We will now interrupt the regularly scheduled program for this good old Blades micro podcast. I got asked an interesting question today, and although I think I had the answer uh as I supplied it, I wanted to roll it into a micro podcast, and I thought uh as well as the person who asked that it'd be a good uh idea to actually use that uh question in the micro podcast, because I'm sure other people ask about it too, or wonder at least. Uh the question was um how do you know that your work is of a quality or ready for a show, right? Like each individual blade uh that you make, like whatever you're taking to shows, how do you know that it's ready? And specifically, there was some context around the like if you take, I don't know, 15 of the same type of thing that you're making, uh, but they all have minor variations in the I guess quality, right? I mean, or uh they they're all just a little bit different. Um, are there some that you should not take or refine or whatever because they're just different? And I don't really have a good honest answer for you. The only thing that I can say, I don't know, it's like I'm using this as a micro podcast to educate you guys on things, but hear me out here. I don't really have a good answer because I the the question is qualified only by what do you feel as a maker is the um is the consistency of your work, right? Like what what do you feel the quality level is? What do you uh feel the uh the uh quality control process is, and do those meet your conditions? Now, uh this is a non-judgmental type of statement, um, but it has to be said where I've gone to knife shows and seen the entire gambit of quality, I've seen very crude knives uh all the way to the you know the the finest of the find. Like you won't find anything that is more meticulously finished than those knives. And you might ask yourself, well, what makes the one of the finest you know knife makers in the world push to the level that they are at, and you see others that are cruder? And I there's no real answer. Like you you have different clientele, you have different um abilities. Like as a maker, you maybe maybe the what we would consider crude is is really the the most that that maker at that stage in their in their craftsmanship journey can achieve. And maybe they actually sell their knives, maybe there's a value proposition with having more like cruder knives or whatever. Um, there's all sorts of of different elements that play into um why do you see this in at shows? And is there a a direct answer to uh quality when you go to them? Like what how do you how do you determine what's appropriate for you uh based on what you see around you? And that's kind of the deal, is it uh there isn't there isn't any measuring stick for another maker that you should hold yourself up to more than your own. And what I mean by that really is that uh at the end of the day, when I go to a knife show, the stuff that I put on my table uh from an exhibition or uh from a sales perspective is what I have to be happy with, whether it sells or whether it doesn't sell, um, it's whatever I feel like I want everybody to see, right? And the same thing does not apply for every single maker, the same rules don't apply. So it really is kind of an introspection type of thing that you have to decide. I mean, is this look right or not? Is it is it good enough or not? And uh that's basically a portion of what customers look for when they're deciding whether they buy your work or not. And they're not necessarily pitting those makers against each other in quality or craftsmanship or execution or things like that. They're looking at both of them in their own right, and maybe they're saying, okay, well, they they actually both their satin finishes are really good. I like the way that they uh contour their bolsters or uh chamfer them, I like the handle material that they use, I like the patterns that they developed or that they they're reproducing, right? All of those things, they put them at the same echelon, but they're not saying, oh, well, I can get a better knife from Tom uh for $300 less than Tim or something like that. That's not that's not really the way that a lot of collectors uh think. Um, but at the same time, uh there's just nobody, like I can't really answer the question, really, other than saying, okay, let's let's be fair here. When when you're comparing uh individual knives against each other, you might say, well, the last five knives out of a run, I really nailed my satin finish. Um, you might say that I contoured the handles really well, or I did something that I really liked that I just did not uh I didn't have figured out or couldn't wrap my head around for the first five or the first you know ten or whatever it is that you're doing from a uh numbers perspective. And and that might be true. It doesn't mean that knives one through ten were not good. It just means that maybe the last five are the the show queens, you know, they're the ones that are prime examples, they're the the ones that maybe somebody considers the top end of your work if it is. And you really have to take that into account, like be fair with yourself and say, you know, maybe maybe the plunge lines are more even on the last five than on the first ten. Uh maybe uh, I don't know, maybe if it's a pocket knife that it's you know, you really nailed the walk and talk, you you really nailed it's being flush in all three positions. They absolutely had every every blade centered versus the first you know, you know, ten that didn't. You know, maybe there were just minor variations. I think that's okay. You have to give yourself a little bit of grace because it's you're not a production machine. You uh you can't get everything absolutely perfect uh making handmade knives. I know that there