Your thoughts when someone modifies your knife and then it looks like crap! Happened

G

godogs57

Joined
Apr 16, 2004
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to me four times with one friend/customer. This has me infuriated beyond belief. My elk hunting buddy requested four of my "skeleton" knives to take out west this fall. You know what I am talking about, all steel, no handle so it will pack easier and take up less space, holes for lighter weight. He is the type of guy who is never satisfied with anything.....he gripes and moans about a piece of equipment, including these knives.

He took my knives and dipped the handles in pickup truck bedliner goop thinking he could get a better grip on them....they look like TOTAL CRAP now and they have my logo on them. Now folks think I was the one that dreamed up this crap and applied to my knives! I am sick over this. Like you fine folks, our knives are our "advertisement" and well, I'm embarrassed to see my work looking like this. I begged him not to ruin the knives like this but he didn't listen to me. Now he thinks I'm crazy because I want to bead blast my logo off the knives so on one will make a connection to my work. My knives had a bead blast finish originally...

To add insult to injury, after he got back from this fall's elk hunt he asked me to resharpen his knives, which I don't really have a problem with obviously, but some joker helping him at the ranch there had ground the edges with a grinder, in an attempt to sharpen the blades!!! One of the blades has a patent pending triple bevel on it now! he basically ruined it and it was virtually impossible to re-establish the grinds on the cutting edge. Now the knife only has a so-so edge...I can't get it any sharper because grinder boy took the edge clean up into the hollow grind if you know what I mean.

They are his knives...he paid for them....but don't I have a right to be ticked off in this case??? I believe I do.

Here is the type of knife I am referring to...

Skeletonhandledknife.jpg


hhskeletonknives.jpg
 
Good stuff!! I have an idea of what you mean . I do a lot of home exteriors and after a few weeks of finishing a job I drive by and see they put a nice set of adhesive address numbers on the garage door wrap or they pounded a few 8 penny nails into the porch beam for Xmas lights. I would dislike it but you have to just let it go..... I guess.... Not an easy chore.
 
I hate to say it, because it irks me too. But once its sold, it is his knife. Its just lie fixing a car. Im a mechanic and I fix all kinds of cars, 3 months later I'll see it and it'll be cobbled up by the owners or his friends, but they twll everyone I' their mechanic. Nothing you can really do but deal with it and go on.
 
I'm going ahead and assuming these blades originally had an edge sharp enough to pass the paper cutting test. The fact that he seemed ok with having them resharpened by a rough grinder suggests to me they may have been a customer who learned all they know about blades from Hollywood and Shonen Jump comics. Granted I'm not keen on hilt-less knives, but in all earnesty those are some pretty nice blades, godogs57. May I ask what type of steel they are?

I've not had something like this happen; though I've had many people ask if I can treat their stainless wallhangers and make them indestructible...and lost a private commission or two after I had to explain that I couldn't make a sword able to cleave a cannon barrel in half. I kind of agree with thebrain's comment; I would be livid and gnawing on a pencil if I saw something like that done to more than just a blade-but trademarked ARTWORK that I spent hours laboring over, but I would have to cool off and hope that others looking at my current work would be smart enough to guess that those mods were not done by myself.
 
Wow! I'd be angry, too. I think Ninja is right though, anyone with the sense God gave a goat will see that it started as a good knife and was subsequently fouled-up by a moron. Anyone thick enough to assume you made it that way in the first place probably does their knife-shopping at Bud-K, not with custom makers.
 
Maybe you need to charge this guy more...then he may think twice about hacking up a good knife ;)
 
I would tell him that the one is ruined and charge a premium to re-grind and sharpen the other.
This way maybe he will learn doing stupid stuff will cost him.
 
Thanks folks for the replies. Ninja, the blades are CPM154CM and while simple to make, I still had time and $$ in them. Because he is a friend, he got a deal. Yes, they were sharp. I don't sell a knife unless it is shaving sharp...not to sound uppidy, but I want that sucker shaving when it leaves my hands. I am amazed at the number of knifemakers whose knives won't do that...

I still think I have a right to be upset though. I remember an Ed Fowler article that kind of touched on that subject in Blade magazine a couple of years ago, but his point was how wrong it would be for one of us to modify another maker's knife...but...I feel it kinda applies here too.
 
An owner of one of my knives can ask for refinishing and I will do it free, I will also consider a modification if he has what I consider a good idea or refund his money at the original purchase price . One owner had his knife "professionally sharpened", it would not cut anything but paper, the edge would not make one cut on the hemp rope. The knife resides in his collection, I just hope no one down the line buys it and tries to use it doing what my knives are designed to do.

My pet peeve is when a dealer has someone else work on one of my knives and claims it is in "mint condition". One look at the knife and I can tell if it has been adulterated.

To me that is about as dishonest as it can get, I would call it fraud.

He was honest with you, I consider that a positive move on his part. That does not mean you need to like it.
 
Offer to buy it back,then don't sell him another knife at a discount.

Gift him a Walmart special,which he will no doubt cherish
 
I have had it happen to me. There have been hack sharpening jobs and folks trying to wrap the handle of a knife that was intentionally made to be bare steel. The latter ticked me off more than the sharpening bit... but the fact remains that it IS their knife once it has been paid for. If I have to worry about getting a bad name from a couple shoddy mods, I'm probably not making the knives I should, anyway. Your quality should be your trademark and it should be able to stand apart from attempted clones, mods and regrinds.

As for it being wrong to modify another maker's knife...

Personally speaking, I would contact the maker and respect their wishes. If they could not be contacted, I would have no problem modifying user knives..... art pieces are a different story.

ETA: I just read Ed Fowler's post and agree that any attempt to falsely portray a knife as "mint" is no different than rolling back an odometer in a car to make a sale. Like Ed, most makers will stand behind their work and have no quarrel with making sure the customer gets what they want.
 
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I'm not sure what is worse; having someone destroy your knife or put it away in a display case forever.

Once a client purchases a knife, it's really none of my business what they do with it.

I hope they use it as intended, and get a lifetime of service from their purchase.
 
I agree with everyone, that once you sell a knife, it's the customer's to do with as they please, but if this guy is your "friend" maybe you need to have a discussion with him about what kind of advertising he's giving you, and the lack of respect he's paying your work. If he can't understand where you're coming from, maybe he's not a friend, or he doesn't place the sort of value on your tools that you do, and you may need to decline to let him have any more of your knives.

As for the butchered sharpening job, if it's ruined, or to the point that it's more work than you feel it's worth to fix, tell him to live with the consequences of his ignorance. I wouldn't repair it personally, or would charge highly to unless the customer, friend or not, showed honest remorse about the mistake.

Personally, I don't think there's much you can do about the average customer, other than promote a perception around your product as a "fine" implement, that encourages respect. That's one reason why I don't try to portray my work as "indestructible", or whatever. That being said, I personally, hold my friends, to a higher level of expectation, than the random customer.
 
"Huh. So THAT's what you think of my work..." :D

-Daizee
 
Chris, yep, he's a farmer and yes, I'll post pics this evening. Thanks again for the replies....
 
I think we've all seen perfectly good tools that have been ruined by owners. I don't think many folks will be confused about what was intended and what was done after the fact. It's usually pretty obvious. Don't despair. Your brand will survive.
 
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