Custom makers don't like production knives?

To me, a knife nut is a knife nut, and if they are a true enthusiast, they will respect a knife whether it is made by someone in their garage, made by a production knife company, or made by a skilled artisan who has spent years honing their craft.

I don't respect someone who looks down their nose at everyone who doesn't make "custom" knives or swords.

The only knife makers I look down my nose at are those that make knives that aren't necessarily safe or stable. Luckliy there are very few that fall into this category. Materials, equipment and know-how has progressed to the point where that shouldn't happen.
 
pierced said:
Performance in a production piece is always less than that of a custom. (Why did Ken Onion have to insist his little skinner be able to finish an animal without re-sharpening?) The problem with custom work is separating the people who make users from those who make art or figure that 9 out of 10 people will be happy. A good custom knife will not only ooze excellent workmanship but it will deliver in the performance catagory. Most people with custom knives are looking for performance and that boils down to edge retention.
The bar is pretty low with many steels and brands, and the only reason, generally, to own a production knife is so you can toss it when you have a problem (or it wears out) and start using another.
There is not a custom maker worth squat anywhere who carries a production knife instead of his own. If there is I'd look somewhere else.:)
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Those are some pretty sweeping statements, and IME, all wrong.
 
I would tend to agree that most good knife makers carry their own work or the work of people they respect and or admire. Now if a maker specializes in fixed blades I am sure they might own some production folders as an example but once you get a taste for high end customs I would think it would be tough to change.
 
I've read a few makers say they couldn't afford to carry their own work. They resort to Spyderco or something similar. I have production knives that are going on 25-30 years old, passed down from my dad when he died. They are no where near worn out, and they probably didn't cost of $40 new. The assertion that all custom knives are better than all production knives is simply nonsense. How could you possibly prove/disprove that? Now if you were to say that there are custom knives that are better than any production knife, I'd be inclined to agree. However, with all the excellent production knives out there now, from Spyderco to CRK, there is no way the referenced statement is true.
 
I met a very well known knife maker who has a pile of the 'production' versions of his knife to carry and actually use because he can't bring himself to sit on the cash of a 'real' one or be bothered to either lose or damage it. His own words and I totally get it, particularly since you could buy 20 production versions for the cost of one 'real' one.

Fit and finish on the real one without any question is an order of magnitude better, but for daily use to me when faced with scarring up what is essentially a piece of industrial art, it doesn't make a lot of sense to use one....unless you have a lot of disposable income lying around. I don't.

It is a matter of scales. My Mazda 3 will run for 200k miles with hardly a fault and was a whopping $17k. A MB is an easy $60k for anything decent and really performs the same task. It's not an option for me. I could buy a MB, but it makes no rational sense with the budget I have to work with.
 
that is definitely NOT the case lol; but for obvious reasons, they do appreciate custom knives more than most i would say.
 
There are so many wicked production knives out there, I can't see why anyone would write them off altogether. :confused:
 
The drive to own a custom knife is not much different than the drive to own an expensive car or a boutique wrist watch. Expensive cars don't really transport people much better and boutique watches don't tell time any better. The motivations go beyond both esthetics and performance. They involve, pride of ownership, fascination with craftsmanship, heck even the desire to flaunt wealth.

At the bottom line, I think it is fair to say that a production knife will do the job as well as a custom knife in the same way a Ford or Chevrolet will get you to your destination just as effectively as a Mercedes Benz. Certainly there are meaningful differences but they aren't necessarily related that much to performance.

On the other hand, it is easy to see how a custom maker can talk down production knives. Production knives are the competition.
 
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