Horsewright
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2011
- Messages
- 13,302
Thanks, have been blessed yes.
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The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is$300$250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
Recommendation? Should I do a bunch of the same style of knife?
- Thread starter Maelstrom78
- Start date
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2015
- Messages
- 325
Me too. But none of them help with knives LOL. Grandson is too young at 10 but he is on the farm a lot for his riding lessons. Public school and baseball practice seems to keep his time occupied. I'd like to teach him to hitch and drive a team but can never seem to block out time for that. Youngest daughter is still home but going to college and training horses and competing in Eventing keeps her out of the shop. If I add a particularly nice auto knife to my collection it will somehow disappear into her room. My wife doesn't understand any of it and wishes I would devote those knife hours to the nursery where the work never ends.
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2015
- Messages
- 325
Doing my little batch of three lock back folders is immediately teaching me some things. All good. I got a feeling this batch process may be even more helpful in folders than in fixed blades. In forged fixed blades you can "let the steel talk to you and go where it takes you" to some extent. Not so in the folders, at least for me. Man oh man these little folder parts had all BETTER fit together just right. No room for expression in the mechanism. Looking back at a photo of some gorgeous folders that caught my attention at the Blade Show a couple of years ago I would now be willing to bet the maker (an older gentleman whose name escapes me but not a big name maker) used a batch process. His work was impeccable but going back to the photo I now realize they are all exactly the same style and same materials except for the scales. Some were smaller but maybe he just enlarged or reduced his drawings. All have the same proportions. Looks like he hit on a winning design that was satisfying to him and then repeated it until it was perfect. At that show I was specifically looking for design elements and his table snagged me like a fish hook.
I digress but anybody else ever trained tracking dogs? When they hit a scent like a dropped article it is like a treble hook was lying on the ground and snagged their nose. My wife and I literally referred to it as the "fish hook." Anyway, as I was blasting down the aisle at the Blade Show that table was a "Fish Hook."
I digress but anybody else ever trained tracking dogs? When they hit a scent like a dropped article it is like a treble hook was lying on the ground and snagged their nose. My wife and I literally referred to it as the "fish hook." Anyway, as I was blasting down the aisle at the Blade Show that table was a "Fish Hook."
Back in the '70s when I first started making knives, I tried different designs each time. Then read "words of wisdom" from a professional: Make drop-point hunters; they sell! Took the advice and made six in a row. Got so bored with same-old/same-old, I quit making knives. Took me almost 40 years to get back into knifemaking. (Of course, I'm lousy at "marketing," so most of mine are given away . . .)
YES!!!! (I want to print this out and hang it on the wall.)
No matter how many times I've done something - whether grinding flats or getting a plunge just right or (again) silver-soldering bolsters on or shaping the handles - I always feel like: "dang, I was just getting the hang of it - and it's still not exactly what I wanted - wish I had another one (or 2 or 3) to keep going on...!"
I totally get people's complaints about it starting to feel like 'factory work': I'm dye-kem'ing, scribing, cutting out, profiling, and drilling 5 gyuto blanks this morning and it ain't fun - it ain't even a skill. But then I'm moving on to the grind, and I know that if I muff one I'll still have the others. And - while most may end up being "good", I can count on 2-3 of them being splendid.
- Joined
- Apr 27, 2009
- Messages
- 991
As of right now I don't have patterns. I just make a batch of knives that are more or less simular . They all get different handles and things will change in the process of making them so I don't find it gets boring. I am a welder by trade and I never found welding to be boring until it got easy then it sucked. For my personality so long as I feel a challenge it's fun and batching knives doesn't change that.
Knight Owl Forge
Bladesmith
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2017
- Messages
- 75
I was very resistant to producing the same design multiple times or in batches... However, I have now since changed my mind and see a lot of merit in reproducing a design or doing a design in batches. What I have learned is that when you reproduce a knife design, it sets a degree of limitation on creative expression. So, I learned that instead of worrying about the design/style, I could focus on the minute details that really raise the bar as far as fit and finish goes. I have made probably 20-30 of the same knife in my first year of making (along with one offs, commissions, and so on), and so between each of the blades, I choose a different technique or finish, or some other thing to try. I've realized that all these small variances that I am trying out between the knives of the same design, I am able to transfer that knowledge, technique, and skill set onto the next design. It has made my overall fit and finish way better than if I had just made one offs only.
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2007
- Messages
- 1,352
This.