why are you doing it??

Dan Gray

Dan Gray

Joined
Jun 25, 2001
Messages
8,474
over 5000 posts now
I wonder how many knives that would acquaint to, time wise. :D

I enjoy helping others to make knives and just like to make because I can..
are you doing the same
or

are you making in hopes to get rich some day?
are you making to get notoriety?
or are you making for the fun of it and hope it pays it's way?

come on down deep and get it out.... :)
 
Even as a kid...I'd look at knives or any other handmade item, for that matter, and wondered about the person who had made it...where it had been, etc.

Maybe, someday, in 100 years, someone will wonder who in the hell I was....


Also....it is a way to raise a collective, bulbous middle finger of defiance to the mundane and more liberal portion of our society. "You make what?"...I am often asked.....


Thanks Dr. Phil...... :o
 
For me it's purely for the fun of it, as well as to hopefully give back something in return for all I've gotten from BFC, especially from Shop Talk. I take part in most of the other forums on Bladeforums, so it's definitely not all ST for me. Also, right now it's a nice escape from reality. I could make probably 4 knives per week in the time I spend here, but I only use the Internet at work (I'm self-employed, so I'm the one getting screwed!), so the time I spend online would not, realistically, be used for knifemaking because my patients really wouldn't like being taken care of by a dirty, smelly, rusty guy. So, it's basically downtime when I'm on here, anyway.
 
I had knives from the time I can remember. My grandfather had them EVERYWHERE! It was fun city when he would pull out the 5 boxes he had stuffed with the. When he died all out family went through and took some just to remember the good old days. Then I found out....these can be handmade! As a child of the 80's where everything was storebought I had no clue people used to make them..not a mysterious factory.

Now I make them to see the same looks on others faces that I had sitting with my grandfather so long ago.
 
I've always had the interest in making, but didn't act on it until recently. i have made custom fishing rods, done some wood/ivory carving, and various other "art/craft" things over the years (not for sale-gifts-thank you's-for friends), and now, after changing jobs (much less stress-more free time), decided to give this a try......and i think i'm hooked on the whole thing--great challanges, vast amounts of things to learn, and (from my view) lots of good people with tons of knowledge, willing to lend a hand and support. I don't know if i will ever get to the point of "gotta have one of his knives", and so what. For now i am content in the learning process, and as long as the "next" one is better than the last, (and if not, did i learn anything), i will continue -- and should a sale come along--so much the better.
Thanks for the support given (known or not) to all who take on this most enjoyable of pastimes-there are very few places where information and support like this are freely passed to the unknowing, asking nothing in return.
mike
 
I am a Toolmaker by trade and lineage . I love working with steel. making knives is the only time I get to work with steel and have every detail be to my liking. I have always like knives and guns, Thats Grampas fault. It just seem to be a natural thing for me to do ( make knives). I hope to be able to support my family one day just making knives but for now I guess I'll have to settle for making tools that do other things than cut.


cya
jimi
 
I always wanted to just "play knives". By that I mean just work on them, fondle them, trade, collect make, embellish whatever it was as long as it involved a blade. Even at my job I still always had this passion for cutlery lurking in the background of my mind all the time.

Now I do what I want when I want with no cares other than the ones I create on my own.

Sure I'm poor now but I'm happy. My blood pressure is pretty much normal for the first time in 20 years, my diet is better, my health is better and I feel better. My doctor told me the other day on my 1 Aug follow up after my lab and blood work to keep doing whatever I'm doing because it is apparently working.

So thats why I do it. It keeps me straight. It keeps me healthy and its what I want to do over anything else I can think of.

Besides that I love helping others and doing what I love at the same time. It doesn't get much better than that at any salary.
 
I have always liked knives and been a small collector as well. SInce I got a little more serious about collecting I got a little more curious about the process so I started trying to make my own knives.

As well since I have started writing articles on knives I find making them gives me a better understanding of the skills behind the makers knives I am looking at.

Abe
 
I believe people who are creative must be, just that, creative. Its the way they unwind and relieve lifes pressures. A day spent in the knife shop is like therapy to me. It gives me calm, in a ruff sea. Success, notority, mentoring or money are only offshoots of the creative process. If a maker does not feel rewarded in some manner, even if that reward is just personal satisfaction, he will not be very creative. Just my .02 cents worth. Fred
 
Greg Covington and Fred Rowe pretty much got it for me. I've been a knife user, carrier since I was a kid. In Jr. High, I took a metal shop class and the teacher made custome hunters in his spare time. I thought that was too cool. As I progressed through school, I really focused on metal working and eventually went to work as a machinist. I got stuck in a production environment and eventually left the trade by age 21, but always thought that one day, when I retired, I'd build a shop and make some knives.

Fast forward to being 40. At that point, I'd learned a bit about mortality. It's not guatanteed that you will make it to retirement age. If you do, your eyes and co-ordiantion probably won't be any better. I'd also spent two decades in a sales position in the consumer electronics industry where there was no satisfaction for a job well done, just the pursuit of the next sale or purchase order.

