Drawing the line

Ill admit to feeling a little hinkey about it.But he is selling a quality product and they arent cheap.He's been a knife man,collector, buyer,seller for a long time and has learned what people want.Im not inclined to be his judge ,pastor,or knife policy policeman.Also,the blades i grind are sent out for HT.And i hate leather work.I buy sheaths also.Unless you dig up dirt and cook the iron out of to make your knife,your doing some of the same.At $50. a pop it's not exactly a cash cow either,but it sure has come in handy and it's what i enjoy doing.If anybody is offended by it,im sorry,but it's likely more your problem than mine.
 
Seals said:
Im not inclined to be his judge
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:thumbup:

If nobody is being misled and are being offered fair value for their money, I don't see a problem with it.

I have a knife that says Buck, but turn's out that Mr. Buck never laid a finger on it. Meh.
 
tryppyr said:
If someone else chooses to lie to customers, cheat them, and sell crap merchandise, you should rejoice. That just means the customer base for your superior product will grow when they become dissatisfied with the lesser goods. - Greg
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I understand the point you are making Greg - but I also understand why it upsets people. The moicker of "Knifemaker" carries deep pride for many of us - and to see someone dishonour the craft, should cause us concern.

I don't think Kelly was objecting to "crap". I think he was objecting to dishonesty or to unproven claims.

I have to agree with him on the dishonesty part, but the unproven part only requires proving for an intended purpose. For example, Thunderforge Damascus - or any Damascus containing pure nickle - will not Rockwell very high on a nickel line. That doesn't make all Damascus with nickel "junk". It's right for it's intended purpose.

When you add to his experience the delamination, and softness, it could also very well be just poor HT.

By the way, I have some of that cheap offshore damascus - and I sell it as exactly that - bolsters/guards - or practice for pretty wallhangers. Some guys get real upset when they learn about scratches, fingerprints, delamination and such on billets that cost them $30 an inch.

I think as long as the honesty is there, there is a place for all of it. :)

Rob!
 
Think I'm going to have to disagree with tryppyr. People are stupid and people are quick to judge. Is it unfair for them to lump all knifemakers together, yes, do they do it anyways, of course. Do most people know what a sharp knife really is? Not at all, and even fewer know how well any individual blade holds it's edge. Can't know how well a blade keeps an edge if you don't know what a good edge is in the first place. These are all things we take for common knowledge, when in reality it's actually rare to find someone who understands any of it.

What these scammers do is take advantage of someone else's ignorance. The customers, in their ignorance, don't realize that the knife they bought is crap, and may never know. For all they know, all hand made knives are just as bad as the one they bought which is just as bad as a factory made one (or worse), only they cost much more. They'll all go say to their hunting buddies "Oh you're thinking about buying a hand made knife? Don't bother, they're all hype, not any better than a factory blade." Sorry, but that hurts the knifemaking community as a whole, not just an individual's reputation.
 
Destraal,

It's unhealthy to assume customers are stupid just because they don't know the insides of the business the way you do. By that measure we are stupid because we don't know what goes into their buying decisions. Best not to hurl invectives (especially at those whose money funds your livelihood), lest it get hurled back at you.

But then again, I've noticed that many knifemakers don't take the time to understand good business practices. They see themselves as craftsmen first, and businessmen somewhere in the distant last ranks. If that's your deal, go forth and create the great knives that you can't sell, and blame your lack of success on the scammers and thieves, for it surely can't be your fault, since you are such a renowned craftsman. That should be enough... right?

Was it ever?

- Greg
 
Tryppyr,
Admittedly saying people are stupid doesn't truly say what I mean to express, but it seems like a more common phrase than "All people are ignorant about 99% of things." I'm no exception to that, nor are any of you, but that 1% includes knives for me. Yes, we're ignorant as to their buying reasons, but we aren't ignorant as to the quality of knives we're putting out, whereas the customer is usually ignorant when it comes to quality (both spotting it and knowing what it is). As a result, I assume people are ignorant until proven otherwise, meaning I'll explain details about knives, the process, and everything involved unless they indicate that they understand the material.

I don't think anyone here is blaming their lack of sales on customers being turned away by scammer knives. Sure, these people of loose morals do turn some away from hand made knives, but usually if a maker isn't selling many blades, that's one of a thousand reasons they aren't able to sell.

