What didn't happen in my shop!

ron_m80

ron_m80

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Well for everything attempted there is evidence to it. Here is what didn't happen in my shop (past couple of years), but I learned just the same.

I really wanted this to turn out right. This tine was beautiful, until it was cut very very crooked. :(
tinemistake_zps1c9caa64.jpg


Just no, not interested, and not liking the stuff. It may change with time.
Nononono_zpsb2733fd8.jpg


My first attempt at a belt sheath for a folding knife. I think I might try some of that vacum pump powered forming.
notsheath_zpsebf62aea.jpg


My first time using the stitch gouger. Well, the gouger works really well.
gouged_zpsf8aa1656.jpg


Airing out my frustration with these missteps.

Best regards,
ron
 
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Don't worry Ron, the frustration never goes away. :) Every mistake is just a new part of the learning curve, especially if doing something without someone right behind you showing how it's done in the first place. Just the amount of material lost from mis-drilled holes, over sanding, and bad cuts would make some people cry, but in the long run it's worth it.
 
Thank you. These were just the cheap ones that had good lessons. I did one the other day that really cost me something. Now I have a really expensive broken file. I really hope I don't repeat that one even by chance.
 
Every maker has a bucket of Oh S*&^ blades and and box of Oh Crap handle pieces and if the don't have them they haven't made very many knives!;)
 
The first pile of crap is hard to look at I guess. :D
 
That stuff happens in my shop, too. I just don't tell anyone :D
 
The cool part about this journey is that you improve all the time. The confidence and skill you develop with your tools can sometimes make you revisit your junk box, and say to yourself "I can fix this, this isn't the disaster I once thought" and make some cool (maybe smaller) knives and handles.

The knife in my avatar was such. I was going for a weird angular wharncliffe tactical thing, and my hands and the grinder were just not doing what I wanted them to. Messed up and ground a fugly spot in the top middle of the spine. Frustrated, I put it in my junk box thinking it was absolutely ruined and done for. A couple years later I was looking through my various junk and scrap and saw a perfectly good heat treated A2 blank. I thought to myself, Why didn't I just round some stuff over and grind a swedge where that bad spot was? And I could see where I wasn't using fresh and sharp belts too.

Everything gets better over time. Eyes, hands, design, patience etc. Also, you learn that not everything is going to go as planned. Once I learned to let go of something that kinda wasn't going to happen, and was turning out to be something else, I just went with the flow of it and let it be.
 
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I like resuscitating my failures as I progress in skill. Some things you can save, some you junk, and everything you learn from.
 
Josh Mason said:
The cool part about this journey is that you improve all the time. The confidence and skill you develop with your tools can sometimes make you revisit your junk box, and say to yourself "I can fix this, this isn't the disaster I once thought" and make some cool (maybe smaller) knives and handles.
Click to expand...

Came here to say this. As my skills have progressed, I've given new life to a lot of stuff that was "ruined" before. I'm learning that a lot of being a better knifemaker in my case, outside of avoiding the mistakes in the first place, is learning how to recover from them.
 
There is no way I am going to post the "blanks" I have worked on. :D

I can see some potential in a few of them, but they are too ugly to show.
 
Rhinoknives1 said:
Every maker has a bucket of Oh S*&^ blades and and box of Oh Crap handle pieces....)
Click to expand...

Referred to in my shop as the "box of shame" and the "barrel of bulls**t". They are both full. Someday I'm going to jumble together all the old shamefull blades and weld up some useful "oh s**tmascus" billets.
 
At my old shop in WI I used to just throw fouled-up blanks into the woods out back. Someday an archeologist or construction worker will find them and know a knifemaker lived there... ;)
 
james terrio said:
At my old shop in WI I used to just throw fouled-up blanks into the woods out back. Someday an archeologist or construction worker will find them and know a knifemaker lived there... ;)
Click to expand...

The archeologists will assume mine is some kind of burial mound.

And it is... Buried shame... lots of shame...


-Erix
 
Oh man, i gotta get in on pics from my absolute mess.... Just from this week alone. I've screwed up 3 handles and one blank, broke my dremel and worn out/broke 7 drill bits. i usually try to salvage what i can and use it again sometime later, but like the rest of you a lot of things get a chance at some airtime into the forest. i bet there are pics of me throwing things on the trail cam i have watching my garage... will post pics.
 
well... turns out I'm simple and somehow can't upload a picture on the laptop. more to folow
 
Every once in a while I open the drawer of shame and see if there's
anything I can "redesign" also. Sometimes it's a smaller knife.:D Sometimes
the drawer is closed quietly with nothing positive showing up.:o
 
I have filled three(3) 5gal buckets with broken blades.

When life hands you lemons... make a wicked awesome Iron Chair!


HBO-Iron-Throne.jpg
 
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