I am starting to think custom knives are outdated.

But I will stand behind my statement that if I can pick a $300-400 production knife and you can pick a $300-400 custom knife. My production will most likely out preform the custom.
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1) Did I miss this statement previously?

2) How does this outdate customs?


Confused, Joe
 
kgriggs8,

Can you find a production hunting knife which not only has CPM10V hardened to RC63 as its knife steel, but also has a flat-grind that is only 0.005" at the top of its edge? My penpal bought one of those out of curiosity from a custom maker and now can't stand using anything less.

If you can find that sort of hunting knife made in production, please lemme know because that'd rock.
 
K8,

You spoke of your factory Lum performing as well as you custom Lum (well actually you don't have a custom Lum).

Like all the others who say factory knives are better. You never offer proof. Other than your statement "I know it will".

So now it is time to step up and provide proof or we will be forced to believe that you cannot back up your statements.

Let me reiterate this....You like the other "production" fans never back up their statements. Welcome to the Bull S**T club.

WWG
 
Custom knives are unique, made in small batches or one of a kind. Production knives are made in large scale in huge quantities. Collectors and indivividuals often want a unique knife something they can concider rare or one of a kind, and this is where custom knives come in. Custom knives can be made to the customers specs to fit with his/her hand.

For general working knives production knives make good sence. Many function well, and if the knife sustains damage they can easily be replaced with the same model, often at an affordable price.
 
kgriggs8 said:
"Considering the premise of this thread....I guess we should all be using Bic pens and wearing Timex watches."

Okay, what custom made pens and watches do you currently own? I bet none. You probably are talking about Rolex and Mont Blanc type of stuff. That just goes to prove my point as they are production.

Don't get high quality confused with custom. Here is what I mean, a nice Rolex is a production watch right? I bet a good Rolex is better than most custom made watches you can find. I'm sure that there is a custom watch maker out there that can make a more accuract and more reliable watch than a top of the line Rolex but it will be the exception rather than the rule.

I'm sorry guys but humans are flawed. They can only do so much with there hands. A machine can do more precise work and keep things to closer tolerances than most humans. I am talking about in general and within some sort of price frame. It is just stupid to compare a $100 production knife to $4000 custom. But I will stand behind my statement that if I can pick a $300-400 production knife and you can pick a $300-400 custom knife. My production will most likely out preform the custom.
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Dude,

Have you even read your own sig line? You might want to. Just because you state something as a fact doesn't make it so. Trot out your data to back up your conclusions or else stop wasting everyone's time. You think production knives are the be all and end all? Fine. There are many places to discuss production knives. The custom knife forum is not one of them.

Roger
 
"So speaking from a purely preformance aspect, I think the justification for buying a custom is gone. Production knives are just too darn good now. IF you want a piece of art, that is another story..."

This is what I said in my first post. Read it, learn it, live it. You know I am right so don't go twisting facts to make you feel better about spending $800 on a knife that doesn't do anything a $100 knife won't do.

I am talking about function not how the knife makes you feel when you are all along at night stroking it in your bed. Yes, customs are nice and they are unique but that is not the same thing as being able to cut.

Take a Sebenza and put it against a simliar custom of roughly the same price. There is not enough difference in function to warrent the extra cash. If you are into art and want to hang it on the wall, that is fine. It won't help you cut better just because it has a hand tooled leather sheath or a gold wire wrapped grip.

My point is lost on people that don't want to understand because if they do, they will see that there knife is not that special. People think if you buy a custom knife, you have something better than a production just because it is custom. I have seen production knives that looked better, had better F&F and preformed better than most customs.

It is just the way things are now. Don't be afraid of technology, machines are better than humans at certain tasks. I believe the future of customs will lie in hand fitting of precise machines parts. I think the best knives and products in general will be a marriage of hand fitted and finished parts that were made by machines.

I think you will see fewer and fewer custom makers being able to keep up with the leaps and bounds of the production knives. The day may come that they will not be able to compeat with the quality of production knives. That day is already hear for many custom knife makers. It is just fact that some makers do not have the skills to make a knife as good as some of the better production knives. I would love anyone to try and agrue that point with me!
 
A. Brett Schaller said:
Original oil paintings are outdated. You can buy a print that looks just as good hanging on your wall for a fraction of the price.
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Amen. That about sums it up for me as well.:) I'd like to add that in terms of pure utility (a sharp, pointy object to open boxes or cut string or food...) nobody needs a "custom" knife 'cause you can find a $10 knife at the hardware store that will do fine job. Customs aren't about just getting by...they are designed and purveyed by discriminating craftsmen for those whose taste in knives goes beyond "ordinary utility" and everyday needs, IMO.

I find it interesting that so many of the production manufacturers turn to custom designs and designers for their next production knife style. ;)

Brian
 
You talk about "points" but make no real point. Read your posts, you are stating various things but offer 0 (zero) data to back it up. Please stop generalizing and be specific if you want to make a valid argument. I think I see what you really mean (that production is getting better and closer to the customs) but you overstate it and the whole thing looses credibility.
Production knives are quite good lately? True. I have handled most production folders available. The best of them regarding fit & finsh, ergonomy and edge (CRK, Rockstead, Microtech) are good but not as good as the customs I've had (Mayo, Wilkins ...). That's enough for me to want customs. Do I stop buying production knives? No, I don't, but when I want the best, I go custom.
 
kgriggs8 said:
"
preformed better than most customs.

The day may come that they will not be able to compeat with the quality of production knives. That day is already hear for many custom knife makers. It is just fact that some makers do not have the skills to make a knife as good as some of the better production knives. I would love anyone to try and agrue that point with me!
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If you believe you are adequately equipped for a written forum argument .... go ahead!

