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:

1. Handmade Knives (custom) 101 #1 – Are You Bipolar?
2. Knives (handmade) 101 #2 – What’s Wrong With My $10 Supermarket Knife?
3. Knives (handmade) 101 #3 What to Think About When Buying a Knife
4. Knives (handmade) 101 #4 Full Custom Build
5. Knives (handmade) 101 #5 If I Spend a Few 100 $ On a Knife Will It Be Sharp Forever
6. Knives (handmade) 101 #6 Design - How to Get the Knife Out of Your Head
7. Knives (handmade) 101 #7 Knife Handle
8. Knives (handmade) 101 #8 How to Spot a Real Deal?
9. Knives (handmade) 101 #9 Making Knives is Not a Clean Hobby
10. Knives (handmade) 101 #10 Little WorkShop of Horrors
11. Knives (handmade) 101 # WIPs April 2018