Custom vs Handmade

Daniel Koster

Daniel Koster

www.kosterknives.com
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
Joined
Oct 18, 2001
Messages
20,978
I'm not interested in a custom vs. production debate....:foot:




but I AM interested in what you guys think about this idea:


That a "custom" knife is different than a "handmade" one. Both are made "by hand"....but the quantity is difference.


This is an idea that my buddy Tom and I have been talking about.


A "custom" knife is one that is made to your specifications...a true one-of-a-kind...not merely "customized".


Whereas a "handmade" knife is made from a pattern....options are allowed...as are "variants"...but because it is not a "one of a kind"....it is not a true custom.


Make sense?


What do you guys think about this?



Dan
 
Hey dan,

I am a newbie to his knife making stuff:)

But, I agree with your line of thinking.

However, the line will probably grey a bit in terms of the vast amounts of configurations available to any one of your customers. Handles, coatings, finishes, etc, etc, etc...

At the end of the day this is a good place to draw the line.

Regards,
John
 
I agree.

For example, I bought a "hand made" RD-9 from Justin at Ranger Knives. I then also designed a bushcraft knife that he made 1 of to my spec, which I call a "custom".
 
There are many levels of custom knives. They all are essentially handmade to some degree. As long as the maker and buyer of said knife know what was done by hand vs. machine vs. purchased from a knife supply house, it's all good. It's when a maker misrepresents his knife as something that it is not, that is where the problem lyes.

In the end, as long as both agree on the percentage of "handmade" workmanship involved, what does it really matter.

How many makers of "custom" knives mined the iron or cut down that tree to make that 100% custom handmade knife.

For me, I really like when a maker balances the use of machine vs. hand labor to create something unique and usable. Whether someone else might have the exact same thing, is another topic all together.
 
It sounds logical, but I'm not sure if that terminology would always work. I know a good amount of makers that start off making a "custom" knife for someone, but after the knife is made they decide to keep making that pattern of blade for others too in different variants. So I'm not sure you could call the first one custom and the others handmade...they all are custom blades in my line of thinking. On the other hand you could modify a kit blade to be a one-of-a-kind custom, but it's not truly 100% handmade.

When looking to buy a custom knife I am looking for a great knife, with some quality of uniqueness in that it's limited in some way but I don't always expect that I'll be the only one in the world with a knife like that. The term handmade can be quite variable as to the degree of work that went into the knife by hand and I don't think that term can be used to and degree of certainty.
 
Dan, just jumped on your website after your post about the Order Tracker, and noticed the title is "Handmade Custom Knives.." Now are those handmade customs, or custom handmades, or ..... my head hurts.....:D :D
 
I agree 100% Dan. Really gets me when someone buys (not orders) a Model 12 or something from a maker and says it's a custom.
 
mapper66 - great....now I need some pain meds too...:D

:foot:




I don't want to turn this into a handmade/machine-made debate....plenty of those out there already...:foot:....but rather....is there terminology to distinguish between those makers that truly make one-of-a-kind pieces...and those that use patterns?
 
Man, I really don't know Dan. I don't consider myself a collector, more of a user, so whether or not something was truly a one off custom piece never really mattered to me. If your reasoning above holds, then the majority of your knives are not 'custom' but 'handmade', and you better get that sig picture fixed up. :D

It's a matter of degrees, I think. I was being tongue in cheek in my post above, but in my view, your knives are handmade and custom. Can we call the production run of the Survivor handmade even though they were cut out by waterjet? I think so, because you are 'grinding the 45s' and doing the scales, etc. etc. You are putting something of yourself into them, and that's good enough to call them 'handmade' for me. You designed them (with our input :thumbup:) and there are a multitude of options for someone to order a 'custom'; steel, handle material, and all that. Good enough to call it 'custom' in my book.

So, handmade customs like on you homepage actually works for me, but a purist might answer differently.

Glad I could clear that up. :rolleyes:
 
A production knife could be hand made right?

I don't worry about the labels so much as long as whatever is being made is good.:thumbup:
 
Not that it really matters, but IMO, "custom" means it's not-from-pattern, except possibly one produced by the customer. An example of that is I drew something up in a CAD program, and sent it to the maker, who got it waterjet cut and then finished it. It's not entirely handmade, but it IS custom, since it's designed to my specs. If I bought a k-tusk, and chose finish and handle material, it wouldn't be custom, because it was based on an established model.

My $.02, that's all.
 
Well if you stick to the "custom" definition, "custom" would probably be only accurate to "one of a kind" pieces.

Actually if you really want to be an integrist about meaning of terms, "custom" should only apply to pieces built to user's specifications or to suit one particular user ("sur mesure").

Pieces purchased "from the shelf" without any previous imput from buyer, even if they are unique, wouldn't qualify.

As for handmade, it only designates how the knife is made. "Customs" are generally handmade, but not necessary. Could be handmade in a factory as well.

