What it takes to be a knife maker

[Sam Cro]

What it takes to be a Knife Maker? Many words come to my feeble mind .

incentive, initiate the process , willingness to try, study,research,reading, However, the main thing is to Just Make a Knife! good bad or other it is a start that will grow to a passion you will love or you will determine it is really not for you .

JM2CW (Just My 2 Cents Worth)

Sam

[Baby Huey]

Great post and replies. For me Striving for perfection is up there. Even some failures can have a perfect fix and the knowledge gained from each failure and different methods of controlling the amount of failure is not for the the weekend warrior. That is where the determination keeps you wanting to go on or the want is so great that your determination is fueled by it.

[zitangy]

A serious desire to be a knife maker or make knives . With it comes the determination to over come obstacles adn failure and ability to clock in 10,000 hours ( before that Apprentice level or Journeyman level) to master it to the level that the process becomes automatic ,,, you just know what to do to do to achieve an outcome and it becomes internalized so that it is at a subconscious level and you are free to progress at the Mastery level to try new things based on new ideas, thoughts and come up with something new.,,, and there's no end to it..

Alternatively.. just a person who will keep on doing what is required to complete the the task. Will just become very competent at the process .

just my thoughts anyway...

Rgds
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[Don Nguyen]

with a 500 mile or so ride north to this tiny little community in eastern Nevada .

Please kidnap me and take me with you.

[CrisAnderson27]

Please kidnap me and take me with you.

Lol, you'd look kinda funny on the back of my bike =p.

So I guess we'd have to take the truck .

[Andrey_SPb]

I would like to renew this interesting discussion.

What it takes to be a knife maker

Knife making – this is not only a craft, but also very much a creative process. It is an art.
A main motive for creativity is an all-consuming passion of the creator. He cannot really stop creating – the true artist cannot stop drawing, the true writer cannot stop writing, and the real knifemaker cannot stop making knives.

As a Great Russian writer Anton Chekhov said – "Those who experienced pleasure from creative work could not experience pleasures from anything else!"

The technical equipment, professional level, skills, and commercial success are secondary.

Please allow me to quote another Great Russian writer – Lev Tolstoy. It is suited to the subject like no other – "A lot is needed for art, but most important is fire!"
To speak for myself – in relation to knife making, this quote is true both literally and in a figurative sense.

[Lizzardborn]

To see a knife inside of a piece of steel and remove the unneeded?

Also a mild case of OCD (in the informal meaning, the formal is nasty to have)

[Chifunda]

by using my first name to mark my blades, it was a turn off to knife collectors.

I seem to remember a guy out your way who marked his knives "Buster". Turned out to be reasonably popular with collectors.

[gunnerjohn]

A great hat!!!!

[DevinT]

Thanks Gunner, it was great seeing you guys at the show. Looks like you have Marko caught in the photo standing in the back ground.

Hoss