Knife blanks and cheating?

B

Byork

Joined
Sep 24, 2008
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I hope the title isn't too inflammatory, but I saw this mentioned in the steel give-away thread and wanted to ask some opinions about it.

I got started in knife making about 30 years ago, with a knife blank I purchased for a class project in Jr. High. At that time I was never able to finish it to my level of expectations and put it away. I'd stumble across it every couple of years and tell myself "you really need to finish that one day". I finally did finish it, and in the process became afflicted with the desire to make my own knives.

It's been a stepping stone that led to me shaping and heat treating my own blades.

Now the question that I'm pondering. I recently designed a blade for a friend. Nothing earth shaking. I like it quite a bit though. I have it profiled out in 5160.

In an email conversation with David from Great Lakes Waterjet, I sent him a picture of this, and he sent me back a CAD drawing.

If the design is one I drew out, and I did the first from a blank bar of 5160, is it cheating if I have him make several copies in 1080?

I'll still have to grind in the bevels, heat treat it and finish the surface of the blade. Each won't have the individual minor discrepancies in shape that grinding out by hand would have.

I see two sides to this coin. I'm depriving myself the practice of making uniform blades by hand. I'm also saving time in a life that's busy with a full-time day job.

Walter
 
This topic tends to slide down the slippery slope of kits, pre-cut blanks, then moving on to makers using pantographs, CNC mills/lathes and then usually winding up at people griping about people using jigs to grind.

I can't speak for everyone but we're speaking mainly about the "kit" knives and not really being a "knifemaker" for whatever that glorious title is worth. A while back when Bob Engnath passed away there were a few prominent makers that folded up their tents and "retired". The implication was that they were actually passing kit blades off as their own work.

Most of us started as kit makers, I did and actually sold a few to buy tooling, BUT I sold them without my name on them and the buyer fully understood that I "merely" finished the knife out by shaping, polishing, soldering on the guard/bolster and added handle material and finished it out.

I'm working with my brother on a knife line for professional chefs (he's a chef and restraunt owner) and I plan on having them cut out by Great Lakes. I'll mark them as "W. Leavitt Custom Cutlery". I can cut out steel blanks if I want to but the cost of steel and saw blades is more than having David cut them out for me not to mention the investment of my time at a saw instead of the grinder. Now if I was having someone cut them, grind and HT them I wouldn't claim them to be "made" by me.

I know a few guys that actually assemble kits that rival top end craftsmanship from any maker. They charge a lot of money for their product and the finished knives are worth every penny. They're not "collectible" knives but they're dang fancy and you wouldn't be ashamed to pull one out of your pocket. They love doing handles, filework and other adornments but don't want to grind a blade... they're fully capable of doing it but it's doesn't turn their crank so to speak.
 
I recognize the slippery slope, and hope it doesn't degrade too far.

I've had a lot of friends ask me if and when I'm going to sell some of the knives I have made/assembled. I always told them that I would hang out a shingle when I could make my own blades and be satisfied with the quality.

I did break that rule once. I sold a knife that I put together with a blade from Gene Martin. I made it clear up front the source of the blade and just covered my materials with maybe $10-15 on top. I think I had easily 15 hours in that knife finishing it out, putting on handles and making a sheath.

Maybe in the next couple of years I'll get to a point where I feel comfortable stamping my name into the ricasso of a blade I make.

Walter

<edit> I like the idea of different stamps. One for a full handmade custom, and one for the waterjet blanks.
 
My normal mark is "W. Leavitt" if the kitchen line has a good demand and there's a desire for fully forged blades then I'll get another mark with "W. Leavitt Hand Forged" or something like that on it. It also cuts down the confusion for my other customers so they know what they're getting.
 
I had a similar discussion a couple days ago with a custom 4x4 builder and it actually started from taking about making knives. I play around quite a bit and have built a couple rigs. While I fab some parts a majority of the major parts are ordered and installed. By all standard definitions I have a 'custom' rig that I can sell for about 7x what I have into it, and no-one would ever complain about my claim as having built the rig or that it is in fact a custom. After all, every drop of blood spilled has been mine.

From a more or less layman's standpoint:

I'm definitely newer to the knife shop than I am the auto shop, and I love the scale work. Metal work I'm working on, but I don't enjoy it nearly as much. But I see no reason you should feel any differently about a knife you have someone else cut than you do about one you cut. Especially since you're talking about your own design. If you're talking a total 'kit' that comes in ready to go and all it takes is 10 minutes and some superglue to be done, that would be different. Starting with a good blank and doing the scales yourself makes it IMO every bit as custom as anything else. I personally would have a far greater feeling of pride had I started with a bar, but the finish product is every bit a piece of individual work and deserving of a strong sense of pride as well. Especially considering that the realm of functional knives is going to put most knives into very similar categories.