Funny thing is that, due to easier availability of tooling, you have now "custom makers" (actually, proper term would be "individual makers") using modern "industrial" tooling including CNC grinders, computerized ovens and producing pretty large series, while some brands known as "industrial" still do a lot of the job free hand.
 
You'll go bonkers trying to pigeonhole every maker and every variation of construction.

"it's not custom if you send out for heat treat"
"it's not hand made if you use cnc"
"it's not "made by xyz" if he has someone else profile his blades"...
crazyness

I just want to know upfront who worked on the knife, who did the heat treat.ect.
I'll decide later what to call it.
 
I think it's a fair place to draw the line in a really murky area. In my book, custom could mean as little as modifying an existing model as suggested by the customer (probably with a non-standard option - standard options are just variations on production models) and as much as creating a completely unique knife from the profile on up. It could be from a customer sketch, or designed by the maker based on the customer's usage preferences.

I don't think the knife has to be unique to be custom. A simple counter example would be a set of custom steak knives. Also, if someone orders a custom and the maker subsequently makes a run of knives in the same pattern, it doesn't make the original not a custom. An example might be Dan's bushcraft with the modified handle for larger hands.

Another test case - a modified production knife is not a custom, it's customized. Take, for example, STR's folder mods or Tom Krein's resharpening jobs or the Mayo-ized sebenza. There's some murk with people who modify very extensively, with this thread as an extreme case: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=550068&page=3 I think it was completely ground from a very different knife - expensive source of steel and much extra labor to maintain the heat treat!

Part of the problem with this debate is where factories fit in. Even some $5 POS may be made by hand, with minimal tooling. In some cases, the $5 POS may be more "hand made" than the $500 custom if the custom maker uses waterjet, CNC, etc while the POS company relies on cheap labor to do those tasks by hand. I think there's a significant amount of hand work that goes into most knives, especially folders, and some small companies that are equal or better than some "custom" makers, though most people don't consider production knives to be "hand made". Perhaps single-maker vs. assembly line is a factor, but that still doesn't help with small companies where a few people do many jobs in the shop (where does R.A.T., K9, or Busse fit in? Canal Street Cutlery?). I'm not sure you can draw the line based on whether or not someone puts their name on the tang and face on the web page.
 
Well, if you stick to the terms, "custom" means adapted to one particular user; "handmade" means done by hand. Anything else is (*in theory*) not relevant.

That said, in the knife user/collector, "custom" means done by an individual maker and/or a very small company, which is a shift from the initial meaning, but since most knife oriented people understand it this way, that's just fine.

"Handmade" is quite more debatable (sharpening? assembly? everything), just like "made in the US" (assembly? all the parts and subparts? should the steel be from the US? what if the steel was melted in the US but ores are from, say, Canada?).

Now is that really important as long as the knife satisfies your needs.
 
Daniel Koster said:
I'm not interested in a custom vs. production debate....:foot:




but I AM interested in what you guys think about this idea:


That a "custom" knife is different than a "handmade" one. Both are made "by hand"....but the quantity is difference.


This is an idea that my buddy Tom and I have been talking about.


A "custom" knife is one that is made to your specifications...a true one-of-a-kind...not merely "customized".


Whereas a "handmade" knife is made from a pattern....options are allowed...as are "variants"...but because it is not a "one of a kind"....it is not a true custom.


Make sense?


What do you guys think about this?



Dan
Click to expand...

On the money. I typically use the terms loosely and interchangeably but I have to agree with the above.
 
Hand-made is loose because like Hollowdweller said, production knives can still be Hand-Made. I mean, Himilayan Imports are Hand-Made and I wouldn't consider them "custom" at all.

I think there is this sort of split:
Stock - you just picked it and said "give me one of your designs with these options you offer"
Customized - you picked it and said "one of your designs, but with a one off option you don't usually do"
One of a kind - you said "one of my designs, and mine's the only one"

Any or all of those could be hand-made. I don't think I would see a machine-made custom just because it would be CRAZY expensive to set the machine
up to make a single knife.

By the nature of Koster knives, there is a number of options that Dan lets you pick like finish and handle material. Those don't make it customized IMO. I don't consider my car Custom because I got the navigation package.

So...

Somebody buys a K-Tusk from you and selects stuff from your order track? That's a Stock Koster K-Tusk because you just picked the regular K-tusk and chose your options

Somebody orders a K-Tusk from your site but calls you and says "Hey Dan, I need that K-Tusk made 2 inches longer, and also could you add some serrations to it?" That's a Custom Koster K-Tusk because you changed the regular K-tusk

Sombody calls you and says "I drew this knife in CAD and what you to make it for me." That's a one of a kind Koster knife because you designed it and it's the only one.

That's the way I see it at least.
 
You should just number all your knives. Then you can claim every one of them is "one of a kind" :)
 
My head hurts... (or I need a mocha, or a coffee, or a ...)

I think these terms have to be understood between the customer and the person they get the knife from before the order is placed. (I'm going to hush now... ;) )
 
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