What's with the CR Sebenza?

T.K.C. said:
I AM a fan of the Sebenza. BUT, the Sebbie is not for everyone. If you like it great, if you don't that is fine too. Not everyone appreciates how exquisite the Sebenza is, and that is OK. There is nothing wrong with someone who doesn't like the Sebbie, nor is there something wrong with people who do like the Sebbie.
I am a collector/user of custom knives only, the exception being CRK's. They are marvelous, and worth every penny to ME. I love the knives, the CRK company. I will continue to support CRK.
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I know you are a fan of the XM-18's as well (judging by your avatar). You said the Seb is the only non-custom you own. Along the lines of the "custom vs. hand-made" debate earlier in this thread, would you consider the XM's to be custom?
 
redsst, please read http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=510523 and respond (in that thread, not in this one).
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YES, the XM-18 IS a CUSTOM knife!! Rick makes everything on the XM-18, down to the screws!
 
Thanks-a-million, Cougar.

T.K.C., that sounds like "hand-made", not custom. As someone in this thread said earlier, there are lots of identical Sebenzas out there - just like XM-18's. A custome would almost mean "one-of-a-kind."
 
The XM-18 IS a custom knife; no and if's and or but's about it! A I am not going to argue about this. I am going to chalk this up to you being fairly new, and leave it at that.
 
The XM-18 has "options" that you can add to it, but each individual one is no more one-of-a-kind than the next. Websters defines custom as:
"made specially for individual customers" or
"doing work to order."
All XM-18's are the same basic knife. You can have it "customized", but I believe that the knife itself is no more custom than a Seb. If the XM-18 was truly custom, there wouldn't be a hundred people out there with the same knife as you.
 
Not here to argue but the term Custom Knife has no connection to the dictionary definition of custom. I don't think 40 or 50 years of calling them customs is going to change. ;).
 
Bastid said:
Not here to argue but the term Custom Knife has no connection to the dictionary definition of custom. I don't think 40 or 50 years of calling them customs is going to change. ;).
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BINGO! Nail on the head. That is exactly what I was thinking. Some people earlier in the thread were getting very detailed about the strict definition of "custom" vs. "hand-made".
I agree completely that those definitions do not apply when talking about knives. Knives are a completely different animal.
And just for the record, I DO consider Rick's work custom. I guess I should have put something along the lines of "playing devil's advocate here" at the beginning of my post to T.K.C.
I also consider CRK's work semi-custom. I think as far as knives go, it has something to do with how many people put the knife together and the parts used. CRK has a small workforce that makes the knives in almost an assembly line fashion. Hinderer is the only person that touches the XM-18 before it's sent out.
I was trying to point out to earlier posters that using a strict sense of the words “custom” and “hand-made” do not work when talking knives.
 
redsst said:
BINGO! Nail on the head. That is exactly what I was thinking. Some people earlier in the thread were getting very detailed about the strict definition of "custom" vs. "hand-made".
I agree completely that those definitions do not apply when talking about knives. Knives are a completely different animal.
And just for the record, I DO consider Rick's work custom. I guess I should have put something along the lines of "playing devil's advocate here" at the beginning of my post to T.K.C.
I also consider CRK's work semi-custom. I think as far as knives go, it has something to do with how many people put the knife together and the parts used. CRK has a small workforce that makes the knives in almost an assembly line fashion. Hinderer is the only person that touches the XM-18 before it's sent out.
I was trying to point out to earlier posters that using a strict sense of the words “custom” and “hand-made” do not work when talking knives.
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Note to all: I am in fact just playing devil's advocate, and am not here to argue, just to present a point of view.

Why wouldn't the terms "custom" and "hand-made" in the "strict sense" work when talking about knives? Because someone says so, or decides so? Eh...

To me, as well as most other knife enthusiasts in Finland I dare say, something is hand-made if it was made entirely by hand - no matter how many pairs of hands, one or a thousand, it's all the same. If it wasn't made entirely by hand, then it's obviously not hand-made, now is it? If something is made in the USA, then it's not made in Sweden, is it? If something is a Mercedes, then it's not a Toyota, is it?

To me, and again to most other knife enthusiasts in Finland, customs are "one of a kind" and "made to order" items, not mass produced and available to anyone, regardless of how the item is made, by hand or by machines. Sure, it can still be a custom even if there is more than one of them - perhaps you ordered two identical customs, or the maker made one for himself and one for you. Or, if someone has the idea to order exactly the same kind of item, and the maker produces it, it's still a custom although it's no longer unique. But it ceases being a custom the moment it gets slapped with a name and gets put into production and marketed - even if it's all entirely hand made. If there's a hundred of them, and they're all the same specs and name, then it's not a custom, it's a mass produced item - that may or may not be hand-made.

Anyway, that's how a lot of people over here see things. Others may use the words differently - that's the kind of thing people do. Someone says green when they really mean turquoise.
 
