Is a Skookum a custom or a production knife?

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I have an A2 Skookum and have been wondering if it would be considered a custom or a production knife particularly if I am going to list it for sale here on the BF exchange?

Actually there are more and more knives lately that are hard to classify as a
production or custom. Are knives made by a single maker in a home shop all that it takes to make them custom? Shouldn't a custom be one of a kind?

What about the bark River knives? I would say they are at least semi customs.

Maybe we need a new term for knives like the Skookum. I like "bespoke" or
"shop made".

Do you like the new semicustoms or do you think that a real custom should be a one off handmade work of art.

Myself I love being able to buy affordable well made semi customs from people I know at least on line rather than big companies who more and more are being made in China.
 
I'd say theyre semi-production. Same design with some different options, cant really call that a true custom, but they are hand finished.
 
Most of the ones made by our makers are considered handmade, unless you get them to do a specific design for you, in which case it's a custom. Or, that's my understanding of it, anyways.
 
just curious why you're planning on selling it? i've always been fascinated by the sbt but never actually bought one.

did you find it was lacking somewhere or just feel that its time to move to a new knife? :)
 
I'd consider any knife from a single knifemaker to be a custom. I'm thinking guys like Fiddleback, Scott Gossman, etc. I would consider Bark River to be a production knife. I have more than a few first PRODUCTION run knives from BRKT.
 
I think if you buy a knife from a maker and he customizes it to fit your needs it is one of a kind and is a custom knife. When it comes to makers like Fiddleback, I would classify that as handmade since he doesn't take orders.

BarkRiver will actually custom make a knife for you, they will be stamped custom on the blade. I have seen a few beauties that Big Mike has.

Edit- To answer your question:

I think with a Skookum, you can get away with posting it in the Custom knives for sale section, but your gonna need atleast a Gold membership to do that
 
I like the skookum but I have got the blackpowder bug and have been getting rid of a big part of my collection. It is a great knife but I did a review comparing it to my modded Scrapyard SS4 and they came out pretty even.
I posted it here but it is a lot easier to find on the Scrapyard wilderness page at the Yard.
Mine is an A2 steel model though ,when the 3V ones start coming out it will be a tougher fight I think. One thing that surprised me was I did not like the metal pommel. I thought it was brilliant when I first saw it but it does not feel great in the hand.

I usually sell things on the CGN website because I am a Canadian and it is easier to sell to other Canadians. I just am not sure how to classify it and I did not want to sell someone a knife as a custom and then have them be unhappy about it.

I have been putting off getting a gold membership but I do make a lot of use out of this site so it might be a good excuse to pay the 30$. The exchange rate would also make selling stuff in the US worth while.

I am interested in the trend of "handmade" as opposed to custom knives. Really I do love the "handmade" term. They seem to be very popular here ,more so than on the other parts of the forum. If I could think of a good thread name that would get across what I meant by "Handmade" I think it would make a really cool topic.
 
I don't want to try to sell something without buying a membership. I would really like get more on the topic of the handmade knives. It is a fine line so if it would be better to shut down this thread and start one just on handmade knives and whether those types of knives are custom or production I would be all for it. I certainly don't want to be a spammer.
 
Unsub, i think this is an interesting topic, and one that is good to discuss...

i think that a handmade knife would qualify as something that is not built to order, but done by hand on a small scale. JK or DP or Breeden i think fall into this category. they may be doing a few of a single style blade at once, but they are doing all of the steps themselves, and each piece is individually fitted and finished.

i would call a custom-production knife something like bark river, where the steps are done one at a time to several knives at a time...ex: grind 100 knives, heat treat 100 knives, handle 100 knives. alot of the steps on these knives are done by individuals, and i get the impression that each piece recieves alot of individual attention, but they are pumped out in pretty large numbers.

and then there is the production knives, where the people making the knives don't necessarily know anything about knives or knife making particularly, they can just run machines or perform simple tasks that could be applied to model airplanes as easily. (not to put factory workers down, the point i'm getting at is that they are less specialized). these knives don't recieve that same individual attention that is there with handmade and custom-production.

but then there are operations like Dan Koster, who does large runs close to the scale of bark river, but he does all in-shop operations himself (where bark river has a team of workers all making knives at once). dan does outsource several operations, depending on the design and number being made, but he is still a one man operation. does he deserve the same title as bark river?

it is difficult to define these terms, but i think it is even harder to give clear cut examples of each one too...

good discussion topic...

by the way, i don't know enough about how the SBT is made to recommend how to classify it...
 
