Settle a bar bet: Can a Prodiction Shop Forged Knife be Considered to Be a Hand-Made knife?

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Good question,... in my opinion, any industrial process takes away the handmade characteristic, you cannot produce 100 knives in one day and say that it is handmade.
 
I'm not sure there's an official definition. But you need more than hands to make a knife, you need tools - even knapping requires using stones.

So, you could draw the line that the tools must be hand (or foot?) powered, like traditional blacksmithing, to be "hand-made".

Or you could acknowledge the use of powered equipment, by an individual using their hands to guide the tools, is still made by hand. I'm in that camp. This would apply even in a "production shop" where multiple people are doing separate jobs. Like in Nepal, where several different kamis focus on their specialties - forging, grinding, polishing, handles, sheaths - to complete a kuhkri

But IMO it's once the process is being controlled in any part automatically, with or without computers, that it ceases to qualify as hand made. CNC, water jet, auto-milling, etc. (Leaving aside the use of pre-made bulk items like screws - making those by hand is possible but unreasonably time-consuming and not at the heart of the process). (Heat treat is another issue - non-forged blades are often treated in computer-controlled ovens nowadays, but does that cross the line? Not to me, but YMMV).
 
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Boattale said:
Was it made by hand? That's the only question that matters.
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I was sort of fishing to avoid points . . .the maker in question is Randall. The knives are forged which, to me, implies that someone has to hold the red-hot work piece whether or not it is under a power hammer or on an anvil.

My drunken buddy says they push sheet steel through a drop forge with dies.

In any case in my view,, there has got to be hand finishing to grind in the bevels and do the mirror polish . . .right?

So we made a bet and went looking for yYouTube Videos . . .nothing.
 
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VorpelSword said:
I was sort of fishing to avoid points . . .the maker in question is Randall. The knives are forged which, to me, implies that someone has to hold the red-hot work piece whether or not it is under a power hammer or on an anvil.

My drunken buddy says they push sheet steel through a drop forge with dies.

In any case in my view,, there has got to be hand finishing to grind in the bevels and do the mirror polish . . .right?

So we made a bet and went looking for yYouTube Videos . . .nothing.
Click to expand...
To be fair, they cover the process here on their website, though not in a video. You can see the progress pics.
 
Kinda like the old ‘Bench-made’ definition of yore…..more than one person involved in the process of manufacturing as it ‘moved down the workbench’.
 
Thanks everyone.

Seems that one might argue the point either way.
I will have another he-art-to-hart with my friend.
 
Dawkind said:
Kinda like the old ‘Bench-made’ definition of yore…..more than one person involved in the process of manufacturing as it ‘moved down the workbench’.
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Best way to look at Randall.

Also, they do forge by hand - https://issuu.com/floridacountrymagazine/docs/fcm_am18_ver2/38 , see upper left corner. And they do have a trip hammer. The shop is actually much closer in tooling, etc..... to the 1940's or 1960's than a super modern shop.
 
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