I'm going to kill this customer but he's one of my best friends

W

Will Leavitt

Joined
Jul 28, 2006
Messages
3,953
This is kinda a follow up to a thread I posted about customers. This guy wanted a ring guard on a 4" bladed knife, no matter how much I argued against, well I made a 2 finger ring guard out of mild steel, blued it and shaped it like a rifle trigger guard (he used to be an armorer in the USMC) figured that was a nice touch and it flowed a lot better than a single finger ring guard. Got it assembled for fitting and shaping and showed it to him. "Hmmm that's cool and all but seems a little hard to use." :grumpy: What??? you @#$#@$@#$@#$@#$@ you demanded this!!! :grumpy: :confused: "Here, have a beer" (he's also the bartender/owner of my favorite watering hole.) So now I'm converting this over to a sub-hilt and probably going to stuff that ring guard up his nose after payment. :D

Have I mentioned the sheath requirements? lol he never wears a belt (heck he never wears anything but shorts) and he wants to wear it like a cross draw but he never knows if he'll wear a belt so make it adjustable for different stuff. I told him if you give people vague direction you get vague results. He gave me another beer. To his credit I came up with a neat sheath design that if it works like I think it will people will like. It's very versatile.

I guess it's his way of paying me back for all the practical jokes I play.
 
Will,
Sometimes, even with a friend you have to learn to say no.
If you thought the ring guard was silly to begin with, then you shoud have said no, politely of course.
Sometimes this is very hard, but it will save you more headache later on.
Take this as tuition and move on.
Del
 
Well I did say no, often, loudly and towards the end of the night profanely :D I say no a lot to people, I just thought I could pull this off. I'm going to pull his head off when I finish this knife. :D

When I finished forging it, I wrapped some electrical tape around the tang, taped a bubble machine ring to the ricasso and had a cardboard,ducttape and velcro thingy for the sheath. I took it in and asked for my money, he flung it across the bar and said he wasn't paying for that @#$#@ and everyone had a good time laughing at him.
 
Also, never agree to anything (business wise or anything else) when the person you're dealing with is giving you beer. :D

It's hard to mix business and friendship. When it comes to making a knife for a friend, I'd approach it as a buisness only deal. I just sold my first knife to a good friend, and he was extrememly pleased, but he'd seen some of my earlier work and knew what he wanted. The only thing he asked of me is to deepen the thumb grooves on the spine a bit, and that was no problem. I want my customers to be happy, but if they ask me to do something I'm not comfortable with, especially on the grounds of skill, I won't do it. I know your situation is not skill related, but for me, I want anything coming out of my shop to be the best that I can do it, and if I don't have the skill to pull it off, I'll tell 'em to contact me later on.


--nathan
 
Just tell him that you're sorry and that his knife will be ready somewhere around May 1st, 2015.
 
I've seen a similar scenario described several times on this board. Customer asks for an outrageous design. Maker tells him design won't work, but he wants it anyway. After seeing/holding the completed knife, he decides maker was right, and doesn't like it.

Have I got that about right?

Instead of either saying "no" up front, or pouring work into finishing a piece that may end up on the scrap heap, hasn't anyone here worked out the design with the customer in some other, quicker medium first? As in, make him a model in clay, epoxy putty, scrap wood, bent/beaten aluminum, a scrap of plastic, etc.? Ya know, something representative you could do in 15 minutes, so the first time he holds his design in his own hands, it's not after all the hard work is done?
 
I do design drawings and get customers to sign off and/or if the customer is local show them stages in progress for thier approval
-Pagel
 
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