Just a note about being a shop or a custom maker? Personally I do not understand the question exactly but here is my situation. My shop or company is located on the far Southwest side of the city of Siloam Springs, in Northwest Arkansas. The building that is the manufacturing shop is one of three, and is located on my property which used to be a much larger farm, and ranch just out of the city limits. On this property is a old brown rock farm house, and a rock building that served as a double car garage, work shop, and storage building for the old farmer that once lived here. This building is about 35 X 45 in size and packed to the roof with grinders, presses, drills, saws, and other assorted knife making equipment. The very large farm house has a large den on the back that is a packing and storage area for my finished products. One of the rear bedroom next to the den area is the computer room that houses all the electronic equipment, printers, fax, phone system, office, etc.
There is one other bedroom that is the storage area for pre-made cardboard boxes, such as shipping container, UPS boxes, FedEx boxes, tape, packing, foam, and other items. There is one other building that is about ½ a mile south of us that is at my other house that also has a building on it which houses some equipment for production work also. This is the new location where a much larger custom facility is going to be build maybe later this year. Once this new factory is build all the equipment and manufacturing work will be done in this central location. 2002 is going to bring a lot of change to my manufacturing procedures, and over all production ability.
The main building here at the old farm house is where the grinding, and heat treating, Parkerizing, and finish grinding, etc, takes place. At any given time I have had from 1 to 5 full time employees or trainees working in my shop. Only one has shows any desire to make knives, most work because they need the job and the money. I prefer woman to work in the shop because I have found they make better knives. Minimum wage is $8.75 per hour after you have some experience, and $10.00 to $12.50 per hour tops. Even with this it is hard to find good help that want to work for an opinionated non-politically correct SOB that demands they just make the knives like he wants them made.
OK in reference to the question is this a small shop or a custom shop? The type of shop I run is what is referred to as a benchmade shop meaning that we make the same knives over and over again, yet most of the work is done by hand, and not so much automated. Even though I have over 3,000 knives laser cut each year the final grinds, and finish work on the handles, etc, is all done by hand.
As an example our larger machetes are cut from a single strip of carbon steel. A pattern is used to mark the shape of the knife on the precut piece of carbon steel. One of the men will then cut the knife to shape with a grinder called a profiler. Our profilers are all hand made machines that are designed to do certain jobs. Most are ran by 5 or 7-1/2 horse power AC motor, and will eat a finger off quicker that you can read this sentence if your not careful. A man can profiler a blade on these machines faster, and cheaper than you can saw the blank out with a saw.
A good profiler can cut 15 to 20 Air Assaults out per hour. That figures out at an average of about sixty to eighty cents per knife at $12.00 per hour. I can do the primary first double hollow grinds by hand too full shape on a Air Assault in less than 2 minutes. My average grind is about 25 knives per hour. The total time frame to build an Air Assault from start to finish is less than one hour, excluding the heat treat, and draw time. Heat treat an draw add an average of 3 hours 15 minutes per knife.
However I do not grind one knife at a time, nor do we finish one knife as a time. All most all of my product is done in batches. At any time there might be Air Assaults, Recon Combat Machetes, Company Knives, Woos, and Little Peckers in production along with KYDEX SHEATHS, Fiber knives, WA-1 sticks, etc. It is not uncommon for my shop to produce as many as 500 WOO knives in a 2 day period form start to finish. At present I am working with a very short crew, and I only produce an average of 90 knives per week. There are times when this production rates is cut in half or could double for one reason or another.
This is how a production or benchmade shop has too work to be able too put out a large volume of knives. Large in the respects of a small shop compared to someone who is making 3,000 finished knives per week in a knife factory.
I also make what is considered a custom knife? Now a custom knife to me would be one that is totally different and stands along from other products. If you are making the same pattern over and over again again, an they are all just alike then to me this is not a custom. A member of the Knife Makers Guild in Missouri once was talking to me, and said that I was not a real knife maker because I made the same knives (or patterns) over and over again. He continued on to say that to be a maker you have to make customs. My question was if someone likes the knife you made their friend, and want one just like it what do you do? His answer was I do not make the same knife for anyone, mine are all different. Later in the year I found out that he could not make the same two knives because he did not have the skill to do it. So I would guess he would have to be known as a custom maker.
I do make custom knives. I make one of a kind what can be refer to as artsy style knives, fighter in the old oriental blade styles, Bowies, Swords, and other assorted models that I like to make, or knives that someone else pays me to make
..if possible. These are what I call one of a kind customs.
Lots of people on the forums, and at the shows, and in public will comment on what a good knife I make, and how inexpensive they are for the quality. I truly am humbled some times by these comments, and the remarks that some people make. I respect MOST of my customers, their impute or advise. However when it comes to customs you need to get your check book out. I do not work cheap on customs. Or at least I dont think it is cheap. Some of my customers must think that my custom work is cheap, and it is not uncommon for me to put 30 to 60 hours or more into a custom knife.
What is my time worth? Well I dont look at a custom work as time, and dollars. I work on custom knives when I want to work on them, and when it comes to price I charge what I want when selling them. I have one customer who has called me about every four months for the last 2 years, and asks me if I have started on his 4 piece custom Katana, Wakazashi, and Tanto knife set? He has offered to pay me a sum that will make my mortgage payment for a year. The reason I have not made the custom set is that I am not ready, and dont really have the time to put myself into the job at present.
This to me the difference in a CUSTOM shop a SMALL shop, and a big factory gets down to quality and the desire to please yourself, and the customer. If I could turn out 1000 knives per week like some of the big factory shops do, and not have a quality product what would I gain? If you like my knives buy one, play with it, use it. I make knives, Im not trying to be a legend or some kind of professional know it all. I make knives, and I make knives that people can afford, and use.
Like the post above here by Paul Work said; This custom/production/hand made debate is highly over rated. A quality blade is a quality blade...period.
One of the best young men I had working in my shop for over 3 years had a problem when he started making his own knives. His ego got so big that he was hard to talk to. I sat him down once and told him he needed to remember one thing. Were not artist, or some kind of gifted celebrities to be put on a pedestal
.. Were just knife makers.
I apologize for going on so long here.
Newt Livesay
maker
www.Newt.Livesay.com
Newt@Livesay.com
