First sale

[AVigil]

Woh! I have been looking at a Personalizer Plus. Now I need to do some more research between the units.

Get the Personalizer plus, it is a far better unit then the Etch o Matic. The etch o matic does not leave a deep etch

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

+1 for the personalizer plus.

 

[John L]

Well...this is a true story no matter the craziness of it all. I had gone to Blade for 3-4 years and bought handle materials and picked guys brains. 99% helped me all they could and vwere very, very giving of their knowledge. I had a grinder and several drill presses. I started making slipjoints right off. They were just terrible. I made a lot of them and threw a few out the window. I kept most in a big heavy plastic bag. I finally decided to to go to Blade and get a table. Put my plastic bag of knives on the table and left as fast as possible so I wouldn't have to show them to anyone. Well finally I got up the nerve to put them out. I just dumped them all in a big pile. 160 total. Had them priced at $75-200. I sold them in batches of 30, 25, 10, 5 and mostly singles. Really...one dealer bought 30. I sold out the second day except a couple really terrible ones. I gave those to kids walking by. I walked out of Blade with $20,000. I was just shocked. I still get people telling me they saw me dumping the whole bag on the table. Pretty funny now. I still do it the same way..... nah...not really. I tell this just to make other beginners make knives no matter what you think of them. Very few first ones aren't much good. Too much to learn and too many mistakes to make. I think I have made them all until I make one again. As Tony Bose says....."you need to have the want tos". Without the "want tos". You will not stick with it.

 

[JTknives]

I have done about 30 knives so far, and I still have no way to mark them. It just seems like an etching setup falls short on the priority list of tools I want/need.

Marking your knives is cheep. You don't need a fancy setup to etch. I use a PC power supply and 2 alagator clips. The stencils I get from TUS and thy are crazy cheep and last forever, got these stencles back in 2009. You can use salt water as you electrolyte and a Q-tip as the dobber in the alagator clip. I'm guessing you could be into the entire system for $20-$30. And most of that is the cost of the stencil set up. Thrift stores have junk computers for the power supply. It won't leave a black etch becaus it does not do AC but for my use I dont need it as I etch very deep on the Damascus befor thching the blade. Comes out looking like this. This was done with a PC power supply, salt water and a Q-Tip just a few days ago.

 

[Sprayman]

If I saw one of my knives for sale, I wouldn't buy it. That's how I know I'm not ready to sell yet. My blades are decent, and I enjoy making and using them, but I don't want to put my name and my work out there if I'm not satisfied with it. I give them to friends and family or throw them in a box, for now. Interestingly enough, I made a kiridashi for a buddy of mine, and he uses it all day, every day. He says people rave about it (I think he's exaggerating) and a couple of people want me to custom make knives to their design, but that sounds like more hassle than I want to get into right now.

 

[AVigil]

JTknives
How much salt to water for your solution?