A GEC Factory Tour!

I'm late to the party (again!!), but I have to echo everyone else. This was fascinating to watch and very educational. I have neither the skill, the coordination, or eyesight to do this, but at least I can still appreciate the end product. Ebony boy's knife; sweet!! And a TC Charlow too!!

Ed J
 
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Thanks for the very informative link. It was a pleasure to see how a pocket knife is made, especially by GEC. Though my internet was darn slowly it was quiete a torture watching the films - but it was worth definitelly.

Thanks for the video :)
 
2manyknives said:
Loved the hype free, relaxed style of film making. Thankyou for rma100 for posting the link.
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Yes, this is a good point, it was calm, measured and diligent. No idiocy or huge egos intruding, no wonder they can turn out such decent knives.

It's heartening too to see skill, patience, and making something worthwhile that will last.
 
Thanks for sharing the link! My wife and I are heading there this coming Friday to take a tour and hit up the factory store! I'm being dragged to a wedding later that weekend, so a visit to GEC will certainly sweeten the trip!

-Dan
 
Thanks for posting the link! I really enjoyed watching. I would love to go and take a tour in person some day.
 
Absolutely amazing! I'm fairly familiar with manufacturing processes and the number of TRUE hand processes GEC uses is astounding! That's old-world craftsmanship right there.
 
That was just fantastic.
After watching this, can I say something, I honestly do NOT mean to shake the can of worms at all, but I have little knowledge about knives, I have very quickly learnt to appreciate the workmanship that goes into them, having owned a business for 20 years myself I realise the hardships that come with this..... please bear with me...
What REALLY grates me is when people moan about a new pocket knife that they have paid ...( lets so an even $100.00 ) for...something maybe about a pin, or a slight gap...they literally demand that knife to be perfect, and man I have to bite my tongue.

If you are paying a custom maker $1000 or just under...you may have reasons for closer inspection, but when you are paying $100 for a hand made/assembled/crafted knife...please, please be a bit realistic.

What do you pay a labourer these days for one hours work? - $50 minimum if that person is any good at all, or a kid to mow your lawns - $20? This should give you a wee bit of perspective.

To me I look at it like this, lets give them 1 hour in total of handling the knife, then the costs of the very expensive materials these days for: Carbon or Stainless, then the Bone-the jigg work, or the Stag, or Ebony....and of course the wages of all the workers, the rent etc..it would go on the costs that go into a knife.
I appreciate truly the passion that goes into the backbreaking decision to start or buy a company like GEC, because of the love of knives, the wanting of a Traditional knife ( just like you Grand pa used to own ), the American customer base were up in arms when these great old Cutler firms shut-you now have one again, so think about it... you/we are getting incredible value for money, appreciate what you have and think about how lucky we are not to be holding an overseas made knife.
This video should make this loud and clear...I want to thank Bob for posting this - just fantastic.
 
Very interesting. Mostly hand labor, unlike the video I saw from Case that showed a fair degree of automation for the blade grinding.
 
Great video. Thanks for posting it. It definitely gave me a new appreciation for what goes into making a slip joint.
 
Not that I didn't already appreciate what GEC is doing, but that tour just added a new level of respect for the company and its' workers. And, yes there is a lot of hand work involved, done by obviously very skilled hands. Nice job GEC!
 
Very nice post RMA, thanks a bunch for letting us in on it. Let's us go into a factory and see the low down when we may never get to do so in person.

Will
 
Campbellclanman said:
What REALLY grates me is when people moan about a new pocket knife that they have paid ...( lets so an even $100.00 ) for...something maybe about a pin, or a slight gap...they literally demand that knife to be perfect, and man I have to bite my tongue.

If you are paying a custom maker $1000 or just under...you may have reasons for closer inspection, but when you are paying $100 for a hand made/assembled/crafted knife...please, please be a bit realistic.
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Duncan,

I won't argue value-per-dollar with you-- I agree!

At the same time, I also understand how someone who pays $100 for a knife and receives one with visible cosmetic issues might feel disappointed in those instances when it's clear (thanks to the internet, o double-edged sword) that many others receive the same knife without those issues.

Ie, a large number of knives without issue(s) demonstrates that it is in fact realistic to expect the same....

Thus, for the manufacturer attention to detail, and the ability of management to inspire an ongoing commitment to the same over a spectrum of repeated tasks requiring various degrees of skill, is critical.

All told, I'd say GEC is doing a bang-up job. :)

~ P.
 
When I think of GEC, I think of knives made painstakingly slow by hand. But when I saw those huge electric motors running those dies and blanking machines, I realized it was modern industrial operation.
 
That was interesting. There is far more manual work than I expected. I was surprised to see how often the parts were handled during the operation - I expected to see more fixtures and more automatic feeding of the parts.

I definitely appreciate what goes into these, and they are indeed "cheap"!

One point of criticism though: HOW COULD THE HOST NOT WEAR EYE PROTECTION?!?! I was cringing the whole time. I worked in a shop with a lot of similar operations for 2 years, and I would never have done that (not that I would have been allowed to either). Call me a Nervous Nelly - but I would not do that with my eyes! :eek:

Me in that shop --> :cool:
 
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