Do you ever wish you were not a knifemaker?

golok

golok

Joined
Oct 20, 2000
Messages
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This is a disturbing question to ask but my gut feeling tells me that at least one guy out there must have asked himself this question somewhere in the course of his chosen career.

It is probably not recorded anywhere that there have been a number (possibly a small one) of knifemakers who have actually left the trade and gone on to do something else, perhaps something more profitable.

Of course, it would be unreasonable to assume that knifemaking is something that brings happiness to all the "chosen ones".

Then perhaps there are those who left the trade and later return to it with greater zeal than before.

To those who have held steadfast to their jobs, and to those who have left only to return, I wish to salute them all and wish them a very big Merry Christmas.

Your brothers in steel are all out there rooting for you all. :D
 
I've have never thought twice about being a knifemaker. Not for longer than hour or so after I SCREWED something up :rolleyes:

I just wish that I could have been born WEALTHY instead of GOOD LOOKING :eek:

Happy Holidays!!

Neil
 
Its been so long now tha I can't remember being anything else and I wouldn't change a thing..
Bruce
 
Yes, regularly once a month, when I have to pay my credit card bills!
On the rest of the month, though, I am pretty happy with what I have chose to become and would have nothing to complain about it... even more so now with my new 400 pound anvil!
 
I often find myself wishing that I were a knifemaker. ;)

I think that everyone no matter what career they are in find themselves wishing that they had a different job at one time or another.

I am a LEO in my fulltime job. I have often wished that I weren't.
:(
 
Absolutely golok! I wish i could be independantly wealthy and just make knives for fun. Now that would be like having your cake and eating it too!!!

If you want to know the truth, making knives for a living has taken something away from the pure pleasure that I used to get from it when it wasn't earning my bread and butter. But then again, I don't want to do anyhting else so I'm kind of stuck if you see what I mean. It makes it so that I have a love/hate relationship with making knives. I love to make knives. But, I hate it that I HAVE to in order to live. See what I mean? Yes, I love being a knifemaker. But when it stops being fun and is just a JOB, that's where the inspiration leaves and the grind takes over. Sometimes I go into a funk and just can't make knives to save my life. I think all knifemakers go through that. Or, maybe I'm just a weirdo. Knifemakers block is what I call it. But that's a whole nuther story...........

So yes, and no. If you see what I mean.
 
I didn't know until last week what it felt like to be a full-time maker. From the very beginning, knifemaking was just a serious hobby for me. Last week my 28+ year career ended -- 18 months shy of being pension eligible. Neat Christmas present huh?

Anyway, through some miracle (possibly divine intervention?) in my last days on the job I got five orders. The clincher was they were all Christmas presents that needed to be finished by today. I told each person that I would do my very best to complete the jobs because I'd love to have the money for Christmas, but I had never tried pulling anything like this off before.

I'm not a speed demon. I do a lot of work by hand. The only way to have a chance of meeting the deadline was to pretty much just work straight through and take little cat naps along the way. That's what I did. The first day was spent forging, normalizing and annealing the blades. That night I actually got some sleep. But for the next several days I worked solid, and just napped between the things that didn't require me to be actively working. Things like drawing the temper. I just set the alarm to wake me up when it was time to remove the blades and let them cool before the next two hour cycle. Same thing when waiting for the bonding agent, and then the hardening oil to cure, etc.

When I went to bed this morning at 4:00am, I thought, "What the heck am I doing"? I was completely exhausted. I looked bad, and I felt like warmed over death. That was when I started thinking that I'd made a mistake even considering doing this for a living.

But today, after a hot shower, and some good chow, I realized, "Hey, I actually did it!" There were the knives, sheaths, and pouches piled up on the table ready to go. And when the folks started coming by and plopping payment down on the table with big grins on their faces, I started feeling like it was all worth it. One fellow even gave me $100 more than the quoted price. I tried to wave it off, but he said it was worth it and insisted.

In about an hour the last "Christmas order" customer should be here to pick up his order, and you know what? I'm glad I'm a knifemaker.
 
If you could have seen the past 24 hours here at my house, I'm sure you would agree. This morning I had three knife blanks heat treated and ready to finish and three sets of handle material glued up with spacers, ready to go on them. It's now past 12:30AM, and my last customer just left with the LAST knife, after several MUCH needed BREWSKIES :) They ALL needed Kydex sheaths by the way, one got TWO!!

