John Fitch

Keith Montgomery

Keith Montgomery

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A little while back I sent a knife that I bought From John back for a refurbishing and a modification. The refurbishing was needed because something caustic had gotten on the blued guard. The handle is a stag carver and the buttcap was not carved to match the grooves in the stag, so I asked if he could do that for me. He polished and re-blued the guard and carved the buttcap and re-blued it as well. He lightly blued the blade as well. He also did a little work to the stag because it had shrunk slightly. John went above and beyond in servicing the knife for me, and I just figured I would let everyone know that John is a maker that goes the extra mile.

This maybe should have been posted in the GB&U forum, but I figured more of the custom knives folks would see it here. There seems to have been so many cases lately of makers that think of their customers as a burden that I felt it would be good to pass on this extremely positive experience that I had with a maker that doesn't think that way.
 
Big John does very nice work. I bought a walrus handled damascus fighter from him at Blade '05 and i love it.
 
Keith Montgomery said:
Not at the moment. The knife was there when I got home from work tonight. I'll see what I can do tomorrow. Don't expect much. I'm no Coop when it comes to photography. I don't even have a lightbox.
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I don't have a light box either. Manage to get lucky with the natural light coming in just right once a while.
 
John is also an excellent instructor. I took a Damascus class with him a couple years back and it was a great experience.
 
Was MIA at the Plaza Cutlery show in Huntington Beach, and missing from the Reno ABS Expo in February.

Anyone know or care to share why?

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
 
Kohai999 said:
Was MIA at the Plaza Cutlery show in Huntington Beach, and missing from the Reno ABS Expo in February.

Anyone know or care to share why?

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
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Can't answer your question, but he was at the Little Rock show in February and seemed in good form. I enjoyed hearing a few of his many stories.


- Joe
 
I think Mr Fitch has a habit of standing up show promoters. I think he's done it in Chicago, too.

I know he's also blown off more than one collector, too.

Win
 
John had a few family members ill and his brother inlaw just past away.
John is a great teacher of of knifemaking. With his help I have become
A better bladesmith.
 
Win Heger said:
I think Mr Fitch has a habit of standing up show promoters. I think he's done it in Chicago, too.

I know he's also blown off more than one collector, too.
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I had heard that he has missed some shows, but had never heard anything about him blowing off collectors. I know that John has been incredibly busy with family matters. There are nights he doesn't get home until after midnight.
All i know for sure is that he sure as heck took very good care of me.
 
Win Heger said:
I think Mr Fitch has a habit of standing up show promoters. I think he's done it in Chicago, too.

I know he's also blown off more than one collector, too.

Win
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I had also heard about some collectors being less than pleased with Mr. Fitch.

Keith, this is not to poo-poo on Big John's reputation, this was posted as a true invitation to dialogue, I personally like the man.

Your experience may have been righteous, and that is good. I just wanted to know if there was a known specific reason that he was a no-show at Plaza/Reno.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
 
I've met John and found him to be very likeable. He has definetly not filled orders for a friend of mine and in fact would not even return calls. I had a deal with him and after every excuse in the book, I finally gave up.

Keith, I'm glad to see he took good care of you.

Win
 
Win Heger said:
I think Mr Fitch has a habit of standing up show promoters. I think he's done it in Chicago, too.

I know he's also blown off more than one collector, too.

Win
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I'm glad you had a good experience, Keith.

I know that my attempt to get my knife that I had ordered a few years ago from John was met with a lot of incredible lies. I'm not sure Big John knows how to tell the truth and I think a lot of people realize that about him now.

I finally told him to keep the knife and sell it for the extra money that it was now worth.
I told my story in another thread here back then.http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2252579&postcount=8.

Hopefully, Big John has gotten more responsible. He makes a good looking knife.
 
This is amazing, an "attaboy" post turns into "trial by internet." Are you guys gentleman or cads?
 
brownshoe said:
This is amazing, an "attaboy" post turns into "trial by internet." Are you guys gentleman or cads?
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We're friends in here, and just as important, we're collectors.

Keith had a great experience with John. I believe it's very important for collectors who spend thousands of dollars on knives to speak up when they have had an experience with a maker that is such an extreme opposite of what another person is posting about.

Keith even acknowledged that this thread could have very easily been started in GB&U , but chose to give John credit here for the great customer service that he felt he received from John.

We are in a knife forum, brownshoe or did that slip buy you?
 
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