Similarly, I have a friend who has a friend (end of line there) who is a multi-millionaire. As such I have held probably $100k in 'custom' high end rifles. And through the years have played with quite a few $2-3k 'customs'. None have done any better than my $700 ruger, but that's besides the point. The real point is that you can easily identify 75% of the actual manufacturers of the actions, barrels, furniture etc, and they are not the people who sold the 'custom'. And not 1 that I've seen has lead me to believe that they started with a raw piece of metal and a piece of wood.

Again, I'm a newbie here but that's my view. I like the idea of having 2 marks to identify, but I would really disagree with thinking that the blank is a garbage knife more or less, and that the identical knife is superior simply because you fired up the grinder. The true value is in the quality of the finished product, not in who swung the hammer.
 
That's not cheating. It's called a collaboration. It is perfectly acceptable for a knife to have more than one hand in it's making. It doesn't matter if that hand is another custom maker or a guy with a waterjet or a factory in China pumping out blade blanks. The only time it's not ok is when someone claims that it is something it is not.

If you have a vision of a knife and you pay someone else to cut out a blank and grind it for you the final knife is no less your creation than if you had done that work yourself. It is the idea and the Desire to turn that vision into something real that is the real wonder of knifemaking. There is only one step in making a knife that can't be taught to just about anyone or even done by a complex enough machine. That one crucial step is the creation of an idea in the imagination of an artist. Everything and everyone else is merely a tool along the path of creation.
 
indy said:
From a more or less layman's standpoint:

I'm definitely newer to the knife shop than I am the auto shop, and I love the scale work. Metal work I'm working on, but I don't enjoy it nearly as much. But I see no reason you should feel any differently about a knife you have someone else cut than you do about one you cut. Especially since you're talking about your own design. If you're talking a total 'kit' that comes in ready to go and all it takes is 10 minutes and some superglue to be done, that would be different. Starting with a good blank and doing the scales yourself makes it IMO every bit as custom as anything else. I personally would have a far greater feeling of pride had I started with a bar, but the finish product is every bit a piece of individual work and deserving of a strong sense of pride as well. Especially considering that the realm of functional knives is going to put most knives into very similar categories.

Again, I'm a newbie here but that's my view. I like the idea of having 2 marks to identify, but I would really disagree with thinking that the blank is a garbage knife more or less, and that the identical knife is superior simply because you fired up the grinder. The true value is in the quality of the finished product, not in who swung the hammer.
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I edited your post for brevity. I think you're confusing some terms here (and I think they've been used interchangeably in the past) blanks and kits. Byork and I are using the term "blank" to refer to barstock that has been cut to the outline of a blade, no heat treat, no bevels, just a flat piece of barstock with a knife outline. I think you're using "blank" as most of us would refer to "kit knives" and the term being used as a blade that has been outlined, bevels ground in and heat treated (I would say they don't even have to be heat treated since that can be farmed out.)

I would say that the kit knives I first assembled were probably better looking than the 1095 beasties I first made and sold. When you say "Starting with a good blank and doing the scales yourself makes it IMO every bit as custom as anything else." I'm guessing you mean finishing up the grinds and getting it heat treated and finished because slapping handles on a kit knife isn't custom (well I guess you could call it custom) but it isn't a "made" knife at that point.

In Japan and parts of Europe this is a moot point, it's an accepted practice for someone to make the blade and someone to do the handle.

This discussion isn't really about blanks it's about defining "handmade" knife. It gets really nasty and I don't really want it to go that way. So let me sum up my position if anyone read this far.

1. Most of us started with a kit blade or two or more at the beginning of our knifemaking career. I have and I sold them UNMARKED and WITH THE BUYER'S UNDERSTANDING that I finished, fit and soldered the guard, fit and finished the handle material.

2. There is a HUGE difference between getting a piece of barstock that has been outlined then grinding the bevels, heat treating and finishing a knife versus getting a finished blade and putting a handle on it, no matter how nice the handle. If you don't know the difference then I would argue that you've never ground or hammered a blade before.

3. If you bought a kit knife and put a handle on it you did not MAKE the knife (in the eyes of most makers and experienced custom knife buyers) you are not the MAKER of the knife.

4. Making a kit knife in no way diminishes your work as long as you don't misrepresent yourself as the MAKER of the knife.

5. It doesn't really matter at the end of the day, if you're churning out kit blades to people as your own work it's 99% likely that we'll never know. If you're that kind of person then you'll never care what we think.

Edited to add:

I don't think I'm the keeper of all knowledge or some master knifemaker and gatekeeper of knife wisdom. I'm paraphrasing and passing on the same, tired arguments and MY personal beliefs on the matter.
 
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These are good replies. For what it's worth, I personally would have no compunction about my own design being cut by waterjet in a fabrication shop rather than profiling it in my own shop. That's just efficient shop practice; just a better tool. For my money you could honestly claim to have made such a knife yourself, without any "cut by machine" disclosure. Building a kit knife is another thing entirely.
 
