what do you guys say about this??

Dan Gray said:
personally I can't see him calling himself a custom knife maker?? :grumpy:
a custom handle maker I agree..
he makes handles for knives ,,a knife is the blade, and On his site he should say where the blades come from..
I'm sorry it's just the way I feel about it.
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Dan, don't get me going on this... i think you know where i stand on this subject,like many others here i feel its a disservice to the knifemaking community when a person does this...knowingly selling a "kit" knife and passing it off as a handcrafted/handmade,is just plain BULL$HIT!!!!
:mad: :barf:

(the reference to "Kit" knife has nothing to do with our beloved Bastid!)
sorry i could'nt resist :p
 
What, all you guys MAKE your own blades???

Sorry, couldn't resist...

I was going to stay out of this, couldn't add any more than what has been said already.

I did see this on the site...

My Story

(Now no Texas jokes, OK?)

Craig
 
I can see both sides of this one. The guy clearly states he makes the handles and not the blades. He even calls himself the handle guy. Calling himself a Custom knife maker is a stretch from our perspective but I don't think it is from his and I guess I can live with it. Old guys need a hobby too.

I was at a gun/knife show a couple years ago and ran into another maker whom I'd met a couple years earlier.That guy assembled Darryl Ralph's folder kits and etched his logo on them. When I asked if it wasn't a ddr he came clean right away since we knew each other. I stood back and watched as he sold one to a customer as his own. I didn't feel good about that but what are you going to do?
 
Tracy hit the nail on the head! Now that customer, if he ever finds out that the knife he purchased (with the "maker's" logo on it) is indeed a kit, then immediately a seed of distrust is planted towards any and all knifemakers. We don't need that kind of stuff happening within our ranks! That is exactly the reason why I get so wrapped around the axle on this type of subject. What if that customer later appears at my table, carrying that seed of doubt or distrust............a rift has been created that is sometimes very hard to repair. It is simply not worth having ANY customer suspicious because someone calling themselves a "maker" is not willing to be totally honest!
 
tmickley said:
I was at a gun/knife show a couple years ago and ran into another maker whom I'd met a couple years earlier.That guy assembled Darryl Ralph's folder kits and etched his logo on them. When I asked if it wasn't a ddr he came clean right away since we knew each other. I stood back and watched as he sold one to a customer as his own. I didn't feel good about that but what are you going to do?
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Trace,
I'm not much of a diplomatic sort and I believe I would have called "Bravo Sierra" on him right there on the spot. Some folks don't know any better, but those that do, well, shame on 'em!

Craig

Doggonit, I was gonna stay out of this one!
 
What Ed Caffrey said goes for me. I was a newbie collector once. If I bought what was represented as a "custom" knife only to find out that the maker had merely attached a handle to a pre-made blade that would sour me pretty fast on the whole "custom" thing. I might well be inclined to think "I might as well stick with factory knives, because at least I know what I'm getting".

Roger
 
RogerP said:
What Ed Caffrey said goes for me. I was a newbie collector once. If I bought what was represented as a "custom" knife only to find out that the maker had merely attached a handle to a pre-made blade that would sour me pretty fast on the whole "custom" thing. I might well be inclined to think "I might as well stick with factory knives, because at least I know what I'm getting".

Roger
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I agree completely. I have no tolerance with this sort of thing, and IMO, if you didn't make the blade, don't put your name on it.
 
Heck I've made 7 kknives now all stock removal and under the watchful ey of Bob Wearner (a great teacher and heela of a nice guy)even have a guy wanting to buy one and have me make his design and I don't call myself a knife maker. I'm learning, no way I would insult the people who really and truley call their selves (like most of you) a knife maker. I am in constant awe. I am thinking to get a gold so I could put up pics of some of my knives. You better not laugh :p
Peace
Bob Barnett
 
steelswing said:
Heck I've made 7 kknives now all stock removal and under the watchful ey of Bob Warner (a great teacher and hell of a nice guy)even have a guy wanting to buy one and have me make his design and I don't call myself a knife maker. I'm learning, no way I would insult the people who really and truley call their selves (like most of you) a knife maker. I am in constant awe. I am thinking to get a gold so I could put up pics of some of my knives. You better not laugh :p
Peace
Bob Barnett
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If you're making knives from scratch, IMO, you are more than welcome to call yourself a knifemaker. :)
 
His site is misleading. When i started out in knifemaking i made kit knives and gave them away except one that i sold for $15.00, BUT i told the guy up front that it was a kit knife. I seen some kit knives sell for more then i charge for my HANDE MADE Knives and the customer dosen't know the truth, Which is WRONG.


