Hey Wendell, some good questions. I want to give you another way to look at getting your JS. The tests involved, both the performance and presentation, are made to show that your talent is at a certain level. Yes, that means you could use that to promote your work, but even more important is the fact that the work that you did to get to that point made you better. Better with the things required for the performance test, such as blade geometry, heat treat, and edge retention. And also for the presentation part, fit and finish, symmetry and attention to detail. I say all this as an apprentice myself, but plan on attempting my JS presentation this year.

As far as if you are ready .. Make a test knife and see if you can pass the performance test.

Ask your self , do you understand how to pass? what you need to do look for in the blade? How to engineer the blade design to the test? 

To my mind the performance test is the easy part. As far as a presentation, there are many facets to passing, fit finish design, all clearly stated but not well described. I think the judges are looking to see control of process, they are looking at the set with an eye for your intent. Are your plunges where you intended or did you chase them, was the line of the spine intentional or ground back to correct some other error. Is your finish clean and well done? are the fits tight? these are the thing I would concentrate on starting in the forging of the blade. context is important, you need to speak the same design language as the judges. look to work that has passed and look for the commonality of it and your own work then concentrate on that. 

I looked through your site and didn't really see anything that could tell me if you are ready or not. JS is mono steel and the finishing and fit are a big part of passing every thing i saw on your site was damascus. Also looking at photos doesn't always tell the whole story, things can look off in photos and be right or photos can hide issues. I will say your designs seem well done for the most part. 

As to why to test.. and is it worth it.. honestly yes and no. Will your knives sell for more/will you sell more knives.. not immediately or so I have noticed.. passing JS helps give weight to your name, it will help you market your work and your self, but it is a tool not a magic wand.

I have certainly had a better return on investment from getting pro photos of my work than from testing. It is expensive to test especially if like me you are full time,  I took a hit financially testing for JS that took several months for me to recover from. How ever that is not what makes JS and MS worth it in my opinion. 

I have made knives for over 30 years. I have been full time blacksmith or bladesmith for over 20 years, and  in all that time NOTHING has pushed me to get better faster than testing. Being forced to take a critical objective look at my work and skills, made me recognize my weaknesses. Applying my self to be judged externally forced me to be honest with my self regarding my skills and understanding of the craft.  That in turn forced me to work on those weakness and push through. I remember talking to Lin Rhea around the time I was testing for JS and saying something like "I am not sure I will pass but I can't do better right now, and if I fail I'll go take handles and guards and try again in a year or two." I did pass and looking back I am proud of my set it had a lot of growth from what i was making even a year or two earlier.  All of that forced me to grow as a smith and in many ways as a person. I am finding the same thing to be true on the road to MS. The journey its self  is worth the effort. 

So testing is worth the effort in my opinion but it is defiantly not necessary to make a living as a smith. Both my business partners are both full time and both are booked out to 2025-26, and have as high or higher price points than I do and neither are rated smiths.   

Test for the challenge,  test to Make yourself a better smith.. money is just money if that's all we cared about we should have chosen a different field. 

MP

Thanks for the response. it is well stated and yes while I am booked out for a few months, I hope get to that level where I am booked out for the year.  I think the proudest moment I had was when a customer left a review of how he dressed and butchered a deer and did a few things he probably shouldnt have.  

I will test, but to be honest it scares the crap out of me to do that to one of my knives.  and you are correct, most people want a damascus knife from me.  I have only done the 10" bowie and the spear out of mono steel.

I will have to try and do some mono steel blades.  I do use a kiln for heat treatment, I am lucky my wife is a potter and I have a huge kiln.  its great because it has 3 sections and I can use one section if its a small knife, but I do have the capability of doing a 30" blade if I needed to.

I love this quote.

Posted by: Matthew Parkinson

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money is just money if that's all we cared about we should have chosen a different field.

My plan is to retire in a year or two and just do this as a retirement job, so money isnt really a key issue other than to support the hobby.

appreciate the response.

Yours is a difficult  question. It can be difficult to quantify.  Essentially  you seem to be asking is it worth it monetarily and are your skills up to.

Monetarily, if i was younger it'd be worth it, but at my age(70+) it's probably  not profitable other than satisfying my ego by knowing that I can meet a tough standard. Im doing it because it's making me a better knifemaker and a little ego.  I have seen where when people passed their JS their prices were increased accordingly. And as one MS put it, at his level  people quit asking how much or telling him what the parameters were, they just said  i want this style and build me a knife. 

