A reality check for most makers

So... after some threads, lots of posts, everybody pretty much knows where the others stand right?

Posters will know the motivations behind other posters criticism or compliments and will decide to ask or not for feedback.

As Todd said, we´re now beating the dead horse... over and over.

Time to drop it.. at least for me.

Thank you all.
 
Joss said:
I don't think that there should be any bar to post. But one should not expect to get comment / feedback unless the piece is at some level. Nobody has the time or the inclination to comment on every single average 3-piece hunting knife.

Tai - maybe that's true for you because you don't need and don't care about collectors tastes. You've paid your dues. There are plenty of makers who do benefit from that feedback, as long as they're willing to receive it. Doesn't mean they have to do everything the way collectors say things should be, but there's always a nugget of info to get.
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Joss, I'm just saying that collectors tastes aren't all the same, not that I don't care. I wouldn't still be in business if there weren't any "collectors" that liked my stuff. I do not think that a few elitist collectors should try to impose their tastes on everyone.

I’m getting tired of people trying to put words in my mouth, and misunderstanding what I’m trying to say.

... and yes! I have paid my dues!
 
Tai Goo said:
Joss, I'm just saying that collectors tastes aren't all the same, not that I don't care. I wouldn't still be in business if there weren't any "collectors" that liked my stuff. I do not think that a few elitist collectors should try to impose their tastes on everyone.
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Then I think everyone here agrees with you.

I’m getting tired of people trying to put words in my mouth, and misunderstanding what I’m trying to say.
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Tai - if you had said the above instead of:
I've found that the only good harsh criticism on a finished piece does,... is make the critic feel better about his or her own,... "incompetence".
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then maybe no one would have been confused. You take pleasure in being criptic at times, which is fine but that is going to create some confusion.

... and yes! I have paid my dues!
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I'm sure you have.
 
I am not intimated by a few elitist collectors, metallurgists or knifemakers. Isn't that what everyone is asking for?

Why ask for it,... if you don’t really want it?

A collector asks for thick skin, you give the skin, and then he doesn't like it.

I think it's ironic!

Some of you don't even know what you are asking for, or what to do with it if you had it.
 
ptgdvc said:
The four stages of competence apply to everyone, all the time, in every field.

1. Unconscious incompetence
You don't even know, that you don't know, and thats just fine with you.

2. Conscious incompetence
You know that you don't know, AND you start the learning process, in order to overcome your own ignorance.

3. Conscious competence
You know what you should be doing. If, you think about what you are doing and take your time, you will rarely screw up.

4. Unconscious competence
You perform correctly as a matter of course, without even consciously thinking about it. You will very rarely screw up.

Where do you honestly think you stand?

If you don't think so and that you know better, have a nice life. I am told that ignorance is bliss.

Kumbaya.

P
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I think that I am somewhere between 1 and 2 on the list but tend to lean towards 1.:(
 
If you want people to accept your criticism, you have to learn to accept criticism yourself.
 
To clarify my previous post, everytime i get thinking i kknow what the hell i am doing i visit with Josh Smith or Shane taylor or one of the other Montana MS and i realize that i have just overcome one of my hurdles in the knifemakeing game but i still have allot to learn and i usually don't know what it is i need to learn until i figure out the current problem i am working on............now where did i leave that 50 dollar piece of stag i was working on? oh yeah my mind tends to wander occasionally to and forget what i was doing.
 
I think of it from the stand point of learning anything. You could go to any number of dental schools in the country to learn dentistry for example. Some schools teach a different program than others with emphasis on different aspects of the field while others focus more on specialty interests and the student gets to decide which aspect he or she wants to focus on leaving the others for later or never as the case may be.

Is it much different than any other area of learning? I don't see it. There are a lot of places to learn about how to make a knife because there are countless numbers of makers and a lot of them are better than you may realize regardless of name recognition or how much they get for their knives or even how many knives they make. Cost has very little to do with whether its a great knife or not and I base that statement on experience. For example, I've seen a lot of crappy $1000 knives in my day that would not rate very high at all for functionality.

Lastly, where the right place to learn about this practice of knife making by your definition or point of view may not be the same place I would think of or consider worthwhile or even feesible financially and it should not necessarily have to be. Speaking of that a maker you consider top notch may not necessarily do anything for me personally or even share the same values for what is or is not a great knife. However if you want to diss me for how I chose to learn what I know, or where I chose to learn it have at it. I see your opinion as a personal issue you have and not necessarily the views of the knife community or the industry as a whole. These kind of threads with the my dogs bigger than your dog viewpoint are a very dangerous precedent. Tread lightly. Its a good recipe to burn some bridges and in threads like this many times you don't realize how many bridges you burned until down the road when you are the one being dissed.

STR
 
All I know after reading half a dozen threads and countless posts, is that I'm ready to go back to looking at the pretty pictures. :)
 
I think this disses pioneering makers like Bob Loveless and Bill Moran more than anyone else. They were the first in the modern custom knife making field and had to learn it themselves. There was no-one who could teach them how to make a knife from beginning to end.

Sole authorship knifemaking was very rare before they came on the scene and certainly did not happen in historic knifemaking centres like Sheffield or Soligen.
 
Shing said:
I think this disses pioneering makers like Bob Loveless and Bill Moran more than anyone else. They were the first in the modern custom knife making field and had to learn it themselves. There was no-one who could teach them how to make a knife from beginning to end.

Sole authorship knifemaking was very rare before they came on the scene and certainly did not happen in historic knifemaking centres like Sheffield or Soligen.
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I was going to post more or less the same thing.
Learning from a "Master" is nice but it's far from being compulsory. Nothing proves you'll make better knives when you reach your maxiumum level of competence (or incompetence).
 
Learning from a maker is a very efficient way to learn pretty good technique and design. Obviously there's a point where one needs to fly on one's own.
 
Erik Fritz said:
To clarify my previous post, everytime i get thinking i kknow what the hell i am doing i visit with Josh Smith or Shane taylor or one of the other Montana MS and i realize that i have just overcome one of my hurdles in the knifemakeing game but i still have allot to learn and i usually don't know what it is i need to learn until i figure out the current problem i am working on............now where did i leave that 50 dollar piece of stag i was working on? oh yeah my mind tends to wander occasionally to and forget what i was doing.
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The fact that you have an open and willing mind will take you far. You also know you don't have to believe everything your told. You have to have you're own identity.

We're all in the same position Erik, just at different levels. You're learning more "basic" stuff while we're struggling with more complicated stuff. Imagine what goes through my head when I look at a Buster Warenksi piece or Grey Taylor. Usually the thought is HOLY CRAP! HOLY CRAP! I STINK! I better get my ass in gear before I die because I'm going to need every minute to get where I want to go.

It almost seems like the more you learn the more question you end up with. That's what's so cool, don't you think?
 
May Masamune walk up to you and hit you upside the head with a hammer! :D
 
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