I wonder how often...

Keith Montgomery

Keith Montgomery

Joined
May 9, 2000
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...this happens? As you know, I am getting a knife made by Adam DesRosiers. day before yesterday I get an email from him with very bad news. He was doing the finishing on the mammoth ivory handle and as he removed material he discovered that there were too many faults deeper into the piece to be able to use it. He had already put the mosaic buttcap on and to remove the ivory he had to destroy it and the buttcap. With the cost of new ivory and mosaic damascus, and the extra work involved, I doubt that Adam is going to even manage to break even on this knife. Adam won't be able to get any more ivory until he goes to the Arkansas knife show in 2 1/2 weeks, so this will cause an understandable delay in the delivery of the knife. That isn't a problem, but I sure feel sorry for all that Adam has had to go through in making my knife.

I wonder how often makers have to throw away expensive materials or start all over again because a disaster happened when making a knife? Something I have never considered when thinking about the price of custom knives. A bit of an eye opener.
 
I had that happen on a Bradshaw ivory handled mosaic damascus bowie. The first piece of mammoth ivory he sourced looked fantastic on the outside, but was chalky and porous inside - unsuitable for a handle. I don't think any fittings were lost as a result in that case, however. That's a real bummer for Adam for sure.

Roger
 
With natural handle materials it probally happens quite often. Pearl and wood can have worm holes, ivory can have cracks in it ect.
The worst is when you are doing your finish grind and find a flaw in the damascus. The damascus maker replacing the steel does not make up for the lost time you already have in now a junk blade.
 
I get reallly nervous when a piece is at 90% .

The loss of a lot of work for very little profit can be sickening to anyone , especially for the guys that make knives because they just love doing it.

Sorry for both of you.
 
I break stuff or have to redo parts all the time, but it usually isn't the materials fault. :(

That's a tough one for Adam - that's a chunk of change and time.
 
That's why I stick to Curly Maple and Desert Ironwood.But even then the same type of problem can arise.It happened with the last bowie Matt Lamey made me-The handle was going to be Curly Maple & I asked him to take a little more off the handle to slim it up some.He ended up making contact with the Tang and had to Re-do the whole handle.I'm Damn glad it wasn't something expensive like Mammoth Ivory.Sorry about your luck Keith & Adam.
 
Yep, it happens way to offen :( sometimes it's the material at fault, other times it's me. I buy the best material available, so when it happens, it hurts.
Sorry to hear Keith.
 
We have discussed the benefits of a 'mistake' in the knifemaking process before.

I'll put good money down that the learning, more careful refinishing, material selection, and lastly, finding an unthought-of workaround have created knives that have elevated a maker's output well beyond the comfort zone.

The evolution of learning and experience = quality.

Good topic.

Coop
 
I destryed the finish on my Mega Chopper - the one who made it to Blade magazine recently - right before packing it and sending it to the customer, trying t fix a barely visible problem in it.
I really felt bad when it happened and it costed a couple weeks to have everything fixed (gladly, the customer was very patient and understanding) and I still feel bad when I think about it. Not much material lost except for some feet of ito but lots of elbow grease wasted...
 
I can easily imagine that this kind of thing happens often with materials like fossil ivory and black-lip pearl, both of which I am partial to.

My take (as a consumer) is this: when I discuss a knife with a maker, one of the things on the table is price, and another is completion date. In both cases, I ask for approximations. I let the maker know that if he quotes a price of, say $1000, for a blue-green mammoth ivory folder, that I understand that it is appoximate, and that the price depends on the cost of the ivory that he purchase, etc. Cracks in materials can be microscopic--and stuf happens. I do not feel that the maker should have to swallow those costs by himself (in either time or money). It doesn't do any of us any good if these guys can't make a living or send their kids to college.

I am d@mn particular about any custom knife that I order, and for the prices I pay, that knife better be perfect. The makers that I order knives from deliver that- and I cannot believe that loss of material does not occur. I am more than willing to pay the price of materials for that-- they are a small percentage of the total cost---what I am really paying for is the maker's time and expertise. And that price of materials includes mistakes.

Just my opinion.
 
It happens more often than the makers let on, I know that. ;)

I once had a very nice coffin handled bowie on order with ABS Mastersmith James Cook(nicknamed "Cookie" by his friends). I had sent him one KILLER block of ironwood for the handle. Jim calls me up one day, and I'm expecting him to say I need to send him the money for the knife. Instead, he says that somehow the block of wood must have shifted a tad while he was setting the clamps after epoxying the handle on. At this point, the blade and all the fittings were done. All he had to do was shape and finish sand the handle. That teeny bit of movement of the clamp, caused a noticeable gap between the ferrule and the handle, and Jim wasn't about to let it leave the shop like that.