Then the people in Finland would consider the XM-18 "hand-made" not custom because it is not one of a kind. It has a name and two different models (3.0" & 3.5") and quite a few more than 2 have been made. I think T.K.C.'s point (as well as many others) is that the Sebenza uses some "off-the-shelf" parts (such as screws and washers) and that Rick's knives uses ALL parts made from scratch. Plus, while there are a few XM-18's out there, there are MANY more Sebs floating around.

But, like you said, it's all semantics. Who really cares? The point is that while Benchmades are exceptional knives; Sebs, XM-18, and the like; are in a class by themselves (regardless of what they are called). No, they wont cut any better than a Benchmade (or a $30 Wal-Mart knife for that matter). But, a Honda wont be any better getting you from point A to point B than a Viper, but which would you rather have if money was no object?
 
overall labels suck..hand made , custom made , semi-custom , mid-tech ...etc

just knives , someone made em , we use em ( well some use em ).

Don't get caught up in the labeling/titling , you like it , buy it , if not , move on to the next one.
 
John T Wylie Jr said:
overall labels suck..hand made , custom made , semi-custom , mid-tech ...etc

just knives , someone made em , we use em ( well some use em ).

Don't get caught up in the labeling/titling , you like it , buy it , if not , move on to the next one.
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Well said my friend!!!
 
I call em midtechs, the term was coined for the knife industry to address this specific class of production.
 
The word custom, as well as hand made is arbitrary and therefore useless in any discussion about the relative merits of a knife. That's why there's always an argument about it.

If you're a rationalist them there's only one thing that matters and that is objective quality. To rationalists it doesn't matter how a knife is made as long as is has quality.

To romantics, the notion of handmade and custom is important, perhaps more so then objective quality. The words custom and handmade have meaning for them.

So when there is talk about sebenzas, the rationalists say it's worth the money, the romantics say it's a waste of money. Then of course we get to argue about the meaning of words. :rolleyes:
 
The people who worry about what " class " a knife fits into are usually from one of 2 groups... collectors worrying about resell....or people who see it as a status symbol ( a way to rationalize what they spent on it , therefore it has to be a custom. )
 
Wow, this thread went from "what's so great about Sebenzas" to are XM-18s customs & now whether a custom & hand-made are the same thing.

It was said earlier, quality is what matters. I've seen & owned hand-made knives (You "could" say custom) that were very nice, but their quality & F&F were not the greatest. Did that make them a bad knife? No, but hand-made doesn't necessarily mean better. It's just a way of making things.

That said, EVERYONE has a reason (Whatever that may be) to justify why they spent X amount of $$ for a high end knife. It might not matter as much to some as to others, but there's always a reason.

Back to the question at hand. It's the QC at Chris Reeves that sets their knives (& the Sebenza) apart from most of his competitors. There's a thread started by STR in this Forum about a Bradley Alias II that he has. A knife that many people say is just as good as the Sebenza & at the amount that the Seb "should" be at. Interestingly, STR has had some "break-in" problems with the knife & quite a few people have stated they have had similar happenings to them.

I haven't heard Sebbie owners complaining of the those things. So, what's the worth of that, to know that the knife you purchased, is going to be just like every other one that's out there & there's no fear that you have to take it back or "customize" it yourself?

It's hard to put a price tag on that (Within price limits, of course), & the Seb is still at a price point that they're still selling everyone they make.
 
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=510368

bradley/seb thread by STR. Tight detent on the BM, most common complaint I've noticed on the forum about sebs is a lack of smoothness in opening when new, some complaints about the grease they use in the pivots. Guess it depends on f you want to break in the knife yourself. Don't care for the studs on either, course the alias copies the seb, so it's no surprise.
 
Still lot's of ambivalent Sebbie people out there.

First off, Scott Cook Lochsa and Rick Hinderer knives are customs and virtually unavailable to the marketplace. Great knives but just not for sale.

Why so much comparison to Benchmades? I don't get it; I have held BM's in my hands and they don't feel solid versus a Seb. Very ordinary, mass produced mid level knives IMO.

Beside BM reminds me of something a nurse would say to me in a hospital.

:barf:
 
RNST said:
Still lot's of ambivalent Sebbie people out there.

First off, Scott Cook Lochsa and Rick Hinderer knives are customs and virtually unavailable to the marketplace. Great knives but just not for sale.

Why so much comparison to Benchmades? I don't get it; I have held BM's in my hands and they don't feel solid versus a Seb. Very ordinary, mass produced mid level knives IMO.

Beside BM reminds me of something a nurse would say to me in a hospital.

:barf:
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I believe the comparison to B/Ms is because the original thread made the claim that he didn't see any difference in quality between a Sebenza & his B/M mini-Skirmish (635). The other comparison to the Bradley Alias II, made by B/M, is because many people claim it's a properly priced Sebenza.
 
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