Ricky D. Finch
 
So where's the rope and the torches? It looks as if some of you guys feel so strongly on the subject then get on the phone and do something about it. We can all stamp our feet and huff and puff. Lets see some lynching.



All joking aside. The guy should not put his name on the blade.
 
First off, I agree with everyone here. I don't think he should be marking the blades unless he made them also. :grumpy:

As an interesting side note, in Scandinavia, a knifemaker in general is exactly what this guy says he is. Someone who takes a pre-made blade and puts a handle on it. The difference is that the blades are almost always marked by the manufacturer or by the bladesmith who made them.
 
Jason Magruder said:
Did the guy that put the handles on Masamune swords call himself a bladesmith?
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if a body is not a bladesmith he should not in any case claim himself as one...
a bladesmith is just what it implies,

there are fine lines being crossed in ethics I think in some places but not all.

you have Freeport Knives they don't make knives they just sell knives, cool.
you have mass Manufactured like Buck and they do make some Customs,
they are Buck knives not billed as Buck custom knives.
Randall has blade makers, handle makers, sheath makers ,
Russell's dad I believe made custom knives hence the name, I don't believe the son does,
he buys them and places his name on some of them if not all of them,,
if I'm wrong tell me so..
now a (BUT)
if you are known to have others make your knives for you why not add
your name to them? it's being done all the time and a big business too.
but to imply you are
so and so custom knives,
are not the knives he sells still custom knives?

I can debate most anything

if you buy a store bought knife ready to handle all treated, sharpened and ready to go
and you regrind the whole blade from stem to stern and completely refinish it
is it your blade or not??? :confused:
is there a difference between that and having Paul Boss heat treat a
bar of steel for you then you grind it,
you'd just have less materiel to remove.. right??
thinking this way you make a knife out of a working bandsaw blade is
it still a bandsaw blade and/or belong to the company that
used it/or made it?? I'm going to add this to my first post.
very interesting posts will come of this I think..
 
I agree with all that has been said regarding the maker opf handles, however this line of conversation has led me to a question of my own.
If I were to use demascus made into demascus by another maker and then hammer forge, grind, harden and temper it myself. Is it my blade or his. If it is mine how would I stamp it and would it be proper for me to tell everyone whos demascus it is without their asking.
 
Then you are a stock removal maker using someone elses damascus.
Nothing wrong with that as long as you don't try to claim that you forged it yourself. Most guys that use other people's damascus list that as feature of the knife. kinda like saying you made a knife out of s30v. that states that you didn't make the steel but you did turn it into a knife.
 
Riley White said:
If I were to use demascus made into demascus by another maker and then hammer forge, grind, harden and temper it myself. Is it my blade or his. .
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well then
You did forge it ( the blade ), that's not saying you made the Damascus,,
big difference in my book. out of all maker there are but a few that
make Damascus in comparison, so I would think most buyers would
ask if you made it or not. BUT not always, we need to protect
ourselves as said in this thread before and list
who made it on the invoice, if it gets sold again later then the
seller has to bear the burden of knowing. now this is just my 2 cent mind you
 
THink it's all been about covered. He's not a knife maker, we are. so nah :P ;)

Actually,r ight now, projects in process here are about half and half. Two Himalayan Imports Khuks being rehandled, a SPydie getting custom micarta slab(just one side), and a TKS blank with camouflage slabs to play around with how that looked, then a pile of knives cut and ground from O1(and 440C) stock. Have no problem calling myself a knife maker, and no problem putting my name on the ones in second category, but can think of NO situatino where my name would end up on any of the first four knives. They very most I'd do, and that's if I set any of these up with removable handles, is possibly stamp on tang that it had been handled by me. and stamp it under the handle slabs, so you'd only see this if you took them off. But there's no possible situation where my name would end up on the actual blade.

But anyways, THink we've mabye beat this to death, so I'll shaddup now. :)
 
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