I have two more knives to finish over the next week or so, not for orders, just to put up on the website. I plan on doing some serious FL. Bass fishing and getting into the holiday spirit with the kids. I'm not going to THINK about knives until NEXT weekend at the earliest :)

I wish you all the best with full time knifemaking. I was sort of "thrown" into full time status much the same way you were :rolleyes:

I'm SHOT and headed for bed :(

Neil
 
This is an interesting thread. To grind is to ....
I look at it as a hobby and a journey that I hope will lead to full time in 8.5 years. If it stops being fun, most of the time, I have a line wanting to buy a used press, forge, and grinder. At any rate, I will probably continue blacksmithing and occasional blade making until my arms fall off....Ken
 
As some of you know, I am a school teacher by day and a knife maker by (all the rest of the time) night. I started in 89' and have been blessed with some of the most wonderful friends of the knife making and using community. To say that I would even think of changing my way of life, would be a serious lapse of intellegence.
Knife making envolves everything that I like to do; steel, wood, fire, using natural materials, making something useful (that will outlast my lifetime), visiting, teaching, friendship, sharing, etc.
I guess you are getting to know how I feel about it.
For those that have to do it for a living, if you enjoy it and can make it financially, that is great. The more you learn and the more you become known, the easier it is to keep busy. If you don't have any orders and you are running out of ideas for knives, clean the shop, build a piece of equipment, service and repair what you are using, talk to a friend about knives, visit, read a book on something you want to learn. To me knife making is a lifestyle and not just about making a knife.
To those who frequent the Bladeforums, you will soon see that the exchange of ideas, is the root of the success of anything that grows and becomes a quality item.
Didn't mean to ramble and I don't ever mean to leave the knife making field. Too many friends.
Ray Kirk dba Raker Knives
 
WOW!!! the one COMMON THREAD that seems to be the CONSTANT with you great Makers is: that you all wish you could JUST MAKE KNIVES, but NOT do so as a LIVING!!!!
That is a sign of someone who LOVES what he/she is doing, would do it for FREE if they could, but sadly realizes that they must still make their rent and pay to put bread on the table.
I am planning to vist MAX in February to learn EXACTLY what a knife-Maker's shop looks like. I have never even seen the insides of a machine shop [except at night with a streamlight in one hand and a gat in the other]so, I remain in AWE at the work YOU ALL do.
This from a guy who cannot hammer a nail straight, and ends up in an EMERGENCY ROOM everytime I touch a power tool!!
Max, keep an ambulance close by, and a cooler FULL OF ICE;) :D :) wolf
 
Wolf, based on that description you have all the skills needed to makes knives at least as well as I do. I'm a mechanical dummy, and the ER people recognize me now as soon as I walk in. It's how I keep my tetanus shot current! :)

About 3 years ago, I thought I was going to have to stop making knives and get a real job. It was one of the most depressing periods of my life. In knifemaking you always feel your best work lies ahead and the thought of not ever knowing what that will be is hard to contemplate. I still have months that get pretty iffy, and other times when I'm making knives to fill orders that are not what I'd like to be building, but in the end I just can't imagine doing anything else.

Well there are times when the association with a certain Hawaiian knifemaker make me wonder if I'm hanging out with a bad crowd. Then I look around at the others there, and know I am! :p :D
 
Originally posted by Jerry Hossom


Well there are times when the association with a certain Hawaiian knifemaker make me wonder if I'm hanging out with a bad crowd. Then I look around at the others there, and know I am! :p :D
Click to expand...

Jerry - would this "certain Hawaiian knifemaker" have extravagant tastes for smokes, libation, and time keeping pieces?? Or the one who hangs out with Segal and Aerosmith?? :D
 
BUT SERIOUSLY, my ability to make things with my hands is ZERO. I am certain I could be taught, with lots of time, to make a knife. But I lack the type of imagination, creativity,and the patience it takes when working in microns.
Some people do some things extremely well. My talents are NOT and will never be in making a knife. Heck, I am just getting the knack of sharpening down pat, and have been thru an entire show box of Yard sale knives to finally feel comfortable.
AND the ER thing. I am soooo accident prone, a Doctor Friend of mine, taught me the art of suturing, gave me Lidocaine for the easy one, and Marcaine for the GOOD ones, and several types and sizes of suture material. He then made me a Power-point presentation on how to close a laceration from a knife. My FINEST to date have been a "Carson gash-er" and a Dalton "Bone-dinger" The Dalton one was pure I-R-A. The knife was Lanning's Scorpion. I knew EXACTLY how it opened, but felt the desire to "fire" it while my thumb covered the "front". YUP, shot that blade with the wrong side sharpened right into my thumb, going "ding" on the bone. No pain AT FIRST, but I could not get Lidocaine into my thumb FAST ENOUGH.
So, I shall leave Knife-Making to YOU, and your superb counterparts. As for Tom, the "Holy Man" from an Island somewhere in the Pacific [near Gilligan's maybe]. HE has yet to answe any of my posts with a remark, but he sure does know how to use TNT, and that makes him "my kinda guy". I even heard he likes Budwieser. I JUST might have to keep heading WEST after my visit with MAX, my ICU stay, and then have an air-ambulance fly me to Tom's shop to help him make a knife and maybe amputate an elbow or two:eek: :eek: :eek: ....Ira
AND, how is that GEORGEOUS daughter of yours?:)
 
I made knives for a couple of years back in the 70's and have never regreted giving it up.I found it to be tedious,noisy, dirty and after a while just not fun.Knifemakers are a breed I truly admire for they are as skilled as any artist and in my opinion are grossly underpaid by comparison.If they were paid what they were worth the rest of us user/collectors would not have nearly as many knives as we do.
 
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