Philosophical Quandary....copying someone else's work.

Ed, thanks. I do have that little voice inside saying skip this idea. I have about 10 frame locks of my own design all drawn in cad, so there's really no excuse to look toward an existing design from someone else. I don't want to make something and have to keep it to myself either. I drew out a profile in cad with a very similar shape to Greg's, but came up with my own pivot, lock, stop pin, jimping, back spacer, etc. I actually don't like a couple things about his design, for example I don't want to see the detent hole in the blade when it's open, or the external stop pin/thumb stud. So, what I was thinking would be a lot different, but from 10 feet away, it would still look like a Medford.
 
I echo what Ed said. If he is alive I'm sure he would be flattered. Be sure to give credit to him for the design. Bob Loveless said "you can copy anything I make except my name" or something like that. Anyway I made a bunch of Loveless knives with my name on them and people picked them up and looked and sat them back down so that told me his name is what they want.
 
I think what you'll find that as you go along in Bladesmithing/Knifemaking , you will develop your own "things" that will make your knives uniquely identifiable as yours. After about a decade of doing it, I got to the point where you could lay out bowies from the top 10-20 makers out on a table, with all the marks covered, and I could identify each by maker. It's just those "little" things that differ from maker to maker that makes each unique and identifiable. :) By the time you reach that point, you'll find you no longer worry about "copying" anything.

I've copied other makers work.....one particular instance that comes to mind is when a gentleman from Europe contacted me, asking me to produce "a copy" of Jerry Fisk's WooJack pattern. At first I told him if he wanted that pattern, he needed to contact Jerry. He insisted that he wanted me to make it, and I told him I would have to talk with Jerry and get his permission before I proceeded. I phoned Jerry, told him the situation, and asked him his thoughts. Jerry told me "Go for it!". The point being, it only took minimal effort to acquire Jerry's blessing/permission, but had I chose to go the other direction, I might have made an enemy of Jerry. Just showing a little respect and consideration can go a long way. :)
 
This is an excellent thread. More subtle issues around this than I thought initially. One thing is that if I had 10 decent CAD designs on file I would tackle one of those before making a copy of someone else's. Not due to the ethical questions being addressed here....merely to break free from folder constipation...lol.
 
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