Knife blanks and cheating?

Shy of making the steel or Micarta, sole authorship to me means making all the parts in
my shop by my own hand with my own tools. This isn't everyones cup of tea and as makers names progress so does the demand for thier knives. I've been asked where I get my shields and tell people I make the shield and the parser plate. I'm proud to put "sole authorship" in my for sale threads, it only has to matter to me and my customers. With honesty no problem how the knife was made. When was the last time you saw a for sale thread with laser, waterjet, or cnc cut parts as part of the add.
Ken.
 
As long as a maker is honest with a buyer about who did what, little else is of import.

Maker: " I conjured this knife " Buyer: " Cool, did you conjure it yourself and how much is it".
Maker: " Yes I did and its One thousand dollars" BUyer: "I'll take it" Everyone is happy and the guy purchased a knife that was witched out of thin air. :rolleyes:

Cheating at anything is when you take unacceptable advantage of a situation or you intentionally deceive. Everything else is acceptable practice as long as you are honest about what you do.

If a maker does not take full advantage of all his senses and use them to his best advantage as he is making knives, then I think he is cheating, but in this case, he is only cheating himself.

My .02 Fred
 
greatlakeswaterjet said:
So do you think a knife should have "Cut by GLW" stamped on it as a selling point? This could be a great selling point. I take as much pride in what I do as anyone else does! I consider what I do a great service just like Paul Bos does with his heat treating services. His services are a highly sought after and thought by many to be the best in the business. I'm working hard to hopefully reach that same status one day.
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Dave,

I am not putting you down, but profiling a blade does not add value to a knife. If a knifemaker had a high school student profiling blades, would having the student do the cutting add value to the blade? Heat treating is one of the most important steps of knifemaking. Profiling and heat treating cannot be compared.

With regards to having blades cut by anyone/anything other than the knifemaker, tell the collector how the knife is made and let them decide. As a collector I do not care. If a knifemaker designs a knife and has someone else do the grunt work, good for them. The knifemaker then has more time to apply their skills where they show i.e., fit & finish, grinds, sculpting, engraving, damascus, etc.
 
Is it cheating????

Of course, this is only my opinion (like everyone else).

I worked for the largest telecommunication company in the world. In Canada our plant was classified as vertically integrated. We did research & development, design &engineering, made moulds, dies, did plastic injection, PCB, PCBA, and automated assembly and test. Our factory even extruded our own screws from round bar stock, for telephone sets. Virtually raw material came in from the west side of the building and finished goods left on the east side.

Did we cheat by stating, Made In Canada? No, but times change. To be competitive we had to out-source. I'm not going into depth hear, but a lot of poor corporate decisions were made with regards to how much to out-source.

Unfortunately it all comes down to dollars and cents, guys. What is your customer willing to spend and just as important. How much work and cost are you willing to invest into your product. Some custom knives sell for more than others, which is based on product, skill, quality and the maker's reputation.

Let's be honest. Most North American Knife makers out-sources one or more operations with regards to completing a knife. Most knife makers in less develop countries are vertically integrated (do not out-source) any operation of knife building. Whom is the better knife maker? Who's knife sells for more?

It's all about time, cost and quality. Making the best knife for a customer may sometimes require out-sourcing an operation someone does not have either the expertise or equipment to do it. Be honest to your customer and try to get the highest and fairest price for your work.

My thoughts,
Dennis
 
Not to beat a Dead Horse... but you are asking for one word "KnifeMaker" (Maybe that is two Words?) to define a fairly complicated process. To a Hobbyist or New "Maker" like myself, to be a knife maker may just mean that you made something that resembles a knife. When referring to the Knife Kits, I feel you assembled a Knife and maybe are only a Handle Maker! Knifemakers use different methods (Some Forge, Some Remove Stock). A person that makes Damascus may not ever be a Knifemaker and vise versa. The auto industry is a perfect example, AutoMakers don't make the entire car themselves!

I agree with the point made a few times, you need to decide in yourself when you feel comfortable being called a Knifemaker. In my opinion if you have made a knife by taking a piece of Steel, Stone, Ceramic, Plastic Whatever and changed its shape to be used as an edged tool, You are a knife maker (Just ask your local Prison Warden)... the debate is on what level of knifemaker do you consider yourself or someone else.
 
RyanW said:
In my opinion if you have made a knife by taking a piece of Steel, Stone, Ceramic, Plastic Whatever and changed its shape to be used as an edged tool, You are a knife maker (Just ask your local Prison Warden).
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In that case, I think a more appropriate word would be "shiv-maker". :p

Erin
 
Wow! I'm surprised this one resurfaced. That was almost a year ago.

I'm working slowly towards getting a forge put together, and still do stock removal on my own. I haven't heard from David at GLWJ in forever. I sent a few emails but I guess the blanks never made it into the pipeline. I'm sure he's a busy man.

In that time, I've decided that the knife is still "mine", but not something I'd charge as much for as something I'd forged or ground out myself. And yes, I would be upfront with the customer about it, but so far, none of the people that buy from me would mind.

