Question about Factory ves handmade?

MEJ

MEJ

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Jul 24, 2011
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I do not know much about knives but i have made a couple this summer that we not very good but decent... What would you say the advantages a handmade knife has over a factory knife besides its ability to bend better... Do they have better edge retention, stronger steel, etc?

Would a 1095 carbon steel handmade knife beat a 1095 factory made knife in just about everything if they were identical blades?
 
You will probably get a lot of different answers to that. The real answer is that factories build knives for the mass market, each model is designed to appeal to as wide a market as possible. Individual makers tend to offer features that appeal to individual tastes.

Most succesful custom makers can meet or exceed the quality of a high-end factory piece in most regards and offer some features that factory knives don't, such as hand-picked exotic wood grips, differential hardening/hamon, pattern-welded blade, a hand-hammered forge finish, the list here could go on and on. The short answer is, custom makers offer something that the factories don't, but what that is will vary from maker to maker.
 
Justin really summed up the beginning of the difference. You are going to find some amazing hand mades, but there are also people who make absolute crap, there are as many variations as there are knifemakers. There are people who really understand form and function and balance that with an excellent understanding of metallurgy, then there are people who do awkward looking poorly functioning crowbars and have no concept of how to get even a fraction of the capabilities that the steel brings, and there is an entire range in between. There are some very good production knives and some excellent semi-custom factory knives as well, the handmades really have the advantage of being able to individualize what we do to take best advantage of our strengths in creating something that is exactly what our customer wants.

-Page
 
I think it depends on what exactly you are trying to compare. There are so many different quality levels when your talking about factory knives, and just as many with hand made knives as well.

Assuming you're trying to compare the "average" factory made blade to "above average" hand made blades, the biggest difference would probably be fit and finish. Next to that, of course, there is "uniqueness".
Finally, there are just some things that a guy can do by hand that just aren't nearly as feasable with factory production equipment.
 
My biggest issue with factory-made knives is, they're designed to be easy to build within a factory. Not necessarily designed to be great knives! Generally speaking, factory-made knives are stamped out in huge batches, hardened and tempered, then ground to final dimension. That's simply the most efficient way to make a whole lot of blades and keep costs down.

The most glaring example of this is steel choice and heat-treat. Since a factory must produce dozens or even thousands of knives at tight margins to make a profit, they must automate as much of the work as possible. This means they almost always choose steel that is easy to grind, and HT it below its optimum hardness to reduce wear and tear on their equipment. 420 series/AUS8 and similar stainless alloys are extremely widespread, not because they're excellent steel, but because they're cheap and easy to grind (despite what the marketing folks will tell you.)

You mentioned 1095; I've owned several knives in 1095 from reputable companies, and they all fall far short of the steel's potential performance. They are simply tempered back too soft and don't hold an edge worth a hoot. A couple more points of Rc hardness would add many thousands of dollars to the operating costs of a firm making hundreds of blades a year, because they would go through grinding wheels a little faster. Likewise, you will almost never see a nice hand-rubbed finish, a full-flat grind, convex bevels or edges, or details like crowned spines and truly sharp edges on factory knives, because all those features are just too labor-intensive to be profitable on a large scale.

An individual custom maker doesn't have to consider paying dozens of employees, million-dollar overhead costs, and the like. Therefore, he or she has the luxury of considering performance first and profit margins last.
 
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Then why are a lot of the hand-made knives just about as much as some of the factory made ones? Are factory knives just way overpriced?
 
I guess "overpriced" is a matter of opinion, and would vary widely for each example. Think of it this way, does a can of Budweiser really "cost" a dollar? No, but you're not just paying for the beer, you're paying for the TV commercials, racecar sponsorships, employee benefits and all sorts of other things, too.
 
Three reasons:

1. forging
2. heat-treat
3. steel choice

My custom fixed blades are beauties, fully-forged, differentially heat-treated 52100 or other fantastic carbon steel. There are no knife companies that do that because they can't efficiently, quickly, and cheaply do that using the labor of technicians on an assembly line. Only a skilled knife smith can do that. Go ahead and check, no factory is using 52100, none of them are differentially heat-treating, and none of them are forging blades. It takes too much time and is too expensive for them.

What are the advantages? Well, finer grain structure in the steel, better performance of the better steel, and better toughness/edge-retention dynamic. We’re talking about peak-performance. That's if you care that much about the performance. Frankly, a cheap Buck will actually probably be fine for most hunting and woods tasks. Hell, I've got a Cold Steel Pendleton Lite Hunter ($15 knife) and it does just fine for most stuff. Some of us just think custom made knives are cool. We also desire/like the beauty, tradition, and peace-of-mind that comes with hand-made craftsmanship. Oh, and very importantly: we are willing to pay the moolah.

I agree with you that some factory knives are overpriced, imho. If a company is charging $300 for a knife made on an assembly line, I'd much rather give that to a skilled knife smith. But that said, I'm talking about the kind of custom knife I mentioned above. Basically, a knife that a factory can't make. Other kinds of knives... I'd just go with the factory up to a certain price point because they can quickly and reliably address warranty/refund/replacement/repair issues. I don’t think I’d be willing to pay someone over $100 to get a totally-average blank, grind and sharpen it a bit, slap scales on, and then send it across the country to be heat-treated. That’s just my personal feeling because I fail to see what they are offering that’s special. ALSO, a custom knife maker can make anything you can describe to him, if it is makeable. Factories generally won't do that.

Cheers,

Mag
 
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