Good Friday night. Or it was before I got a call that once again leading into the weekend that I had an issue at blade forums. Let me be 100% vehemently clear to this thread and anyone that lays eyes on it, Chris, or anyone you claim me to be, is not nor has not made any post to this forum after I told you that I would not long ago. But the latest allegations are troubling enough that I thought I would be very clear on a few other things too:
1) I do not care how Kevin or Twelve Bravo operates his company nor make any claims to how he does conduct his business. Its his business, not mine. I do not care about how Kevin or bladeforums operates for the matter. Have I showed some of the information about the forum and its origins to people at ground zero of this situation about the aforementioned, you're darn right I have. Are some of these people very close to me and my operations both geographically and emotionally, some of them even with livelihoods that depend on the hard work we do in my business each day, and are they upset, you're darn right they are. But I am handling my displeasure through other channels not by posting on this site.
2) I didn't even know exactly what an ip address designated until the other week when I began dealing with specific issues associated with this but I will say that as written from one of the posters in the forum in this thread that there are numerous businesses, even a great computer guru who taught me all about determining who people are by their ip addresses when they posted on our sites, located in the same complex as my shop and some of us share (some unknowingly to those of us that pay the bill even) a really robust internet system. I am making no claim about whether something was or was not posted from a similar ip address that I use for my business. I don't know that answer, I am looking at the same screen of threads you are and those are the only facts I have in front of me. Heck, I don't even know what our ip address is. But are there people that share my business complex that are just as upset about this situation and allegations as I am, you're darn right they are. I have seen someone saying it was my address and a quote from Kevin saying it was but that is all I have seen at this point and I wouldn't even know what our address is. So you can move on to the next accusation about me all you want, you can post and post and post otherwise but I am telling you right now, it was not me! The real interesting thing is that my 3 posts prior to this one, and the only posts I've ever made on this site were from my family's lake home which is 4 hours from my shop while I was taking time with my family before school started which I clearly stated. So who knows, maybe we have house guests up there that are taking time from their night to post on bladeforums for some reason? Nothing surprises me about this entire situation. But again, it was not me that posted anything. I said my piece and left a long time ago not to return until now. Believe what you want, I know what I know.
3) Did I hang up on Mr. Sanders the other night when he called, after I told him it was a terrible time with school starting back the next day for my family and he went on and on and on, you're darn right I did. I see he failed to mention this to you and wanted to be completely clear about this allegation and in fairness to him and everyone who might claim I didn't honor my word you need to know exactly why I did that. I told any of you that you were welcome to call me. I should have been more clear about what "anytime" meant and a few instances where it might not be a good time. My apologies Mr. Sanders, you caught me at a terribly bad time.
4) To answer the question that so many of you have failed to understand my answer to already. Do I use "blanks"? For a portion of my work I use "blanks". I use "blanks" that are machined to specs that we have found to be very useful and capable knife designs. Ones we like, you may not, but we do. Do some of them look like ones that others make and use/sell everyday, you're darn right they do. Why would I want to get in the tire business and try to come to market with a square tire? We all know round works best. Make note, these "blanks" as you like to call them are as good as any knife that "I" have laid "my hands" on. I stress, "my hands". You most certainly all will have opinions otherwise. And for each his own. Not once on this site or any where for that matter have I ever said my knives were better than anyone else's. Along those lines, I didn't come to bladeforums marketing a darn thing and certainly never came here and claimed mine were any better than yours, I never even knew of this site until I was so kindly invited. My knives are the best that I can come to market with, and this changes daily, weekly, monthly as we learn and experiment more and more. I stand behind my "blanks" that we use for certain designs because for me, they work great and make great knives, in my opinion. Plain and simple. And I stand firmly behind them. At the end of the day, the people that claim my stuff stinks don't have to stand behind them for quality, regardless of how much they say they are in their opinion "substandard". Not to me they aren't. What I don't feel obligated to do is to give you my "formula" for how I operate my business. You may attack me and my credibility but that doesn't mean I owe you a copy of my business plan. If I am missing something here, call me to discuss. I am not going to invite a bunch of naysayers into my shop or my life for that matter because no matter what I posted, videoed, said, etc. it wouldn't ever be enough. Very counter productive for me to try and please everyone, especially those in my same line of work. That's "Business 101", find your niche, get good at producing a quality product in whatever means you have to do so and create a product you can sell and stand behind. So in review, repeat after me, do I use "blanks", yes, I use "blanks" in a portion of my work. If any interested party is considering one of my knives for purchase, I will be happy to walk them through exactly where a particular one originates and if there is machining involved to make them really great knives. I have had hundreds of people to my shop before this originated and not once did I have a person tell me that he or she was leaving because we didn't make knives like we were supposed to be making them or that we misrepresented ourselves.
