Custom Knives -Another Take on the Elusive Definition

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I saw a post on another forum where the Surefire Delta knife was being dicussed. Apparently, Steve Ryan assembles the Delta folders. This led to the inevitable discussion about what constitutes a "custom" knife. While I know this horse has been beaten to death again and again and again and again, I don't think the subject should be left for dead. One post which appeared to be coming from some one involved in production of industrial objects posted this - and I found it another way to illustrate what is "custom":

My inhouse editor wishes to correct a misconception on the semantics of the term 'custom'. I'm just passing it along for your consideration.
Custom refers to any work that is performed to the customer's special specifications or orders. This may involve a completely unique design or it may be as small a specification as a metric or setting.
Any product that is manufactured in a quantity of more than two identical units and then sold to two different people is a production run. There is some confusion about the difference between Limited Editions and Custom Editions. What many refer to as 'Custom' are simply Limited Editions.
The fact of hand work has no bearing on weather a product is part of either a Limited Edition or a Custom Edition. Hand Made or Hand Assembled are more appropriate terms in this regard.

This was in response to another post:

STRIDER FAQ:
Are Strider knives production or custom?
Per Josh Lee:
"We have catalog and non-catalog knives. Catalog meaning our regular designs, non-catalog meaning MSC and DDC. All Strider knives are custom knives, meaning that there is a large amount of hand finishing done on the knives."


When I was 17 and a budding designer, I was introducted to Rick Genovese by a fellow who ran a knife shop in Denver, Colorado. Rick was mostly doing copies of Loveless Hunters, Fighters, Big Bear's and Chute Knives. I think he was about 22 and worked in his dad's tool shop. I ordered a Loveless Fighter from Rick with Lignum Vitae scales. I went to Colorado Springs to pick it up. I chatted with him for some time, and brought some of my own hand-drawn knife designs with me. He agreed to make one of them, a presentation dagger with ivory scales and silver sheath. A couple of months later, I went down again to pick it up, exactly as I drew it (with a #2 pencil on a piece of scratch paper) and it was delivered with a couple of minor geometric modifications based on tooling limitations.

That, boys and girls, is a "CUSTOM" knife.

Today, apparently, the economics and structure of knifemaking has changed. Makers mostly are intent on creating new designs which form a pattern which can be dressed with with different materials. These are not custom knives. They are handmade (more or less) knives and orders are filled.

Do I like these modern knives any less? No. Do I care that makers of all sizes (1 to many) use CNC Machines in lieu of blueing, grease pencils and hacksaws? No. But what whacks me out is the way in which the term "custom" has become utterly meaningless, in the context of knife manufacturing.

A knife consists of two things (as do most object), a design and the execution of that design. Designs can be more or less original, depending on how innovative they are. Originality is much valued by some, less by others. Execution of the design in steel (or similar) requires tools. Which tools are used depends on the skill and economic need of the maker.

For those that believe that the percentage of "handmadness" is meaningful (and as far as I can tell, many claim to), a handmade knife could be accompanied by a checklist that identifies the tool used in each process and indicated whether a part was produced "in shop" or "out of shop" and by process (hacksaw or CNC or whatever). A committee of the knifemakers guild so assign scoring to this checklist and you could get a pretty fair assessment of how "handmade" a knife is. Perhaps in this way, we could eliminate the distinction between custom, handmade, benchmade, semi-custom, production, and factory. Hell, I am pretty certain that some "production" knives (say Randall's) are far more handmade that some "custom" knives. BTW, I believe the term "mid-tech" while well intentioned, merely serves to further confuse the issue rather than provide clarity. If you don't believe me, just search the term mid-tech on this forum and others - the definitions are so variable as to be useless.

That semantic condition is so upside-down I don't know how you can use the term "custom" with a straight face. :o

Opinions?
 
You're right, there is a great misuse of the term custom. I do handmade knives. Those of my design, that I may make more than one of, are handmade. The knife I finished this morning, based solely on a clients concept and the freedom to execute that concept within the design parameters, make that very much a custom knife.

Assembling someone else's kit does not make one a knifemaker. From there on distinctions start blurring.

It is unlikely, however, that the definitions will change a great deal. There is too much hype to clarify it. That is due, in part, to makers who want to set their work apart, and more to various publications that write the hype to make their publication sell better than the competition.