Walter
 
I make a lot of small EDC stuff and the guys at work call me a "shiv-maker" all the time... damn them. :D

Walter
 
RyanW said:
So now what is the difference between a "shiv-maker" and a "shank-maker"?:p:p
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I had the same question... but after thumbing through a couple of dictionaries, I was unable to find any definititions of "shank" that implied anything knife-related. :confused:

Did Nick win the raffle? If not, I'll take 63.

Erin
 
RyanW said:
So now what is the difference between a "shiv-maker" and a "shank-maker"?:p:p
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I believe shiv is the more accepted term east of the Mississippi. Were shank is more prominent in the western prison systems.

Whether shiv or shank; if such terms are the daily topic of conversation, you are probable somewhere you would rather not be.:eek:

Fred
 
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wildthing423 said:
Well, as someone who has never made a knife, I cannot speak to this issue, not specifically. But , I know metal, I have hot and cold forged copper, brass, etc. as well as silver and gold. But, still I am neither a knife maker nor a machinist nor a blacksmith. But I have the requisite knowledge to do it, just not the money to buy or make a forge, press or a mill. So if one of the posters before me feels sorry for me because I am "girl poor" yes girl poor, I have 11 children and they are all female and I am lucky to be able to buy bic razors, so he/she feels sorry for me and takes his jeep Cherokee that he was going to junk and cuts the leaf springs into 12 in. pieces and gives them all to me and 6 months later I have ,say 12 knives all different all able to be used in a battle tested situation regardless of how they look, all ground to a 30 degree bevel which is the best for combat blade edges anything less for a battle blade is to brittle on the edge, at least for military battle use anyway, so I did not make them. Because I could not heat and hammer the steel/iron. Jeez, I feel like I should not even try. For the record, I fix or replace different peoples long arms and side arms, design stocks and have even completely rebuilt upper and lower receivers using manufactured parts and on occasion machining them my self, they are not my weapons, there design comes from Armalite, Colt, Bushmaster aka Cerberus Capital management who also owns Panther and Remington arms, yet the sidearm/longarm owners still say it is my work. So, should I not try and learn the craft I am being drawn to because it is not practical to own a forge, anvil and other things. One of the things I do is teach art..fine art, all of us learn on the back or shoulders of giants that came before us. Including all of you. And I mean each and everyone of us. It seems disingenuous to say that anything less then the hammer and forge is cheating.

weird. and here I thought you were all here to help...ya know its called a forum.. like in the old roman senate...a place of learning.


Wildthing


Mark

My 5 bucks worth
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Mark,
Your 3rd post on BF and you're complaining about the unwillingness to help from the other posters.... perhaps if you'd like some help you should FREAKING ASK SOMETHING RELATED TO ACTUALLY MAKING A FREAKING KNIFE! No, asking about repurposing old knives and kit knives isn't knifeMAKING.

Try reading and learning before posting. Better yet, try reading and understanding the conversation before joining it. :jerkit:

Quit making excuses about why you can't make a knife and make a knife...
 
I've seen this discussion a good bit in recent years.

Are you a knifemaker? Yes.

Is the knife handmade? No, not completely, because some automated process has been incorporated.

Then what is it? It's mid-tech, or sometimes called semi-production. It's a process that some makers are turning to in order to keep up with demand. They can offer knives that are handmade (made by their own work, from start to finish). But, if they are offering a limited number of models and are mass producing them on a small scale, sending them out to have them waterjet cut, stamped from sheet metal, or whatever, then the knives they are producing are mid-tech. Bark River Knife and Tool is a company that specializes in mid-tech knives.

You can back things down even further. You can get a blade from someone and add a handle. At that point you are just a knife assembler.

Occasionally there are guys that pop up here and on other forums with a design they scratched out on paper. (Usually some gosh-awful mall ninja knifelike object, but I digress). They'll contract with someone to make the knife for them based off their sketch, show the knife off on the forums, and call themselves a knifemaker. "Poser" is a better title, methinks.
 
To me profiling a blade is the easy part. Any one with a grinder can make a knife shaped object. The part that requires skill and experience is grinding bevels whether it be hollow, convex, flat or chisel and then the heat treating, tempering and finishing. Then you've got the handle...on and on. If I ordered blanks of my own design, I would consider that to be a custom knife. The only difference I see is that instead of me taking barstock that I purchased from some metal supply and profiling it for half and hour, I start grinding bevels. If I could forge steel (forge it to where it didnt look like I found it pounded into the asphalt on the freeway anyway) I would still get my steel from somewhere made by someone. Getting out of 30 minutes of profiling seem's kind of trivial compared to the other 15-30 (I am slow) hours I might spend making the thing. Of course I am not a knife seller, I am a knife giver-awayer and have only made 80 or so in the past 5 years, so maybe that is why it seems trivial to me.
 