I still kid him about that incident all the time. From that point on, whenever a piece of wood is ruined, it's called "Cookieing"; as in, "Man, you really Cookied that one up, dude!", or, "Hey, make sure you don't Cookie up my handle! :) :D For the record, I didn't start it. John Fitch coined that phrase, one day while hackin on Jim. :)
 
Mistakes and unforseen material defects are a cost of doing business that have to be caluculated into the price of every knife. If you screw up enough you go bust but every maker has a problem now and then.

As a friend and mentor told me many years ago regarding building sports cars engines... if you build engines for money and you build enough of 'em, sooner or later one will go "bang" when you start it up and you'll have to friggin' pay for it. So make sure you're prepared and charge enough for the ones that work to cover the one that don't.

Same with knives: nobody who makes knives can avoid stuff like Keith described... but it's still a REAL BUMMER when it happens! :grumpy: I feel for ya!
 
Unfortunately, it happens alot depending on the material. I have an Australian opal and black jade Warren Osborne dagger that Warren told me,"I'll NEVER even think about doing again!" Those materials are both extremely expensive and fragile, and I believe Mr. Osborne has done "just a little bit of inlay work" over the last 20 years.The knife is the second one from the bottom in my avatar. Warren went through a "bunch" of jade and opal to do that knife!:eek:
 
It happens and it hurts. The higher the cost of handle material the slower I seem to work. That won't help an unseen crack that you grind into though or it cracking when drilling ect. I hate for Adam but look forward to seeing him in Little Rock.
Reggie
 
Hey, Reggie. Be careful not to "Cookie" anything up before Little Rock! :)
 
I had a well known knife purveyor once criticize me on line for advising a new maker to mark up his materials in case something went wrong in fabricating. At least with a markup the material could be replaced without the maker going into a hole financially.

I have been at this for long enough to know that things do go wrong with seemingly solid raw materials or through errors and they have to be taken into account.

The one thing I know for certain is that the more critical the delivery time on a knife the more likely something will go wrong.
 
I don't think that the pressures of a delivery time had anything to do with this one; just bad luck. I'm pretty easy going when it comes to delivery dates.

I was thinking that it would be wise for makers to add a little to each knife they sell to cover for the inevitable loses that will occur. The problem with that plan is that most makers will not put a few dollars from each sale away for a rainy day. So when a problem happens there will not be any money there to help the maker in the purchasing of new materials.

Another way to do it would be to look at each knife and add extra for those that have materials where there is a better than average chance that something will go wrong. The problem with this is that the maker doesn't get paid for the knife until after it is finished. That means that there will be no money for the purchasing of new materials.

So, when a maker is working with delicate or problematic materials, should they be asking for a deposit just to cover their butts? I sent Adam a deposit on this knife, but I know it wasn't enough to cover his cost of replacing what was destroyed. At least he had a little a couple of hundred bucks to make things a little easier. By the way, just for those that don't like to deal with makers that ask for a deposit, Adam didn't require it, I offered.

One thing is for sure, I will look differently upon makers that ask for deposits when I have requested problematic materials. Like I said, this has been an eye opener.
 
It can happen with just about any material. I have had some CPM154 blades recently that had some porosity in them and I almost had to scrap them. Titanium can be a pain sometimes too, you can take a perfectly flat piece and do some very light work to it and the internal stress will turn it into a potato chip.
 
Keith I think that serious makers behave like pros, they usually have a good supply of material on hand to fall back on or if that fails they have reliable suppliers with whom they have excellent relations to call on in an emergency.

While I don't ask for deposits unless the knife is so exotic that I could not see it reselling quickly in case the customer backs out I expect that they could also be required in some cases where the raw materials are very expensive.

Delicate or problematic materials should be considered legitimate reasons for higher knife costs simply because the risk is higher on the maker's part.

I know that a certain knife purveyor would not agree, he feels that the maker should sell at cost.
 
Anyone who advises selling goods at cost is either a nitwit or trying to pull a fast one on ya! Does this "purveyor" sell his knives at cost? :jerkit: If he does don't worry, he'll be broke in no time unless he pours dough into the business from somewhere else.

There's a big difference between those who make knives as a business and get their only pay check from selling knives and those who make knive as a hobby / part time and use income from other sources to keep teir knifemaking afloat. I've done all of the above, believe me I know!
 
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