Full-time makers, what hours are you working?

D

Don Nguyen

Joined
Oct 4, 2011
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I'm curious what kind of schedule you guys are running!

Also, miscellaneous management details are nice too! Things like how you organize your week, how much time to allocate for what, etc.
 
mon- friday all hours
sadly if i get 4-6 hours in the shop i call it a good day. email forums management and other time sappers kill alot of the rest of the day
 
6-7 days a week, 10-12 hour days, I like to spend at least 8 hours in the shop 6 days a week and the rest of my time on emails, pics, mailing and design.

I love my job and could not do it otherwise! :D Sometimes I try to take time off and it is hard as I have so much I want to do.
 
butcher_block said:
mon- friday all hours
sadly if i get 4-6 hours in the shop i call it a good day. email forums management and other time sappers kill alot of the rest of the day
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Butch you seem to make knives in a decent quality too; how do you manage that with just 4-6 hours? I find that I don't even get that much done in that amount of time.

carbonsteel928 said:
My work hours run from 1900 to 0300ish. Not all knifemaking time as other projects demand attention.
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Late hours! Are you naturally a night owl? I'm actually curious if many other makers do work late into the night/morning.

Daniel Fairly Knives said:
6-7 days a week, 10-12 hour days, I like to spend at least 8 hours in the shop 6 days a week and the rest of my time on emails, pics, mailing and design.

I love my job and could not do it otherwise! :D Sometimes I try to take time off and it is hard as I have so much I want to do.
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Dang, Daniel. Does it get difficult not to get burned out? That's one of the big things people talk about to new craftsmen is that you can easily start to hate what you do if you end up forcing yourself. How do you battle this?
 
Night owl... not really, just don't sleep much and here in Texas the heat is unbearable during the day time.
 
Don,
My breakdown is about three in the shop making knives. 8-11:30 then about 45 minutes for lunch. Two hours to do emails and order supplies & pay some bills. Two hours for sharpening work and working with my customers.

I use to work more,I would go back to the grind after having dinner with my wife. But I've got a bulged disc in my neck and if I work too hard at my grinder on my chops and other large culinary blades it flairs and gives me all kinds of problems.

Those breakdowns can get all mixed as I sometimes have to do a quick sharpening job in the morning or call back east to get some steel etc. And I always make some time to play with my ATTACK dog and give him and me a little walk.
Life is good! DSCN1286.jpg
 
Don Nguyen said:
Dang, Daniel. Does it get difficult not to get burned out? That's one of the big things people talk about to new craftsmen is that you can easily start to hate what you do if you end up forcing yourself. How do you battle this?
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Don, I hope Daniel doesn't mind me saying this, but have you watched Daniels videos? Dude is clearly having a good time! ;)

I'm not a knife maker, but if I ever get lucky enough to bend leather full time I plan to have a very clean, very organized, very well lit shop with a seriously rockin stereo system. Night hours? It would be the first time in my life where I'd love that.

Looking forward to others replies!
 
Strigamort said:
Don, I hope Daniel doesn't mind me saying this, but have you watched Daniels videos? Dude is clearly having a good time! ;)
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He clearly is! Still though, up to 12 hours a day for most people is a very challenging thing. I don't want to burn myself out or start to hate knives, so learning how Daniel does the magic should be really helpful :)
 
During the summer I'm a full time maker (no school, gotta make some money), I spend between five and nine hours in the shop, four to six days a week, all depending on what orders I'm working on, if I'm doing odd jobs, and how much house work the better half has tasked me with. But knives are only a recent and small part of my work, and I'll spend about three hours on one project before I get bored, frustrated, or stiff in the neck and do something else for a while. I try very hard to only make one supply run each week, and set aside two days (mon and thur) to catch up on email and phone calls.
 
Don Nguyen said:
He clearly is! Still though, up to 12 hours a day for most people is a very challenging thing. I don't want to burn myself out or start to hate knives, so learning how Daniel does the magic should be really helpful :)
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Keep in mind if you have some sort of factory job, nursing, other things twelve hour shifts are normal, plus maybe a couple hours plus of commute per day.

If you work at home that commute time can be work time.




Everybody has a time hole, shipping, driving to town, email, customer communication, forum time

Those are the things you have to manage.
 
12345678910 said:
Keep in mind if you have some sort of factory job, nursing, other things twelve hour shifts are normal, plus maybe a couple hours plus of commute per day.

If you work at home that commute time can be work time.




Everybody has a time hole, shipping, driving to town, email, customer communication, forum time

Those are the things you have to manage.
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:thumbup: :D
 
I just started but if I go into the shop... I'am not avaible for rest of world for about 8-10h.
Monday - Friday.
 
