How do you know...

W

Wiredude

Well-Known Member
Working my way on my first project, and I'm finding myself in a bit of a quandary. I see mistakes I've made already, and I'm doing my best to catch and correct as I go.
I also know that I am very critical of my own work, and honestly will someday probably drive myself crazy if I don't keep it in check.
My question is essentially this. How do you know when to say "That's good enough for my skills at this point, it's not perfect, but I know what I did wrong, and I won't make that mistake again. I'm chalking it up as a learning experience, and I'm not trying to fix it any further."?
 
When you get where you like it then you are on your way.

Pictures will tell you a thousand words about your own knife. Your eye may miss something but the camera don't lie. If there is a flaw there you will see it in the pictures. I have taken pictures and looked at the pics and had to go back an look at the knife and sure enough what I saw in the pic was a flaw I had missed it with my naked eye but, the camera didn't!

I use to do construction and had a boss one time tell me the mark of a craftsman was not, not making an oh oh!

Rather the mark of a craftsman, was that if he made an oh oh, that he knew how to fix the oh oh in a way that did not lessen the quality of the piece/work and that the fix, improved the piece and it was done in such a way that only he knew that their was ever and oh oh there!! Now that sounds like a rather tongue in cheek analogy till you actually pull it off!!

Personally a piece with flaws, I would rather not sell.

I had a friend that saw a knife I made and loved it, wanted to buy it. I explained yes but their is a flaw right here and even after pointing it out he still wanted the knife. I told him, here is what I will do is I am gonna make you another piece just like this one, without that flaw and I will sell you that one! His response was but no one will ever see the flaw. Maybe not I said but, I know its there!!

My father used to say do a good job and your name gets around fast enough, do a bad job and your name will beat you from job to job. He told me that when I was about 14yrs of age and I still try to live my life by it!

I think if you go to any maker and ask to see his drawer of the rejects he will show you them and laugh. The thing you will notice is that as he got more skilled the ones the went into the reject drawer, well............... it got harder and harder to find the flaws but, he still put them in the reject drawer!!

I showed one of the first knives I ever made to a MS. At the time I did not know he was a MS or even what that meant. He looked at my knife, tuned it over, felt the balance. Looked at the blade, asked some questions and looked at me and said, "it's a good user"!

At the time I took that as a compliment and I think it was meant that way. However it wasn't till years later I realized, that was the kindest thing he could say about the knife!

The guard was silver soldered on and the solder had poured in the guard where I had cut the slot too large, the handle was ill fitted and I had burnt the wood in the handle by getting the rivets to hot when grinding them down. I still have that knife and it has skinned many a deer. So it was a good user but even after I re-handled it a few years later, it is still just a good user! But I have learned a lot since then!

When will you know? You will know when its time, if you are honest with yourself!!!
 
Personally for me, if it's not the best I can do at that time, it doesn't leave the shop. Keeping in mind, nothing will ever be 'perfect'. And granted, you'll get better as you go along. So it'll be natural to look back and see knives from your early days that you would like to have back to fix.

Price point plays a role in this decision for a lot of folks. As in "Im not going to spend 'X' amount of time on a '$Y' knife.

I try to make it my best work on any knife, lower price point or high, but that's just me. If I think I can do it better, I'll fix it or redo it.

Everybody's methods are different and there probably isn't a wrong answer here.

Hope that helps you some.
 
An OCD personality is perfect for a knifemaker! :) In pushing 30 years of doing this, I've never actually "finished" a knife...... I just get to a point where I "give up" on them. :)

Although there is a degree of seriousness in that, the best advice I can offer is...... IF, at the end of the day, you can look at the man in the mirror, and honestly say.... "I did the very best I could", then nobody else has anything to say about it.

I can remember years ago thinking..... "I can't wait to get my MS certification with the ABS", because at the time, I figured once I'd achieved it, I'd have it made. What I didn't realize until AFTER getting my MS, is that I had set a "standard" for myself and my knives, and from that point on I had to meet or exceed that standard with each and every knife.
 
