Hi Thombrogan. We have considered licencing locks to custom makers and we have a few in the works. They and we have been holding off while we make a few refinements in the engineering of the locks.
We believe the Compresion lock is dialed in and we should soon be able to provide the custom maker with a liner already containing the compression lock that can be used for any model. We can show them the angles and tolerances necessary for effective functioning.
The ATR with its integral titanium compression lock is the state of the art in this development at this time, but quite difficult to make in production. We've had good success with the Salsa titan, but it has a much shorter blade and the leverage arm is much longer on the ATR blade.
The Ball bearing lock will really be introduced with the "Dodo" which is in it's first production run (after a number of pilot runs). We believe we have it dialed in but time in the field with ELU use always yields opportunity for improvement. We've had a few custom makers inquire about it.
Once the angles and concave ramps are dialed in, the ball bearing lock permits a great deal of self adjusting potential.
One of the difficulties in custom making knife designs "by eye", is that the design "looks good" but fails in the areas of ergonomics or cutting funtion.
Spyderco has come a long in the past 7 or 8 years in the area of ergonomics. We pay very careful attention to making sure the designs comfortably fits most hands. Many models are made and designs refined to achieve this goal. If you've handled a number of our recent designs, you will discover that they are designed with much effort in serving that area.
In the interest of achieving more successful designs, I would rather see more of a collaboration with the "designer" and the custom maker. Combined experience will often generate a design with variations from the original drawing that better serve function. It's a win/win, but takes time to do it right.
I'm personally working with a Dialex design in that process.
We also like to see what designs come out of it from the custom maker for possible production. In this way, the "homework" and refinement process has been done (with the designer), the product has been shown enough to determine if the number of potential customers are there to look more closely at the design.
Hope that answers your question.
sal
