Custom Knives -Another Take on the Elusive Definition

DaleW said:
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 I went to see them and you know, the information in them is outdated, even flawed, but the evidence of that man's mind-- his ability to create-- was awesome.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!
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I consider my knives to be "custom". No single knife is identical, although several have been of the same general type. The are forged to "order" generally.....MY order. I use no patterns, templates, etc. At this stage of my short knifemaking career, i tend to go where the steel takes me within reason. I have just now started discussing my first knife made to someone else's specs. But it is a knife that i wanted to make anyway, so i don't have to get my knickers in a twist:D If someone asked me to make a custom knife that I was uncomfortable making for skill (can't pull it off presently), technical(don't use the type of steel or grind that the customer wants) or "philosophical" (don't like it and wouldn't want my name on it) reasons, I would decline the commissionand try to hook the customer up with another maker that could help. I have one knife that i have made with the idea of selling (or giving) it to a soldier. If I make more like it, will the original knife no longer be custom and become a hand-made prototype for a series of hand made "production" knives?
 
Bobby Branton said:
If that is real, it pretty much sums it up.
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But take this in context. This is coming from a governement that for a couple of years said that Wolfgang Puck could call his white pizza a "pizza" in his restaurant but not in the freezer case at your local Kroger because it didn't have tomato sauce and the FDA regs specifically stated that "pizza" had to have tomato sauce in order to be called such:D Thse regs don't aply tome because I do the sole authorship thingy and make all of my stuff from raw stock.....most of the time. I have cheated and used one of the cast guards on a couple of knives in the past...but any of you who have worked with those know that you have to grind then down pretty hard to make them fit and look good...lol
 
What!!??!!??

Pizza has to have tomato sauce on it to be Pizza?
Damn, I better tell the half a dozen local pizza joints around town that make pesto pizza to start calling it "round thing made of dough with green sauce on it".

Sorry, I couldn't resist. :D


Honestly, this whole subject seems so very open to opinion. We call it collectively the custom knife world and if a specific knife really ought to be part of it purely depends on the maker who made the knife and the collector who buys it. Nobody else's opinion on that knife is relevant.

There are plenty of custom knives that seem more production to me or at least limited edition than really custom. But it should only really matter to me if I consider buying it. And if I do, I can call it whatever I want.
 
If you have been around custom knives long enough you get to know what is and what isn't considered a custom knife by those within the community. Though it may be a broad term, it isn't one that I have trouble comprehending. It has come to mean something different than the dictionary definition of custom made, and I don't find it to be confusing at all.
 
Stephen F said:
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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Well said Stephen.
I have it boiled down to two categories. Knives I want to own and knives I don't want to own. Stop reading here unless you're interested in my wordy digression.... When I was training to be an Orthopedic surgeon, we were forced to learn a million different complicated classification schemes for fractures. Every broken bone has a bunch of types based on any of a number of different variables - fracture pattern, amount of space between pieces, associated injuries... You'd call the boss in the middle of the night running on empty and have to fish the information out of your a$$ or get reamed. One guy we worked for, Mike Ellis, was a neat guy - ex-Seal, free diving champ, steeplechase rider... He came up with the Ellis classification system which could be applied to every fracture known to man. Ellis Type I - you've got to get out of bed , Mike, and come to the hospital to operate, Ellis Type II - you can go back to sleep, Mike, and see it tomorrow in the clinic. My kind of guy. That's how I try to look at life and "custom" knives...
:jerkit:
No disrespect intended to anybody.
 
Here is another question to add to the mix. Generally speaking, raw materials cost what they do, unless you are talking about exotic stuff like high-end bought damascus, ivory, precious metals and stones, etc.. yeah, yeah, I know......the CPM steels cost a lot more per inch than plain jane 5160, but they DON"T cost a couple of hundred bucks like a pair of elephant ivory scales or a billet of mosaic. When you buy a typical knife, are the lion's share of your hard earned shekels going to pay for the makers labor and skill or his overhead and advertising budget? Maybe that is another way to define a "custom":D
 
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