*He picks up a chair and carries it to the centre of the room, places it softly down facing all comers, as he sits a thin haze of steel dust emanates from his clothing and then disperses as swiftly as it appeared*
"Hi all, my name is Stuart and I love knives!"
Seriously, making knives is all I have ever done, I'll not bore you with too much detail but having parents who both worked in the Sheffield trade it so followed that I would too, I left school at 15 years old and began an apprenticeship under my father, which was fun at times I can tell you, back then the cutlery trade is exactly where we were, all the usual piles of never changing gear we have all seen coming out of Sheffield over the years...
Later we diversified, we made a comprehensive range of what we called 'Benchmade' knives, my dads ethos back then was to get good quality working knives into the hands that used them at affordable money, for many years we achieved that with that range and my folks attendance at the Country/Game Fairs around the country, we were Pat Mitchell (Cutlers) then and I'll bet a £1 to a 1p that there are a fair few Pat Mitchell knife owners around these parts?
The problem with the knives we were making and selling was that there was never enough profit in them, my folks doing it more for the love, after their loss things changed slightly, I headed off in a slightly different angle, there was much 'blade only' work around, Sgian blades for the Scottish market, a range of blades supplied to Wilkinson Sword, it was good work and plentiful, I took on an apprentice, then I got him one, it reached a point where we were five pairs of hands strong in my little workshop, we were making money, what I wasn't making though was knives, and I missed it...
I was office bound and quite frankly a little disillusioned with it all, taking on work I didn't really want to keep the other eight hands busy, then Wilkinson closed down and that signaled the end for me, Pat Mitchell (Cutlers) was mothballed and I went to work with a mate of mine importing wall and floor tiles from around Europe...
I wasn't cut out for that and without going in to too much detail things were not adding up at the month end, so we had words and I got out, then what though?
I headed back to my mothballed workshop, there were no orders of course, no work to do, so I dug around and found a few materials, I made a knife, from the Pat Mitchell (Cutlers) back catalogue, I had no buyer so I stuck it on eBay, do you know what, it sold, for not bad money too, so I made another, and another...
Then I got an email, 'just seen your knife on eBay which I like but can you make one slightly different for me' type of thing, which I did, and that is what I still do today, make Custom Knives for those that ask...
So, in a nutshell that is me, how I got here today and that is the 'get to know me' part over with, so in this thread this is what we are going to make, three Muntjac and three scaled up versions, as yet unnamed...
"Hi all, my name is Stuart and I love knives!"
Seriously, making knives is all I have ever done, I'll not bore you with too much detail but having parents who both worked in the Sheffield trade it so followed that I would too, I left school at 15 years old and began an apprenticeship under my father, which was fun at times I can tell you, back then the cutlery trade is exactly where we were, all the usual piles of never changing gear we have all seen coming out of Sheffield over the years...
Later we diversified, we made a comprehensive range of what we called 'Benchmade' knives, my dads ethos back then was to get good quality working knives into the hands that used them at affordable money, for many years we achieved that with that range and my folks attendance at the Country/Game Fairs around the country, we were Pat Mitchell (Cutlers) then and I'll bet a £1 to a 1p that there are a fair few Pat Mitchell knife owners around these parts?
The problem with the knives we were making and selling was that there was never enough profit in them, my folks doing it more for the love, after their loss things changed slightly, I headed off in a slightly different angle, there was much 'blade only' work around, Sgian blades for the Scottish market, a range of blades supplied to Wilkinson Sword, it was good work and plentiful, I took on an apprentice, then I got him one, it reached a point where we were five pairs of hands strong in my little workshop, we were making money, what I wasn't making though was knives, and I missed it...
I was office bound and quite frankly a little disillusioned with it all, taking on work I didn't really want to keep the other eight hands busy, then Wilkinson closed down and that signaled the end for me, Pat Mitchell (Cutlers) was mothballed and I went to work with a mate of mine importing wall and floor tiles from around Europe...
I wasn't cut out for that and without going in to too much detail things were not adding up at the month end, so we had words and I got out, then what though?
I headed back to my mothballed workshop, there were no orders of course, no work to do, so I dug around and found a few materials, I made a knife, from the Pat Mitchell (Cutlers) back catalogue, I had no buyer so I stuck it on eBay, do you know what, it sold, for not bad money too, so I made another, and another...
Then I got an email, 'just seen your knife on eBay which I like but can you make one slightly different for me' type of thing, which I did, and that is what I still do today, make Custom Knives for those that ask...
So, in a nutshell that is me, how I got here today and that is the 'get to know me' part over with, so in this thread this is what we are going to make, three Muntjac and three scaled up versions, as yet unnamed...
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