I decided that it was time to pursue my life long dream and make some knives. Part of my motivation was to have a creative outlet where I could produce a project, no matter how badly, that had a beginning, a middle and an end (never happens in the sales channel). The other part is that I've come to grips with the idea that I won't last forever, so like Greg alluded to, I'd like to leave a legacy. To make some cool knives that might well survive long after I'm gone and cause someone to wonder, who was John MacDonald? Why did he make knives, and why did he make them this way? I have no illusions of becoming teh next Michael Price, or Bob Loveless, but want to make some stuff anyway.

I don't have kids of my own (do have a step son) so the knives I'm attempting to make are my only legacy to society. Nobody will remember what a great sales rep I was, but perhaps someone will cherish a knife I made enough to inbue it with enough specialness to pass it down to their heirs.

My time in my shop is theraputic on many levels and hopefully one day I'll make something worth talking about.
 
What everybody else has said,pretty much covers it for me :D

The shop has always been my domain,nobody else can tell me to clean it or do anything unless I want to :D :D

I just love knives and want to create them when ever I can and as much as I can..

When the world has you mad all you have to do is go to the shop lock the doors fire up the forge and when you are next seen all the bad stuff is gone and you have created something useful from the rage then the rage that has disapated lets you finish creating a beautiful and useful Knife..See it all works out for the better.

More woman should understand that a man is allot easier to live with when he has a shop even if he doesnt make anything but a mess in it,it is his place to be himself...Man I am Glad my Wife understood this from the first time we started going out,I am a lucky man..

Maybe my name will be remebered in a few hundred years because someone liked one of my knives enough to pass it down through the generations,or someone lost one and it was found in a old corner of a building and someone that likes knives gives it a home,but if not..so be it...I just love to make KNIVES..
Bruce
 
Its in the gene's and I always wanted a job that pays minimum wage and now I've got it. The money comes in spurts and goes even faster. I worked as a carpenter most of my adult life just for the pay check and the benny's but the older I got the more I disliked it. What I'm doing now I hope will last till I drop dead.
 
Heck, I smith 'cause I suck at everything else :) If you've seen one of my knives.... I promise, all the ones you haven't are prettier ;)
 
I some times wonder myself.

I got a little crazy in 1995 got a bit compulsive about it I would get totaly absorbed. The end came when I got angry at my wife for interupting me by making a cup of coffee for me. I did not make anything for a year after that.

I stopped trying for the perfect knife because with the tools I had I did not feel I could get the finish I wanted. I was wrong you don't need expensive machines.

Now I mainly make an easyer style of knife Totally forged with forged animal heads and other metal ends. They cover the cost of making the odd knife here and there to give away. I found I still go a bit strange making a proper knife for a customer never happy with it.

I still would like to make a really classy knife and will one day but I have to watch I don't get out of control.

Now it is more fun helping at the knife classes and new makers in general.
I like to see the new guys progress and pass my level.

I have another fello coming around tuesday to make some damascus the second piece I have made in months the last piece I gave away.

So why, I don't know. I think just secretly I like it when someone is pleased with what I have given them or just compliments the knife. ego perhaps.
 
I started to get tools i couldn't find, that nobody was making. That is pretty hard to say of knives today, there is a lot out there, including some stuff so wonderful I could never imagine it myself.
 
I have always been creative ever since childhood. I've always had somewhat of an art talent but never really applied it seriously. I painted, did portraits, cartoons and practiced taxidermy for seven or eight years. Knifemaking is where I finally felt the passion would be. What I enjoy most is creating something that will fill a person's need as far as a working tool. The money is nice along with the chance at notoriety but for me it's the feedback I get telling me how satisfied they are. To sum it up, making someone happy with a good working blade is the best payment I can get.
Scott
 
Restless soul here. Some would probably classify me as an artist. I have taken years of oil painting lessons. I grew bored with it, and went on to sculpting, sculpting with metal, wood carving, stone carving. I have been published. I have had many articles printed by a local outdoor sporting magazine. I have also drawn protraits with charcoal. I have done cartoons. I turned wooden bowls and made furniture. I even draw circles in the sand. Hell, I am probably (repressed?) gay (nah...), even though that is stereotyping all gays, and I am not a bigot. :eek:

Basically I can't stop. I won't stop, and I don't care whether I get rich or famous, I will always be famous to the ones I love, and that makes me a rich man. :)
 
By profession and passion, I am a Geoscientist. It is a creative precess in itself, but I have always enjoyed having a release doing something that involved building or making things. For many years this was mostly woodworking, ranging from making pistol grips to using a chainsaw mill to make lumber from Juniper, Oak and Mesquite and making furniture from it. I also enjoyed adobe construction and repair.

A few years ago I got into knifemaking and it has been my off-hours obsession since then. It even has interfered with my fishing.
 
I do because I can. Naw, that's to corny. I like messing around with everything involved with knives, even the people. It's a neat hobby. I don't strive for the perfect knife, because there isn't one, nor will there be. Although I try to make things that please customers, I really enjoy finishing up something and looking at it and then being pleased myself. It's something I look forward to when I have the time to do it, sort of like reading this forum.
 
to see the look of amazement on someone's face,and hear them say"dam,Tom,I didn't know you could do that".I just have to watch I don't get so picky that all the fun goes out of it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top