Spyderco Collaborations from Taichung

RamZar

RamZar

Gold Member
Joined
Mar 3, 2013
Messages
11,630
It seems like most of the Spyderco high-quality premium collaborations come from the Taichung factory.

Is it capacity, quality, keeping prices down, etc.?

Some examples:

  • Bradley (Gayle Bradley, CPM-M4)
  • Southard (Brad Southard, CTS-204P)
  • Techno (Marcin Slysz, CTS-XHP)
  • Tuff (Ed Schempp, CPM-3V)
  • Vallotton (Butch Vallotton, CPM S30V)
  • Horn (Des Horn, CPM S30V)
  • Szabo (Laci Szabo, CPM S30V)
  • Domino (Eric Glesser, CTS-XHP)
 
RamZar said:
Is it capacity, quality, keeping prices down, etc.?
Click to expand...
I think it is a mix of all of those. The Taichung factory must have a decent capacity as they are taking on a decent portion of Spyderco's knives right now.

Quality is certainly there. I think most everyone can see the quality the put out. Most excellent.

Pricing I am sure is a good part of it as well.

I think Spyderco would bring more of the knives onto US soil. However their facility is not huge. Nor heavily staffed. I believe they are expanding now, which is great news. So time will tell how many more models they take on.
 
I get the impression they use them for the quality of the work and not because it is a foreign sweat-shop knocking out cheapies, so I would say quality and capacity, as none of those knives are cheap. The Taichung facility produces top notch knives, in my opinion second only to CRK in quality as far as production knives go.
 
I have the Szabo and Vallotton, both put together extremely well, the grinds on the Szabo are especially awesome. If this is what we can expect from Taichung I say let em keep coming!
 
I'm to the point that I prefer my spydies to be made in Taiwan. I only own one made in usa, my Smallfly. I've got 3 from japan, of those my Dfly in H1 the blade is off center. None of my taiwan made Spydies have any imperfections. I do have my eye on a manix 2 xl. I'm all for made in america but if they can't match or exceed the quality of Taiwan I'd rather they keep coming from Taiwan.
 
I hate to sound stupid, but I have had some Taiwan made spyderco knives, build was great .... but I just couldn't stand Taiwan on the blade, that's just me though. They were very nicely made

but if they said Golden, Colorado, Earth I would still own them
 
yoko said:
I hate to sound stupid, but I have had some Taiwan made spyderco knives, build was great .... but I just couldn't stand Taiwan on the blade, that's just me though. They were very nicely made

but if they said Golden, Colorado, Earth I would still own them
Click to expand...

Personally, the way I look at it is that by supporting a manufacturer with its global productions you actually help it expand or sustain its U.S. facilities.

I'd really object to a knife that said North Korea on it but that's just me.
 
The ability to deliver a quality product is certainly one major factor. Lower per unit cost, due to a better exchange rate, and a more open minded attitude toward both "non local" steels and non-traditional ideas are probably factors as well. I suspect there are some knives that, even if it would be cheaper to build them in Japan, would still be built in Taichung. The maker there is just that good.

As for tang stamps, the way I see it, right now Taiwan is where Japan was 50 years ago. They're still perceived as a maker of low end products, but they do have some high quality manufacturers that are beginning to change that perception. You can get in now, while the prices are still reasonable, or wait a few years and risk the price rise that will inevitably follow the perception shift.
 
Double post - they really need to fix the glitch that causes the "Confirm you want to leave page" pop-up to appear when someone posts and then posts it a second time if they select "stay on page".
 
Last edited:
The Deacon said:
Double post - they really need to fix the glitch that causes the "Confirm you want to leave page" pop-up to appear when someone posts and then posts it a second time if they select "stay on page".
Click to expand...

Annoying and seems to be worse today! :(

I've found a way around that by closing that "Confirm you want to leave page" window, copying my response to the clipboard, going back to the thread to check and see if my response is there and then posting my response if needed from the clipboard. Hopefully, it won't be an infinite loop. :)
 
Although many feel that Spyderco should have done all of these models in house Sal has stated numerous times that:

- They are running at full capacity as is in the Golden plant and expanding as much as they can
- They would love to do everything in house and that is their end goal
- The Taichung factory is not a "nameless" factory and is actually a small family run operation.

This info can be found searching google and the amount of threads about Spyderco Taichung knives. I am just to lazy to do all the searching and quoting now but I believe most of your questions can be answered here:

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/805037-Overseas-manufacturing?highlight=Taiwan
 
marthinus said:
Although many feel that Spyderco should have done all of these models in house Sal has stated numerous times that:

- They are running at full capacity as is in the Golden plant and expanding as much as they can
- They would love to do everything in house and that is their end goal
- The Taichung factory is not a "nameless" factory and is actually a small family run operation.

