Knifeshow Stupidity

ScarFoot

ScarFoot

Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
Joined
Sep 16, 2021
Messages
807
So I have a table at a local knifeshow. This show is put on by one of the largest knife dealers in Alabama so it draws a large crowd and Alabama has a robust knife making community. Anyway, an old timer walks in that apparently helped create the tool we know as knives and knows everything about them. He walks up to my buddy’s table, holds a knife up to his ear and thumps it…says, “I can tell how consistent your grind is by how it rings”. My buddies like “that’s cool” while rolling his eyes because it’s a brut de forge knife. The old timer walks around performing various “tests” on other knives and comes back to my buddy’s table, picks up his most expensive knife and says “if I flex this and it returns true I’ll buy it”. Buddy is like, “okay?.?.?” at that point the old timer literally tries to break the knife on the table. Fortunately my buddy knows his heat treat so the knife is fine and the old man buys it. At that point he steps over to my table and starts handling my knives with reckless abandon. Out of concern for his safety I respectfully said “be careful they’re very sharp”. At this point something amazing happened. He looks at me and says “doesn’t matter how sharp they are, if you don’t drag them they won’t cut.” and he takes one of my best knives and starts chopping his forearm with it like a hatchet. Now I need to point out that whether you love my knives or hate them they have a reputation on the local scene for having absolutely unforgiving and indiscriminate edges. He looks at me and says “see, nothing” about 5 seconds later as he is educating me about sharp edges blood starts rolling down his forearm. I said “watch your shirt there” to which he replied “I scraped it on my screen door this morning…” I was almost speechless and the other makers around me were in shock. It was incredible!

Anyway, I got almost $300 out of the encounter…
 
Had a similar (utter stupidity) event happen in New Mexico years ago while on an elk hunt. Already taken a nice bull and went to town shopping for my sweet wife a present.

Gift shop. Owned by two women that had been “married “ for over twenty years. One looked at one of my blades and asked me how much I wanted for the one I was carrying. I named my price and she said she’d take it…she liked elk hunting too! Asked me if I was ok taking her money since she was lesbian….I’m not kidding. I told her I’m fine with it…her cash was green…we’re good. As she was holding it, her partner said “I want to see it.” and GRABBED it from the tip of the blade! Pulling it away! The lady that bought it, held on to the blade tightly as the other grabbed and pulled. I was flabbergasted in that tenth of a second watching it happen. It literally sliced that woman’s hand wide open, blood everywhere. You could see ligaments. She let out a howl that would curl your hair and ran out of the gift shop holding her hand, making a mess. Crying and screaming….off to get stitched up. First lady looked at me and said something like “she’s always a drama queen…”

Same elk hunt, the next year….stopped by to say hey to my friends….Got a warm greeting from the first owner. Other one went in another room in a huff.😆
 
I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this but it seems to me that the general public doesn’t seem to think that actual knife-makers know how to sharpen knives. It’s like they think there is no way a hand made knife can be as sharp as something they got from Target…
 
My buddy was at blade several years ago, woulda been about 2018. Guy looking at a knife next to him drops it. Point down into the top of my buddies foot. Looks at him, turns and walks away. By buddy’s foot was fine, didn’t go too deep. Still, not even an apology.

This thread should get interesting.
 
ScarFoot said:
So I have a table at a local knifeshow. This show is put on by one of the largest knife dealers in Alabama so it draws a large crowd and Alabama has a robust knife making community. Anyway, an old timer walks in that apparently helped create the tool we know as knives and knows everything about them. He walks up to my buddy’s table, holds a knife up to his ear and thumps it…says, “I can tell how consistent your grind is by how it rings”. My buddies like “that’s cool” while rolling his eyes because it’s a brut de forge knife. The old timer walks around performing various “tests” on other knives and comes back to my buddy’s table, picks up his most expensive knife and says “if I flex this and it returns true I’ll buy it”. Buddy is like, “okay?.?.?” at that point the old timer literally tries to break the knife on the table. Fortunately my buddy knows his heat treat so the knife is fine and the old man buys it. At that point he steps over to my table and starts handling my knives with reckless abandon. Out of concern for his safety I respectfully said “be careful they’re very sharp”. At this point something amazing happened. He looks at me and says “doesn’t matter how sharp they are, if you don’t drag them they won’t cut.” and he takes one of my best knives and starts chopping his forearm with it like a hatchet. Now I need to point out that whether you love my knives or hate them they have a reputation on the local scene for having absolutely unforgiving and indiscriminate edges. He looks at me and says “see, nothing” about 5 seconds later as he is educating me about sharp edges blood starts rolling down his forearm. I said “watch your shirt there” to which he replied “I scraped it on my screen door this morning…” I was almost speechless and the other makers around me were in shock. It was incredible!

