Many vs. One - What is your knife making style?

Hawk45

Hawk45

Joined
Jan 28, 2005
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Though I have yet to sell a knife (given several away to buddies as gifts), I find myself leaning towards designing a few styles as a production line (making a bunch of the same blade, just with different scales,etc). I also find myself really drawn to more one-off designs that take craftsmanship to another level over production line knives. Using things like copper and higher end woods and materials.

Do you prefer to put out lots of similar pieces or fewer individual ones?
 
Well, sounds like true custom knives that require fine fit and finishing as well as special materials. I don't believe a production line type thing will get that to happen, but do it and let us know how it works out for you. This is not to say several knives of the same design and quality materials aren't already being done by some makers with experience and care applied to each one. Frank
 
I have been making about 4 knives of a few different designs at a time. They start out all based on the same pattern and from there as you start to develop each one you can give it unique qualities. Maybe grind a clip in one, add a bolster to another, maybe chisel grind one, and so on. I feel this way you get to explore the possibilities of your patterns and fast track towards perfecting them. Also, it is easier to make a few knives all slightly different than trying to make exact copies :)
 
I make (few) knives as a hobby, I'm not in it for money.
I enjoy differens styles and designs. I'm working on two puukko's at the moment, a kitchen knife and some user/hunters.
Making a lot of the same design would make it feel like working on a production line for me.
But that is for me, others enjoy tweaking and finetuning a certain design as close to percection as they can.
I think everybody should do what they enjoy best. That also shows in the end result.
You can see if something is made by somebody with passion or just made to be made.
 
I started with making all sorts of styles and shapes. It took a while to determine that people mainly liked a few styles consistently. I concentrated on those styles. I predominantly sell fillet, kitchen, oyster, and hunting knives. Most are in a few blade shapes with different handle materials and handle shapes. If you make five different knives, the customer will spend a lot of time trying to decide which he like more than the other. He will say, "I like this blade, but that handle...and this one is a bit shorter....and that one...." ,well you get the idea. Sometimes they can't make up their mind and don't buy either one.
When they are all pretty similar it is a matter of deciding which handle fits your hand the best, or which material you like the most. The decision is made fast and the sale gets completed.

I have a private knife show at my store tomorrow. To extrapolate the above comments even farther, when I put eighty to one hundred knives on the table tomorrow, if they were all different the customer could take an hour just to pull each from the sheath and check it out. With the knives in about eight groupings of similar styles, they check out a blade or two and then move to deciding which handle Dad will like best.
 
Thanks for the replies. Great information. I forgot to mention that I do this for pleasure b/c I love knives, I love the artistic and creative side and I love the challenge of trying to do something on my own. One thing I know for sure is that as soon as my hobby starts to feel like work, I'll quit. I've had guys ask me if they can place orders for a small batch of knives, and I declined as I didn't want this to seem like work. I do want to perfect a few styles but also plan on working on a few one-offs a year to really let the creative side flow.
 
I believe your outlook is a very good one, Hawk45. If you do them for yourself and some sales happen, well that will be okay too ! Frank
 
I feel the same way about it as you do.

Normally what I'll do, is buy a bar of whatever steel interests me, and then cut a couple hidden tang, and a couple full tang out of the bar. I'll usually do profile, grind, HT, in batches of 3-5 knives, usually each different and at least one "unique" (something I haven't done before). Then I will finish one at a time.

I'm also doing some custom commissions, which tends to mix things up pretty well. One of my main attractions to this is also the artistic/creative side, so I don't know if I would be able to establish patterns and still be happy, although I'm sure eventually I will have a few pieces that get made more often than others.
 
Exactly like you Hawk, doing production runs would feel like work to me. I like making one of a kind. Of course I also do this for pleasure so I can afford to. If I did it for a living it would be different.
 
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