As a buyer/user/collector, I don't care if it's "handmade" as per the definition of many purists out there. I just care about the quality of work and the final end product.
Gareth Bull has been making handmade folders for well over a decade, and his process is mind-boggling to the point where his WIP threads have become a guide for many others. Frames, blades, pivots, clips, are all cut, shaped, ground, and polished by hand using mills, cutting discs, grinders/belts, and the process is repeated in batches where multiple knives of a chosen model are virtually identical.
Nathawut has been making folders similarly, and he will make whatever I come up but he uses CAD to render my designs and delivers perfection in a true custom. He grinds the blades, contours the frames and clips, turns the pivots and screws, but he might source standoffs from Steve Kelly, or the damascus from Chad Nichols, it doesn't matter to me as long as it's what I want. I still consider this handmade.
David Mary is another maker who I consider to deliver a handmade product, and even true customs. My design, his work. He'll have sheets of steel waterjetted and heat treated by someone else, and that's perfectly fine. Once the blades come into his possession, the man spends whatever time is needed to grind the blades, fit handle material and countour everything. Using a 3rd party for waterjetting and heat treating blanks is a no-brainer when you're putting out 60 knives in a run of different models. That's working smarter and not harder. The knives I get from him have my choice of handle material, grind, heat treat, and fixtures, all ground and put together by hand. It'd be crazy to work on 50 different knives in a batch with different heat treats and handle materials without farming out some of the work.
What I care about most is quality and attention to detail. Those 3 guys I mentioned above deliver those in loads, in work that I consider to be handmade, albeit to varying degrees loosely based on a modern, purist definition.
