Randall Made Knives Factory Visit

KnifeRep

KnifeRep

Joined
Nov 5, 2018
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461
I’m in Orlando, Florida for a trade show this week and made my way over to the Randall Made retail showroom, production factory and museum today to check it out and put in an order for a #28 Woodsman. Randall Made’s current lead time is 6-years; yes, you can get them in 14-18 months by going though a Randall dealer, but I want one that’s ordered at the factory for my collection.

Super nice people at Randall Made, I talked for a while with Bo Randall’s grandson who greeted my friend and I at their museum and walked us through the first half before another visitor took him back to the front desk; Bo’s grandson was wearing a Springfield Armory Inc. baseball cap today in the museum, he likes their 1911 pistols.

Sorry, I didn’t take any pictures inside the museum, but it’s very impressive and housed in the Randall family home, the museum is at least 2000 sq. ft. and has production, one-offs and prototype knives and other edged weapons made by Randall Made as well as Bo Randall’s personal collection of pocket folders, fixed blade knives, bayonets, swords and spears, hatchets and axes, throwing edge and spike pieces and much more; Bo Randall’s collection of W. W. Scagel knives and tools is very impressive, Bill Scagel is recognized as the knife maker that first inspired Bo Randall and as an American pioneer in hand made knives. There was no charge to tour the Randall Made museum.

The factory is at the end of a long driveway on the east side of Orlando, the first 1/4 mile of the driveway is densely landscaped, if the nondescript sign on the street wasn’t there you’d never know it’s back there, you just don’t happen into this business, you have to want to go there...

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The production shop is behind the showroom, the Randall home and museum is 150-yards down the road.
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This is the #28 Woodsman (4.5” blade length), I customized the one I ordered today w/a green Micarta handle, a nickel silver hilt and nickel silver wrist throng furrule. The man who took my order advised me on Randall authorized dealers and gave me a business card of one of their preferred dealers in Illinois who sells at factory retail, unlike most Randall Made dealers, PM me if you want the contact info..
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Lastly, Bo Randall’s grandson gave me the link to this video about his Grandfather


“A potent weapon for victory!” Few are finer and even fewer led the way...

KR
 
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Thanks for the information of your visit and the photo’s. Randall’s have been the “gold standard” among Soldiers for as long as I can remember. I proudly own a couple, a fighter and a hunter. Would like to visit their shop and museum. OH
 
Nice thread KnifeRep. I've never been to the Factory but have wanted to go these many years. I have a half dozen Randalls, I know, just a piker. My favorite still is a 5" No. 7 with a #6 grind and the stacked leather handle - nothing special just a user and isn't that what they are for?

Jim
 
Thank for the interesting post.
I hope to own a Randall some day.
I love the unique grind on their blades.
 
I went there last year and was really impressed. Definitely worth a visit if your in the area. I have lived around Orlando for 40 years and never even knew it was there up until a few years ago. Also, if remember correctly, the museum contains lots of types of knives from their collection, not just the Randall made ones. Lots of traditionals if my memory serves me.
 
Yes, jstrange, they had many manufactures in the museum, an extensive Buck and Old Henry collection and hundreds of traditional folders from Imperial, Schrade and others, many knives from WWII, both Allied and Axis, lots of bayonets too.

KR
 
I was watching the 3 US Marines in the video above holding their Randall #1-7's and I thought I'd give the grip a try.

I can understand why they taught this index finger over hilt grip, for greater retention, but it's a little uncomfortable with my #1-7.

I have no desire to knife fight, scary thought actually, I just like these knives and the Randall Made company a great deal and like many people all over the Earth, I want a few more of them :)


KR

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Oh, Gentlemen, this is something...

From the New York Times, April 7, 1997

My Favorite Store

"In a vestigial orange grove in Orlando, Fla., is a converted cinder-block ranch-style house, now the factory and shop for Randall Made Knives, arguably the best -- handmade knives in the world.

Let us hazard that you do not need or want a best-known, maybe best handmade knife in the world. You merely want to see what all the flibber is about, maybe talk to Gary Randall, the proprietor, who bought this 60-year-old business from his father, Bo.

And something happens. You are in the presence of the unavoidably authentic. In a glass counter are gleaming things with elegant lines, which rather than suggesting weapons or tools of carnage fairly resonate with a solid, humming, jeweled integrity. This must be what it's like to be a bride in Tiffany's, you think, faintly out of breath and cotton-mouthy. A man appears who lets you handle the knives. He identifies them as to model number (there are 50 models) but otherwise says nothing salesmanlike. He does not have to. He does not, you eerily gather, even want to. You may not, in his view, you more eerily gather, qualify to own one of these things, somewhat as you might not qualify to own a Thoroughbred horse.

You leave with not one but three knives you do not need but must have -- the second a purer excess than the first, the third for your father-in-law and insisted upon by your 9-year-old daughter, also breathless in the face of this hard beauty. Your Visa receipt for $614.8O is in your happy pocket; the knives and their sheaths, wrapped up in white butcher's paper like sausages, lie on the car seat like diminutive but full citizens, emanating strong vapors of leather and tool steel and the promise of that which will not fail. Invincibility is in the air. You stop the car on your way off the property, get out and pick some oranges. No one will contest you. ''When Grampa dies,'' your daughter says, ''can I have his knife?''

https://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/06/magazine/my-favorite-store-randall-made-knives.html

The only difference in the experience today is that the museum is there today, but you can't drive away with knives, they must be ordered.


KR
 
I bought my Randalls at the Blade Show. Back then, there seemed to be a good supply available. Now at shows, you mostly see collector grade Randalls or what people are calling that.
 
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