Do custom knifemakers get better when they get older?

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Oct 20, 2000
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I was thinking of experience. Then I thought maybe not. Somehow in the whole scheme of things, skills do come in. Yes, experience features prominently.

If age is the crucial factor then the oldest chap must be the best.

Would I be correct in saying that the older knifemakers have a better feel for a good knife? It is something you know after countless hours of being in the workshop and the nights you spent grinding and shaping the various steels that have passed through your hands.
 
I don't know about better, but we take longer to finish one.You know,things like constantly putting on your reading glasses,trying to remember just where you put that piece of ironwood.Dave:D :D :D
 
I was trained as a theoretical physicist in my youth and spent some time with a Noble prize winner (in Physics) last night, so I can definitely state that as time goes to infinity the answer is a definite no. However, for very early times, knife making skills are constant (and zero).

Assuming positive knifemaking skills at larger times and there being no agreed to state of "negative" knife making skills (perhaps you could hand someone a Moran masterpiece and he turns it into paper clips? that would surely be negative knifemaking skills)........ skills must increase from zero to one or more maxima and eventually decline to zero. This decline could be gradual or abrupt.

Now, that was pretty useless.
 
Fracmeister, HUH? I know what you are saying, but I think your last comment covers things pretty well. ;)

At some point a knifemakers skills will start to deteriorate. It happens to all of us at one point or another. Some of the best work I have seen from some makers has happened into their 70's and even 80's. That gives the makers on this thread a few more years before they are over the hill. :p
 
We have many choices to make. We can make only one knife that never varies in nature and make a thousand of them a year, but still make only one knive. The alternative is to make the knife you love and nurture each and every one to higher levels of your notion of quality. Today I have more questions than answers and look forward to enjoying the journey.

It isn't the age it is the miles. More importantly the nature of the miles you travel.

"IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO HAVE A HAPPY CHILDHOOD"
 
Ed, that is a perfect way to look at things. I have always firmly believed that if I ever grew up I wanted someone to shoot me.


Edited because of typo.
 
Old makers lose their edge...and their tools, car keys, teeth...
(I'll have some of what Ed's on :p)
 
It isn't what I have been drinking, other than some great coffee, but that is another subject. It is what I read. Prinston University has published the Journals of Henery David Thoreau. Unedited and just as he wrote them. Everyone needs a friend who keeps his mind alive and positively oriented. I spend a few minutes with a man I call fiend, Henry David Thoreau, every day. "Nature is never but one year old, each day is a new beginning, an opportunity..."
 
...I told you that Ed could read!

Actually, as Ed 'matures', his skillfully made knives seem to just get better...but I'm thinking it's the lady in his life that's helping with the transformation... ;)

"Good on ya Ed" Keep growing buddy, but never grow up, and never grow old!

-S
 
Originally posted by Jim Richardson
So what is the future for those of us who aspire to becoming knifemakers once we are old and retire;)

That depends on how many of us who are already old and retired die before you get there... :)
 
Originally posted by Jerry Hossom


That depends on how many of us who are already old and retired die before you get there... :)

You only got a year on me so take out some more insurance:D
 
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