Harvey Dean told me one time that the best investment he made for his shop was a riding lawn mower. It cut his grass cutting time from 4 hours down to 1 hour, and gained him three more hours per week in the shop :)
 
working smart and in batches is the best way also not messing around with half used belts. my best work hours of the day are 1030-5 some times i get 2 hours after dinner. i used to work all week but my better half likes to see me now and then :) and on the weeks we have the kids (over the summer) that can kill off a few hours in my "prime " work time. they are growing up fast tho so i can be a bit less watchful of them during the day
 
Don Nguyen said:
Dang, Daniel. Does it get difficult not to get burned out? That's one of the big things people talk about to new craftsmen is that you can easily start to hate what you do if you end up forcing yourself. How do you battle this?
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I really like my job!

I am driven to be a full time knifemaker, every day I look forward to working on new designs or perfecting current ones. Being self employed also takes a lot of discipline and sometimes I just make myself go out there and grind. A friend who is self employed as a lampworker told me he needed to put in 4 solid hours a day during the weekdays and sell on weekends... I tried to follow his advice at first and now like to work much more than that.

I find mixing things up is key, I am always looking forward to a new project. If I grind all day one day I try to do something completely different the next.

I would only work the hours that you feel good about, don't push yourself too hard and burn out! Sometimes I have to take a few days off from emails or the forums but usually get carried away in the shop on those days too! :D
 
Keep in mind that I have a seperate facility and 6 people (including me) to manage. We turn out 40 - 43 knives a week right now. My alarm is set for 4:23 am every weekday. I get to the shop by 4:45 and try to start grinding by 5 - 5:15. I usually leave at 5pm. But somedays when the goals aren't met, or I have to spend time managing folks or teaching an apprentice I stick around till around 9 or 10 pm even. The main thing for me is that at the end of each day, every goal has to have been met.

Monday - Put edges on last weeks knives, finish grind and glue prep a tray heat treated blades, and shape a tray of handles.
Tuesday - Sharpen the knives, finish grind and glue prep a tray heat treated blades, and shape a tray of handles.
Wednesday - Put initial grinds on 50 blanks (Adam has begun helping with this), and shape a tray of handles.
Thursday - Grind the last two belts (A100 and A45) on the weeks knives (40 - 43 knives).
Friday - Finish and glue prep a tray of heat treated blades, taper the tangs on 17 pre heat treat blanks, put up a Fiddleback Friday thread and sell the knives (Ken helps with this nowadays and I get to go home a bit early on Fridays, Woo hoo!).

I do not work weekends if I can avoid it.

The problem with the above schedule is that if I miss any one day, we can't manage to create the revenue to run the business. So I don't get time off. I have worked through the flu, colds, and injuries since I started making knives. Also, on Thursdays if my grinding isn't good that day I have no choice but to swallow it and work through it. There is no possibility for finishing the week if I walk away from any step.

During the week, I hand off all of the profiling, drilling, glueup prep, handle scale layering, a lot of the management, shipping, photography, and nowadays I get usually get Ken to handle the Fiddleback Friday posting.

Last year we went from making 18 a week with two of us to 43 a week by years end with 6 people. The deal when I hired Ken (VP and expensive) was that we jump from 18 to 30. The pressure to sell these was my responsibbility. Thankfully, I have had good luck selling the knives and we are selling out each week still to this day.

Recently, I've had insomnia, and when I'm not asleep by 11:30, I just give up and come in to work. 4 hours of sleep doesn't help anyway and I feel awful the next day. If I start at midnight, I can finish everything by noon, before it gets hot, and go home for a nap. I find I'm less weary and cranky that way. It sucks to have a seperate facility when you want to work at night though. I miss that convenience.
 
Also keep in mind that I failed at every career I tried till this one and feel like this is my last chance.
 
Fiddleback said:
Also keep in mind that I failed at every career I tried till this one and feel like this is my last chance.
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Big respect, many of us really look up to you and what you do. It has been great watching you over the years and I know you have found the right path.


Jobs I have had over the years...

Chef/Kitchen Manager - come in at 10am and leave at 11pm... just about every day! I'd help unload trucks, do loads of paperwork, inventory, prep constantly, deal with employees, after about 7 hours of hard work the day just gets started with dinner rush... then after turning out 100+ meals and running the line use a brick to scrub the grill, mop the floors (for respect there!) then go home and do it again

Jewelry Store Owner/Manager - vendors plaza in St.Thomas... spent most of my time battling hostile locals and crazy crackheads! 14,000 tourists a day 80+ hours a week

Jewelry Store Owner/Manager - 84 hours a week in a mall just outside of Hot Topic.. enough said

Miner/Prospector/Rough Lapidary Sales - this was the coolest, I learned that if you are hard headed enough you can do just about anything! I literally looked for cool rocks and sold them online and at rock and gem shows. I also cut stones and sold them, my wife made Jewelry from our findings as well. I had a buddy who was good at the claim paperwork and I learned sales through the net... sold many tons of rock! I was enjoying this job a lot when I saw this knife with a stone handle... decided a kit blade was not what I wanted to do and started making knives!
 
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