custom vs production performance

noob93 said:
Okay ill get the obvious out of the way first and foremost being that a custom usually but not always should have a better fit and finish. One thing I have not seen discussed very much is the difference in performance. Many will say this is subjective so here is my thinking. If we take a very good production company such as strider... politics aside. Lets say we had them make a fixed blade and had someone like nathan carothers make the same exact knife from the same exact material. Same grind same geometry only difference is the maker. Will the strider be superior or will the "custom" be superior. Ill even go as far to say we can use 3v at the same hrc for the steel as both strider and nathan have worked with it for a long while. Not to pick on nathan I just think in a meadow full of sheep hes one of the foxes if you will, clever measured and innovative in his approach. Lets even say its just a smaller run for strider where they can have better quality control. Will there be a measurable difference or if we wer handed both not knowing who made what would they be indistinguishable from one another? My last question is how many makers are really pushing limits and not just settling for if its not broken dont fix it?
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A good maker has a total package design. You don't ask Carothers to make a Strider and you don't ask Strider to make a Carothers. If you ask them to make some "generic" design for comparison purposes, this is not the sweet spot for either maker, their sweet spot is their design with their choice of material. The set-up is not genuine.
 
HwangJino said:
I'm going to say that production for the most part will have better performance due to their investments in research and development, nor saying custom makers don't, I don't see custom makers having the same income to invest in such research.
'Custom' is vague. Some dude making knives out of his garage can call his knives custom made, which it is.
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I agree. I'd add that I tend to see a greater variance in customs too. I bought two of the same model from a custom maker here. One had a zero convex grind that was flawless. The second looked like it came from swamp rat. ;)

If performance is all you want go production and save your money IMO.
 
LX_Emergency said:
Making things is partly about risk management.

Pushing things to the extremes (with grinds and heat treat) in a production setting means that if something goes wrong they might lose anywhere from 500 - 10.000 blades.

Doing the same in a custom (true custom, made one at a time) setting means at worst the maker loses 1 knife and has to start again on that 1 knife.

This enables custom makers to go thinner on grinds and harder on heat treatments.

Offcourse in general the audience buying custom also treats their knives with a little more respect. This means there's less chance of a knife going back for garantee work. Once again enabling the custom maker to go just a little bit further in pushing his craft.

Now overall, there are good and producers of knives on both sides of the isle.

Spyderco tend to go a little harder and a little thinner then most other production companies.

And there are some "custom" makers that deliver blades with overly thick grinds and soft heat treats.


But in general custom made knives tend to perform better than production knives.

Just look at Ankerson's ranking of steels....


These are the current top ranking steels/knives on his list.


Notice the performance difference between the Manix 2 and the Manix 2 with regrind? That CAN be the difference between a custom knife and a production knife, just based on the grind.
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Excellent post. Thanks for making those points.
 
noob93 said:
I would also be interested in how much thinner the regrind was from the factory grind?
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Not sure on that. But when compared to the spyderco K2 the reground manix is 4x thinner.

So i suspect the stock one was probably around the same.
 
So if its not the sweet spot for either maker it should be an even playing field then right? Its not like nathan makes fantasy art knives and strider makes military type hard use blades. They both make hard use fixed blades and i will re state that my question or quesions wer indeed genuine and valid.
 
I have never noticed a major "value" in terms of performance or F&F for the price, although I am sure it exists and in the best cases, you have a custom knife built to suit your needs/wants.

For me and what I want/need in a knife, the best knives for the money have always been things we sometimes call "mid-techs" .....
 
noob93 said:
Thank you for the insight and I guess that does make sense. I mean one failed production run could be a terrible mess for sure. I had forgot that nathan uses peters however I do believe he kind of tweaked their original ht a little? I also didnt know dan used them at all but thats interesting. I suppose it does cost a lot of money for some of the equipment they would need. I have spoke to a few makers and they for the most part seem to stick to the ht given by the manufacturer of the steel. To me this would negate the benefits of pushing the limits of said steel on that front at least and I find rather curious.
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Steel producers give a range of HT possibilities. The maker selects the one he wants. As a customer, you can't tell a factory which HT you want.
For example, Many of the Sandvic blade steels perform best at Rc 59-60 IMO. But many manufacturers put them out at ~57. It makes a big performance difference.
 
I had a custom knife maker make me three knives of nearly the exact same design, but different materials for different tasks. I kept the same ergonomics throughout because the design just works for my hands. I did change them up, one has carbon Damascus with all wood handle, one has S110v blade with TS Kevlar and Ti bolster, and the other has K390 with all black G10 scales and every part DLC coated. I use those knives a lot and am so happy with them, the heat treat is amazing, and the grinds as well. I also love semi-customs or mid-techs, some of them have amazing quality! If you can find the right makers, you won't regret the purchase at all! Problem is, you have to take a risk in finding the right ones.
 
