Spyderco Custom Shop - Ideas and Discussion.

SubMicron

SubMicron

Joined
Feb 2, 2020
Messages
335
The topic of a custom shop has come up many times over the years and over time Spyderco seems to be warming to the idea more and more. The subject came up again in another thread and it seems like a good time to discuss the idea.

What do you want to see come out of a possible Spyderco Custom Shop?

I'll post my ideas in a reply like everyone else. What are yours? What do you want to see?

For this to get off the ground, I think the concept of a custom shop has to get reimagined a little bit.

Sal Glesser said:
Hi OSantana, Michaex,

Welcome to our forum.

On the custom shop, I always felt it would detract too much from regular production, but a couple of months ago, Eric spoke with the factory crew and they thought it would be a good idea and would give them a break from their regular work. So now I have to say that it is possible.

sal
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SubMicron said:
Sal, if its ok, I'd like to start a thread to discuss this subject. Perhaps from it, a good idea will emerge.
Click to expand...

Sal Glesser said:
Hi subMicron,

I'm sure it's still a ways off, but as you say, something might come out of it,

I don't think of it s a profit center, more of a customer service.

Hi Wasatch,

It's been brought up and discussed a few times. More on our site forum than here on BF. Up until recently, it's been a non starter due to the time and attention of the service.

sal
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The way Spyderco manages their sprint run and exclusives makes the concept of custom ship tricky

So far they have associated steels and G10 Colors to make their batches unique

what we may all expect first from a custom shop are options on steels, handle materials/colours and hardware/blade finish.

Option for steels in their standard production steels (s30v, s45vn, spy27, BD1N, BD1N, vg10, s110v, Maxamet ....)

option for DLC

a choice of G10, Ti, Micarta handle
Maybe a limited choice of colours to not interfere with sprints and exclusives

selection of hardware colours

engraving options

the problem for me is that will be just what Benchmade did (very well in fact)

mid they want it to be more a customer service, they should consider something a little bit different


a focus on the handle materials and milling patterns, on DLC and blade engraving and on standard or deep carry clip would be great

At the end I think they may first want to avoid steels option and g10 Colors options, it will damage their business model
 
It would seem hard to do many options without duplicating prior exclusives; maybe custom shop knives would need to have a "CS" mark on the scales to differentiate them?
 
Two things come to mind with the custom shop idea:

Contoured micarta scales for the PM2, slimming it up a bit.

Sharpening choil option.

Aloha!
 
If it’s going to match benchmade’s model of following the best selling knives... it would undoubtedly be a PM2/Native G10/Delica type deal, with maybe picking colors from G10 and FRN that have been done before, and selecting from a few steel types... maybe for PM2 and native you offer s30v, m390, and s110v. For the Delica maybe vg-10, zdp-189, and s30v.
 
I am all for custom shop but won't it kill sprint runs, which seems to be a very effective way of attracting people to Spyderco (and making money by dealers and manufacturer, hyping up the brand, and likely also helping selling production versions (those who cannot get the sprints may turn to regular productions))?
 
BM has a pretty good set up doing theirs right now. I would love if Spyderco did this. And I agree with fishface5, put some kind of indication on it to not completely ruin the sprint/exclusive guys collection. I'm sure it would most likely be for the USA models. I would use it alot, lol. I like different steels, handle colors/materials, and dlc option.

I'm sure they could push out alot of color handles fairly easy, but catering to so many different steels would be a bit more difficult since we all might want something different.

I think a good (soft) start would to pretty much say 'we are doing PM2's this month in 20cv'. We order one in our choice of handle, dlc option, etc, and within maybe another months time you receive it. That way they could have premade handles, liners, hardware, and they would only focus on the blade of 1 kind of steel at a time. In coated or non coated.
Or even make a bunch of pm2 blades ahead of time. They could guess the market with some statistics after a few waves of cs orders.

Might help with the numbers at first, to help production not slow down too much and of course charge us a bit more for the convenience fee of the custom shop.
 
A custom shop in Golden would first have to use USA made knives as their build options.

Then they'd have to narrow it down to maybe only 4 models to make it an achievable goal.

You'd likely be able to pick a bade steel, a clip type, a handle colour and black or silver hardware. And maybe a custom blade engraving.

It would be a semi production/small batch undertaking. There wouldn't be any hand sanded micarta or complex natural materials or exotic steels. It would have to become like ordering a hamburger or a cheeseburger.
 
sharp_edge said:
I am all for custom shop but won't it kill sprint runs, which seems to be a very effective way of attracting people to Spyderco (and making money by dealers and manufacturer, hyping up the brand, and likely also helping selling production versions (those who cannot get the sprints may turn to regular productions))?
Click to expand...

I suspect it would be restricted to Golden and those models. Might be too many headaches trying to manage in Seki, etc.