The pursuit of perfection. For me, is one of the most appealing things about knife making. Unfortunately, it's also one of the most frustrating. Just have to know when to close up the shop and do something else for a while.
 
I'm a new maker myself. Walter Sorrells has a great motto in his YouTube videos for new knifemakers. "Fail your way to success." That is so true, and actually a great comfort when it seems like nothing is going your way.

There are days in the shop where the stars are lined up, the wind is just right, you're firing on all cylinders and everything is going so well you think you've been possessed by the soul of an ancient Japanese swordsmith. Then you have days where you can't drill a straight hole. Those are the days you turn off the lights and go do something else.

As to the question, "How do you know when to say "That's good enough for my skills at this point, it's not perfect, but I know what I did wrong, and I won't make that mistake again. I'm chalking it up as a learning experience, and I'm not trying to fix it any further."?

I can only give you my newb take on it. There are things you expect in a perfectly finished knife, the kind of knives you see the gentlemen above me post on here. Those knives are huge motivators, but that's not where you start.

First of all, there is near perfection (those guys above me in this thread) and then there is where you are as a beginner. In the beginning, there are several key points that have to be right. These are non-negotiable and if you can't get it right then the knife isn't right:

1. are the plunges even? Are the bevels the same height? (Does the blade look the same on both sides?)
2. Is the edge centered, from ricasso to point?
3. does your handle have gaps where it fits to the blade?
4. If there is a guard, is there a visible gap where the tang slot is? Is there a gap between the guard and handle?
5. Is the blade finished uniformly? (or does it look like you just got done rough grinding/filing on it? is scratched?)

If you get those things right, that's acceptable. You can sell that knife for at least as much as your materials cost. Focus on those key points.

Just my .02
 
Thanks for the responses (and more are by all means welcome).

I think I do feel alot the way most of you do. If or when I get to the stage where I'm making knives to sell them, I will definitely have certain standards.
I think part of me was just asking the question out of impatience. See, as much as I'm my own worst critic, I'm also quite impatient with myself, and being as this first blade is just for me, and a learning experience, parts of me are tempted to rush through...
Thanks again for the advice guys, sometimes I just need to know I'm not the only one that feels a certain way about their own work.
 
Wiredude said:
Working my way on my first project, and I'm finding myself in a bit of a quandary. I see mistakes I've made already, and I'm doing my best to catch and correct as I go.
I also know that I am very critical of my own work, and honestly will someday probably drive myself crazy if I don't keep it in check.
My question is essentially this. How do you know when to say "That's good enough for my skills at this point, it's not perfect, but I know what I did wrong, and I won't make that mistake again. I'm chalking it up as a learning experience, and I'm not trying to fix it any further."?
Click to expand...
without a picture, cant tell what kind of flaws you are talking about. is the knife usable? if so would work fine for fishing or having in your toolbox. get another piece of steel and try again. there are so many variables that expecting to produce an heirloom quality knife first try is unrealistic.
 
As of yet, no mistakes that make anything unusable. Mostly just file-marks in places I didn't want to get them, and the plunges on my swedge don't quite match, they line up ok, but they have s little different contour or something, just doesn't look quite right to me, but I'm a little worried tha th if I try to sand it out too much, I'll enf up with a dip somewhere else...
 
Hand sanding and surface plate will fix a whole lot of little mistakes when it comes to unevenness. Nothing you describe sounds like a flaw- it just sounds like the knife isn't finished yet.

Those little dips and gouges are going to be common for a while until you get complete control over your process. Draw filing is a great way to get rid of that on the bevels. On the flats, using a backer bar for hand sanding is a must. I use a piece of 1x1/4" x 12" brass bar stock for my sanding bar. The sandpaper wraps around that, and I use a few drops of Mobil 1 Synthetic (0W-20) when I sand. Also, experiment with different backing material when you sand. I have several techniques that I like: a strip of leather between the sandpaper and the brass bar, or a layer or two of used sandpaper under the piece i'm actually sanding with. All produce different effects and results.

Even with a 2x72 grinder you are going to have those dips and gouges for a bit. It takes a long time to get control over a grinder, so the draw filing won't go away just because you get a big pro grinder, not at first.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top