More lessons the hard way...ever done this?

P

Phil Tham

Joined
Jan 8, 2002
Messages
849
I've just learned another lesson the hard way, dang it! I finished this knife before I even noticed my mistake. Take a look at the pic and you'll see that the dovetailed bolsters don't line up on the spine. :( I checked the bolsters before attaching them to the knife by pinning them together...but I apparently only looked at the underneath side not the top. They match perfectly on the bottom. Anybody else ever done this? I guess the lesson is to make sure you look at the trees and not just the forest. I've been wanting to make a knife for myself...guess I have one now.

82s.jpg

82p.jpg
 
That's still a danged-fine looking knife!!!

I love that filework! Nice shape to it, too!

;)

Kal
 
Nice shape, nice pins, if you can't stand to look at it any longer, I'll take it off your hands. Heck, I'm such a nice guy I won't even charge you. ;)
 
Jeez, it's still a nice piece. And some people think making knives is so simple..."heck there's not much to them"... yeah RIGHT!
 
Thanks for the kind words guys. That was the first knife I sculpted the handles on. It sure feels good in the hand. I just hate when I do somethin stupid and screw up like that. Thought postin it might keep somebody else from makin the same mistake. I've sure learned alot from what I'v read here...still am.:)
 
If that's all that's wrong with it, why not remove the bolsters and handle, and give it anougther try?

That is an awsome knife, and I realy like the filework.
 
Thank you for sharing. I have read a few books on knife making and I am on this forum every morning & every night. I go to all your websites, if you have links. I read what you talk about, I look at what you show, and I admire the skill and craftsmanship I see in all the knives you bladesmiths make. My advantage is that When the time comes that I can afford the equipment I need to try my hand at it, I will benift from all of the above.




Trying to hatch into a knife maker...Keith
 
She looks really AWESOME there..
Just remember one thing..."Nobody ever makes a perfect knife"....
That is the holy grail that we all seek and never seem to find.As long as you like the knife then it is good.After 10 years I still make mistakes like this,so don't feel bad..Also you have to remember that there is a time to stop trying to fix and call it done,then try notto make that mistake on another one.That is how most of us have learned,trial and error and allot of Blood sweat and tears (with some bad words thrown in)...As long as you learned something from this knife then it is a success.Just set yourself a goal to make each one better than the last and you will do wonderful things,and start amazing yourself after awhile.When you finish one late one night then get up the next morning and think to yourself,Did I really make that.it doesn't look like something I could have made.You know you are on the rite track..
Great knife,and great effort.
Lets see the next one,
Bruce
 
Nice knife!!
Comfort yourself by realizing that there is not another knife just like that on the face of the planet.
In fact, YOU'D be hard pressed to make another one JUST LIKE that :)
I love the design too.
 
Hey Tex, is that handle osage orange? That's a nice looking knife. I've been there a time or two myself. That's one of those errors that just slips by in your excitement to get the knife finished so you can finally 'see' the knife. Man, I know exactly how you feel.

People are always asking me if they can see some of my finished work. Well, being a custom maker, I never seem to have anything to show besides pics or what I'm carrying myself. Everything I can get finished up goes out the door right away. That knife would be a good one for you to keep as a sample of your work. Label it a 'reject' and just for show and folks can still get in idea of the quality of your work and also gain respect for you with your obvious honesty. Calling that knife a reject is like calling the leaning tower of pizza a failure. They're both timeless pieces of artwork. They're both attention getters.

Thanks for showing us that pic. It brings back pleasant memories that I can smile about now. At the time I thought the world was coming to an end. There's been a few that got sailed off the edge of the cliff I live on. Heh. You done good Tex. Live and learn.
 
Those scales do look like osage orange alright, but believe it or not it's ironwood. Buddy of mine gave it to me when it was still green and I stabelized it with pentacryl. It was a small branch and had very little of the dark colored heart. Even the sap wood on that stuff is hard as nails.
 
Heres a hard lesson. Never buff a blade when you know you're too tired to really concentrate! Man was this a let down not to mention dangerous. I was blessed in that I had enough sense to put my hard hat and face shield on. It took me a couple days to find the tip if this sword because it had bounced back, hit my face shield in front of my left eye and flipped over my head and landed on a shelf in back of me.
 
Mike, just JB-weld the blade together :). Glad that you were wearing the face shield and it didn't hurt you. That buffer is scary stuff sometimes.
 
well L-6 isn't great how thing's can go from yo yo doe de yo yo doe @#$$%^&^** all in a split second. :D :eek: :eek:
 
Man L6, bet that ended your night! That dang buffer is the scariest thing in my shop. Glad you didn't get kabobed.
 
Yowza!

Man L-6, that hits a little to close to home, just the other day I was buffing a small hidden tang hunter when the wheel grabed it, tossed it straight up and it landed tang first on top of my head. Now I am sereusly thinking of wearing a hard hat while buffing! Now the blade wasnt sharpened, was the finaly buffing befor heat treat, So it probly wouldn't have done much damage, but it still had a point on it. Talk about biteing button holes in your drawers.:eek:

Sorry to see the blade broken like that.:(
 
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