I also suspect it would be something like the Buck custom shop model (Benchmade may be the same, I don't know). They also do exclusives. You'd have a few models with set choices. Maybe you could order a M2LW in Rafir Noble and S45VN. Or a Para 3 in the same materials. Basically, a few different handle and steels choices to mix and match.
 
I would look at the possibility of a custom shop for Spyderco being a more restricted option than with many others. I would say first restriction from the sounds of it is going to be models out of the Golden facility. The remaining restrictions would be with regards to keep the sprint runs a strong part of their business. I would say the remaining restrictions would be to not include many of the sprint steels as options and possibly restrict handle options similarly.
 
There's been a lot of good points made.

Spyderco has a large dealer network which is critical to their distribution strategy and success. There's a variety of ways where a custom shop could undermine the exclusive colors that some dealers have. With their exclusive dealer sprint runs, they do a lot to support relatively small independent dealers that would otherwise be buried by the big dealers.

Spyderco has always marched to the beat of their own drum. While most knife manufacturers focus on handle color and overall aesthetic design, Spyderco focuses on what matters, the blade, the steel, ergonomics, and cutting performance. Spyderco wants to make functional cutting tools, not pretty pocket jewelry.

To make a custom shop in the way Benchmade has done, designed to create pocket jewelry, would not be consistent with Spyderco's culture of first-principal thinking when it comes to knives.

Eric talked about the following at shot show this year, it's something that Sal has told him over the years... this is not an exact quote but basically: The whole point to a knife is the edge, that's what does the cutting. The blade is there to hold the edge, and the handle allows you to control the blade.

So a custom shop, that focuses on pretty handles and screws while undermining Spyderco's dealer network, doesn't fit their business model or their philosophy of knife making.

Imagine a custom shop that was actually about customizing a knife in a meaningful way... not a pile of legos in different colors that can be assembled in whatever pattern you want.

Sure, the custom shop could have it's own exclusive color(s) but the whole point of it could be about blade and mechanical customization, not pretty handles.

I'm talking about blades ground thinner behind the edge, and thinner overall. Things like installing a sharpening choil, polishing washers, etc could also be done.

Regarding pretty handles and supporting the independent dealers... there already appears to be at least one who's authorized to sell modified Spyderco knives.

For dealers who are able, skilled, and competent, Spyderco could just let those guys focus on the custom pretty handles. Sell them the knife parts without the handle material. Think of all the manufacturing and assembly steps that could be skipped. Maintain profit per unit but get their dealer price down so they have more financial room to fit their materials. That equals higher profit margins and better capital efficiency.
 
Some custom options that would be good and don't interfere with the rest of their business would be engraving options and then with some locking mechanisms a left vs right handed option ie Left vs Right Compression lock as a choice.
 
This is related slightly to why I like Bento Box Shop. By charging more for sprints they at least let people who have a life and can’t stay on the computer all day get the knife they want. Right now you can get a Rex 45 Manix 2 there - you just need $300.
The second good thing they do is not accept returns. I hate it when a knife arrives and you see the box has been opened before. Usually that means it has a poor action and somebody returned it. But the retailer saw it wasn’t bad enough for a warranty return and restocked it. That never happens with BBS.
And the third good thing about BBS is fast shipping. Yes it might cost you a few bucks but still.
 
First, there needs to be enough options to give a large number of potential finished products. For example three steels and three different handles only gives you an option of 9 separate products. If you are just picking one option of nine, it really doesn't feel like a custom.


I don't have a background in manufacturing so I'm not sure how many of these ideas are actually feasible, but I'd like to see:

1. Non-standard handle materials, Bone, stag, wood, etc. in addition to variety of colors like purple, red, green, blue G10, and Titanium. Perhaps even a couple options for each material, I always like thicker scales but many people prefer thinner scales for carryability.
2. Clip options, drilled only for the desired type of carry, or the option to go clipless. In my opinion it would be worth a fifty dollar premium just to avoid the empty holes on a knife that is predrilled for 4 way carry. Look at a picture of the Police model and tell me it wouldn't look incredible without all the extra clip holes.
3. Blade options, at least all the major options covered. Basic like S30V, corrosion resistant; LC200N, a super stainless, and a tool steel. Maybe occasionally open up 'sprint options' of steel choice. IE, announce that there will be 200 models available from the custom shop with whatever gee-whiz steel that comes along.

I think The little native is the obvious choice for this one because I think there is a slipjoint version in the plans. So you have three choices in lock; Backlock, Compression, or Slipjoint. (Making it an attractive alternative to areas where locking knives are banned, and with an under 2.5 inch blade it is carry-able almost everywhere.)

