When you have to let them go...

Ivan Campos

Ivan Campos

Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
Joined
Apr 4, 1999
Messages
2,508
It is not that I am getting sentimental about this but yesterday when I was preparing a knife to be sent to a customer in the distant US of A, I couldn´t help it...
You spend so many ours profiling a blade, grinding it, wainting for it to get back from HT, polishing it, sharpening it, putting a handle on it, than making a sheath, give it a last check, put it on the box, write the adress label and taht´s the last time you will ever see it in your life (and as I sell most of mine overseas, they very seldomly come back even for sharpening or maintenance), and that is the sudden end of a relationship with something you created.
Ok, that nice e-mail from Paypal aways makes you feel better but anyway, it is something to think about.
 
Nobody as posted a single word...
Are they all afraid of you, Kit??? :eek:
 
Geez, I hope not, Ivan.
I would bet that every knifemaker has had those same feelings. I have.
 
Trust me Ivan, I know the feeling, most often I'm at war with watching the customer enjoying there new knife and wanting to tell them to get there hands off my knife! :D
 
I haven't made anythign commercially, so Can't comment on knives.... I have had that feeling with bone carvings..... so much time cleaning and scraping and bleaching and boiling and cuttign and roughing blanks, and then theres the shaping and filing and sanding and plishing and detailing... not to mention the plaiting of the cords.

I only carve for gifts rather than commercially however so the feeling of loss as sending them of is tempered by knowing that the person I send them to will treasure them :D
 
Ivan, its not you. I feel that way too. They all become familiar. When they cease to why continue(?)

RL
 
Letting go is the hardest part of making a knife you would enjoy for yourself.
I used to feel the same way now I just enjoy it knowing someone out there is getting one of my knives to enjoy. Best feeling I get is hearing that someone has actually used it for its intended purpose.
 
Don Agee,a local maker,has never sold one of his knives.They are all really nice.Problem is,he can't bear to part with them after spending dozens of hours making them.
 
Blinker said:
Letting go is the hardest part of making a knife you would enjoy for yourself.
I used to feel the same way now I just enjoy it knowing someone out there is getting one of my knives to enjoy. Best feeling I get is hearing that someone has actually used it for its intended purpose.
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Same here. I understand the connection we have with each piece, they all have something of our very soul in them. We've given each one our undivided individual attention for hours, days, and this becomes a permanent part of every project.

I believe it was Ed Fowler who once talked about how every knife has a part of the accumulated experience of every one that went before it, and that even our shops are imbued with this same creative energy that's built up over all the years of experience.

Yet for me, by the time I've completed a knife - or any other project - I have a feeling of closure and completeness that allows the object its own existence outside my input. It's not mine anymore, but exists in the world in its own right. I seldom have any trouble sending them on their way, knowing that the new owner will give it his own attention and so doing impart a bit of his soul to the knife too.

:rolleyes: That sounds pretty psychedelic, I don't mean to go all guru on you. :D All I really mean is that I'm more into the creativity than the having. That's probably the only part of my life in which I'm not totally materialistic! :D
 
Ivan - Kit is a big old bulldog! Gruff :p
Hell, I have held onto a knife a week longer just to enjoy it a tad longer. It gets easier my man.
 
Ivan- It took a little while to get a response, not because they are afraid of Kit, but because they had to wipe the tears from their eyes.

I have made many things in my life that I have sold (unfortunately at this point not many knives), motorcycles, cars, a house or two, and it is like giving up an arm or a leg watching all the hard work, sweat, blood, and pain leave. I may curse it while I have it, but damn if I don't miss it like a child when its gone.

On the other hand, I have given up a couple of wives that I do not miss, and laugh at the poor sucker who ended up witht hem after me......BWAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!! There was a reason I let em go!


Doc
 
Ivan, somehow I overlooked this thread. Don't feel alone as you can see, I think most of us feel the same way. In the beginning I wanted to keep them all. Not only because of the reasons you mentioned, but I felt they weren't good enough to sell. I ended up keeping some of them because they were my first made. I still feel my first knives that I sold were crude compared to what I'm making now but I have the buyers tell me how pleased they are with their purchase and some have even had me make them another knife. :D When I'm working on a knife, I feel a part of my being is ground into each knife I make. When you've finished a knife, you have a sense of accomplishment and feel you are just giving it away even though you get paid for your work. The money is a small part of the satisfaction of making a knife for someone. That smile and months later hearing the words of satisfaction with their purchase is what makes this rewarding. I do everything I can before and after the purchase to be sure that the new owner of one of my knives is completely satisfied for as long as they own it.
Scott
 
For me it's the fact that I make the knives I would like to own myself and thus want to hang on untill the newness wears off.I get the anxioty feeling at the completion of the knife more so than the sending.But as stated earlier it does get easier,now it's more about can I really make that,and can my skills do it justice in the final finished knife.I love it the next day when I walk in the room and say Man did I really do that :eek:
Bruce
 
Bruce Evans said:
I love it the next day when I walk in the room and say Man did I really do that :eek:
Bruce
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Yeah! That's what it's all about, making cool stuff. And then finding out who else thinks it's cool - cool enough to spring the bucks for. ;)
 
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