Makers, your thoughts please.

i do take deposits, but i learned that there are some styles that just dont get done ever! so i dont take orders for them. like daggers/autos to me have one purpose and it is not in me to make a knife that is good for nothing but sticking people. i do make camp/fighters because they have plenty of other uses and of course you can defend yourself with any knife. daggers and autos are just B.S. to me . i have had orders take from the three to the ten months myself, i tell customers that i will do my best on the time promised. but i am not a machinist i am a knifemaker and if it is not coming out the way i want it the best thing to do is put it down and do something else. and rather than things go sour i return deposits if asked. because i have found once they aare unhappy they don't seem to get over it! just a few thoughts on your questions. :)
 
Well, for an update, I talked with the maker (well, emailed with him), and everything worked out. He apologised, I said that apologies weren't necessary, and he's returning the deposit. I'm sure I'll order another piece from him , one of these days.
 
That's great Chris. From the way you described the situation I think he did the right thing. The fact that you think that you will get a knife from him in the future must mean that you think he did the right thing too. Happy new year.
 
Bruce, I thank you for your ramblings. They point out something that I consider to be very important. The fact is that I have never gotten a knife in the time that the maker has first said it would be done. The closest has been about 4 or 5 weeks after the date stated. I consider these dates to be approximate and do not really expect the knife to be finished at that time. This does not bother me, as I use the delivery date as a guideline as to when I will have my knife, not as something written in stone. Many things happen that slow a maker down, not the least of which is that most makers are always trying to please the customer and so they give optimistic delivery dates.


Edited because I didn't know how to spell optimistic.:rolleyes:
 
I guess we all (most anyway) suffer from "not on time" guilt. There is just one thing that does get my knickers in a knot about cancellations, and that's if the excuse is "I don't have the money right now". If there is ever a choice between buying a custom knife and paying the rent (as was mentioned in the other thread) then you shouldn't be ordering a custom knife. You simply can't afford it. A custom knife should be bought with excess income, not the rent money. Cash flow is a problem we all have to deal with, and even though a knife can be sold to someone else, that sale may not happen in the time frame you were expecting payment for the knife. And while you shouldn't buy knives with rent money, those of us who make knives for a living do so to earn the rent money, so cancellations can hurt.

As I was reading the above posts I was thinking back to my days in industry, and am trying to recall if ANYTHING was ever on time. I seen to remember making up a whole lot of excuses for things that weren't... :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top