How do spyderco collaborations work?

[Comeuppance]

Does Spyderco contact the designer? Does the designer contact Spyderco? Does Spyderco take suggestions? Who do I have to pester to get a Will Moon collab in the works? If there's any knifemaker out there that I think has both the unique designs and the need for more press, it's that guy.

 

[SolidState]

Hello,

I can say from personal experience that it basically requires the designer to submit a design to Spyderco via either Sal or Eric. For custom makers, this typically involves sending a knife in to Spyderco to take to shows and judge response. For people who have ideas, but may not have the ability to make a knife, it is important to keep the designs close to the vest and only deal with Spyderco's management or engineers directly involving the innovation. Spyderco has relatively strong nondisclosure agreements that designers have to sign.
Step 1 - contact Spyderco directly
Step 2 - wait for response
Step 3 - depending on response, keep up the communication and develop the idea or accept defeat and move on.

 

[The Deacon]

I'm fairly certain there have been some collaborations where Spyderco asked a maker if they'd be interested doing a collaboration and some which were proposed by the knifemaker/designer. There have also been at least a couple designed by Spyderco based on forum suggestions accompanied by rough sketches. Think the problem right now is that there are so many custom knifemakers, and most of them, including Mr. Moon, seem to be concentrating on the same type of knives.

 

[Stays Sharp]

Here's a video of Sal saying that they should be approached. I'm sure it's not a hard rule but you get the idea.

You can start at the 1:18 mark

[video=youtube;ADKesB4G3K8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADKesB4G3K8[/video]

 

[328xi]

Moon does some pretty interesting things to his knives that are unique, that overtravel stop of his is pretty cool stuff. I also love the handle taper on his folders and they're very well balanced and thought out ergonomically. I'd love to see a Spyderco collab, but I'm not sure how much I'd like the look of an opening hole on one of his flippers.

 

[SolidState]

Also, in the case of my particular experiment with Spyderco, it has been about a 4 year process. I think 3 or so years is pretty typical. I was present when Ed first introduced the Equilibrium about 3 years ago, and it just came out this year.