Finally 5) I never set out to misrepresent myself or my business. If you think I did, and you suffered harm in some way you seem fit to describe, I will be the first to stand in front of you and attempt to make it right. I told you all that exact statement the very first time I posted to this site and took the necessary steps to correct anything that could possibly be considered misleading that I have the power to correct, and did so regardless of my conviction of what I think certain statements mean. I make knives, maybe not how you make knives, but I make knives. And really good ones in my eyes. You think that my oyster knife garnered attention because it looks good? Nope, because it opens oysters the best way "we" could come up with. And people used it and low and behold it worked, great actually. Like a lot of my knives do. The junior national oyster eating champion, who placed 3rd the previous three years before trying one of mine, actually won with it the first year he had it. That's a plain and simple fact. If for my business, machining and taking human error out of some of the process to achieve a good knife on certain pieces is wrong, I am missing something here. But you are right, not all of them are 100% hand made according to your definition and as soon as this was an issue with this community and brought to my attention, whether I thought it was right or not or that in my mind what we did was a heckuva lot of hand working, I took the any reference down that I could. Yes Kevin Tupper, every reference I had any control over and continue to do so even now. You are labeling me as a fraud for a definition of a word that some of you deem questionable in text before I was even made aware that to this community it may be misconstrued. When people have visited my shop, I have never been told that what we do is not "hand made". And for that matter, no where, although its been quoted on here in error several times, have I ever, ever, ever said that 100% of my knives were 100% "hand made" as you have said I have. This is just an untrue allegation. And I most certainly did not ever refer to myself as a "Master Bladesmith", nothing I am interested in for me or my business plan. I have lots of respect for those of a certain organization that work to attain this, but I have never made that a focus nor claimed I have. Again, completely untrue that I have ever said that. Do I feel like I am mastering my work that I do in my eyes, you're darn right I do. I do a damn fine job too. But back to this line item, gee freaking whiz, I am sorry to you if you have an opinion that I misrepresented myself to you and have already clearly stated that. It would be one thing if I ignored your opinions and did nothing about it, but I have taken the steps to make sure otherwise and would appreciate at a minimum some reprieve. Numerous times has it been said in this thread that the issue was the representation of my product, well, I think I have done what I need to do to represent my work as it should be and operate my business now accordingly. I am moving forward now as I won't argue any longer with anyone on the matter. My knives are really great custom knives made in the south and I stand behind that fact 100%. Bash all you want, I will not be back to see the ad naseum arguments from every opinion this side of the moon. It does me no good. I have already told you that I respect your opinion, but it is just that, "your" opinion. Not mine and nothing I can control, nor believe about the quality of the product we produce.
To any potential, past or present customers of mine, you have all the means necessary to discuss this with me and I will gladly do just that. In the meantime, I am going to go back to doing what I think is the best thing I can do, and that is to make great knives in my eyes, give great customer service and leave something I now have no control over to those that want to continue to do what they do. Good or bad, we think we make a great product within our best means possible. Oh and I almost forgot, we use "blanks" in a portion of our work. Really great "blanks" that make really "great" knives with really "great" customer service and a really "great" lifetime warranty. Is that clear enough forum, its the best I can do. Carry on.
That sort of clinched my opinions.
