Do you guys have mistake knives?

Triought

Triought

Joined
Jul 18, 2014
Messages
129
I'm new to knife making so I know there will be some mistakes, and maybe I'm too picky, but it seems like I am my own worse enemy. I get a blade grinded down to almost what I have in my head, then I decide to touch it up and I end up messing up what was almost just right. It seems like I do that a lot and my box of mistakes is growing pretty fast. Just wondering if anyone else has that problem and the box of partial completed knives.
 
Some of my 'mistake' knives have ended up in my kitchen and have been in use for decades, others have been ground down and repurposed (yes that Bowie knife that ended up becoming a paring knife) and others that were less lucky that simply became scrapers. Given the cost of materials, and the number of times it has happened over the years it makes sense to do something with them other than tossing into the junk pile.
 
I just made a mistake knife yesterday (on my first knife lol). Its not a total waste as I am sure I can re-purpose it, its just not what I had in mind... at all.
 
Everyone has or will experince that. When it happens to me I think it is because I try to hurry the last little bit of work. When your knife ie almost finished, quit and go back to it later. For me it's easiser to be more objective about making any changes or refining something after working on something else for a while. Jess
 
One of the biggest original costs in knifemaking is belts, and steel, pretty much
no one is born with the inherent ability to grind blades without a lot of practice.
Ken.
 
As your skills continue to improve, some of the mistakes may be fixable. Like all the other guys, I've got a stack of messed up blades. Some end up shop knives, some end up in the kitchen, and sum just stay on the workbench forever. Every once in a while I'll look back through them and can make some design modification to make them decent again.
 
Oh yeah, the screw ups go back on the shelf and as your skills improve you go back to them and fix them. Or, once they're not really fixable you use them around the shop, keep them for yourself, break them etc.

I've found I always regret giving away a screw up, it's better to trash it.
 
Similar here. They end up at the cabin, in my kitchen, in the workshop, in the toolbox. I don't spend a lot if time getting a perfect fionish on my personal knives, but I need to rethink this,as people like to see examples of my work. It should be my best, not just functional.
 
Willie71 said:
Similar here. They end up at the cabin, in my kitchen, in the workshop, in the toolbox. I don't spend a lot if time getting a perfect fionish on my personal knives, but I need to rethink this,as people like to see examples of my work. It should be my best, not just functional.
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I think part of my biggest issue, is I see people on here with beautiful knives and I think to myself.. Okay I need to touch this up more and then I always seem to make it worse. I will say my grinding has improved tremendously over the last month, it just seems I'll almost get a knife completed and then I mess it up trying to get it just right.
 
I have found that for myself the most difficult part of knife making is the final 5% finishing touches. Like Triought said....you have everything almost perfect, you go to make it perfect, and shoot yourself in the foot! I have holy feet. I have gotten better....but one thing that drove me nutz was epoxy leeching out of the scales onto the ricasso (that HAD a perfect polish). Have ya'll ever tried to remove a tiny amount of epoxy from that area without scratching your finish? I've since gotten smart(er).....acetone and q tips.
 
Triought said:
I think part of my biggest issue, is I see people on here with beautiful knives and I think to myself..
Click to expand...

Someday. At least that is what I keep trying to say, my challenge at the moment is time management.
.
There are quite a few folks here who make this stuff look really hard once you try to mimic their skill.
 
Hey samuraistuart,
Try mixing a small amount of West System STRONG filler into the epoxy. I can't remember the Part Number but you can call Gougeon Bros. to get it. The way it works is the particles thicken the epoxy and they prevent over-compression of the joint, which would allow too much epoxy to squeeze out, leading to a epoxy starved joint.
Tim
 
I just threw four small 1095 blanks in the "scrap damascus" bucket because I ground them a bit too thin and they cupped during HT. Just didn't seem worth fixin'
 
More than one Bowie ended up as a camp knife, and more than one chefs blade ended up as a fillet knife. A good knifemaker makes mistakes into opportunities.
 
My friend's attempt at a hunting knife ended up being a boxcutter. :thumbup:
 
I ground a lock face on my first locking knife too high, after rethinking the " trashed" blade I made a nice slip joint out of it- I try to utilize scrap material for mock up or jigs/tooling.
 
I'll throw out some quotes that stuck in my head(even though I may not be quoting, verbatim.)

"I never make mistakes. I thought I had this one time... but turned out to be wrong."
"Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement."
"What's right is what's left after everything else is wrong."

I have buckets of failures. Every one has taught me something.
Rick
 
I have too many to count. Recently I have had good luck taking the blades down and making Oyster knives.
Being a good maker is not that you don't make mistakes. It's how well you can hide the ones you make.
 
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha......Um, I mean...yes. I have a couple of large jars filled with failures or designs waiting for revisions. ;)
 
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