Also, I don't make my living selling knives and don't ever intend to. I'm a college student, I don't make much of a living doing anything yet. I make knives as a hobby and have never had a lack of people willing to buy my blades, I just don't make them fast enough. Does the issue really affect me? No it doesn't, but that doesn't mean I don't have an opinion on the matter.
 
Greg, I have to also disagree with you, although I think i understand what you are saying. You are new to knife making, and I don't know how much retail experience you have, but the knife selling community has had a bad time over the past 10 years or so from these type of dealers.

I do agree that customers are not blatantly stupid. To use better semantics in the discussion, the word "stupid" should be changed to "uninformed". Uninformed people do all sorts of things that they would not do if they knew what the results will be. This would explain many unwanted teen pregnancies....as well as some marriages.

As to whether a bad person and his actions can create problems and distrust in good people, look no farther than the way the Japanese Americans were treated during WWII, or how a couple of billion good Islamic people are being affected because of a couple thousand extremists.

Now, I know those are sort of extreme examples, but often when people get burned on a product,or hears of others getting burned, they wrongly assume that all people in that trade/craft are the same. These people will be the new customers you wish to attract.

A good example are jewelers - people come in to my store ( and many other reputable stores) all the time and point blank ask, "How do I know you won't switch my diamond". Now the fact that I am a well known and reputable jeweler, or that I have been in business for 35+ years, or that the store they are in has been open for 25 years does not stop them from asking this question...... based on a TV show ( which was fake) or a FOAF story they heard. It is not the customers you already have that are affected by this sort of thing, it is the ones you wish to attract.
If the only customers a knifemaker had were the ones he had already sold a knife to, he would sell very few knives after a while ( as most don't buy more than one or two knives).

At a knife show, the buyers will mostly be unknown to you. Likewise, most of the makers on this forum don't have instant name recognition to the buying public. And sadly, many who buy damascus have absolutely no idea what it is or how it is made. If Dealer X is selling nice looking damascus hunters for $100 and dealer Z is selling similar looking knives for $300, they often buy dealer X's knife. Things get worse when dealer X tells a big Hype package of BS about how hard it is for him to make the knives, and how great he is. Dealer Z states that he has been making knives for a few years now, he buys Alabama damascus, and does stock reduction construction. X is wearing a beaded Buckskinner's outfit, has a big banner over his table, and has 50 knives on the table ( displayed on a bear skin). Z is in jeans and a T-shirt and has six knives.....which dealer will the uninformed customer believe? Quality and workmanship will not be the deciding factor if dealer X is not telling the truth.
And, YES, it will affect dealer Z. First, he will lose a potential sale to an inferior product. Second, next year when the customer comes back to the show, he may look at Z's damascus knives and say, " I had one of those, and they are no good. Went dull before I had finished skinning one deer."

I do not wish to start up the recurrent damascus vs mono-steel debate, but to go one step farther with this rant, about 10-12 years ago, the predominant rumor was that damascus did not hold an edge and/or wouldn't get sharp. Many well known knifemakers would state in a conversation that the layers would cause an inferior serrated edge, or that any amount of nickel would make the blade useless as a cutting tool. This opinion was the result of many people not knowing how to make good damascus at that point in time. As time went on the "secret" of making damascus became well known ( largely through fourms like this one, and the efforts of organizations like the ABS). Today, most smiths of moderate ability can make a damascus billet and forge a knife that will take a hair shaving edge. It took the public and even the knife community a good while to get over all the bad press damascus got. I think it came from two sources. One was poor damascus from many makers ( wrong steel choices, poor HT, and poor technique)....the other was bad mouthing from makers who did not make damascus. If you sell plain steel blades, and tell people that they are superior to damascus, it can take a long time for the word to get out that damascus is not just fantasy knife steel.
 