For me as primarily a consumer but with a couple of lamentable stock removal pointy objects under my belt, my concern is that I know whether the knife was forged or stock removal, not that in most cases it would change a purchase decision. However if you are not grinding the bevels in the blade, which to me is the trickiest and easiest to muck up part then you are pretty much assembling the knife. Even if you designed it and if someone else ground those bevels in then you are a designer not a knifemaker. It also depends a great deal on the type of knife. Nothing is sweeter to me then a hand forged by the maker bird and trout or other small knife. It adds something for me. I am sure there are folder makers who forge their own blades but most dont seem to. For me it is all in who ground those bevels, if they did more, then beautiful, I admire that and will try to pay accordingly. Choose you own orthodoxy and purchase or produce accordingly and clearly state what it is you do without puffery and pretension. That way somebody might not consider you a knifemaker or bladesmith or whatever title as they define it but they will still consider you honest and that is a much more important attribute to have attached to your carcass at your funeral then knifemaker or bladesmith or poet or artist or however you ply your troth.
 
Will Leavitt said:
Mark,
Your 3rd post on BF and you're complaining about the unwillingness to help from the other posters.... perhaps if you'd like some help you should FREAKING ASK SOMETHING RELATED TO ACTUALLY MAKING A FREAKING KNIFE! No, asking about repurposing old knives and kit knives isn't knifeMAKING.

Try reading and learning before posting. Better yet, try reading and understanding the conversation before joining it. :jerkit:

Quit making excuses about why you can't make a knife and make a knife...
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Well, Mr Leavitt, The post I made , that you are referencing, is not specifically about not receiving help, It was more an expression of free speech and an instant action feeling, that culminated to a flash at the point in time I made that post. Where , over time I became irritated with certain unnecessary quips and notations from members from forum to forum with the way some people answer general questions or even specific questions.

Lets get to the point here.
what does it matter whether I just joined or not?
What does it matter whether I have or have not forged a knife? Is this not the blade forum?
Why does my post bother you? It is just an expression of free speech and nothing more.

what does it matter if I asked about re-purposing old knives instead of throwing them away. It would appear that My post is about other posts just like yours. It is thoroughly and completely unnecessary deliberately flammable and somewhat passive aggressive and in my opinion not necessary.

Before I became an attorney, a friend of mine who taught constitutional law said, "if you dislike personal interaction and if you dislike hearing other peoples opinions then you are in the wrong business as not only does it make the legal community go round, but the world as we know it as well." so, I see there are different categories on the forum and no where in the rules set forth by the owners did it say that if you are you not allowed to offer an opinion UNLESS you are a bladesmith/knifemaker representing the gods of steel here on earth.

Is this post about you? Do you define yourself as one of these types of people that exist in every forum that is on the internet?

As I have said, it is just a statement. It was just opportunistic that I posted here. However it is replies like yours that tell people in an abstract way that they may not be wanted here.


Mark
 
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I consider myself having "made" two knives. I took a new truck leaf spring and from it, "made" two knives. My hands cut out the blanks, ground them, shaped and polished them, and then heat treated them. Then I made handles for them, and did the final grinds to sharpen them. These are the only two I have ever "made". I will (probably) never "make" another knife because I do not like working the steel. I will however, continue to "build"/"assemble" many knives in the future.

I'll buy pre-cut, ground, heat treated and sharpened blades and "make" unique, one of a kind handles for them. On occasions, I may even modify the grind, or shape of the blank during handle "making" if it strikes me to do so. Eventually, I'm going to start making custom handles for my factory knives (Spyderco's, Kershaw's etc.).

People have asked me; "Wow, did you make that knife?", and unless they are looking at one of the two that I feel I really "made", I'll tell them "no, I made the handles/modified the blade, and built this knife from someone else's steel. I did everything except make the steel."

I don't sell the knives I make, I usually give them as gifts or keep them myself.

I can say that I have "made" knives, but now I'm going to continue in the hobby by "building" knives. I'm proud of the two knives I made. I'm equally proud of the knives I've "built". There is though, a different level of satisfaction that comes from the two I "made". I expect that I would have an even DEEPER level of satisfaction if I had mined the ore myself, and made the steel from it... but that ain't gonna' happen.:eek::)

Just how I feel about the whole thing...
 
If you are buying a premade blade you are customizing someone else's work. If you are assembling a kit you are doing just that. You are not making a knife. I forge just about all of my blades from barstock, or make my own damascus, I have even smelted my own iron. I see nothing wrong with having David cut out a blank to your design, I could see starting with an unground blank, although I personally wouldn't do it. I wouldn't claim to have made anything involving a blade made by another maker, or whatever if I were just doing handle, bolsters, etc. That would be pure and simple FRAUD. Finished by, assembled by, customized by, etc. but the implication of "Made By" is that all of the relevant craftsmanship of the article in your hand is by the person claiming to have "made" it.

-Page
 
Hey Mark,
Happy holidays.....:D

IMO...Will is giving you very similiar advice, just like your friend. He is telling you there is a lot of learning that takes place in actually doing it. Just do it....

I don't think you need a forge or a mill or an anvil....etc to make a knife. In fact, some files and hacksaw and a little barstock is where you can start and those are pretty cheap. I bet some of the folks here would even send you some materials just to get you started. Just do your thing, be honest about your process, and have fun.

Will is a well respected and talented maker here on the forum, and is always more than willing to help other people regardless of who they are. I think you will find theres a lot of people like that here...... Larry
 
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