are lots of guys out there who really, really try from one blade to the next uh to make it as as perfect and as uniform as possible. And uh, you know, that it takes time and energy and money, and there's a lot of factors involved with that. If you don't hit that level, it's just not where you're at yet. Or maybe it's not where you you want to be at. Maybe it's uh not a a quality of of care or service that you want to give to your you know customer base or whatever, and that's that's really kind of up to you. Um you know, no judgment uh from me on that. Like the the idea is like fundamentally it should, you know, the knife should look good. The knife should have a consistent finish that looks like you did everything on purpose, and it should feel right, it should be balanced well. I mean, uh all those like I guess like uh quality things, you're gonna have to decide on what you put into that blade. Uh but um if you're comparing your own work uh from one from one knife to the next, I think you need to give yourself a little bit of grace because there are lots of things, especially in like uh when you're preparing for shows and you're doing things um in batches, that you might really hit your stride on blade number three. You might hit it on blade number 15. Um you might, you know, you might hit it early on and you you you just learn something different on your last few blades that just totally change the dynamic. Does it mean that you take those blades and you you know the the earlier works and you throw them away or say, hey, I can't um uh you know I can't show these because they're not as good as these other guys that came out last. I don't think that. Um but I I think that something that I would really be cautious about is what you take to a show, what you exhibit should be the the standard of your work. And you don't want to regress, like take your very best to a knife show, and then at home, when people are ordering stuff based off of what they might have seen at a show, you put out subpar work because you're like, eh, you know, like a you know it's internet sales, blah, blah, whatever. Like, don't do that. It's disingenuous to entice a customer with really good quality. Maybe you did like a a blade or two or five or whatever, and you spend an entire year on them, and they're like perfect. But then, you know, you get home and you're like, okay, well, now this this is like the the cheap run. I'm gonna do, I'm gonna sell like 30, 40, 50 of these in a run, and all of them are gonna have flaws that are glaring. And then you know, you send them out to the customer, and then you know, maybe they complain, or maybe they never buy from you again because you put out shoddy work. Like, don't do those things. Like, the idea is like represent yourself um well and do the best that you can. And if you know there's variation on your table, sometimes that's just the way it is, and you you're the only one that can decide on what your good enough is, how you're measuring yourself up uh on your work, and whether you're going to present those on a table. Um, now there's a uh one tiny piece that I think is uh important to note, and it's it's just food for thought. Uh knives at knife shows can really be thought of as an exhibition, right? You're taking it somewhere to show against a lot of really, really good makers. And you bring something unique to the table, all right? And it's important to think about bringing something that is ritzy, maybe something that you really pushed your own envelope on, and it's just uh it's something that is it's new, it's a different model of something, it's uh using different materials, it's testing out different hand finishes and things, and using that exhibition uh quality to show is to be able to show it off. You know, if if you have it on your table and somebody looks at that thing and looks at it and says, Hey, I'll buy it, and like immediately after picking it up or just looking at it, or you know, maybe you kind of shopped it around on your social media and they just have to have it. They came to the show specifically to see that. Man, maybe you got a winner. Like maybe that exhibition quality of things, like going there and actually strutting your stuff, you do more of that thing, and you can use that as a way to uh you know evaluate uh the market, evaluate customers, what they're looking for out of your work and whatnot. But don't think about waxing all of your work because a few knives are of a slightly better quality or not. Just you know, roll with it, make sure that you can fix anything that you you can fix before you leave uh to go to a show. Because once you get there, it's too late. Like when you're on that the that long drive or that plane ride or whatever, it is too late to worry about things, it's too late to fix them. You just do your show, you get the feedback that you do from you know patrons and customers, and you you you learn from it. Um but I hope that helps. Um, I don't know that's necessarily an answer, but just remember um there are other knife makers out there too that you can bounce uh ideas off of and you can ask questions and you can have them look at your work, even if it's just images, and and you know, get some feedback if that's really matters to you, but always always measure everybody else's feedback with what you personally feel because sometimes that intuition is better, sometimes other people are right, and maybe you you do need to try harder and and you can fix something, but you always have to balance out constructive criticism with what you you personally feel, and also if it's something that you can really fix um the way that they're saying that maybe you need to. So, um, you know, get at them, go to some shows, get some experience, and again, I hope this helps.