Anyway, I got almost $300 out of the encounter…
Click to expand...
A fool and his blood are soon parted.......... :rolleyes:
 
I had a yanagi-ba on the table at a show in the middle of an arrangement of kitchen knives. A man walked up and was looking at the knives. He asked if he could pick it up, and I replied, "Feel free to pick it up, but be careful, all of them are VERY sharp!" I also have a sign on the table saying, "CAUTION - Knives are SHARP!" He picked it up and said he'd decide how sharp it was. Before I could yell, he placed his thumb at the ricasso and slid it down the edge. It immediately cut his finger. I handed him a paper towel and grabbed the med kit. His finger needed 2 or 3 stitches, IMHO, and I told him to see the rescue squad folks who were set up outside. He asked for a couple Band-Aids and said it would heal just fine. He bought the knife and walked away with a paper towel wrapped around his thumb as if this was a normal thing.

Why would anyone who knows about knives run their thumb on the edge after being told it is very sharp????

Since then, I put a basket filled with Band-Aids on the table next to the jar of M&Ms. I tell folks that the M&Ms are for anyone who wants a snack while looking at my knives, and that the Band-Aids are for anyone who insists on cutting themselves while looking at my knives.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
I had a yanagi-ba on the table at a show in the middle of an arrangement of kitchen knives. A man walked up and was looking at the knives. He asked if he could pick it up, and I replied, "Feel free to pick it up, but be careful, all of them are VERY sharp!" I also have a sign on the table saying, "CAUTION - Knives are SHARP!" He picked it up and said he'd decide how sharp it was. Before I could yell, he placed his thumb at the ricasso and slid it down the edge. It immediately cut his finger. I handed him a paper towel and grabbed the med kit. His finger needed 2 or 3 stitches, IMHO, and I told him to see the rescue squad folks who were set up outside. He asked for a couple Band-Aids and said it would heal just fine. He bought the knife and walked away with a paper towel wrapped around his thumb as if this was a normal thing.

Why would anyone who knows about knives run their thumb on the edge after being told it is very sharp????

Since then, I put a basket filled with Band-Aids on the table next to the jar of M&Ms. I tell folks that the M&Ms are for anyone who wants a snack while looking at my knives, and that the Band-Aids are for anyone who insists on cutting themselves while looking at my knives.
Click to expand...
I had a similar situation about 35 years ago........

Back in the late 80's I worked for a mail order company and on many weekends in the summer we did game fairs and shows.

We were at a big annual pistol shoot and I was manning the table. We had a load of various Spyderco's on the table, one was the original large Mariner. This was the old stainless handled model with a serrated G-2 blade. They were fearsomely sharp out out of the box.

One of the local genius's came along and picked it up, opened it and with a sarcastic smile on his face asked me if it was sharp.
Before I could answer he had placed his thumb on or around where the choil is, applied pressure and slid his finger towards the tip of the blade. By the time he got half way down the blade I was horrified to see the finger moving up and down as the bone scrapped along the serrations.
He bled all over the table and had to go to hospital for surgery to repair the damage.

The sort of idiot does a thing like that still fascinates me to this day.......:rolleyes:
 
ScarFoot said:
I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this but it seems to me that the general public doesn’t seem to think that actual knife-makers know how to sharpen knives. It’s like they think there is no way a hand made knife can be as sharp as something they got from Target…
Click to expand...
Contrast that with one maker I know that doesn’t sharpen his blades. His excuse? “ Each person sharpens a blade differently….i let the owner decide how sharp he wants it”. Uh huh….,you’re telling everyone you don’t have a clue how to sharpen a blade sir…😆
 
I think part of it is due to the fact that most people can’t sharpen very well and don’t understand how dull the knives they own and use around the house actually are. They can do all the stupid stuff at home without hurting themselves.
 