I think the word costume indicates that the first buyer of the knife NEEDS to take an AKTIVE ROLL in the decision on how the knife is made/made to look like BEFORE the knife is finished.
I think there is a huge difference in "Handmade" and "Costume made".
A costume knife can be made by machines operate by people who knows nothing of knifes, IF its made to the specs of the buyer.
Some of the most beautiful knifes I've ever seen is handmade, but rarely costume.
 
The question of what defines a knife as custom rather than production has become more difficult over time. True custom makers today may be using computerized machinery unavailable to factories until recently.

While the ultimate irrefutable definition of custom will always be one-of-a-kind made at the maker's whim or to a customer's specifications, for Bladeforums purposes, a custom knife is a sole authorship item. As such, even if each knife is made identical, it doesn't have to be, since each is made on order, and the order can specify changes.

The semi-custom field falls under production because the essentially identical products are made by a team. There may be many choices available in handle materials or sheath style, but even these are standardized. Semi-custom knives could be made on order also but since most are sold through dealers, they have to be turned out in significant standardized quantities for stock.

To answer Unsub: Skookum is custom.
To echo hollowdweller: Be careful. (Better to have just asked, without mentioning wanting to sell it.)
 
I don't find it too difficult. It's in the dictionary. :D

If it's handmade, then it's handmade. If it's made to customer's own specs, it's a custom, no matter whether it's CNC'd or handmade. Semi-custom? A production model that has been somewhat modified to customer's specs.

I don't know if the Skookums are handmade. I used to have one in O1, and I'm planning to get one in A2 sometime soon.
 
Which dictionary? Bladeforums divides sales into Custom and Production. That's the original question. By Bladeforums standards, true unique customs are Custom, handmade are Custom, semi-custom are Production, and factory manufactured are Production.

Semi-custom? A production model that has been somewhat modified to customer's
specs.
Click to expand...

Not only. A production model with a lot of individual finishing is also semi-custom.
 
I like the term "handmade" as I think that fits a lot of our makers here and most likely Rod Garcia. What about a forged blade? That takes quite a bit effort over stock removal. So what do we have?

Handmade-Forged
Handmade-Stock Removal
Handmade-Custom (built to a customer's specific specifications)
Semi-Custom (unique attention on a larger scale - aka BRKT, Randall)
Production-Custom
Production

There are a lot of overlapping areas. As siguy mentioned, several individual shop makers will make a run of a particular blade, but they still produce them via steps even thought it's handmade. When I place an order with Dan Koster, I feel like I'm betting a custom-handmade knife, but that may not really be the reality. If I contact the maker and discuss handle types, pin varieties, blade grinds...is that not a custom?

I really like the term Handmade over custom. Several shops are now using CNC and other various tools, but you still get that hand-finished piece whether it's been forged from a railroad tie or stock removal sent to BOS for heat treating. I'm sure many of the knife makers here could lend some of their philosophy and feedback. "Custom" is over used as there are a lot of production knives that received special attention and are marketed as "Custom", yet the buyer had not interaction or communication with the guy/gal making it.

I looked at Breeden's knives on Off the Map Outfitters (good marketing BTW), and just because many of his designs were made for a particular customer and the knife took the name from that original designer are all his blades "custom"? Maybe for the original, but the rest would be all be Handmade from a Custom design...all his knives (just like the other makers here) create designs, work with customers on designs and make those blades by hand in several different ways. Custom is kind of a nebulous term now days, I can understand handmade and relate the amount of effort it goes into putting something together in that regards. All the sharpening for BRKT knives is done by hand, hence the term semi-custom production.

I need more coffee:o

ROCK6
 
Esav Benyamin said:
Which dictionary?
Click to expand...

I think American Heritage Dictionary should do, for one. And the words aren't that difficult, really - not to me, at least. They seem quite self-explanatory. But that could be me liking to keep things simple.

Not only. A production model with a lot of individual finishing is also semi-custom.
Click to expand...

If "individual finishing" means "changes in the finish due to buyer's request", then yes, I agree, although then that would be rather exactly the same as "a production model that has been somewhat modified to customer's specs." If it means "finish done by a lot of folks by hand", then I disagree, and would rather call it "partly handmade" or more honestly "finished by hand."

But hey - this can be as complicated as one wants it to be. For Bladeforums terminology, you can answer better than I can, which is why I didn't try to specify what the SBT would be in Bladeforums lingo. I'll certainly agree the word "custom" works better to describe the SBT than the word "production." The latter conveys the thought of large scale mass production, which certainly is not how the Skookums are done.
 
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