A new question, if you'd be so kind

David Stifle

David Stifle

Joined
Nov 20, 2008
Messages
10,188
This forum is not known for being a productive area for custom swordmakers, or anywhere else in Bladeforums for sword makers really. There's other websites much more involved in swordmaking/purchasing, such as Don Fogg's site. But back to this forum. it seems a lot, well, most of the folks interest here seems to be in commercial swords, and many of those are in the low to mid range values. But then, there's only been a small number of swordmakers posting here, Branson, Crimson Falcon, Storm Crow, and myself. Perhaps some others, and if so, I apoligize for not remembering. My question is,

Do you folks think there's room for custom swordmakers to grow here?

I ask because--a custom made sword will be more pricey than a $400 or $500 production sword. A lot more pricey. A sword has to be forged, straightended, heat treated , tempered, sanded, handle developed and mounted, guard fabricated, and so on. If you want a hamon, the price skyrockets. There's not a lot of people doing it anymore because it's a lot of work for a typical one man shop; for me, usually over a month's work. So, there's the con side, on the pro side, you would have direct discussions with the maker, and valuable input into the design, and the maker would stand behind his product. I wonder if this forum would welcome and support such offerings?
 
there is, if you market yourself right

if you can, put some pics up in the gallery & sword forum and place some price points to them

$400+ for sword isnt too bad, us knife guess spend a couple G's on some knives if we really want too
personally ives burned $850 on one knife, so $400 for a sword isn't too terrible

but hey, thats the opinion of a small scale custom knife maker & collector i could be wrong
 
Thanks, I appreciate your comments. But I was saying a custom made sword would far exceed $400. I'm not much for marketing, never have been, but I hope my work (as I post more) would generate interest. I simply brought up this question because 99% of the posts on this forum are about production swords. I would dearly love to have well known custom sword makers post their work here. Well known men like Howard Clark don't need exposure, I'd just like them to post here because they have a knowlegable and appreciative audience. Other folks, like Scott Rousch, Stuart Branson are on the upswing and will become the next generation of well known makers. They've posted here, and I hope they do so more. Then there's the others folks, like myself; I've made bowie knives, hunters, daggers, etc., for years, and recently became enamored with longer blades. I don't know, what do you folks think? Is this discussion worth pursuing?
 
I feel there would be room to grow for a custom sword maker. If not here then there is certainly a market share available for one.

I agree other forums are a bit more sword focused, so you may have better luck elsewhere. The local crowd here seems too be more interested in modern-tactical swords and sword like objects, but to each their own.

Post up some of your work.
 
gregorio said:
I feel there would be room to grow for a custom sword maker. If not here then there is certainly a market share available for one.

I agree other forums are a bit more sword focused, so you may have better luck elsewhere. The local crowd here seems too be more interested in modern-tactical swords and sword like objects, but to each their own.

Post up some of your work.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I plan on doing that quite soon. Appreciate your thoughts.
 
There's also Scott Roush, and of course Dan Keffeler, who kindly spent a good hour yesterday explaining some of the ins and outs of 3V steel to me. There are a few others as well. And I don't really consider myself a sword maker, in the sense that I'm strictly a hobbyist, and I only offer a very few blades for sale, mainly to help fund my further experiments. Truthfully, I hope that I never turn this into a business, because I want the freedom to make what I want, when I have time, and not worry too much about customer expectations or requirements.

It's true that there aren't a lot of makers on here who seem to work with swords. For that matter, even of the folks who make fixed blades, it seems to be that most tend to do bowies, hunters, choppers, etc. There's a pretty small subset of knife styles that get created, and as you said, only a few of us making swords. I'd venture to guess that because swords are less practical in today's world, that most people on these forums are less likely to drop serious money on a sword than on a knife.

This sub-forum is pretty sparsely populated. While I think there's a market, particularly for modern "tactical" designs, there's not a whole lot of activity here, which makes me think that there aren't that many people who are into swords on this forum. And there are probably plenty of makers who do swords, but don't post them on here because they aren't paid members, and can't even talk about their work due to the forum rules. So it's not really worth their time to be posting on here. Even if they do, this sub-forum seems to delete or archive threads faster than the other sub-forums (notice how few pages of threads there are, compared to other sub-forums?), so it's barely worth the time to post up in here.

I'd like to see this forum get more activity, but I honestly don't really see it happening any time soon.
 
Not to denigrate this forum, but I think that the reason that the sword forum here has always been a bit anemic is because of it's interest group. Basically this is a knife forum. Those that show up here in the sword forum fall into various categories:

1) The knife guy that thinks it might be neat to have a sword - This knife guy doesn't really know a thing about swords, but he figures a sword is just a big knife, and so buys the latest tactical whatsit accordingly. - Unless you are planning on making tactical whatsits not your target market.

2) Somebody wants a katana - They don't actually know what a katana is other than what they've seen in some ninja movie, but they figure they can get one for a few hundred bucks and become a closet ninja. - Unless you can compete with cheap chitanas not your target market.

3) Somebody has found a sword in the basement - Someone who is a member here or who has done a google search found a sword in the basement. Typically it's a fraternal sword that belonged to Uncle Bob. They would like to know what it is. Typically they aren't a market at all.

4) Informed sword purchasers - Guys that have been studying swords for years and are willing to spend the money for quality items. There's probably less than 5 of those that post on this forum with any regularity. There's your target market if you are turning out a good product... because like I said these guys actually know about swords and aren't going to buy any long bladed thing that someone calls a sword. So with a market of 5 or so... you can probably draw your own conclusions. There are at least 4 sword forums where there is a much bigger market than 5 out there though...

