The Butter Knife Principle

 
We all have the luxury of owning several knives, to the extend that we do not think about the process of making a knife.  When we need a knife, we go to a store and buy, mass-produced, all shapes and sizes, for all kinds of purposes – without paying attention.

Knife making, however, is an age old “science” where a bladesmith spends numerous hours going through a very specific process, shaping a piece of metal to become a very specific tool – designed for a very specific purpose.

The challenge is to know what you want, patiently work the metal until you have created the specific blade you want.  How do you go about this?

You must choose the correct quality of steel for the blade and an appropriate material for the handle (such as wood, bone, or synthetic materials).

The knife must be designed – a sketch that includes the shape of the blade and the handle must be made.  Each design and shape have a specific purpose.

The steel must be prepared so that a blade can be shaped – this can be an elaborate process of cutting, hammering, grinding and straightening, until you have something you can shape into a blade.

Then you spend hours shaping the blade by removing excess material by grinding and sanding.

Once you are satisfied with the shape of the blade the process of heat treating and quenching in oil or water to harden the steel for strength and durability.  Then tempering follows to reduce brittleness while maintaining hardness.  If you don’t get this right, you have a useless piece of metal.

Now the finishing of the blade follows, sanding and polishing to smooth out any rough areas and give it a finished look.  But the end is not in sight yet, for final assembly the handle must be cut, shaped and attached to the blade – drilling holes for rivets and using epoxy to secure the handle may be required.

Only now the blade can be sharpened, or not, once again using specialised tool.

Only now you have a knife that may be used for the purpose it has been designed for.  Some for general use, some for a very specific purpose – like a butter knife.

A butter knife is not designed to cut, cleave, debone, fillet, fight or anything else – it is beautifully shaped to do one thing, spread butter.

Life has the same impact on us.  We are all shaped by the master bladesmith – we only participate, there is a design for each of us, we all have a purpose (without purpose we are at a loss), we are shaped to serve this purpose by countless hours learning, experiencing, pressure, achieving and failing, tempered and finished to be useful for God and humanity.

Some of us are generalists, ready to fix and attend to any and everything, and then there are some who are shaped and formed to be unique – to have a specific purpose.  Even in being a generalist, we are all unique, made for that purpose.  The biggest mistake we can make is to compare ourselves to others.

If you’re butter knife, be the best butter knife that you can be, and own it.  Fulfilling your purpose is where being content lies.

Dr CJH (Johan) Coetzee.

15/12/2024