ansoknives
04-13-2001, 08:03 AM
I can?t remember if this has been discusses here or not...but here goes:
What is it that makes one knife better than the other?? What is it that makes one knifemaker better than the other??
Well if we leave out talent, years of practise and the right tools needed, it is paying attention to detail.
When designing a knife ( or any other object for that matter) it is the details that brings it to level above all others. You can take a bunch of hot and pricy materials and make it to bunch of nice materials glued together or a very nice piece of cutlery.
Paying attention to detail in the workmanship is a thing that you just can?t do without. to be able to do this I belive you have to go trough a serious amount of training to become aware of what is necesary to make that special knife. As my fellow knifemaker RJ Martin told me when I when I visited him a few years ago "When you see a problem....Fix it". What he refered to was a very small scratch on a blade he was finishing while showing me how it was done. To fully understand this I must explain that on the knifeblade he was finishing there was 4 different surfaces...on each side! It was important to finish each surface one by one from the start, since the tecnics used influenced on the other. To remove the one last scratch he just spottet he went back and repeated all the steps.
I thought alot about what he said and what he did. I found out he had just handed me a piece of advise to was more important than most I had learned in knifemaking the past 10 or so years. What he really thought me was that extra attention to detail. Now if I see a scratch I remove it right there and then. I have put his words up in my shop so I will never forget what he said.
Removing that last scratch is what it is all about. This is the thing that makes the buyer look at this piece and say to him self..This maker really did pay attention to detail.
And I know ofcourse that I have still along way....but I keep on trying.
What is it that makes one knife better than the other?? What is it that makes one knifemaker better than the other??
Well if we leave out talent, years of practise and the right tools needed, it is paying attention to detail.
When designing a knife ( or any other object for that matter) it is the details that brings it to level above all others. You can take a bunch of hot and pricy materials and make it to bunch of nice materials glued together or a very nice piece of cutlery.
Paying attention to detail in the workmanship is a thing that you just can?t do without. to be able to do this I belive you have to go trough a serious amount of training to become aware of what is necesary to make that special knife. As my fellow knifemaker RJ Martin told me when I when I visited him a few years ago "When you see a problem....Fix it". What he refered to was a very small scratch on a blade he was finishing while showing me how it was done. To fully understand this I must explain that on the knifeblade he was finishing there was 4 different surfaces...on each side! It was important to finish each surface one by one from the start, since the tecnics used influenced on the other. To remove the one last scratch he just spottet he went back and repeated all the steps.
I thought alot about what he said and what he did. I found out he had just handed me a piece of advise to was more important than most I had learned in knifemaking the past 10 or so years. What he really thought me was that extra attention to detail. Now if I see a scratch I remove it right there and then. I have put his words up in my shop so I will never forget what he said.
Removing that last scratch is what it is all about. This is the thing that makes the buyer look at this piece and say to him self..This maker really did pay attention to detail.
And I know ofcourse that I have still along way....but I keep on trying.