Still looking at this from a manufacturing point of view is daunting, minimum sixteen blade types that need to be kept in stock and available. Multiple scale blanks. Milling machines and human expertise to turn out scales on an as-ordered basis. Then there is assembly, quality assurance, shipping. I wonder what the actual cost of making a custom spyderco would be? my armchair estimate is probably 150% of MSRP for the model before even taking account the increase in cost of materials like wood, stag, or horn for scales. How many people are willing to shell out $270 dollars for a basic lil'native with purple g10, S30V blade, and no clip? I mean besides me that is.

Grizz
 
SubMicron said:
There's been a lot of good points made.

Spyderco has a large dealer network which is critical to their distribution strategy and success. There's a variety of ways where a custom shop could undermine the exclusive colors that some dealers have. With their exclusive dealer sprint runs, they do a lot to support relatively small independent dealers that would otherwise be buried by the big dealers.

Spyderco has always marched to the beat of their own drum. While most knife manufacturers focus on handle color and overall aesthetic design, Spyderco focuses on what matters, the blade, the steel, ergonomics, and cutting performance. Spyderco wants to make functional cutting tools, not pretty pocket jewelry.

To make a custom shop in the way Benchmade has done, designed to create pocket jewelry, would not be consistent with Spyderco's culture of first-principal thinking when it comes to knives.

Eric talked about the following at shot show this year, it's something that Sal has told him over the years... this is not an exact quote but basically: The whole point to a knife is the edge, that's what does the cutting. The blade is there to hold the edge, and the handle allows you to control the blade.

So a custom shop, that focuses on pretty handles and screws while undermining Spyderco's dealer network, doesn't fit their business model or their philosophy of knife making.

Imagine a custom shop that was actually about customizing a knife in a meaningful way... not a pile of legos in different colors that can be assembled in whatever pattern you want.

Sure, the custom shop could have it's own exclusive color(s) but the whole point of it could be about blade and mechanical customization, not pretty handles.

I'm talking about blades ground thinner behind the edge, and thinner overall. Things like installing a sharpening choil, polishing washers, etc could also be done.

Regarding pretty handles and supporting the independent dealers... there already appears to be at least one who's authorized to sell modified Spyderco knives.

For dealers who are able, skilled, and competent, Spyderco could just let those guys focus on the custom pretty handles. Sell them the knife parts without the handle material. Think of all the manufacturing and assembly steps that could be skipped. Maintain profit per unit but get their dealer price down so they have more financial room to fit their materials. That equals higher profit margins and better capital efficiency.
Click to expand...

You make some good points. Spyderco won’t want to compete with their customers, a classic business no-no.
First, what is the value in sprints and exclusives? I believe it is mostly in better/latest/greatest steel. Handle color is mostly just a prestige marker of better steel.
Could Spyderco offer custom steel options for production knives without killing the sprint/exclusive golden goose or competing with their retailers and distributors? I believe they could. I would suggest:
A) offer range of great steels in the standard black handle-only production versions of Golden best sellers (please Millie, Manix 2 XL + whatever).
B) Charge full retail with adder for steel cost and machining difficulty.
These two things should pick up some incremental sales and customer satisfaction without killing the Golden (get it?) goose.
If someone wants a pretty handle color, let ‘em get a Benchmade. If they want to save some bucks, let them wait for an exclusive.
 
sliceofaloha said:
I'd say speak to what you want. Let Spyderco worry about their business entanglements.
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To be specific, I want a Military model with a compression lock and K390. And I want the K390 at HRC 65 like the Police model that BBB stabs the brick with in the video. Now, that’s a knife. I don’t care what color the handle is. I also don’t care what it’s called. Is it still a Millie with a compression lock? I don’t know or care.
 
A custom shop that would produce knives as the customer specifies (blades thinner than the production version, for example), while sounds very attractive, won't be realistically possible, for obvious reasons.
 
Seems a custom shop would cater to those who don't follow the sprint runs, it would pick up that market. I'm one of those, but part of a market that likes to make the product unique, their own. And as noted in the sticky section about Spyderco's policy on selling internal parts, scales, this would be a sensible solution for those who want their own unique knife. Scale colors/materials, steel options, DLC, engraving and hardware color options all come to mind. With several decent brick and mortar blade stores here in UT, often when I'm in the lobby browsing the knives I will hear other customers working with the store staff. Quite often the topic comes up "I wish it was sold in that color, or bladestyle." Also often is hearing the significant other in the store shopping for their spouse saying similar things.

With Spyderco's popularity and hold on the market I think a custom shop would be a huge step forward in the customer service arena. People that want the reliability of Spyderco with the warranty, without having to venture into the aftermarket. I think this would be huge.
 
I think a custom shop would be a huge headache to operate and it would be money losing operation.

Stick to sprint runs, flash batches, and high quality.

If you must have a special custom Spyderco based knife, there are custom shops that can do that for you,
 
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