Skill wise, as asked before have you made and tested a differentially heat treated blade that meets the established parameters and tested it to destruction. That will answer part of your skills question. The second part of the test is your fit and finish. That requires evaluation by someone who undergone the tests. A JS but preferably a MS. They have the skills required  to evaluate the fit and finish required. Personally I started with a 2 day critique and training session with MS Ed Caffrey . He did comprehensive evaluation of 6 of my customer knives highlighting my strong and weak points. Then I tested with him last year. After the test he did a comprehensive review  of the presentation knives standards. His inputs are invaluable. He did his best to set me up for success.  This is a standard I've noticed across the ABS community. The  JS  and MS bend over backwards to help.

Understand that you will make your presentation knives that fit the ABS requirements/standard.  Review and know the standards inside and out.  Then review the photo's of presentation knives that passed as posted on this site and I suggest a visit to Sharp by Coop.  He's posted several years of Js presentation  knives and it gives you a nice overview of the ABS style. 

Hope my ramblings help you decide. If nothing else just attempting it will result in a better product for your customers. 

Good luck.

 Excellent answers everyone! The main thing is do it for you. Have MS and JS look at your knives and give feedback as to what you need to improve on. I would suggest if you decide to go for it, concentrate on monosteel blades and finishing them well. Also I noticed the majority of your knives are full tang. Move into making hidden tang knives with nice fit and finish. Again going for JS should be for you, not anyone else. The process will improve your skills greatly. If you have any questions let us know.

Brion

Thanks, yeah I like hidden tang knives better, but have just been filling customer orders.  I did just put 3 knives in the kiln, one hidden tang, one I am planning on a full take down, and the third is another frame handle bowie.  Im just old and slow when it comes to these.

Posted by: Wendell Bryenton

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I will test, but to be honest it scares the crap out of me to do that to one of my knives. 

I regularly tested my mono-steel blades to destruction during the ealy years of bladesmithing and still peiodically do destructive testing on all my steels. It reinforces my certainty that I get the HT correct, and that all of my apparatus and my quench medium is still working as it should be.

IMO I waited far too long to test for JS. by the time I finally got around to testing, I had been making knives for 15 years and making ones like these for 6 years. I should have focused my energy on smaller details. Even now, I looked at each knife in my passing JS set as I shipped them out and saw them with new pespective. Each one of them I found little things that I hadn't seen before.Things that I don't want in any future knife.

Posted by: Joshua C States

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Each one of them I found little things that I hadn't seen before.Things that I don't want in any future knife.

lol, we are all our own worst critic!

So one more question, if I may.  What was your biggest hurdle or fear?  Im terrified of bending the blade.  Chopping and shaving, totally good with, but when I watch that blade bend, its worse than a horror movie!

For me it was and is what the judges will see that I miss. I am sure is is a little bit of imposter syndrome. With my JS set there were things I saw that I couldn't fix, and some things I missed at home but saw once i was in the testing room, mostly this things I saw were the results of design choices I made that later disliked or lines that I chased and ended up getting as close as I could and stopped.  Today I would make those choices differently and, I have skills I didn't then. There was a bunch of little things that the judges found that I never saw, things I would never have seen then, that I only look for now because they pointed them out to be. If you cant see it you cant fix it..

I put a set for MS together in 2019 that I decided not to submit, I did bring them to Blade and showed them to every MS I could pin down. They all saw things I didn't, and most saw things the others didn't, no one seemed to see everything, and no one saw the thing that I decided not to submit over. 

MP

I think I had 2 areas of concern. First was board chop. With 5 factors that can fail you, even an edge that's passed prior chopping  tests could suffer damage. Second concern was the unseen flaw that I'd forged into the blade or was created as they rolled out the steel that might show during bending. These weren't fears just concerns. I think making, using good heat treat methods, testing during each phase is critical. You have to feel confident in your ability.

As to the presentation phase. As I work my way through the presentation  knives I find myself concurring with Matthew. Mistakes i didn't see. But i can control part of that by getting those JS and particularly Ms eyes looking at my knives. I've seen several judges comments where the know the difference between those candidates who had their knives critiqued by MS's prior to presentation and those who winged it. 

you guys have been really helpful!  Thank you.

I am a year and half away from being able to attempt a test, but I now have some ideas of what to look for and how to prepare!  I am sure I will have 823 more questions, but so far this has been a blast and satisfying for my creative side.