My wife and I have prayed for God to bless us with a child for over 10 years. God answered our prayers 8 months ago with a beautiful and healthy girl, Amelia. I had planned to keep the shop open but cut down the amount of time I spent in the shop but moving forward I will no longer pursue knife making as a business.
My shop is and always has been 100% debt free, my personal household is also debt free, and my family simply doesn't need the income as much as we need the quality family time with each other. My wife has come home full time to be with and raise Amelia and with my shop closing we are going from 3 incomes without kids to 1 income with kids and have never been happier as a family.
Given that every piece of tooling and materials are all paid for and I owe no man anything, I intend to keep my equipment/materials and continue to make knives as time and family allows but I will do so from the capacity of a hobbyist rather than a business. At the volume that I've produced over the last few months, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me to keep up with all of the behind the scenes book keeping, taxes, licensures, and operating overhead of a legally defined business and I'm unwilling to allow my daughter to grow up without significant daily attention from me.
Thank you all for everyone who have supported me in my craft through encouragement, sharing my work, and business. I can't overstate how great my customers have been over the years, many of whom have become personal friends of mine and my family. Moving forward my focus for my time when not at work is going to be on God's word, my family, then hunting/fishing, and my craft as time allows. I may re-open at a later time if/when I have more time to dedicate to the business side of the craft but I'd expect that to be many years down the road.
What this means for Polk Knives moving forward...
- The value of what's out there just went up because they are about to be difficult to acquire moving forward
- Everything moving forward made will be a gift knife or personal build to my personal preference as a hobbyist and will not be for retail sale. I may barter here and there with it for the occasional sporting good but I'm a very, very content man in life and just don't know how much random junk I'd even want to take in and store. I may also make some for my own pleasure to donate to good causes like St Jude and/or the local Backcountry Hunters and Anglers fundraiser events
- Expect to see higher end builds. Profitability is no longer a requirement for my business and therefore I get to do whatever I feel like doing solely for the pleasure of working with my hands to produce something wonderful. It's time to be artistic, creative, and meticulous with my craft and simply not worry whatsoever about the finances of the business.
Topic: Polk Knives is closing shop (Read 472 times)