From what I can read you are actually talking about a historical event .... you have heard of the industrial revolution? .... mid to late 19th Century!

Today people buy custom knives for a sense of participation in the process and final product, a reaction AGAINST the industrial revolution if you will. They buy them because the "QC" that occurs in a production environment is more likely to fail than in a low volume, individually crafted custom environment. They buy them to have something that is possibly unique, individualistic, and unavailable to the masses. If you don't understand that, then YES, customs are not for you.

Now go and troll some where else!
 
K8

How about those test results between the factory and custom Bob Lum.

As you continue to dance around the issue. You can admit that you don't own a custom Lum. We all know you are of S**T.

In fact you probably don't own a single custom knife.

So at this point you have ZERO creditability. How do we know this? Just like you and your statement that the factory Lum is as good as the custom Lum........"I Know it".

WWG
 
K8,

It is just fact that some makers do not have the skills to make a knife as good as some of the better production knives. I would love anyone to try and agrue that point with me!
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As soon as you show me you are not full f S**T with your test results of the factory Lum and Custom Lum.

I will be happy to shut you up.

However, you have to prove what you said in your very first post. Which so far you have not. :jerkit:

WWG
Doc Holliday...."I'm your Huckleberry"
 
kgriggs8, you originally stated that $100.00 production knives would perform as well as $400.00 to $1000.00 custom knives and that Spyderco, Benchmade, Al Mar, Seki Cut and a host of other makers provide top notch folders that outperform the best customs. Please prove your points. Without the proof, all you are providing is your opinion, and we all know about opinions, don't we?

I have owned many top quality production knives from the companies you mentioned, and from others such as CRK, but I have yet to own one that is better than the customs I have owned or handled. I have run into a few customs that weren't as well made as they should be, but I have run into far more production knives with that problem. I have seen $300.00 to $400.00 production knives with blades that aren't centered, locks that don't engage properly, and a fair bit of horizontal and vertical blade play. I am sure this happens with customs as well, but I would lay you odds that it happens virtually never with knives from the likes of Mayo, Carson, Obenauf, Martin, Onion, Bose and many, many others. Why? The reason is that they check every knife before it leaves and they fix anything that is wrong. They don't want knives in circulation that are improperly made. It is bad for their reputations. Production companies do not do this. Not even the ones that sell knives that cost as much as custom knives. If they did, there wouldn't be so many of them floating around. Companies like CRK and William Henry do a good job of QC. Others don't seem to the have the time, manpower or inclination to check every knife before it leaves the factory. Bad knives even manage to slip out of CRK and William Henry on occasion.

A lot of production companies use their customers as a part of their QC. The customers do the testing for them. If a whole bunch of knives come back with the same problem, the manufaturer modifies production to fix the problem. There is only a certain amount of testing a production company can do and still be able to sell high quality knives for the prices they do. The higher the price they sell the knives for the better the testing they can do.

It is my opinion that custom knives are not in any danger of being forced out of the market by production companies. Not even in the high end production, user custom segment of the market. Time will tell which one of us is correct, but at this point in time it is just my opinion versus yours.
 
kgriggs8 said:
Take a Sebenza and put it against a simliar custom of roughly the same price. There is not enough difference in function to warrent the extra cash.
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Regardless of whether or not I buy your argument, I cannot even understand this statement. Are you comparing two similarly priced knives or not? Please explain.
 
on_the_edge said:
Regardless of whether or not I buy your argument, I cannot even understand this statement. Are you comparing two similarly priced knives or not? Please explain.
Click to expand...

It's a shifting target, my friend. I have neither the time nor the inclination to keep track of it. Or to try to make sense of it.

Roger
 
We get so stirred up when these idiots post these ridicules "what good are customs threads".
Best thing to do is not respond to them.
 
Many very good points have been made, but here is one that seems to have been left out. Production knives are much better than they were 20 years ago. One question that nobody has asked is iwhether they are better than they were say in the glory days of Marbles, etc. The designs are arguably better (many designed by custom makers) But here is the one issue with production knives. No matter how much research the companies do and how much better the steel, machinery, etc is, production knives ALL have one compromise that you do not have to live with with a custom. They are ALL made to a price point. They are made so that the company can maximize profits while keeping the price reasonable. Most custom makers do not worry so much about this. They also don't have to provide for large marketing budgets, high overhead, etc. I am sure that even some of the custom makers who do this for a living, be it early in their lives or as a second career like Ed Caffrey and others, still tend to devalue the cost of their labor. There are a lot of reasonably priced custom/handmade knives out there that are superior to some factory knives which, incidentally, have gotten quite pricey of late. Anyone priced out a Cold Steel San Mai blade lately? Custom makers have access to most, if not all of the technical data that the factories use (thanks to the hard work and generosity of folks like our fellow forumites) and one inherent advantage. Custom makers can choose to be "inefficient" for the sake of producing a better product using methods and materials that do not make good business sense for a large company. Plus that whole "making EXACTLY" what an individual customer wants" thingie:D
 
Hi JD,

Now you are talking about the "business" of knives. There is very little of that in custom knives.

In your comparison perhaps the business end of knives actually devalues the factory knives. As you point out all fixed and variable costs have to be figured in along with marketing and salaries.

Without a doubt it is the price point that drives factory knives. What many factory knife buyers don't understand is that for the cost of 5 or 6 factory knives they could have a custom knife.

While the after market for custom knives can be "iffy" at best. What is the factory market for a used factory knife? Close to Zero I suspect. Why? Because there are tens of thousands of copies and you can buy a new one all day for 50% off of MSRP.

WWG
 
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