Judgements towards kit knives

I made a premade knife a long time ago with a blade from Jantz....I still have it. I am not a real good guy about keeping my thoughts to myself and would have said some harsh stuff to the dude. and AVigil...clean out your mailbox lol
 
Longtime knife user here. Simply put the guy is a Dick and only assembles. I for one, have Just bought several knife kits, and fully intend to build the shit out of them. It seems to be a good way to learn on a limited budget, time, and very few tools.

That being said, if i ever sold said kit knives, i would have to say what it is, a KIT knife, nothing more. Can not wait to build them!!


Addendum:learn the overall mechanics.
 
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opgenorf said:
It seems to be a good way to learn on a limited budget, time, and very few tools.
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I completely agree, that's exactly how I got started... reading tutorials on assembling handles and working with kit blades. :thumbup:
 
I have also dolled up several DDR3-BL kits. I use a factory blade as a base pattern to make a new damascus blade, make a file worked stainless back bar spacer and a stainless lock slider as well as fitting some nice scales. Lots of fitting and trying. Learned a lot. I have told everyone who looks them over or buys one exactly what I did and what I bought.

Not being up front is a lie to yourself as well as the customer. I am a big time believer in Karma and reaping what you sow.
 
I've made a couple of knives from blades made by well respected Swedish makers. They are extremely nice knives. I gave one as a gift to my best friend... the other I will probably always keep for myself. Both of those had blades that were marked by the real makers, and I never put my mark on either one in any way.

I also bought a balisong kit so I could learn how those are made... then made one from scratch. Some of the kit parts went into a knife I made for another friend (the handle pieces), but the blade was one I made. He says he still has that on his desk and plays with it regularly. I did mark the blade on that one since I made the blade.

I think I am to the point now that I have no further use for kits. Because I don't sell, I have no need to meet a certain price point for customers. Because I have determined the sort of knives I like to make, I don't need kits to show me how various parts are shaped or how they go together. I respect those that use kits for those purposes, even though those purposes have no bearing on my activities.

What I don't respect is dishonesty. Claiming a kit to be a full custom is dishonest. I don't know that it rises to the level of fraud, but it certainly is not a business practice I respect.
 
i suppose anybody who is all like " hey man, like this knife I made?" and the lets the observers imagination prop the boasters ego....and without saying.."yeah it was a nice little kit " is a twerp who probably has nothing to be proud about elsewhere. I feel bad for everyone effected in such a transaction..
 
Car Customizers don't build the care either they take premade parts and mold and shape them and create a work of art. As long as he says where they blades come from and how they are built and who made them, then God bless him and let him charge what ever price he wants. He is a Knife Customizer and there is nothing wrong with that at all.
 
Rick Marchand said:
I have no problem with folks doing custom handles and fittings on prefab blades as long as they are transparent about it.
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I have made 7 or so that way. I do not in any way call myself a knife maker and I don't sell the ones that I have "assembled". The various blades that I have used looked like good quality to me and they came from reputable knife supply places but I have no way of knowing the material or how good the heat treat is. I have since found an online seller that offers blades in known steels so that is at least one advantage to their products.

If I buy a custom knife and if I pay more for it than I would a production knife, I do so because there is a man's hand labor involved. I would not pay more for a knife that had production parts in it and I would feel cheated if a person represented a knife to me as custom that wasn't all custom.

As for someone selling knives that way, it is mostly none of my business. I'm not in a position to police the marketplace. I could certainly tell my friends and family to avoid such a thing but I can't prevent this person's little fraud on the general public.

I am surprised that there are so many people here that admit to using premade blades. I assume they are using quality components and not representing to their customers that they made the blades. If the customer is getting a good product and knows that the blade is not made by the knifemaker then there isn't any deception there. The real problem we seem to have is with the deception promoted by the seller.

This is the last one that I assembled. I think the result is pretty good. I had already planned to give it to a friend of mine and I did but I really wished I still had it to go into my collection.

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I bought what was advertised as a custom knife a while back from the maker, was not impressed when I recieved it...tossed it in a drawer.

Fast forward to when I started making blades via stock removal and decided to change the grind on the "custom" I had bought. The edge was very thick.
It wasnt hardened!! Soft as a babys butt..(almost) Did some research and it was identical to $6.00 pakistan blanks sold on ebay.

Now this had the makers logo etched on it and I emailed him that he might not want to put his name on a cheap pakistan blade but recieved no response.
I removed the scales and threw the blade away after bending it in a circle. Wasnt much money and it was my own ignorance believing the "custom" story.

You get what you pay for.
James
 
Stacy spelled things out in a way that goes along with my thinking.

on a side note;
If the guy is good at the handles, there is a big market out there for re-handling knives.
 
So here it is: People buy a story as much as a knife. They buy a piece of you. That guy can sell knives because he tells the story.
NOW. The fact that the story isn't true is what makes it so dishonest.

The lesson in this for me is, if I'm not telling the story of my knives, if I'm not presenting how much goes into building them, then I'm not being straightforward either, and I'm sure not going to get top price for my work.
Most folks are going to be comparing your knives to a Kershaw or Benchmade. The easier we make it to tell the difference, the kinder we're treating them.

If we don't, they don't know that they have the option of owning something made with care and enthusiasm.

Andy
 
I Scandinavia, the "knife maker" is oft times the guy who does the incredibly complex handle and puts everything together all pretty and sharp like. The BLADESMITH is the guy who makes the blade. But like others have said, the typical buyer over there understands how those knives are made. I had one fellow knifemaker tel me that he had a table at a local gun show and some guy asked him where he got his blades and refused to believe him when he said that he made them. For better or worse, I have never used anyone else's blade or blank. With that said, i do have one of Tracy Mickley's waterjet cut parts "kits" for a folder that I plan to play with. I have given blades to maybe 3 freinds in 7 years. No idea what happened to the first two. LOL
 
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