Thinking outside the box

fitzo said:
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain

Bene Gesserit litany against fear
Dune by Frank Herbert
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That's lovely, "fitzo"... =]

Mike
 
Tai Goo said:
Maybe if I try to relate this to knifemaking again it would help...

Scratches:
The rule book says, and we are taught, that when sanding and finishing a knife,…

#1. All the scratches have to run in the same direction.
#2. You have to get all the scratches out from the previous grit, before you move down to the next grit.
#3. Polishing means getting rid of the scratches.
#4. Scratches are bad.

One of the ways to get out of this kind of box, is just to think the exact opposite. Most of the time what ever the rule or truth is, there is an exact opposite rule or truth of equal merit.

#1. All the scratches don’t have to run in the same direction.
#2. You don’t have to get all the scratches out from the previous grit, before you move down to the next grit.
#3. Polishing means scratching.
#4. Scratches are good!

I love scratches! :)
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To be correct, all ricassos have to be rectangular in both horizontal and vertical cross section... right? A person would very likely not pass either a JS or MS test if otherwise, so it has to be right... right?

Mike

Mike
 
Maybe each footstep is a journey in and of itself, each having an arrival and a departure.
 
Tai Goo said:
Inside the box = Safe, comfortable, easy
Outside the box = Risky, uncomfortable, difficult

Inside the box = Timid
Outside the box = Courageous

Inside the box = Average
Outside the box = Extraordinary
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Tai, I disagree... it seems too boxed, to me

Mike
 
Mike Krall said:
To be correct, all ricassos have to be rectangular in both horizontal and vertical cross section... right? A person would very likely not pass either a JS or MS test if otherwise, so it has to be right... right?

Mike

Mike
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Okay y'all, enough of the Zen silliness for a minute. An on topic thought:


After being indoctrinated with the idea that knives should be built a certain way, and finished a certain way, and achieve a "perfection" of finish a certain way, it took me a little while to understand Tai Goo. I'm sure that folks who grew up with classical painting probably tripped up a little when they first saw impressionism too. But what is the purpose of painting a perfectly accurate picture in a day and age of digital cameras and photo printers. Impressionism is more relevant to art (IMO).

I own a shop full of CNC machines and finishing equipment and I can create a perfect blade with a perfect finish with no trouble at all. Designing and building and heat treating that knife requires skill, but achieving "perfection" in the finish it not a big deal. IMO, in this day and age, a perfectly even finish, mirror or fine scratches applied the length of the blade, is not a measure of the quality of a blade. It is the design and execution.

I think it takes an open mind to "get" this.

I own a couple Tai Goo knives. I was admiring one this morning and the thought struck me: Tai is a master bladesmith (and probably knows more about bladesmithing that many or most of the members of the ABS), but I wonder how the ABS would judge these knives of his. They're certainly different. In my (not-so-humble) opinion, the design and execution and functional issues exceed most any forged knife I have seen, but I wonder what "they" would say.

Square ricasso? I can square a ricasso to a .0001". But what in the world for?




Edit to add:

Don't get me wrong. I'm not down on the ABS. I'm not saying that everyone should make impressionist pieces. I'm not saying that everybody should like "loose" pieces. But, I am down on anybody who feels like their point of view of what is "right" is the only correct point of view.
 
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Our thinking is so much influenced by our environments and where we come from,…

There are boxes everywhere!,… houses, rooms, cars, cabinets, drawers, envelopes, bags, vessels etc… inside and outside.

The concept of "inside and outside" is part of our human psyche…

Now,... let’s consider the human female reproductive system,… from where we all came.

female.jpg
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
Okay y'all, enough of the Zen silliness for a minute. An on topic thought:


After being indoctrinated with the idea that knives should be built a certain way, and finished a certain way, and achieve a "perfection" of finish a certain way, it took me a little while to understand Tai Goo. I'm sure that folks who grew up with classical painting probably tripped up a little when they first saw impressionism too. But what is the purpose of painting a perfectly accurate picture in a day and age of digital cameras and photo printers. Impressionism is more relevant to art (IMO).

I own a shop full of CNC machines and finishing equipment and I can create a perfect blade with a perfect finish with no trouble at all. Designing and building and heat treating that knife requires skill, but achieving "perfection" in the finish it not a big deal. IMO, in this day and age, a perfectly even finish, mirror or fine scratches applied the length of the blade, is not a measure of the quality of a blade. It is the design and execution.

I think it takes an open mind to "get" this.

I own a couple Tai Goo knives. I was admiring one this morning and the thought struck me: Tai is a master bladesmith (and probably knows more about bladesmithing that many or most of the members of the ABS), but I wonder how the ABS would judge these knives of his. They're certainly different. In my (not-so-humble) opinion, the design and execution and functional issues exceed most any forged knife I have seen, but I wonder what "they" would say.

