How Swiss Army Knives are Made

OHALLUM

OHALLUM

Joined
Jul 17, 2012
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I was watching the National Geographic channel tonight, and on a "How its made" section, they showed how the SAK knives are made. From a long thin ribbon of steel, each component is stamped out and tumbled in a ceramic mix until the stamping marks and edges are removed. Then a large rolling magnet picks the parts out of the mix and they are arranged for assembly. The blades are laid out on a platform and ground from both sides to sharpen both sides at the same time. They are then assembled and checked for quality control. It was interesting that the blade sharpening was done completely by machine without any human interaction other than running the computer operated machine. The assembly was done by hand other than the machine that stamped the components in place after someone placed the parts in the proper order and position. It looked as though they make thousands per day. ??? They did not state how many, it just looked like a very large number were being made at a time. Very interesting show. Here is a video I found about how this is done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHhn6gNLHxc

Blessings,

Omar
 
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Interesting that they're sharpened by machine - it does a really good job!
Never had a SAK that wasn't sharp right from the get go....
 
I watched the whole thing. Thanks for the link. The SAK is an amazing product. I wonder why they don't have a line of sharpening tools.
 
I posed a question about which company is the largest cutlery manufacturer in the world a while back and many agreed that it was Victorinox. I don't remember the number, but some claimed that thousands were made very very quickly.

That show also did a segment on Case knives, but I'm sure you guys already know that!

Thanks for the link Omar. :)
 
thanks for the link I love these how it's made videos. Not sure if the SAK is the pinnacle of 2 million years of evolution but they do rock. Wicked funny watching that dude name the tools too. "..this must be a saw", "I think that's gonna be a bottle opener", "that's for cutting something round", "..and I guess you could use this for a uh, regular headed screwdriver". Yikes.
 
KrisNZ said:
What about the Wenger SAK's, are they not the "real" thing?
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They are the same company. They keep two lines going to ensure diversity of product and give the impression of market competition. Lets face it, when you think of an SAK type knife Vic and Weng are the two you automatically envisage.
 
I've watched that video, and it is truly amazing. Victorinox is the largest knife factory in the world, and it is the most automated knife factory in the world. Way back in the early 2000's, Knife World magazine did an article on them, and back then they were making 35 million knives a year. Yeah, 35,000,000. To put it in perspective, everyone kows the Buck 110 folding hunter that came out in 1964. The most popular knife with soldiers, construction workers, warehouse workers, and biker gangs in the 60's and 70's. Buck made a statement a few years back that they had made 10 million of them. Wow, 10 million knives in 40 years. Victorinox makes 9 million of the little classic very year.

The only other knife company that comes close to Victorinox, is Opinel. Again, a very highly automated factory, making millions of Opinel's a year. But with the huge numbers of units coming out of the factory at Victorinox, the fit and finish, and low reject rate is amazing. I've long had the opinion that Victorinox should be the gold standard that all slip joints are measured against. Fit and finish, strength of pull on blades is so consistent it's mind boggling when you consider the numbers.

Carl.
 
jackknife said:
Because that's what coffee mugs are for!:D

Carl.
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Hi, Carl. Yeah, these knives are so easy to sharpen, you can do it with a myriad of ways. I thought they'd come up with an 'official' way to sharpen the SAK, but perhaps there are already many practical solutions for them to bother.
 
I think it's a strange deal with Victorinox. A while back, I had a Huntsman with the non-shiny red handles. It was a fantastic knife, didn't feel cheap... Then I lost it.

And yesterday, a friend of mine had a Pocket Pal with the shny red plastic handles.

Man oh man did they feel cheap.


Maybe it's the different scales, or perhaps the cheaper knives have cheaper feeling.

Not sure though :cool:
 
CJZ, I like the shiny red scales. Just carry the knife in your pocket with keys and change. You will have a matte finish soon.
 
dogstar said:
Hi, Carl. Yeah, these knives are so easy to sharpen, you can do it with a myriad of ways. I thought they'd come up with an 'official' way to sharpen the SAK, but perhaps there are already many practical solutions for them to bother.
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they do have a couple of sharpeners available - one looks like a pen, and has a diamond rod on one end and some carbide pull through sharpener on the other. I guess most non knife-knuts don't care about having a sharp knife. One of my friends had a SAK that was blunt, I offered to sharpen it, but she said she preferred it blunt because otherwise she would be worried about cutting herself.
 
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