I have a friend locally who is a very good gunstock maker. He summed it up well when he said that writyers don't have to know what they are writing about, they just have to be able to write. As an example he spoke of a recent gun mag article about Indian checkering. He'd received a call about doing Indian checkering as a result. He asked whether the customer wanted Cherokee or Navajo checkering and it went from there.

The fact of the matter is tht Native Americans did not checker their gunstocks. They might decorate them with brass tacks or other things but they certainly didn't checker. But, since the writer said it was so, it had to be. He now calls himself the world's expert on Indian checkering, even though it exists only in one writer's mind.

As long as we have to deal with the hype, it will stay muddled.

Gene
 
The term "Custom" has become nothing but a "marketing term". This was coined by the Knifemakers Guild. Custom knives is a type of knife, collectors of these knives have no confusion as to what is and what isn't a custom knife.

When a .45 on the cover of American Handgunner is called a "Custom" .45 in fact it is customized. The gunsmith started with a standard frame and enhanced the tolerances and ultimately the performance. The same has been done to factory knives. Replacement of handle materials, washers, grinds, etc.
These products are in the category "Customized". Being that they are a standard product that has been modified to meet the consumers.

The term "handmade" is used by some, again nothing but a marketing term. As technically machines or tools have been used to modify the medium the craftsman is working with. The closest you get to a handmade knife is a flint knife, even then a tool is used to do the knapping.

Factory and production models of many different items have used "hand made", "custom", customized, to enhance the desirability of their product. Proof of this can be found in the sales sections of any of the knife forums.
How many times have you read "For Sale, Terzuola, Carson, Elishewitz and Ralph folders, only to click on the link and find a Spyderco, CRKT, Benchmade and Timberline or sale. This of course is exactly what the factories want the uniformed consumer to think. That these knives are factory versions of the custom knives and consequently are almost the same....except for the several hundred dollars difference in the price.

There will never be a 100% consensus on what is a "custom knife".
 
I don't worry about the definition of what a custom knife is. To me it is just a classification that differentiates between knives made by a knifemaker and knives made by a manufacturer. I personally have three classifications for knives: Custom (knives made solely by a knifemaker), Midtech (knives from a knifemaker that have had some of the major work farmed out), production (knives made by a manufacturer). This keeps things uncomplicated.
 
I have become accustomed to using the term "Handmade". Even though that doesn’t seem just right either and could be challenged.
 
Kevin Jones said:
I have become accustomed to using the term "Handmade". Even though that doesn’t seem just right either and could be challenged.
Click to expand...

I find "handmade" even more imprecise than "custom". No knives are made by hand. In every instance the hands are holding tools. The dispute largely rests on what tools are used and by whom.

Roger
 
RogerP said:
I find "handmade" even more imprecise than "custom". No knives are made by hand. In every instance the hands are holding tools. The dispute largely rests on what tools are used and by whom.

Roger
Click to expand...

True Roger.
I guess you could even say the very first primitive flint napped knives were even chipped using another rock as a tool.
I guess to be exact, I would define as "made by hand by one individual utilizing non sophisticated tools".
My point is that some factory knives could be considered "Customs" (as no other) William Henry's quarterly offerings would be an example of this.
 
Thanks Architect. Very complete report. In spite of this, the term Custom, I also agree, has become generic to point of debate much of the time.

True, most Customs aren't, and most Handmades aren't. But what singular word replaces them? Not a checklist account.

Nice to keep us honest, though. ;)

Coop
 
if anyone has any doubt if the knives they have are custom-just send them to me and ill figure it out for you-
 
Kevin Jones said:
True Roger.
I guess you could even say the very first primitive flint napped knives were even chipped using another rock as a tool.
I guess to be exact, I would define as "made by hand by one individual utilizing non sophisticated tools".
My point is that some factory knives could be considered "Customs" (as no other) William Henry's quarterly offerings would be an example of this.
Click to expand...

Sorry, as I unknowing dittoed what WWG stated. I had not fully read his post before mine. Guess WWG an I agree on this thread.
 
I am changing the terms that I use to describe certain knives as Mid Tech knives to "technology assisted knives"
 
there are government rules regarding "handmade" items, the following FTC rule is in regards to jewelry

FROM THE FTC

§ 23.3 Misuse of the terms "hand-made," "hand-polished," etc.

