Ramonade wrote: ↑Fri Nov 17, 2023 7:16 am
standy99 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 17, 2023 2:49 am
Nearly made the 2 left scales again the other day
Pretty sure that both sets of liners have to be on the inside of the handle scale against the tang, mistake has been made once or twice by me…..
Man, I made 3 left scales for a Tenacious a couple of months ago. I notice I made 2 left scales. I'm pissed but I grab another slab of micarta (had to order it, it was my last in that color) and go to town, a bit fast because I lost a lot of time. Made a third left scale !
I'm glad to hear it's not just me. I've done the same exact thing, more than once. It's really bad when it's your last piece of a material and you cost yourself multiple days and a bunch of $$.
Sometimes my ideas don't pan out, sometimes I mess up the execution in one way or another, and sometimes I just do something stupid and ruin the work for no good reason... those are the worst.
I will never forget creating one particular piece of trash pictured below. I cut multiple pairs of jeans into dozens of swatches, made my own denim "micarta", stabilized some cocobolo (or, tried...that was a separate learning experience), worked it all into a handle with 3 liners, 2 corners on each scale with liners flowing around corners, and then drilled the mounting holes so wrong that I couldn't use the handle at all.
There was the time I learned (about 24 hours into it) that strips of copper have to be pinned in place if you want them to stay put forever.
There was a time before I had a mill that someone asked for glow-in-the-dark mixed with tortoise shell. I worked on it for too long and ultimately decided...that's just ugly!
Here's the biggest thing I've learned from all of those mistakes (and knife making in general) that I would like to pass on to anyone who'll listen....
As hard as all of those lesson were in the moment (some of them literally dropped me to my knees when they happened), I love them all. I now understand that obstacles are truly,
genuinely gateways to excellence. The more of them you overcome, the better you get. This applies to all aspects of life, really. With this understanding I now seek the challenges that one might consider obstacles and look forward to the improved person I will be after I've passed through that gateway. With that approach, the mistakes I make don't hurt like they used to.
:spyder: Spyderco fan and collector since 1991. :spyder:
Father of 2, nature explorer, custom knife maker.
@ckc_knifemaker on Instagram.