Fit & Finish, High Dollar Folders, observations from Knife Show in Phoenix

[JoHnYKwSt]

Trust me its not just you. I have noticed a drop in attention to detail. Not just in customs but also in customs. The veterans are still pumping out stellar knives. But some new guys are really creating products that only have superficial beauty. A dealer even commented in blade magazine this month that the "instagram" crowd has spawned too many makers who just dont have the skill set yet. He even had the stones to say what I have been saying and that is too many makers are doing acid and tumbled finishes because they dont even know how to do a hand rubbed satin. They are using the "overbuilt" and "rough" look as a crutch for laziness. This isnt in and of itself bad. But these same guys cutting corners are charging insanely stupid prices for their knives and we have collectors to blame for paying up and claiming perfection. These people arent completely without talent but they have a long way to go before their skills catch up with their prices. And some of them can cry all day long that they have X amount of hours into a knife and that time costs money but that to me is a bigger indicator of a lack of skill than it is a sign of deserving that paycheck. If you have 40 hours into a folder that you had all the parts waterjet, ordered your hardware from AKS and put it out there with the attention to detail of a 5th grade science project then you should be getting paid minimum wage for a minimal effort or at the very least a pay grade matching your qualifications. Not asking prices that compete with makers 2 decades over you in experience. What chaps my cheeks even more is the constant comparing of certain production companies now producing at "midtech" and "custom" levels. Well considering the knives that are so popular right now I understand why they make the comparison but the bar isnt set very high.





There are plenty of makers putting out superlative work and not asking for the moon and stars. I dont think handmade automatically equates to an imperfect product. Its that myth that is letting some lesser talent makers get away with murder.

Gotta agree with you on all points.

 

[LX_Emergency]

Fit and finish can be very spotty with custom makers. Just like it can be with production makers. The MAIN thing I've found from custom knives that I've owned so far....is that they're superior cutters.

Offcourse since there are 100's of makers who all will vary to some degree. Here's what I came up with about production VS factory. I'm only small time and I don't pay the fee so I won't list the site. But here's some of the text.

Why would you want a Handmade or Custom knife.
All this relates offcourse a maker that knows what he's doing)
There are a LOT of knives available in todays market. Even MORE with the global economy today. So why should you go the hard route? Why buy a Handmade or Custom knife? You'd have to wait for it to be finished, there might not be spare parts around if something breaks. These are all things that might be going through your head.

On the other hand there are some very good reasons to choose something handmade. Like:

Quality
Since the knives are generally made one at a time. A lot more care is put into them than when they're made hundreds per batch. A custom knife maker inspects each and every piece he works with. Personally when polishing a blade I spend about 30% of my time checking closely to see if all the scratches are out. And if I missed one....back again to work.

Custom/Personal/Unique

When you get a custom knife, you know that the maker spent hours on hours on it. Not even just working on it, but thinking about how to work out your wishes in the best way. This is true for each and every knife. My knives are my children. I have a hard time sending each and every one of them to their new owners. Try finding that in a knife of which 3000 were made.
Besides that with a custom maker he'll transfer YOUR ideas into a workable knife. YOU tell ME what you'd like and I make it for you. And if you don't like the look of the pictures I send you as it's coming into being...we change it

Handmade vs Factory made

There are some things they're just not going to do in a factory.
Special shapes, sized to your specs, little changes to a model you like but not quite the way it was. All personalisations like that.

Then there are the things that they won't do because of the production processes.

Did you know most factory knives are nowhere near hardened to the optimal hardness for the steel? This is because when you do that in large batches there's a higher risk of losing blades to warping or cracking. So they take the lower risk road and you end up with a less functional blade.

The same thing goes for factory blade grinds. Did you know most custom knifemakers grind knives much thinner than any factory blade ever will be ground? There's a reason mr. Tom Krein was so popular with his blade regrinds. This is for the same reason as the hardness issue.

In short, a good custom knife, will simply perform better than a good factory knife in the same category.

Garantee

I stand for what I've made.

Sure, I make misstakes every now and then but so does everyone and every company. But if a knife breaks or get's damaged, whether it's your fault or not, you can send it back to me and I'll try to repair it.

If I can't...I'll be more than happy to make you a new one at similar value for $40+shipping. (And believe me...in most cases that won't even cover my material and tool costs)

Anyway....not all of this will be true obviously for every maker. And some makers have to pump out higher volumes or against lower cost or similar problems which might make them have to compromise on one aspect of the other. But in general that's what we strive for.

 

[chickenfried]

Not my side of the equation to worry about. When paying a premium price that's my expectation. I see many choices that are able to meet it especially since I don't have that discerning an eye. OP isn't talking about mistakes he used a magnifying glass to nitpick...
What LX_Emergency laid out sounds reasonable
"Quality Since the knives are generally made one at a time. A lot more care is put into them than when they're made hundreds per batch. A custom knife maker inspects each and every piece he works with. Personally when polishing a blade I spend about 30% of my time checking closely to see if all the scratches are out. And if I missed one....back again to work."

Explain how without this affecting the price? Remember Time = money. A real knifemaker, someone that has literally years of stock removal and/or forging experience is much different than what we are seeing now with the new "Instagram Knife Makers" of the knife world that make or have knives made and they have someone assemble them. They are not all bad, but a great many of them are in it for the money or perceived money. Anyone that has even a clue about knives and how they are made should know this by now. There is a difference there and it's a good idea to know what that is and where the line in sand is drawn before making broad assumptions. There are too many variables to make matter of fact statements across the entire industry.