Rob and Stacey thanks for trying to set things straight. Greg I dissagree with you and Destral is pretty much bang on. When I was younger I sold door to door Vaccume cleaners and in the year and a half that I did it part time recieved saleman of the year once. I even sold a vaccum to a women with hardwood floors go figure. The vaccum is a great product but I never once lied to anyone and if they had a good vacumm I would tell them so. One thing that wins people over more than anything is honesty. I never sell a knife with out making sure I tell every person what I did to make it. When I see liars selling scrap yard damaascus and saying its the best it makes me mad because I know its hurting future sales by honest makers. It just like buying a used car ,would you buy a car off of HONEST SAMS CAR SALE s or would you trust your uncle and buy his car . I will agree that most makers arnt very good at selling but as time goes on word of mouth is a huge selling tool that goes a long way. I went to another show 4 months ago and a dealer was selling knives so I asked him WHAT TYPE OF STEEL ARE THEY SIR? His reply was A GOOD CARBON STEEL. I went one step further and said well there are so many types of steel dont you know ? He got mad and replied they are a good high carbon steel. I am not one to stop I told him his knives look very nice and how did you dye the sheath like that he said I dont make the sheaths my friend does that . By this time he knew I wasnt buying and no one was there at the table but me and he said how do you know so much and I said I make knives too. He then was offended and said well I teach knife making and I said oh . So I busted up his gig and he didnt like it but OH well he ended up walking away from his table until I was gone . He wouldnt talk to me and if he did was in a way you could sence that he was say ing get lost. These types of people that arnt honest to come forward and explain how the knife came to be the way it is should really find another hobby or source of income.
 
I've been thinking about what you all are saying, and I'll pass along some of those thoughts.

I'll assume that occasionally you all eat out at restaurants from time to time. I'd even wager that occasionally you go out to someplace special to celebrate a special occasion. Maybe, if you're a little adventurous, you'll go someplace where the food is pretty fancy. I'll bet you don't understand everything on the menu, but by some means you make the choice of what to buy and place your order. It's quite likely that the staff of the restaurant knows a great deal more about the food they serve than you do. In fact, I think it's safe to say they might well have reason to suggest you had made uninformed choices when you ordered.

If the waiter knew more than you and treated you like the uninformed rube he thought you to be, how would that make you feel? Would you be inclined to return to that restaurant on a special occasion? Perhaps the chef came out and asked why you ordered the steak instead of the lamb. The lamb was freshly butchered and was superb, but you instead picked a piece of meat that was two days old. Never mind that the lamb is twice as expensive. Never mind that you don't like lamb... it's clearly the superior meal. How would you feel about being made to feel your choice was stupid?

I work in the computer industry, and we face exactly the same competitive pressures as every other mature industry, including knifemaking. We face those pressures on a larger scale. I can tell you that there are very few of you who could hold a candle to what I know about the inner workings of this industry. But I'd offer each and every one of you the highest degree of respect for any computer choices you make, because I know it doesn't matter that you don't have a clue how the industry works. What matters is how YOU choose to get YOUR work done. And if as a result of the choices I make you choose to do your work on computers my company makes, then I've done something right. If you make the choice to work with someone else's computers, then I respect that choice and try to learn from it.

I realize some of you put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into this business, and I respect that. I'll tell you straight up, though, it doesn't make you any different from anyone serving any industry. Your customers deserve your respect, because they are uninformed (and still have to make decisions).

You can choose to be like the snooty waiter or the know-it-all chef and treat your customers like rubes. Or you can choose to respect them, and find ways to make what they want and need. These are your choices. If being informed is important to you, let me advise that you be informed about your customers.

- Greg
 
To take the resaurant analogy one step further; you go into a new restaurant and order a meal you've never had before, having been told by the waiter that it was the best in town. When it comes out, it isn't tasty and the quality is bad even though it looks nice on the plate. Would you order this meal again at another resaurant? You probably wouldn't at that one but you may at another. However, if you again find that the meal is the same, would you assume that it is just your taste that is off or that all meals made like this are no good. Would you also tell your friends about this meal and the resaturant you bought it at?
 
Boy oh boy. Where did the snooty waiter thing come from? I doubt strongly that anyone posting in this thread would treat a potential customer that way.

Kelly mentioned asking a seller what kind of steel he used, and couldn't get a straight answer. DING DING DING the BS meter goes off like a fire-alarm. Kelly knows more than enough to ask such questions, and can make a wise decision if he gets an honest answer. Many if not most knife customers DON'T, and may well end up with a poor knife. And yes, that hurts the knife community as a whole.

Of course the level of information has increased dramatically in the last decade or two, and it may well be that a lot of show-goers at Blade know as much or more about steel than many makers 30 years ago.

But what about the guy at a gun show or leafing through Field & Stream? Chances are he doesn't know or really care much about steel, or what questions to ask other than "how easily does it rust?" and "how long will it hold an edge?"

