Just saw this.....Bark River is no more?

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J. Doyle said:
Agreed.

And to further muddy the waters, if provision is made by PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL COST of sale, steel cost is low enough in total build price to qualify as made in USA. Handle material might be another story.

Either way, my takeaways are:

1. Honesty and transparency are important above all else.

2. Im still claiming (though I never use it as a selling/marketing point) that my knives are made in the USA though some of the raw materials may not be. I try whenever possible to use USA made raw materials, and can do so in most cases.
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Send me a few and I'll report back to everyone on how much USA made'ness is in each one ☺️ don't worry, I'll do this free of charge, the knives are payment enough. 😁
 
1066vik said:
To my knowledge, Kabar didn't get investigated or accused of impropriety. they just complied with the change in law at the time it went into effect. I also don't know how long they had been sourcing German produced steel prior to being required to take "USA" off their knives under the new law.
Most likely, at the time they started using German steel, the law allowed for marking made in USA if a certain percentage of manufacturing processes were performed here when sourcing raw materials like sheets of steel internationally
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Thanks for the info. Honestly I wouldn’t have had any problems if they didn’t change it.
 
Personally I’m fine considering/supporting American made knives that are completely manufactured by American machines and hands here in the USA. Regardless of material origins etc. I draw the line when the parts are made outside of this country even if assembled here. I’m not interested in assembled in the usa. Just my opinion.
 
1066vik said:
To my knowledge, Kabar didn't get investigated or accused of impropriety. they just complied with the change in law at the time it went into effect. I also don't know how long they had been sourcing German produced steel prior to being required to take "USA" off their knives under the new law.
Most likely, at the time they started using German steel, the law allowed for marking made in USA if a certain percentage of manufacturing processes were performed here when sourcing raw materials like sheets of steel internationally
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As far as I know, they changed the marking when they had to change the steel source. And it was a recent event.

WR Case had a similar issue which happened about the same time. They could not find an American foundry who would make CV alloy steel for them. In their case, they changed the blade steel to straight 1095 carbon steel, which they could source in the US.
 
knarfeng said:
Note: the performance differences between 1095 and 1095 Cro Van (insert CV here) are more noticeable in a big fixed blade than they are on a pocket knife. So the choices each manufacturer made make sense to me.
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0170-6 / 50100 being the same as 1095cv from my understanding.
 
mitchnola said:
I think he’s right in the strictest sense of the law. Primarily because the steel is the foundational basis of a knife so according to the law it also must be sourced in the US.

However in reality and even in the law there’s a lot of grey area for interpretation etc. Not to mention it’s a law that’s rarely enforced as Blues Blues just mentioned.

I think this is a situation where yall are both right. It’s not simply a black/white situation. It falls in the grey area that leaves a lot of room for subjectivity.
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Under the law, marketing is also content, so if the vendor spends $10 per unit in marketing that also gets factored in.

N2s
 
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not2sharp said:
Under the law, marketing is also content, so if the vendor spends $10 per unit in marketing that also gets factored in.

N2s
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Possibly so. But the bottom line is it’s apparently rarely investigated/enforced so I guess it’s up to us to define for ourselves.

On the flip side it’s pretty clear and obvious what’s definitely not American made so at least we have that helping in knowing where not to spend our money.

Then there’s the Brk situation which is just straight deception.
 
knarfeng said:
As far as I know, they changed the marking when they had to change the steel source. And it was a recent event.

WR Case had a similar issue which happened about the same time. They could not find an American foundry who would make CV alloy steel for them. In their case, they changed the blade steel to straight 1095 carbon steel, which they could source in the US.
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I had wondered how Case dealt with the issue.
 
A lot of the knife reviewers and sharpening tutorial channel people on YT have pretty much mostly chimed in on this subject with their own 20 minute + videos. Which turns this dumpster fire into a forest fire, that is further buying both Mike and Jim and the BR name under piles of metaphorical ash. My only concern is that the videos remain factual and focus on what he actually did and to who and not turn into fanciful storytelling, adding fake or unconfirmed details without fact checking.
 
All steels from every country is made from iron. Iron is sprayed all over the cosmos by the uncontrolled explosion of a type of Supernova. Since the principal ingredient of steel is of extraterrestrial origin, no steel can be claimed to be US made.

Flash forward 4.5 billion years. Almost all of the bone scales on the unquestionably USA made, corn fed, Yankee Doodle Dandy knives of the last century came from Argentinian cattle shin bones.

It's a murky world in the cutlery industry.
 
dsutton24 said:
All steels from every country is made from iron. Iron is sprayed all over the cosmos by the uncontrolled explosion of a type of Supernova. Since the principal ingredient of steel is of extraterrestrial origin, no steel can be claimed to be US made.

Flash forward 4.5 billion years. Almost all of the bone scales on the unquestionably USA made, corn fed, Yankee Doodle Dandy knives of the last century came from Argentinian cattle shin bones.

It's a murky world in the cutlery industry.
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You mean no iron can be American made. Steel is made.

Like water doesn’t necessarily originate in the US but you can make soup in America.
 
Blues said:
Please. If that's really how you feel, I have a feeling this may not be the place for you.

U.S. by birth, naturalized citizens, and Resident Aliens are all legal under the laws of the United States. If you have a problem with any of that, not only is it off topic for this thread, I think you need to take it somewhere else.
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Hold on. I was referencing an earlier comment that said that Mike Stewart was not his real name. Nothing about citizenship. Where'd that even come from?
 
edgelion said:
Hold on. I was referencing an earlier comment that said that Mike Stewart was not his real name. Nothing about citizenship. Where'd that even come from?
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Because you replied to this quote:

As long as you don't require proof that the maker himself (or herself) was made in the USA
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The way your reply read, and what you replied to, seemed to give a different perspective. Anyway, I'm happy to take you at your word that it was simply a misunderstanding.
 
Going to put this thread on pause at this juncture based upon a decision made yesterday evening among staff.

What we would appreciate is for anyone with new and relevant information to contact either myself, knarfeng knarfeng or Boru13 Boru13 and provide a basis for reopening the thread. At that time we will open it back up for a limited period of time for that new information to be disseminated and discussed by our membership...after which it will be closed once more.
 
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