Ya it hard for me living in Canada right now even to buy a production knife. I'm better off getting a one from a custom maker as its literally cheaper then a production if bought from a maker here. I do find the pool rather shallow here though if you will and groom an is my only production option I'm aware of...
 
I have no doubt I would have bought a nimravus years ago if it wasn't for their poor choice of materials mainly being the steel.and sheath. That knife feels great in hand and to me could be even better then the crk green beret with an upgrade.
 
Yes indeed and some makers come up with their own ht based on their equipment and the reference from the guide from the maker they chose I would imagine. I just think a lot of custom makers and mid tech guys sell some serious bs now a days in my opinion.
 
noob93 said:
Yes indeed and some makers come up with their own ht based on their equipment and the reference from the guide from the maker they chose I would imagine. I just think a lot of custom makers and mid tech guys sell some serious bs now a days in my opinion.
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BS affects every industry. Human nature. We all need a BS detector.
 
noob93 said:
I have no doubt I would have bought a nimravus years ago if it wasn't for their poor choice of materials mainly being the steel.and sheath. That knife feels great in hand and to me could be even better then the crk green beret with an upgrade.
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You passed on a Nimravus due to the materials? Ever use BM's 154CM? Suit yourself, I guess.

Ordered a custom hunting knife back in the day. Got it the way I wanted it... blade materials, handle materials, scrimshaw work.

It didn't perform any better than my Schrade Sharpfinger. But I didn't care, it wasn't an upgrade in performance I was after... it was a design of my own I wanted.

Ordered a custom filet knife from George Tichbourne for a buddy once. Ordered custom to get the blade profile and handle size he wanted.

That knife just so happened to out perform any filet knife he'd ever used. But again, ordered it simply for the features.

Go custom to get the features you want.
 
LX_Emergency said:
Making things is partly about risk management.

Pushing things to the extremes (with grinds and heat treat) in a production setting means that if something goes wrong they might lose anywhere from 500 - 10.000 blades.

Doing the same in a custom (true custom, made one at a time) setting means at worst the maker loses 1 knife and has to start again on that 1 knife.

This enables custom makers to go thinner on grinds and harder on heat treatments.

Offcourse in general the audience buying custom also treats their knives with a little more respect. This means there's less chance of a knife going back for garantee work. Once again enabling the custom maker to go just a little bit further in pushing his craft.

Now overall, there are good and producers of knives on both sides of the isle.

Spyderco tend to go a little harder and a little thinner then most other production companies.

And there are some "custom" makers that deliver blades with overly thick grinds and soft heat treats.


But in general custom made knives tend to perform better than production knives.

Just look at Ankerson's ranking of steels....


These are the current top ranking steels/knives on his list.


Notice the performance difference between the Manix 2 and the Manix 2 with regrind? That CAN be the difference between a custom knife and a production knife, just based on the grind.
Click to expand...

Currently doing a cardboard run with the 3rd knife down....

BIg Chris Custom in S125V.....

At 6,000 liner feet now and still slicing phone book paper.....

For you metric guys that almost 2 KM.....
 
Shotgun said:
I agree. I'd add that I tend to see a greater variance in customs too. I bought two of the same model from a custom maker here. One had a zero convex grind that was flawless. The second looked like it came from swamp rat. ;)

If performance is all you want go production and save your money IMO.
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Does that mean Swamp Rat have thick edges?:)

In my experience factory knives have more consistent heat treat, and are therefore often superior in potential performance, but the advantage is almost always squandered with extremely thick edges. Once re-ground thinner, factory performance will more often be better than custom, but the occasional custom will be as good as factory, if it can take the thinned-out re-grind.

In effect they all need thinning out, and factory can take the thinning better than customs on average (Especially Al MAr's Aus-6, over four to six samples, so I would say Seki-City stuff in general is good, but always dull). Some expensive customs by high end name brand makers were absolute total duds in having the edge holding together straight below 15 per side, and there seemed to be no bottom to how bad it could be regardless of price. Customs can be good, but are far riskier for actual performance. I can vouch for Liles (above the others, since over two samples), Cox, Voorhis and Randalls, but even some Randalls were not all that great, as for me across four samples at least one was so-so, and did micro-folds immediately with very moderate chopping.


Gaston
 
When I think of custom, I think of not only the maker and his/her/their existing designs, but also the ability to work with you to make it unique to you. Such as Alan Davis. Otherwise, it's small time production or semi-custom.

When/if I have the money, I plan to order a custom from Alan.

Gotta find how much my insurance will pay towards a new liver first.

Sent from my VS986 using Tapatalk
 
Speaking of customs , I just fell in love with one that is priced well out of my comfort zone. Now to find a less expensive production knife that resembles it.
 
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