Showing my ignorance: What exactly is a Mid-tech knife?

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The way I understand it, is that unlike a true handmade custom, some or most parts are made by machine and possibly outsourced. They are the original maker's design, but not 100% made by the maker. They are also not 100% outsourced, either.

Keep in mind, I am not an expert
 
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Mid techs are more hands on during manufacturing than regular production, they are supposed to be higher quality because of that. They incorporate parts that were not made by hand or custom. They typically charge more for said extra attention. Truth is some of these "mid techs" are production, and it is a marketing term in many cases.
 
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There's no single definition, but generally it's a knife that has some blend of production and hand work. The ratio varies. For example, Vehement Knives has made two designs for which they contracted to White River to produce the blade blanks and handles. Then they applied their blade finishes to the blanks, sharpened, and assembled.

I would argue that OEM manufacturers doing the entirety of the work for a knife designer are not midtech. The knife maker has to do some part of the work.

It's a pretty gray area because not all makers or OEM manufacturers are open about the work that was done.
 
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SharpBits said:
Some brands sure have, ah, stretched the meaning of mid tech, for sure. More like short production runs.
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For sure, it is being milked as much as humanly possible. My personal experience with a "mid tech" from a very well known maker was not great, and the quality was poor. I found out through contacting them they outsourced grinding to another country and the tolerances were +/- .015 thou. For GRINDING. That's insane.

So yea, many mid techs are production with a fancy name for more money from the customer.
 
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madcap_magician said:
There's no single definition, but generally it's a knife that has some blend of production and hand work. The ratio varies. For example, Vehement Knives has made two designs for which they contracted to White River to produce the blade blanks and handles. Then they applied their blade finishes to the blanks, sharpened, and assembled.

I would argue that OEM manufacturers doing the entirety of the work for a knife designer are not midtech. The knife maker has to do some part of the work.

It's a pretty gray area because not all makers or OEM manufacturers are open about the work that was done.
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Right, like the maker sat at a table and deburred a machined screw, and outsourced everything else and calls it a mid tech.
 
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It's a made-up and meaningless term used by Marketers and Knife Sellers.

Much like "entry level" anything.
It's an effort to undermine shopping on a budget by instilling FOMO.

It's also a bit of sneering condescension from people who carry $1000+ knives that they don't use. "Nice mid-tech CRK bro. I carry a custom that includes inlaid walrus nipple and unicorn horn. Here is a photo of my display case with 27 other variations of this knife. BTW I'm an Orthodontist. You should see my PRS guitar collection."
 
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Since there is no actual definition, it goes back to the arguments years ago at the Guild Shows. Custom vs. Handmade.

I consider mid-tech knives to be a level below custom or handmade knives. What is a handmade knife? I don't know. Where do you draw the line?
No power tools? Only hand tools? Good luck. No CNC? No mills, lathes, band saws?

To me a mid-tech is one that I don't have to call the maker for and ask him to make a particular pattern with particular features at my request. It will have more hand work, (whatever you consider that to be), than one that is simply a cookie cutter piece off an assembly line. (I'm assuming that if robots aren't making them, that hands will be involved there too.)

So, high end production pieces might be a better term. In the end, "I know it when I see it". And then I buy it if I can justify it.
 
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SharpBits said:
Sole authorship customs.
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So they mined their own ore and produced their own steel? They cut the exotic trees used in the inlays? They built their own machines? They grow cotton to make buffing wheels? They hand-craft the media used in their blasters?

See my point?

This is a word game and people are invested in it.

Knife Bros are gonna Knife Bro.
 
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SharpBits said:
I would consider them production knives.
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Yeah I agree. The Hinderer signature series ones have Rick doing work on them, so you can argue those are midtech, but neither company uses the term. I think the key is a maker who usually makes his or her own knives who then has a cheaper line where some amount of the knifemaking process is outsourced. So if it's the maker's shop doing it all in-house, like Jens Anso, it's not a midtech. If it's designed by the maker and wholly manufactured by another company, like Reate, then it's production.

Being a production knife doesn't make it worse quality than a midtech, though. Oz Machine Company, Koenig, MachineWise, etc. are all production knives.
 
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