonfunctional, just intricate carvings and such so I look at it differently than I would a knife.
With knives, I am much like Marion. While I appreciate the craftsmanship it takes to do a lot of the work by hand, if doing part by machine would give me a better end product I think that is the way I would go as in the end its the use that interests me. I don't think I would trade functionality for "handmadeness". However if the functionality stayed the same I would avoid the machine process as in general I don't like the current trend of the old ways disappearing. I don't know how much, if any I would pay for it though.
RMLamey :
There are obviously blades that will cut better than the BM by the simple factor that they have a slimmer cross section, blade bevel and the additional of several other features (drop, recurve). I would also agree that these blade could easily be strong enough for certain individuals. However to be very clear, these blades achieve this mostly by giving up strength, now this strength may not be important to you but it is there. So I don't think it is a reasonable conclusion to take the BM and label the custom bowies you mention as being clearly better across the board. While they are better in some respects they are not in others.
Actually it isn't. I have already discussed with several makers the possibility of getting a custom version of the BM made. At the end of the review of the BM (not nearly finished) there are a list of modifications I would like to see.
And toughness as well, this doesn't mean that my blades are all similar to the BM though. While I think that strength and toughness are of primary importance in all blades, the levels required vary hugely depended on the intended scope of work.
-Cliff
With knives, I am much like Marion. While I appreciate the craftsmanship it takes to do a lot of the work by hand, if doing part by machine would give me a better end product I think that is the way I would go as in the end its the use that interests me. I don't think I would trade functionality for "handmadeness". However if the functionality stayed the same I would avoid the machine process as in general I don't like the current trend of the old ways disappearing. I don't know how much, if any I would pay for it though.
RMLamey :
There are obviously blades that will cut better than the BM by the simple factor that they have a slimmer cross section, blade bevel and the additional of several other features (drop, recurve). I would also agree that these blade could easily be strong enough for certain individuals. However to be very clear, these blades achieve this mostly by giving up strength, now this strength may not be important to you but it is there. So I don't think it is a reasonable conclusion to take the BM and label the custom bowies you mention as being clearly better across the board. While they are better in some respects they are not in others.
Actually it isn't. I have already discussed with several makers the possibility of getting a custom version of the BM made. At the end of the review of the BM (not nearly finished) there are a list of modifications I would like to see.
And toughness as well, this doesn't mean that my blades are all similar to the BM though. While I think that strength and toughness are of primary importance in all blades, the levels required vary hugely depended on the intended scope of work.
-Cliff