It doesn't mean he's stupid. But a brief explanation by an honest and well-informed maker might very well peak his interest in the best, even if he doesn't purchase that day.
A load of hooey will likely turn him off the whole subject and generate bad-mouthing of the whole field of hand-made knives, as others said.

Case in point... A very outgoing fellow once tried to sell me a damascus (I use the word very loosely here) knife with daylight under the scales and big chunks missing from the edge. He bragged that he'd sold the same knife no less than 4 times. :rolleyes: That taints the whole industry, and back in the days of guilds he'd have been run out of town on a rail.

I guess it's pretty clear which side of the "line" I'm on.

*rant off*
 
tattooedfreak said:
To take the resaurant analogy one step further; you go into a new restaurant and order a meal you've never had before, having been told by the waiter that it was the best in town. When it comes out, it isn't tasty and the quality is bad even though it looks nice on the plate. Would you order this meal again at another resaurant? You probably wouldn't at that one but you may at another. However, if you again find that the meal is the same, would you assume that it is just your taste that is off or that all meals made like this are no good. Would you also tell your friends about this meal and the resaturant you bought it at?
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Ah, I think you're onto something here. The subject of taste.

It's pretty safe to say we don't all share a common taste. Perhaps the dish the waiter recommended WAS the best of its type, and your uninformed palatte just didn't appreciate it. Does that mean the dish was bad? No, it just wasn't suited to the customer.

Likewise, customers of knives have different tastes too. The more you understand about their tastes, the better equipped you are to sell what they want.

To over-simplify, assume there are three types of customers... those that appreciate one-off custom product, those that want high end production product, and those that want something sharp, pretty and cheap. Do you have product for all three customer types?

Let's assume you focus on the one-off full-on custom knives. Within that band customers want a range of products... from gaudy and extravagent to simple and elegant. Do you have product that covers that gamut?

Assuming you don't have product to cover all three product categories and the wide variety of detailing in each category, how do you address customer demand?

One thing to bear in mind, customers usually don't care how hard it is to make something of high quality. If you're trying to sell your work focus less on how difficult it was, and focus more on WHY you invested that energy and effort. What benefit will THEY enjoy because of your additional labors?

Look, all I'm saying is think of the customer, respect the customer, and do what you can to understand them rather than assuming they need to understand you and your problems.

- Greg
 
I feel like what I said is being taken out of context. There's a huge difference between assuming people are ignorant and treating them like idiots. Assuming people are ignorant means you can give helpful suggestions so as to help them figure out what they want, it doesn't mean you should browbeat them into seeing your way. Assuming that people know as much as you know will result in customers ending up with an unsatisfactory product more often than assuming they're ignorant. So in a way, assuming they're ignorant is the best thing you can do for a prospective customer.

An example of a similar situation is when you assume someone is ignorant about how to use a power tool, like a buffer. If you assume they know everything about it, then the worst that could happen is that the buffer could end up slinging a blade through their chest, whereas you greatly reduce that risk if you take the 5 minutes to explain how the tool works and how to use it properly.

Comparing the purchase of a long term use item like a knife to a disposable food is hardly a fair comparison. Just about everyone eats food each day, so most of them know what they like to eat and how they like it cooked by the time they can afford to pay for meals. Your average person doesn't buy many knives on a daily basis.

I assume you've been to a restaurant before, and surely there have been times when a server has said "I would recommend the..." That's not the server treating you like an idiot, but he/she is making a suggestion in case you don't know enough to make a good decision. Also, unless you visit restaurants by yourself, whoever you are with can tell you whether or not their meal was good, so one meal may not poison you against ever going to the restaurant again.

There's obviously a place for taste and personal preference, but there are measures of quality that are universal. Some of these include: lack of gaps between scales and tang, proper heat treatment (there's a range of reasonable hardnesses, but also a range of unreasonable hardnesses), using known steel, even grinds, etc.

It's in these respects that people are being dishonest, not in the personal preference side of things. Not even sure how you would be dishonest to someone about his/her personal preferences. I don't think anyone is complaining that people make different kinds of knives (at least not in this thread), they're complaining that people make low quality knives that give knifemakers a bad name.
 
