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

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mitchnola said:
I tell ya what, applying this standard to all the knives claimed to be made in the USA would cause havoc in the industry. We suddenly would have far less than we would like!
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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.
 
knarfeng said:
www.ftc.gov

Complying with the Made in USA Standard

Do you promote your products as “Made in the USA”? Under the law, some products must disclose U.S. content. For others, manufacturers and marketers who choose to make claims about the amount of U.S. content need to know about the FTC’s Made in USA Labeling Rule and Enforcement Policy Statement...
www.ftc.gov www.ftc.gov


Like the silica in the above example, the cost of manufacturing the steel is much more than the cost of the ore. So ore can come from anywhere, but must be made into steel in the US, if the knife is to be marked "made in USA"
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I think cutting steel to shape, grinding it, heat treating it and then assembling it into a knife may be enough for the "substantial transformation" clause. I bet it has been litigated, I'll ask my brother where to find the case law.
 
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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As you absolutely should because more important to me than any of that other crap is your knives come with American blood, sweat and tears in its soul!
 
mitchnola said:
Good point, and in regards to my previous post, how often is the ftc conducting investigations on any product much less knives? Apparently it does happen though if it happened to ka-bar.
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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
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
Cobalt said:
Thanks for posting. Ken Warner was a good guy that got mixed up with mike. All of kens Seki Japan made knives were awesome. Those seki made blackjacks were great knives, I still have a few,
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Still waiting. Guess no proof.
 
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.
 
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