(a) It is unfair or deceptive to represent, directly or by implication, that any industry product is hand-made or hand-wrought unless the entire shaping and forming of such product from raw materials and its finishing and decoration were accomplished by hand labor and manually-controlled methods which permit the maker to control and vary the construction, shape, design, and finish of each part of each individual product.

Note to paragraph (a): As used herein, "raw materials" include bulk sheet, strip, wire, and similar items that have not been cut, shaped, or formed into jewelry parts, semi-finished parts, or blanks.

(b) It is unfair or deceptive to represent, directly or by implication, that any industry product is hand-forged, hand-engraved, hand-finished, or hand-polished, or has been otherwise hand-processed, unless the operation described was accomplished by hand labor and manually-controlled methods which permit the maker to control and vary the type, amount, and effect of such operation on each part of each individual product.


any application to knives or other collectibles?
 
IMHO,

Custom: one of a kind, made to order. No reason that couldn't be an adaptation of a previous design, but I would expect it to be noticeably different. In that a knife is a thin wedge and we've been making them for oh, 30,000 years, they all start to look a little bit alike.

Handmade: created with tools but guided by the hand and eye working together, as opposed to a computer guided machine or duplicated by stamping, dies, etc.

Now, there's no reason I couldn't order a custom knife and have it popped out via CNC. But, if I order a handmade custom knife, I expect it to have been ground by the maker using his hands and eyes to guide the process.

What's the difference in value? Functionally, none really. I guess a CNC blade may be more symmetrical and exact to dimension. A handmade knife has more value to me in that it bears the mark of experience and proof of what beauty and form a human being can create-- a masterpeice.

Bill Gates bought one of the Da Vinci folios and they put the pages on display at the Seattle Art Museum. I went to see them and you know, the information in them is outdated, even flawed, but the evidence of that man's mind-- his ability to create-- was awesome. Same thing with a knife or anything else made by man.

As far as I'm concerned, the marketing types get to share the same Liars Hotel in Hell with the lawyers, bankers, insurance executives and politicians :D

I need another cup of coffee--- I'm kinda GRUMPY!
 
bandaidman said:
there are government rules regarding "handmade" items, the following FTC rule is in regards to jewelry

FROM THE FTC

§ 23.3 Misuse of the terms "hand-made," "hand-polished," etc.

(a) It is unfair or deceptive to represent, directly or by implication, that any industry product is hand-made or hand-wrought unless the entire shaping and forming of such product from raw materials and its finishing and decoration were accomplished by hand labor and manually-controlled methods which permit the maker to control and vary the construction, shape, design, and finish of each part of each individual product.

Note to paragraph (a): As used herein, "raw materials" include bulk sheet, strip, wire, and similar items that have not been cut, shaped, or formed into jewelry parts, semi-finished parts, or blanks.

(b) It is unfair or deceptive to represent, directly or by implication, that any industry product is hand-forged, hand-engraved, hand-finished, or hand-polished, or has been otherwise hand-processed, unless the operation described was accomplished by hand labor and manually-controlled methods which permit the maker to control and vary the type, amount, and effect of such operation on each part of each individual product.


any application to knives or other collectibles?
Click to expand...

If that is real, it pretty much sums it up.
 
It wouldn't be hard to make a case for art knives as jewelry-- jewelry could be defined as an art object that is worn. And not a thing wrong with that. Many cultures use highly decorated knives as a sign of rank and status.

I sold cameras a long time ago and it took me about two minutes to understand that high end cameras were another kind of jewelry, in the same way that a watch can be.

It does strike me that selling products in a market where integrety, honesty, and craftsmanship are values held by the clients, that it would be common sense to tell the truth! There are all kinds of adjectives that will tout the high quality of a product without misrepresenting how it is manufactured.
 
DaleW said:
As far as I'm concerned, the marketing types get to share the same Liars Hotel in Hell with the lawyers, bankers, insurance executives and politicians :D

I need another cup of coffee--- I'm kinda GRUMPY!
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, I must have missed it, but who in the phuck are you, again?

What kind of custom knives do you collect, and how many(very roughly speaking) do you own?

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
 
The only "custom made" knives I own are ones where I have specified to a maker preciesely what I want.

I own "handmade" knives that I have purchased at shows, from collectors or dealers, that have been made according to some one elses specifications and desires.

I have placed "commissions", whereby I reserve a piece to be made by a maker to his own design.

I guess for me the term "custom" is a function of why an object comes into being relative to myself, rather than a function of how.

Cheers,

Stephen
 
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