Square ricasso? I can square a ricasso to a .0001". But what in the world for?

Edit to add:

Don't get me wrong. I'm not down on the ABS. I'm not saying that everyone should make impressionist pieces. I'm not saying that everybody should like "loose" pieces. But, I am down on anybody who feels like their point of view of what is "right" is the only correct point of view.
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If I understand anything about what a person has to bring to the ABS testing tables, and I have to admit I may well not, Tai's knives, Rik Palm's, Chuck Burrows', Dan Winkler's could not be passed.

I am not down on the ABS, per se, nor narrowness, per se. Definitions of correctness that deny reality are discouraging.

Mike
 
Mike Krall said:
If I understand anything about what a person has to bring to the ABS testing tables, and I have to admit I may well not, Tai's knives, Rik Palm's, Chuck Burrows', Dan Winkler's could not be passed.

I am not down on the ABS, per se, nor narrowness, per se. Definitions of correctness that deny reality are discouraging.

Mike
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Quite a while back I read the requirement for the MS test and saw that damascus was required and I thought "WHAT!?" You cannot be a Master Smith unless you make damascus? I have to admit, this was early in my knifemaking, heck, I've only been making knives for a bit over a year but when I read that, I was a little disheartened, a bit purturbed and somewhat annoyed.
 
can the ABS take a title away from someone. Lets say someone earned their mastersmith. Then they go off the track and start making knives that arent what a traditional ABS knives look like. Can they revoke his title?--marekz
 
The ABS hierarchy no longer represents the organization I and many others joined years ago.

Many individual ABS members know the dream of what could have been and remain members in memory and honor of that vision.

Some join an organization for what they hope or feel they can do for the organization, others for what they feel or hope the organization can do for them.

When you bow to an organization for reward, you can easily fall into the box.

Control is subtle at first, then as time and events pass freedom is lost.
 
Marekz: you posted while I was working on my post. The attempts have been made, sometimes with good cause, other times simply because someone disagreed with policy.
Lots of stories, but not for this thread.
 
marekz said:
can the ABS take a title away from someone. Lets say someone earned their mastersmith. Then they go off the track and start making knives that arent what a traditional ABS knives look like. Can they revoke his title?--marekz
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Mark, once a maker passes the JS or MS with the five knives he takes to Atlanta, he/she can make what ever kind of knife like objects he/she wants to make. But the five knives you submit have to fit within their guidelines.

The ABS is what it is, one can be in, or out, or both...
 
Is knifemaking more about the knife or more about the making?

It seems like mainstream thought says it's more about the knife, the finished product or the object of knifemaking. Is the end product all that matters? Another way of thinking says it's more about the knifemaker than the knife, more about the process of making the knife than the knife itself. In this way of thinking the knife just becomes a byproduct of the process. Of course,... in the end you can't really separate the process from the end product.

This is similar to human sexuality and reproduction.

The human reproductive system male/female is an illustration of how the human mind works... The womb is the original box.

“You are either busy being born or busy dying.” Bob Dylan
 
In manufacturing there's a common problem where people get married to the process and not the end result. They'll fight and defend their process in spite of the results. The successful companies are willing to change or scrap processes to get the needed results.

As some of you know I work for Hyundai in Quality Control, in what we call Dynamic testing we're hampered by some of our automated testing processes. The computers restrict our capacity which hampers the throughput in the rest of Dynamic. One day we had some serious manning issues due to the flu, we were getting hammered, I went to my assistant manager with a process change I had written, he heard the explanation, looked at my supervisors and said do it. He took a lot of risk if it didn't work out, he took a chance with an unapproved change written by a non-engineer. Well it worked and now it's the standard process for that department, I got promoted but moved to a different quality control department :( ah well :D

The whole point of that story is this, it's not just artists and craftsman that get stuck in boxes, it's a common theme in all human struggles. Religion, art, sports, manufacturing; everything we do has the norm and the outside the box. We're tribal by nature and don't want to be excluded from our tribe. Throughout history the most serious of punishments has often been banning, exile or being shunned.
 
The creative process is very similar to the reproductive or procreative process.

The process and the product reflect each other.

... It all starts with desire. :)
 
Tai, When I started making I thought it was about the knife and how many knives I could make and sell but I just made more and more crappy blades that I wasn't happy with. Admittedly, the crappy blades were part of the learning process of forging and I feel that I make much better blades now. Frankly, I don't care how many knives I make or complete and I don't want or need to spend all of my free time making them and when I do make knives I make knives that make me happy.

Will,

maybe your employer sees value in the way you find more efficient ways of getting processes done and perhaps that is the reason you were move to a different department. Big companies will pay 'Efficiency Experts' big money to come and look at procecces to find more efficient ways to do things and if they have a 'resident' efficiency expert at their disposal that could be a good thing mutually.
 
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