In reference to machine cut blade blanks:
I have several of my blade shapes laser cut and/or water jet cut. As far as kitchen cutlery goes,It is the only way to assure that the knife a customer bought last year will match the one he orders this year.I have dozens cut each year. It is more efficient time wise, and material wise,too. The cutter has the CAD programs on file, and all I have to do is call with the file number, steel selection, and quantity.
Using these blanks, I hand make a complete hand made knife. With large batches of high alloy kitchen blades, I contract the HT out. For the one-off knives, I do the HT myself.

Now as to pre-made blades:
I use them ,too. I am not set up to make damascus stainless steel san-mai with VG-10 core kitchen blades (virtually no one but a factory is). I order them from a supplier, assemble them in sets of two or three knives with stunning handles, and they sell very well. The competition is name brand factory knives with the identical blades (they come from the same factory). My offer is custom knives with fancier handles.


Part of the problem is in the choice of words people use:
If someone ordered a bowie knife and I purchased a finished pre-made blade and put on a handle......an called it a hand made knife, then that would be cheating.
If someone orders a sashimi knife in VG-10 san-mai......and I call it a custom knife, then that is the truth.

Stacy
 
I had 36 blanks cut from a piece of D2. It was my design. I feel no guilt over selling them as my custom knives. The cutting and grinding outline is by far the simplest part of making a knife, but it is time and material consuming. I also sometimes use other peoples damascus. I always state who the damascus maker is if it isn't mine. I get the part about sole authorship, but, I don't feel any more guilt about using Chad Nichol's damascus than I would Crucible's D2. I think a big key is being honest about it. A blank watercut from a piece of plate isn't "hand forged". Hand made is a gray area. What power tools and how many hand made their steel? And down the slippery slope we go.
 
Yep, Stacy got it. Having parts water-jet cut is but one step in the process. Not much different than buying cast guards or handle slabs.
I make an Outers pattern that is water cut and tell customers that. Doing that saves me about an hour per blade which transfers into cash for me plus the uniformity factor.
Look at it this way, would it be "cheating" if you paid a neighbor kid to come in and profile blade sfor ya??.
 
I've had this discussion with hundreds of knife makers. The overall feeling I get from everyone is all that I'm doing is taking away the "grunt work" from them and providing a consistent starting place. Each and every knife will be different when its finished. Look at the last contest we did "slipjoint build off ". There is not two knives that look the same. The current contest we are doing is similar. Out of 20 knife blanks there will not be 2 that are the same when they are finished.
A kit knife is a whole different thing. I don't make "kits". Nor will I ever make kits. Are the parts I make custom? Well yeah! Its your design not mine. I have thousands of CAD files for knives on hand and no 2 are the same. Some are extremely similar, but still different. The man that is a bladesmith and forges his own blades is completely different. I applaud them for having the skills to master this art. Maybe one day I'll give it a try. For the "stock removal" guys, does it really matter how the stock is removed? This subject can be taken out off proportion really quick. I think the final answer is the way the MAKER feels about the end result. With all of the time and effort you put into a knife, do you feel its a custom. I sure would. You can't just go to Wally World and buy one off the shelf. Just my $0.02.:D
 
greatlakeswaterjet said:
The overall feeling I get from everyone is all that I'm doing is taking away the "grunt work" from them and providing a consistent starting place.
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I think it was Tom Krein (Tom, you out there?) who posted to BFC once upon a time, "Profiling. So easy a monkey could do it... so boring I wish I had a monkey."
 
So does that also mean you have to make your own steel, scale material, hardware, leather and anything else you need? So if you send your knives out for heat treat, can you still be a knifemaker? Where does it end?
 
i agree with dave on taking the grunt work out of knifemaking. i make my knives from cultivator discs that rockwell at 56rc which will trash a saw blade so i have strips cut with a plasma torch. i grind grooves with an angle grinder where i want to break the steel to remove what i dont want and finish out the blade with the grinder. starting out with a pre cut blank is just like starting out with a piece of stock only its to shape already.
 
greatlakeswaterjet said:
So does that also mean you have to make your own steel, scale material, hardware, leather and anything else you need? So if you send your knives out for heat treat, can you still be a knifemaker? Where does it end?
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Yea, you have to mine the ore, grow the trees, feed the cows, and so on, and so on. (moan)

See how silly that argument is?

If members the largest knifemaking organization, the Knifemakers' Guild, vasilate on the definition of a handmade knife, what can be accomplished on this forum?

Maybe it's better to put all this energy into what's important to us....making and selling knives.

Were truer words ever spoken?

AL P

www.polkowskiknives.com
 
I have more time than money, but from the great lakes website, they sell blanks pretty reasonable and I would consider giving it a try later down the road with some of my designs.

As of right now, I prefer doing most of the work myself, I feel it's part of the learning curve.
 
Al, you are correct sir. The important thing is to improve skills and produce a high quality finished product.
 
when my cousin steve rebuilds a motor, and sends the heads out to be machiened , that dosent mean that he's not the one who re ............ahh never mind, we could go round and round ..........


precut blanks isnt my thing, because as of now, i dont want to make more than 1 of any style or design, i switch something up on every one, i also dont make as many knives ya'll do.

just my 2 cents

andrew
 
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