The funny thing is if Mr. Williams played up the fact his blades were machine made his sales might even go up, for example...
" To meet the ever growing demand we have our blades machined to our specifications to the highest tolerances. To achieve the most consistent and precision blade a $50,000 CNC machine mills each blade to our exact specifications. We then hand inspect each blade to insure only the best is used in our knifemaking. This is done to meet the high demand for our product. Nothing leaves our shop that has not been inspected and meets Williams knifes high standard of excellence."
Maybe instead of threatening to sue he can use the truth and spin it to his advantage.
There are a lot of makers out there having their knives being made on machines, if they are up front about it.... that is what matters.
Yup. A lot these days seem to have their blades blanked out by a water jet company or even by plasma cutter.
A few years ago, there was a new maker at the monthly gun show that I used to chat with. He bought blades, pin material, epoxy, handle material, etc. from several different sources. He did a slight regrind on some of his blades, but mostly polished them out a bit more and sharpened the dickens out of them. While his blades had his name on them, he made no bones about the fact that they were purchased 90% finished and ready to go.
I asked him why he didn't grind his own knife blades, and he said it he wasn't good enough to put out a finished product yet and was trying to earn enough money to buy the grinder he was after. The average price of his knives was about $225. Almost every gun show he sold about 6 - 7 because his finishing work was excellent, and the choice of handle material were all top tier. Not a flaw in his work. (He told me he had a
bucket full of knives that he intended to regrind one day or turn them into tool box knives that didn't make his quality control cut for selling.) His knives were pretty enough and so well finished he not only made money polishing and hafting, but got far enough ahead to buy his KMG pretty quickly.
All he had to do was to be honest and he was fine. Yes, there were a couple of scratch makers there at the shows that made plenty of snide remarks, nasty comments about him and his work, and made fun of him behind his back, but he didn't care, and outsold them 2 to 1 or more every single month. He made no pretense about what he was doing, and would even tell you where he bought the blade for each knife if you asked him!
He mostly sold fixed hunters, but got into the large folder kits. They were beautiful, but he quit making them as he couldn't get the blades centered up the way he wanted and he couldn't get the pulls to his satisfaction. He told me that only every other one was a "sellable" knife.
He got to the point he told me he was going to quit going to the shows as he sold enough knives by word of mouth that he was better served working in his shop rather than taking a two day weekend away from it for the gun show.
Certainly in his case, honesty was the best policy. He was literally selling all he could make in about 6 months from starting. I was fun to watch him get faster, better, and modify the knives more. I don't know where he is now, but no doubt he is happily grinding away somewhere here in town.
Oddly... although many here swear by all things BF and consider it an all powerful, all seeing entity, he had never heard of it. He was intrigued and I always encouraged him to go to the maker's forum. Month after month... he wouldn't go. Finally, he told me "between my regular job, my kids, and making knives I just don't have time to mess around on the internet".
I miss that guy.
Robert