This info can be found searching google and the amount of threads about Spyderco Taichung knives. I am just to lazy to do all the searching and quoting now but I believe most of your questions can be answered here:

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/805037-Overseas-manufacturing?highlight=Taiwan
Click to expand...

Thanks for all that especially to the old thread from January 2011 (a good 2.5 years ago) from which I'm including some of Sal's pertinent comments:

Sal Glesser said:
While I cannot speak for other manufactuers, I can tell you that Spyderco makes the Sage models in Taiwan because of:

1. Exceptional build quality.
2. Capacity to make them at all.
3. Provides funds to grow our US factory. (USA jobs)
4. Steel, G-10, clips and fasteners are USA made and shipped to Taiwan. (USA jobs)
5. Our people purchase the materials, ship to Golden, then ship to Taiwan. (USA jobs)
6. We employ US workers to design, procure monitor their production, quality control, marketing, distributing, shipping product (USA jobs).
Click to expand...

Sal Glesser said:
Wages in Taiwan are about the same as the US or a tad higher. Their engineers, knifemakers, CNC operators, grinders, etc. live as we do. It's the US Dollar / Taiwan Dollar valuation that makes the difference.

Our US factory, (while still growing) is making as many knives as we can as fast as we can. Who else in America could make them for us to our quality standards? Our Japanese makers could not take on the project of so many different locks, each re-engineered for each model and each with different exotic handle materials. It's a tough line to make, especially with a new lock each year.

It was use this particular maker in Taiwan or not have the model available at all for our discriminating customers.

It's a good question and one that I believe all Americans need to be concerned about. That's why we continue to grow our US factory rather than just outsource all to China and make a lot more money.

It's just my opinion; We must build product in America or we will forget how. (Afghanistan went from producing female Doctors to illiterate women in just two generations). We must grow food in America, enough to feed us all by at least double. We need to.........................Ok, off my bandwagon. I think you know what i mean.
Click to expand...

Sal Glesser said:
It's always intersting to watch a thread about a Taiwan made Sage gravitate to "sweatshops" in China" and "child labor" and "lost jobs". :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Sal Glesser said:
It seems that I've read so many of the political arguments for and against China in the past 6 months that come out of Taiwan Spyderco discusions, it's discouraging.

If anyone wants to LEARN more about China and how it relates to America, the world, jobs and money, I could probably shed some light. But, better in it's own thread.

Taiwan is not China.
Click to expand...
 
It would be nice if all companies were strictly USA made, but for better or worse, our economy is forever intertwined with the rest of the world and global trading, outsourcing, and manufacture is the way it is. I hardly ever see people complain about knives made in the EU, which many nice knives are.

I didn't care for the Taiwan stamp either at first, but after looking at the build quality, I think many US makers, and not just knife makers, could relearn a thing or two about a quality build.

Just my 2 cents at the current exchange rate. :)
 
Hi Ji_Long,

Welcome to our forum.

Hey RamZar,

It looks like your questions have been answerred. Some very knowledgeable folks here. Try to keep in mind that finding makers that are capable of consistently making very good quality is difficult. They are usually small family run operations. We began working with our Taichung maker a few years back and we've been helping to grow their facility. We give them more to do as they can handle it.

Not all of our makers can make all of our models. Some makers are better at some things so we try to keep that in mind when contracting models.

sal
 
Sal Glesser said:
Hey RamZar,

It looks like your questions have been answered. Some very knowledgeable folks here. Try to keep in mind that finding makers that are capable of consistently making very good quality is difficult. They are usually small family run operations. We began working with our Taichung maker a few years back and we've been helping to grow their facility. We give them more to do as they can handle it.

Not all of our makers can make all of our models. Some makers are better at some things so we try to keep that in mind when contracting models.

sal
Click to expand...

Sal,

Thank you for taking the time to make people feel at home and responding to their questions.

Some of the best laser-like precision answers came from you back on January 2, 2011 (included in Post# 13 above). In relation to that, how would you say things have changed in the intervening 2.5 years?

When you mentioned "small family run operations" it reminded me when A.G. Russell posted this when talking about their Gentleman's Frame Lock:

A. G. Russell said:
Sorry my friend, somehow you misunderstood. The Aceis and Aceis2 were both made in the US. as you thought, but this knife is made by a Japanese family in China.
Click to expand...

Thanks,
Ram
 
Sal Glesser said:
Hi Ji_Long,

Welcome to our forum.

Hey RamZar,

It looks like your questions have been answerred. Some very knowledgeable folks here. Try to keep in mind that finding makers that are capable of consistently making very good quality is difficult. They are usually small family run operations. We began working with our Taichung maker a few years back and we've been helping to grow their facility. We give them more to do as they can handle it.

Not all of our makers can make all of our models. Some makers are better at some things so we try to keep that in mind when contracting models.

sal
Click to expand...

Thanks sal
Long time lurker, finally decided to join up.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top