I guess I'm a dinosaur, but if you can't make a knife without a mill, how do you call it handmade? I will admit to using power tools, but not to making parts or fits with a mill. I guess I may be a little hypocritical, as I use PG 01 exclusively, but if it takes a mill to a knife, then I am simply, and totally, unimpressed. knifemaking has developed into style, hype and fad, rather than workmanship. I can remember a time when Randall Knives was useing a mill to fit their grips to the astronaut knives they made. They tried their best to keep it a secret, but I knew people that worked for them. They were also using HT ovens, and keep that secret as best they could. I do not mean to demean, as I know knifemaking has become so highly competitive that one pretty much has to conform, but I see it as a loss to hand skilled knifemaking. It seems as though, anyone with enough money to buy the high tech machinery, can turn out really nice knives, if their design is acceptable, but what is the price in the long haul of things? Are hand skills a thing of the past, when once, you could not even be accepted in the KNIFEMAKERS GUILD, if it was even thought that you used something like a mill to produce your knife? I just do not understand it all. Things are developing into, how good of a machinest you are, rather than how good are you at hand making a knife. Please, no one take offense. These are just the ramblings of an old knifemaker, whose days are growing shortly numbered, but still takes pride in hand making. I apologize if any are offended, but ask that you give thought to the matter.