My biggest complaints about my knives are, they are too sharp! I have women that are so afraid of them they put them in storage afraid to use them. Or they hide them and say their husband will cut himself with them! Unbelievable to me as my wife refuses to use a dull knife.
On another rant the local sports announcer for our local college team loves to cook. I heard him on a radio interview say he spent $30G on a recent kitchen remodel as that is how much he loves to cook. Then he said he buys paring knives buy the dozens. When they get dull he throws it away and gets a new one! He said he learned that from a famous cook that paring knives was a disposable item. Again unbelievable to me!
 
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I only do one table a year for a friends Off road event. This is taped to the table with a basket of first aid stuff. It's still happened!

xcHbv5d.jpeg
 
I've been that stupid consumer once or twice. Not that I disregarded the seller/maker's warnings or did anything eye-wateringly stupid (like running my thumb along a serrated edge!?). But I've instinctively tested the edge of knives at a table and inadvertently nicked my finger. Didn't make a big deal out of it: I wrapped up with a bandana and apologized to the maker/seller before buying the knife in question.

I'd like to think I'm a cut above the common rabble as I knew I was at fault and wasn't trying to chop my own forearm off. But, it has happened twice...
 
Reading this thread I’m reminded of a day I was in Sparks shop.. at least 7-8 years ago.
I was checking out some folders and picked up a BM Loco.
Something about the ergs or the way it closed, but I nicked my knuckle and started bleeding all over the counter.
Luckily he had some bandaids on hand.
lol.
 
John, you can't publish my picture without my permission.
I don't give my permission often, but when I do it is in Shop Talk.

Here is a funny thing someone wrote about me a good while back. I posted it here many years ago changing the name to The Count. Back then I had the nickname, "The beard of knowledge". The Count was a mystery to most folks. A few of these things are actually true ... but I can't tell you which ones without going to Leavenworth or alerting the Peruvian Mafia.

Why Stacy is the most interesting man in the world:
Stacy is a dynamic figure, often seen scaling glacier walls and carving The Last Supper in the ice. He has been known to remodel train stations on his lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. He translates ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, He writes award-winning operas, he manages his time so efficiently his day only has 23 hours in it.

Occasionally, he treads water for three days in a row.

He woos women with his sensuous and godlike trombone playing, and can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed. He cooks Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. He is an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.
Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, he once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. He plays bluegrass cello, was scouted by the Mets, and has been the subject of numerous documentaries. When bored, he builds large suspension bridges in his back yard. He enjoys urban hang gliding, and has surfed Nazaré. On Wednesdays, after mentoring homeless children at the local shelter, he repairs electrical appliances free of charge.
He is an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless jai alai player.
Critics worldwide swooned over his original line of corduroy evening wear.

He doesn't perspire.

Although he is a private citizen, he receives thousands of letter of fan mail. He has been caller number nine twice. Last summer he toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. He bats 400.
His deft floral arrangements have earned him fame in international botany circles.

Children trust Him.

He can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. He once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. He knows the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. He has performed several covert operations with the CIA.
He only sleeps once a week: when He does sleep, he sleeps in a chair.
While on vacation in Canada, He successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery.

The laws of physics do not apply to him.

He balances, weaves, dodges, frolics, and his bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, He participates in full-contact origami. Years ago Stacy discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. He has made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven.
He breeds prizewinning clams, has won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin.

Stacy has played Hamlet, has performed open-heart surgery, and has spoken with Elvis.....recently.
 
if you think that’s impressive, you should read or listen to what some people say about The Stig!

The perfect video clip to accompany the opening post!

That thing in the opening post about knives not cutting unless there is slicing is something I was told and saw demonstrated by Mors Kochanski, he wrapped his hand around his Skookum blade in the ultimate choke up grip. A particular cut, for fine or precise work…and you won’t catch me trying it! Now Mors’ knives were often not that sharp…sharp enough, but the chap could out carve most folk even when his knife had previously been carving chalk. Still, he knew how to sharpen and strop. I think it is true, but risky, and that idiot chopping his forearm got a bit of unintentional slicing action.

I was amazed at Blade how few people passed knives in what is taught in all the bushcraft classes as the safest manner, handle first, edge away from the hand. Some years back I was saved a bad cut when a girl I was teaching snatched the knife I was passing her.

Chris
 
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