I believe that the ultimate danger and damage caused by "knife makers" (using that term loosely) who produce (or peddle) inferior knives with fradulent tales of quality exists solely because of a very large number of customers being uninformed. While some customers may purchase an inferior knife and learn that its quality is lacking and purchase one from a more reputable maker, most will not, especially if that is their first venture into the realm of the custom hand made knife.

For those customers who have no experience with hand crafted knives, going out and purchasing a knife from one of the frauds deals a great deal of damage to those who do things right. If your first and only experience with something is a bad one, what are the chances that you will go back and try the "same thing" again?

While the good quality maker is in reality much different than the fraud, there is already a negative preception in the customer's mind towards "hand made" knives. Only having the bad experience, the uninformed customer will not likely give hand made knives another chance, since there was no positive experience associated with that area of "knives" in their mind. Customers who have some information and experience with quality knives would quickly recognize that not all "hand made" knives are like that, and that particular individual/company/seller is producing/selling inferior products. In that case business is lost to those peddling crap, and gained by those who produce quality blades. So with informed customers, its not really a problem, but it is with those customers who recieve their first experience with "hand made" knives that is so damaging.

As has been mentioned, knife makers constantly need a new customer basis to stay afloat. The average knife buyer won't buy more than a handful of knives from a maker/s in their lifetime and if they are quality blades, its doubtful that they would need replacing anytime soon ;) . So there is a need for new blood to enter into the customer basis, and this comes in the form of uninformed potential customers. Being uninformed, most new customers wouldn't understand why a quality blade would cost 2, 3, 4, etc. times more than a factory knife and instead probably choose to take the less "risky" route and go with a less expensive "custom" knife for their first step, which is where the frauds usually set up market. Then with the negative word of mouth and "stereotyping" that usually results, many potential customers can be lost.

Its easy to try to relate buying a knife to going to a restraunt, however there is a great deal more complexity to knife buying than attending a restraunt. Restraunts and the idea of restraunts are very common in todays culture, there is lots of "information" and opinions about restraunts for people to base decisions off of. If an otherwise "uninformed" customer goes to a restraunt for the first time and has a bad experience there, it is likely they won't go back to that restraunt, and would probably relate their poor experience to others considering going to that restraunt, however that doesn't mean they wouldn't try another restraunt somewhere else in the future. Restraunts are also less of a financial risk than purchasing a knife. A meal at a restraunt is generally much cheaper and more affordable to most than a quality custom knife, that means with less risk, more people are willing to try other restraunts if they have a bad experience at one, than they would be to go spend another couple hundred dollars + on a different "hand made" knife from a different maker.

With knifemaking, things aren't as main stream, and its extremly difficult for makers to differentiate themselves from other makers. Since the vast majority of people have very little idea what a hand made knife is (there are a lot of people that would be very supprised to learn that there are still people who make knives by hand), and without a lot of other opinions and information available (or cultural commonality), most "new" customers create easier to understand "groups" in their minds, mainly "factory knives" vs. "hand made knives." That immediately takes whatever experience a new customer has regarding a custom knife (be it good or bad) and in the back of their mind applies it to the whole general category. While their experince is probably fairly unique to that particular maker, without additional understanding about how knives are made, information about makers, quality, etc. the customer has no way of actually knowing what is out there. People can only compare things against their own experiences or make pre-concieved opinions based on what they hear from others close to them. Hence, if one new customer has a bad experience with "hand made knives" from one of the junk dealers, there is an extermly good chance that they won't be back for any more of those "hand made knives" and they will probably tell their friends about that, who will tell their friends, etc. and pretty soon a lot of damage is done to those who don't deserve to be grouped with the frauds and inferior knife makers/dealers/sellers. Its extremly difficult to overcome a negative perception like that (its basically stereotyping).

Anyway, thought I'd throw in my long winded opinion on the matter :p
 
Well, this has probably gone as far as it needs to...so if there is no other informative addition, I suggest that it be allowed to fade away.
 
Stacy,

I have one more thing to add. The guy selling junk and passing it off as a custom hand made knife is taking a piggy back ride on your reputation. That can never be considered OK.

Greg
 
bladsmth said:
Well, this has probably gone as far as it needs to...so if there is no other informative addition, I suggest that it be allowed to fade away.
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Agreed. I'd already decided that yesterday. I apologize if I ruffled any feathers.

- Greg
 
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