Knives (handmade) 101 #11 You Can Only Get Good By Admitting You've Fu*#$ed UP
Hello dear Stemians,
It's been a while since I did one of my 101 posts, so I was thinking of showing you the other side of knifemaking - the fuck-ups.
And even though I will be talking about the hard road to mastering knifemaking, everything mentioned here can be applied to just about anything - so pay attention and listen to you Doc.
Bragging about your wins is fun, but from time to time you have to show your fails...
The Begining
When I started making knives I knew a lot, because, well I'm a quick learner and I do research for a living so finding and acquiring knowledge is something I am good at. On the other hand, it soon became obvious that knowing something does not imply knowing how to do it.
As with any other craft, I needed the practice to get my knowledge from my mind to my hands. I also needed the experience to get the other part of knowledge - the part that is not gained by reading but by doing.
Of course, being cocky as I am, it wasn't easy to admit that what I'm doing is not something that would be considered as good, or even good enough.
One needs the confidence in oneself to ensure that what's being done will be done right, but also - and this may be even more important - one must be men (or women), grind his (or hers) teeth and say
Man, did I fuck this up or what!?
Now, I'm a hustler by nature, so it goes against my soul to ever say that I did something wrong, so if I can do it you can do it also.
It's not easy admitting to yourself that you've fucked something up, let alone to others, but - and as you have seen in my videos mine is a big one - if you don't you will never get better.
So early in my "career" of knifemaking, I decided a few things, and one of them was that I will be honest with myself and record my FUPS, and use them as a motivation to do better.
I know, I know - this sounds a bit like a $5 psychology, but bear with me (there will be pictures down below).
The Nature of The Beast
I've talked a bit about how knifemaking is a complex craft that requires a lot of different skills to get the job done. Consequently, the things that you can fuck-up are many.
I'll list a few, and just a few because the list could go on forever:
- steel bending or warping
- steel cracking
- wood shrinking after everything is done
- glue running to places that were supposed to be clean
- glue curing too fast or too slow
- pins and holes not matching in diameter
- things moving out of alignment
- ...
I've done them all! Now, there are few things that are kind of out of your hands - the things that are technically your fuck-ups even though you did nothing wrong. Like when you've been grinding for hours and just as you're about to be done, you notice that that scratch you've been chasing is no scratch but a crack...
Or when you're sanding the wood on the handle and voila - a crack or a wormhole opens up...
There's just one thing to do when something like that happens, and that's two things:
- go to Hulk smash mode
- give up
- say fuck it and start over
Both this three choices are valid and I'll be the last one to hold any of them it against you (because I don't really care), but my personal favourite is a combination of the first one and the last one.
There is a lot to say about the joy of smashing your own work - but that's another topic
The Portfolio of My Fails
In no particular order, I give you so some of my "motivation boosts"
The mighty PING
The warp
The fail quench - the dark part should go all the way to the heel
The scratch that was actually a crack
The it's-a-bit-out-of-centre
The PING PING and the Hulk smash!
The almost all of them
The Yey, I'm done! ... Oh, come on!
And finally,
The let's see if I can fuck up the whole batch - AKA not-one-of-them-made-it batch
A Final Thought
Knifemaking is no different than any other thing one chooses to do in life. It's hard to do it well, and failure is always just sitting behind the next curve, but if it was easy it wouldn't be fun.
In my opinion, a success is not measured by how good you did, but how hard it was to do it well and how realistic you were about all the fuck-ups you encountered along the way.
So, do your best, and if your best is not good enough do better or give up - I really don't care.
Thank you for stopping by and be sure to drop a comment below if you have something to say.
Check out my previous posts on handmade knives:
- Handmade Knives (custom) 101 #1 – Are You Bipolar?
- Knives (handmade) 101 #2 – What’s Wrong With My $10 Supermarket Knife?
- Knives (handmade) 101 #3 What to Think About When Buying a Knife
- Knives (handmade) 101 #4 Full Custom Build
- Knives (handmade) 101 #5 If I Spend a Few 100 $ On a Knife Will It Be Sharp Forever
- Knives (handmade) 101 #6 Design - How to Get the Knife Out of Your Head
- Knives (handmade) 101 #7 Knife Handle
- Knives (handmade) 101 #8 How to Spot a Real Deal?
- Knives (handmade) 101 #9 Making Knives is Not a Clean Hobby
- Knives (handmade) 101 #10 Little WorkShop of Horrors
- Knives (handmade) 101 # WIPs April 2018
"The mighty PING" and "The warp" ... try to do a normalization process before hardening, beltgrinder deforms (stress) the steel. It does not always work ...
"wood shrinking after everything is done"
stabilized wood is better but it costs a lot, use very seasoned woods
these are tips that I learned too ... I have the fack box !!!
nice post, very true ... this is the way of the real knifemaker
un saluto, nicola
Heh, knowing and doing are two separated things. And sometimes even when you do everything right you still end up with a bucket of shame candidate ;)
altogether now...embrace the fuck ups! haha i have spent weeks before on a piece then cracked the stone in the final hours, like a fool!
That's why I have a mirror in my workshop, so I can scream at myself
![ydmf.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmWfBM9dKGn7S3XC3UygVvzTq2zxzECBhsGsLAZtj7Su9f/ydmf.jpg)
Beautiful work. The practice thing can be applied to a lot of things in life. I bet grinding away at a crack for hours would make you want to scream.
It can be frustrating sometimes, but in the end, I really love grinding and everything else involving knives so I do come out in the positive ;)
Okay, so I'm getting out of this that I should embrace my mistakes, learn from them, move on, but before I do, smash it all to smithereens.
Got it.
I like the concept behind this, though. We're going to make mistakes, or things are just going to happen anyway, but all of that should go towards the next knife which comes out great. Or whatever it is we're doing.
We're human. We were born to make mistakes. So, do something about it. Something worthwhile. Or not. Since you don't care. :)
You get me so well that I'm thinking of using you to do the abstract for my next research paper :)
Hello @docsmith, thank you for sharing this creative work! We just stopped by to say that you've been upvoted by the @creativecrypto magazine. The Creative Crypto is all about art on the blockchain and learning from creatives like you. Looking forward to crossing paths again soon. Steem on!
Thanks guys, much appreciated ;)
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Wow what a beautiful art of work.I like the handmade you made it is a fabulous work