I've been wrong before... but that's my take.
 
Triton said:
I've been wrong before... but that's my take.
Click to expand...

Pretty dead on from where I sit, Triton.

Thing about the commercial swords for me, is that they are every bit of "good enough". I use CAS Hanwei swords almost exclusively for reasons that have been exhaustively listed elsewhere. If one fails, I buy another one(failure is subjective, I have badly bent two early models, one was easily bent back, the other twisted). The furniture on them is very good.

I have one European style court sword from Kevin Cashen....that is an heirloom for the next generation. Mr. Stifle would do well to decide if he wants to make "users" or heirlooms, as there is very much room in the sword world for both, but the expected price points are often quite dramatically different.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
 
Thanks everyone, I appreciate the thoughtful replies. I like this forum, but as in everything else in life, it is what it is; Triton summed up my feelings very well. STeven made some good pionts too, as usual. As for me, I'll continue to make what I like and do my personal best on each and every one.

Again, thanks Guys
 
I think you might do better to put some $ into your website (you do have one, right?) I tried to google you after seeing this thread, and I came up with nothing. A little SEO goes a long way...
 
Just Some Guy, thanks for your advice. I did have a website for years, as I got older and more involved with different projects, it just lanquished. I took it down. And I hope that there's not a misunderstanding, I didn't post this thread to drum up interest or sales. I only make a handful of blades a year anymore anyway. I was primarily speaking to the lack of custom makers on this forum vs. production blades. I think the question has been adequately addressed.
 
Of course there is room for sword makers and this forum itself to grow. This is a sword subforum on a large forum that is largely dedicated to knives, but look how active the ax, hatchet, and tomahawk subforum is.

Triton pretty much nailed it in his analysis of common threads here. I think that posting your work anywhere that you are getting a response is a good thing. It gives you feedback, an opportunity to talk with others about what you make, and helps get your name out there. Some forums will be more active in doing so than not.

Swords are just less common than knives or axes. More effort to make, higher price, fewer customers, less practical applications. It kind of makes sense that it might be a slower forum.

I'll still be posting my longer blades here and commenting on other folks when I have something to contribute. :)
 
I've often wondered whether to post pics of swords (and slos for that matter) coming out of my shop here or in Custom... and sword testing, does that go here or in Testing/review?

It is pretty quiet here, sometimes a valuable resource for those looking to inform decisions on commercial purchases or or find out what they bought on ebay is a wall hanger.

I've posted about 15% of my swords here but I can start taking more pics someday if you will! Swords are very difficult to photograph well.

Sometimes you have to bring people in e.g. instead of just emailing photos of a sword to a client you can link them here and have them join BF to see them. It can take work though.
 
Swords Are difficult to photogragh well. In iorder to get the full sword in the lens finder I have to back up, the sword ends up looking quite small. I do have a couple of swords I'm finishing up. You'll see the my photos here, William. Looking forward to seeing more of your work.
 
I remember some of your work, William. Great pieces!

I like your idea about bringing folks in. The one thing I do like here is that the makers community is pretty active, friendly, and helpful. I haven't found that to be quite as true on other forums.
 
I think it's perfectly acceptable to cross post swords in the Custom, Sword, and Testing subforums. It's a custom, it's a sword, and you're doing testing. Put it in all places. If someone's seen it in one subforum, they can skip it in another. I'd love to see more than 15% of your swords, William. :)
 
Well for me its kinda much that, if you take some more or less mass produced swords of beter quallity, lets say cold steels for exemple, Swords dont have a practical use nowdays, so the development stand kinda still and most models etc exist in a fairly well made mass production if you look around abit. Unlike with knives for exemple, when i wanted a trenchknife i "had" to find a custom guy to make me one, since no company make thos(not counting thos cheap china knockoffs with hollowed aluminum handles and god know what steel in the blade)

I think the people that buy swords fall into tho categorys mainly.

1) The guy that want something historical accurate(more or less)´: I guess most of thos people wont pay 2-3 times as much for something that looks similar, or have to be changed too much to be historicaly accurate.
(not that likely to buy custom stuff)

2) The guy that like to chopp up hes furniture: He want a sharp prybar, not a sword in the traditional mening, when he might be ready to pay for it, he dont care how it looks as long it can cut a TV in half without chipping or snap, when a passible client i guess it would kinda dull and boring to make thos in the long run?

3) The lunetic that belive in a comeing zombie apocalypse(noone should feel offended i put myself here): Thos guys are ready to pay alot for a good sword that preform, but they are still intrested in something that looks good / cool / "tactical"(i hate that word) / modern, I guess this is the good group, but its not that many of us.

ofc i generalizes here for the sake of humor and to narrow it down, but i still think i do have some kind of point, since lets face it, swords dont realy have a practical use, ther simply isent a big market for non "historical" swords, and thos are already done to death by many companys in various quallity.
 
Virre87 said:
Well for me its kinda much that, if you take some more or less mass produced swords of beter quallity, lets say cold steels for exemple, Swords dont have a practical use nowdays, so the development stand kinda still and most models etc exist in a fairly well made mass production if you look around abit. Unlike with knives for exemple, when i wanted a trenchknife i "had" to find a custom guy to make me one, since no company make thos(not counting thos cheap china knockoffs with hollowed aluminum handles and god know what steel in the blade)
Click to expand...

While I agree with the general sentiment, i.e. true sword development ended about 100 years ago please for the love of pete don't say "better quality," "sword" and "cold steel" in the same sentence! :)
 
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