There is a very interesting thread going on right now over a China made knife and it made me wonder for the millionth time about the high cost of some of the knives that are popular right now.
After spending 30 years in the machine trade, after a five year aprentice program as a machinist I look at the whole knife thing with a critical eye. All of the new style knives, like the tactical stuff, is made on CNC machines, put together with alen or torx screws. There is almost no handwork needed and the entire design of these knives are for easy, cheap production. It should be, in therory, cheaper to make a Benchmade whatever than a Camillus scout knife or stockman.
There are no skilled cutlers setting rivits, crinking the blades so they nest right, fitting handle scales and bolsters, and adjusting the kick, as in a traditional pocket knife. The new stuff comes off the machine, gets deburred and degreesed, goes to assembly and you have a knife in a fraction of the time.
Now I'm not trying to be a smart a-- or such, I'm just an old fart that does not understand the whole square point tactical thing. But I do understand manufacture costs, and production. Heck I spent my life in manufacture, and what I see in the knife world today is that 2 plus 2 in not adding up to 4.
As I type this I have my son's tactical folder here. With his permission I took it down and had very little parts. One single blade, a piviot pin, two liners, two handle scales, some torx screws, a piece of formed sheet metal for a "liner lock", and a couple of spacers. It took me all of a couple of minutes to put it all back together into a knife. On the inside surfaces I could see enough to tell you just what kind of machine they were made on and how.
On the other hand I have here a made in U.S.A. Buck stockman. With three blades, two backsprings, four bolsters, two handle scales, two piviot pins, and a couple of brass spacers it is a far more complex knife to build, and it even has a decent satin polish. The tactical knife I have here is bead blasted and tumbled for Pete's sake. The Buck goes for 35.00$ and this other thing, also made here is well over a hundred bucks.
Somebody is getting ripped off!
Why is a simple to manufacture single blade screwed together knife more expencive than a nice trapper from Queen, or a very nice stockman with real stag no less, from Eye Brand?
After spending 30 years in the machine trade, after a five year aprentice program as a machinist I look at the whole knife thing with a critical eye. All of the new style knives, like the tactical stuff, is made on CNC machines, put together with alen or torx screws. There is almost no handwork needed and the entire design of these knives are for easy, cheap production. It should be, in therory, cheaper to make a Benchmade whatever than a Camillus scout knife or stockman.
There are no skilled cutlers setting rivits, crinking the blades so they nest right, fitting handle scales and bolsters, and adjusting the kick, as in a traditional pocket knife. The new stuff comes off the machine, gets deburred and degreesed, goes to assembly and you have a knife in a fraction of the time.
Now I'm not trying to be a smart a-- or such, I'm just an old fart that does not understand the whole square point tactical thing. But I do understand manufacture costs, and production. Heck I spent my life in manufacture, and what I see in the knife world today is that 2 plus 2 in not adding up to 4.
As I type this I have my son's tactical folder here. With his permission I took it down and had very little parts. One single blade, a piviot pin, two liners, two handle scales, some torx screws, a piece of formed sheet metal for a "liner lock", and a couple of spacers. It took me all of a couple of minutes to put it all back together into a knife. On the inside surfaces I could see enough to tell you just what kind of machine they were made on and how.
On the other hand I have here a made in U.S.A. Buck stockman. With three blades, two backsprings, four bolsters, two handle scales, two piviot pins, and a couple of brass spacers it is a far more complex knife to build, and it even has a decent satin polish. The tactical knife I have here is bead blasted and tumbled for Pete's sake. The Buck goes for 35.00$ and this other thing, also made here is well over a hundred bucks.
Somebody is getting ripped off!
Why is a simple to manufacture single blade screwed together knife more expencive than a nice trapper from Queen, or a very nice stockman with real stag no less, from Eye Brand?
Something else that might play into this as well that potentially could drive the price up - "market window". In other words, you spend all these millions into R & D, manufacturing, etc. and have to recover a certain portion of your costs, before the market dries up on you. If you have a limited market with a limited amount of time, the end product typically will probably cost more than a product that has a long product life cycle with a larger market i.e. Buck 110, SAKs. I work in a software development environment and this is something we face in our market place constantly - you spend 2 to 3 years preparing to produce a product that may have a life cycle of 1 to 2 years maybe less - only real way to get around it for us is to try to "leap frog" technologies/software and hit alternate windows. In the meantime, you have to charge more to recover costs and keep the lights on. We are very lucky in that we have a strong market presence in what we do. Compared to say something like the games software environment, our market place tends to be slightly slower moving.
