DonL
Well-Known Member
After a year of hair pulling, bucket kickin', spit slinging, finger cutting, thumb burning, a few slips of the tongue and a ton of trial and error experiments grinding out 35-40 keeper blades, I made my first sale today!
I've horse traded, bartered and gifted all the others. People have stopped by and called before wanting to buy one, but I was never comfortable sending one out to a stranger. A few weeks ago, my neighbors dad asked if I'd make his grandson a knife. I said I would and would try to have several for them to choose from. Well low and behold they stopped by unannounced today while I was in the Garage. I had five knives made and some blanks on the bench waiting on one thing or the other.
Of course they liked the style of "this" knife but liked the handle on the knife over there...lol Fortunately they liked spalted maple so I said I had some they could choose from to use on one of the blanks. But when I returned, they'd found a blank I ground out a year ago and I'd just been messing around with it trying different things.
"This is the one we want with those handles"! Eeek! I tried to explain that this particular knife was one with uneven grinds. The mother said she couldn't see it and liked the filework on top. It was a new pattern that I tried last year and didn't like! Anyhow, I had told them that since they were my neighbors and that the Granddad had done work for us in the past and charge a more than fair price, I'd sell them one for $50 with the Sheath. He whips out a $100 bill and said to keep it because he knew it was worth more than that!
Now I'm thinking about doing another knife in that style with better grinds and filework. The problem is, they want it by Friday! So maybe I'll just make the sheath....
I've horse traded, bartered and gifted all the others. People have stopped by and called before wanting to buy one, but I was never comfortable sending one out to a stranger. A few weeks ago, my neighbors dad asked if I'd make his grandson a knife. I said I would and would try to have several for them to choose from. Well low and behold they stopped by unannounced today while I was in the Garage. I had five knives made and some blanks on the bench waiting on one thing or the other.
Of course they liked the style of "this" knife but liked the handle on the knife over there...lol Fortunately they liked spalted maple so I said I had some they could choose from to use on one of the blanks. But when I returned, they'd found a blank I ground out a year ago and I'd just been messing around with it trying different things.
"This is the one we want with those handles"! Eeek! I tried to explain that this particular knife was one with uneven grinds. The mother said she couldn't see it and liked the filework on top. It was a new pattern that I tried last year and didn't like! Anyhow, I had told them that since they were my neighbors and that the Granddad had done work for us in the past and charge a more than fair price, I'd sell them one for $50 with the Sheath. He whips out a $100 bill and said to keep it because he knew it was worth more than that!
Now I'm thinking about doing another knife in that style with better grinds and filework. The problem is, they want it by Friday! So maybe I'll just make the sheath....