We will now interrupt the regularly scheduled program for this good old Blakes micro podcast. I think one important aspect to think about in knife making is what we call the last ten percent. Now, some knife makers, depending on where you heard it from, it might be the last five percent. But the idea is that the last little bit of knife making is the wow factor of how the rest of the world perceives your work. And it's important to know that the like the rudiments of knife making, uh profiling blades, heat treating them, scale fit up, bolster fit up, pins, bevel grinding, sharpening, all of those things are those are core components of the knife, right? But what you do with that last little bit really defines whether you're pushing the envelope or not. And let me use some for instances. When I was really showing off my work to the rest of the knife community to get uh you know feedback. So the uh Texas Knife Makers Guild and the uh and the and the Knifemakers Guild, um I had presented a knife that by all accounts looked pretty good. Uh you know, the handles were shaped well, the bolster fit up and finish was was really great, and I was I was super proud of it. And the blade itself I had done as ground, so it just had a belt finish on it. Um in that belt finish, uh, you could see very small remnants of previous grit. In addition with that, there were some two-inch grind lines in it, uh, you know, where the belt is digging in just a little bit more into that area. And the feedback that I got from the guild specifically was that if I would spend a little bit of time hand sanding the blade instead of just going right off of the belt, then it would take the blade to another level, right? And I probably could have taken that knife and sold it as is, and I could have not worried so much about those flaws. However, there was something that was stuck in my craw about being told something about my work that I didn't notice myself. And so I took it back to the shop and I did a a hand-rubbed finish on it. And I have to say that in the hand sanding process, I realized that those those flaws existed. Uh I could I could very easily see the uh the two-inch grind lines, I could see the previous grits, and this was S30V, and it took a while to hand sand. So there was a few things that I learned because of that. One is not that I hate hand sanding, which I kind of do, but that there has to be an easier way to hand sand. And over the years I've acquired some techniques that help with that quite a bit, um, such as I use guesswind stones uh to get the majority of my scratch patterns uh correct, and then I will finish it out with sandpaper for my final pulls. Uh, the other is that I take my blade finish up higher on the grinder than I used to. So I'd stop at like 400 grip before, but now sometimes I will take that up into micron finishes if I'm going to do a high satin hand rub. And uh those things helped a lot. However, what also helped is being able to use light, like I mentioned in uh my uh another micro podcast about using light uh specifically to uh check your work. Uh it helps a lot when you're doing uh your grinding on your bevels to uh bend that around and use natural, uh natural sunlight to be able to see what flaws might occur and what what you're gonna have to deal with down the road. So that's one example of going that extra mile that I I learned a lot about through that experience. Uh, you know, somebody else caught this error uh or this flaw in my blade, and I went back and fixed it. And I realized that that's one element of developing a blade and finishing it out that I'll try not to repeat is to have somebody else pick out a flaw about it. I should be my own worst critic. I should be constructive about how I'm going to fix it. And from there, it springboarded into just really getting into the weeds about how I want my work to be perceived. That is my 10%. Everybody has a different threshold for what they consider good enough, what is passable. Um, and I I feel like in, especially with beginners, there's a desire to encourage uh so that way they keep going, uh, and not really to talk about work critically. And I I think if you're a new maker, my recommendation is to just realize that you're going to suck. You're going to suck at making things and you will get better if you persist at it. But don't expect that you're going to be great and that you're going to get a lot of accolades because if you're starting out and your work looks not great, uh, you know, you're making knife-shape objects versus, you know, really just well-tuned ones, then people are lying to you. And I don't think that I ever really experienced that. Uh, people really didn't pull any punches with me. And I appreciate that because I used that as the fuel that I needed to pick apart what I did all throughout the knife making process to try to avoid kicking something out the door that had flaws in it. Um, you know, don't obviously there's there's some no-brainers like no cracks, uh, no humongous scratches. Uh, the blades should be not warped. Uh you shouldn't have cracks in your handle. Uh, in general, you should be able to hide your pins if that's what you're going for in bolsters, uh, so on and so forth, right? Your sheath should look uh generally good. But there's other things and like in slip joints, um, having gaps between your liners and your and your spring uh to me is not as aesthetically pleasing as having no gaps, all right? I see split slip joints out there all the time that have gaps in them. And in general, I think that there is a, you know, if this is, you know, I don't know, like a $275 slip joint versus a $500 slip joint, uh, some of those things are acceptable. However, just because the general public will accept that it's it's a a flaw for the price, don't settle on that. Because you can always do a little bit more and spend a little bit more time hand sanding or flattening or cleaning up your work that will make a an incredible amount of difference in the appeal of your work. Um just just simply being able to wash your your blade, clean everything up, you know, don't leave any oil or fingerprints or small scratches, like chase them to a certain extent because you owe it to yourself to every time you're building a bl a new blade, uh, to do a little bit better. And you get to this point where you start refining who you are as a knife maker, what things you like, what things you want to focus on, and that becomes the point that people collect because they are actually collecting your interpretation of that work on that medium, and if the price is right to them, then they will buy it. I think that everybody's measuring stick for that 10% is going to be different, and it requires introspection. But I do encourage you, regardless of whether you are a new maker or you are a an established maker that's getting bored or wanting to change the dynamic or pivot from what you're currently doing and try to up your game, really look at the at the components that make your work sing. And you will realize that when you really spend the time on that, that your processes to make that blade will change to make it easier on yourself. So you're not spending an exorbitant amount of time at the end trying to fix things that you could have not messed up on in the first place. An example might be using a horizontal grinder versus uh flushing everything up and making them square on a wheel or on a flat platinum where you might get facets, right? Like if you want a very flat surface, uh having a hand sand, a hardened blade to remove a facet is is kind of difficult. Uh the same goes with being able to use a mill or a surface grinder or a disc sander to get the results that you're looking for without having to spend so much time doing it by hand. If you have power tools, use them to the best of your ability and take advantage of the power that they have. Obviously, they're power tools, right? They have they're powered by electricity, but they have a lot of potential to change the dynamic of your work. And I encourage you through this micro podcast to really think about that and dwell on it and figure out what is good enough to you. What is your 10%?