Why buy a handmade that is not really a made by hand?

Chuck Gedraitis Knives

Chuck Gedraitis Knives

Joined
Dec 10, 1998
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This has been bothering me for a while. There are a few knife makers out there who claim that they make handmade(custom) knives but really don't. Yes they have been making knives for a long time but have now found ways to take "shortcuts".

These shortcuts consist of having all of their knife parts laster cut. They have only make a few models of knife so they can do this. They have pre-fabed blades, liners and handle materials. All they do is maybe grind the blade and do some polishing.

Why do we continue to buy their knives? I thought that a handmade knife was supposed to be just that, made by hand? And they Charge up to or more than $500. It seems like they are just selling an upscale version of a kit knife. And even though they seem to be mass-producing knives their prices haven't gone down? One maker at the Ny show last month had 30 knives to deliver to customers! Do you know how long it takes to make 30 knives the old fashioned way?
 
GOOD question...
But I and I suppose many others would really appreciate some
"name calling" here! It's not about bashing on someone.
But just be misterious about these certain makers and not name them
is not helpful at all for us customers.
How should I know who they are??? No one told me so far:eek:

I am looking forward to this discussion....
 
Chuck, you're killin' me...

Originally posted by striper28
The best thing a maker can do is continue to make good knives and make each knife better for the same amount of money. It will be a better knife for the consumer both mechanically and economically. He will sell a lot more knives that way.
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This is a direct quote from you in your response to another thread posted today. Sounds like these 'unknown' makers have got a handle on this....

JW Smith sold well over 30 knives at the NYC show. He will laugh in your face if you claim he outsources his cutting tasks. That statement he has already defended in a private email forum I participate in.

And... even if ANY maker does this, I consider this 'grunt work', and it leaves them free to take care of the finer details of a knife--while keeping the cost down.

All they do is maybe grind the blade and do some polishing.
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Gross oversimplification and generalizing.

Why do we continue to buy their knives?
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Are you including yourself in this buyer's crowd? I really don't think so.

"Old fashioned" is just that. Chuck, you are young and talented. If you alone make a knife with CNC, Lasers and Robots, I would still consider it a 'handmade' or Custom. Just using more sophisticated 'hand' tools.

Coop (who regrets having a diverse opinion with you Chuck, but you asked! ;))
 
I buy knives for their functionality and beauty, not their production path.

If someone uses a CNC or a plasma cutter or whatever, it's interesting, but not what makes me buy or not buy a knife.

I have a Wolfgang Loerchner knife that he hand-filed. Not cut, not ground, but filed. It's beautiful. It boggles my mind that he makes the knives the way he does, but I don't think less of other knife makers because they don't use this incredibly labor intensive approach.

I have a William Henry Black and Tan, which is a great knife. 1.6 oz, wickedly sharp hollow ground blade, with a very durable and attractive blade coat. No one would ever accuse it of being hand-made, but it has superior fit and finish, functionality, and aesthetics to almost all of the "hand-made" custom folders.

The issues I actually think about nowadays are things like:

- how much real customization can I get out of a knife (e.g. can I get someone to integrate in my office key fob and my house key into a knife)
- what versions of Damascus are actually beneficial to the functionality of a knife (e.g. O-1 and L6) as opposed to ocmpromising the utility of the blade for looks (e.g. nickel as a laminating element)
- is there any value to forging to shape initially rather than cutting
- how does a maker's heat treatment differ from a Paul Bos heat treat

The question Is it handmade? isn't really very interesting to me.
 
Ok not to step on anyone's toes but here are a couple of names.
Allen Elishewitz, Ed Vanhoy and Bob Terzuola . They all have averything laser cut. Did you ever wonder how they can have all of their knives be exactly the same. If you look in Bob Terzoula's book there is a picture of a table with trays on it and each of them has a knife in pieces in it. There must be over 30 knives from just the ones I counted. Who works on 30 knives at once?

Coop, I'm sure that JW Smith does all of his own work, he makes a variety of different styles of knives in a variety of price ranges. The makers I named above all make only 3 or 4 models of knife, each varying slightly. The materials vary but the overall design is consistant. It would not be cost effective to have things laser cut if you didn't offer a standard model.

I just get annoyed when a maker markets his knives as all his own work and has most of the work done by an outside company. Them might as well buy kits and put their names on them, in a sense this is what they are doing.

I make all of my knives one at a time. Every knife I make is one of a kind and I have not made 2 of the same knife yet, either in materials or design! This is hard to do. But this is what makes my knives or other makers like Bill Mchenry, Jason Williams, Ralph Selvideo and Steve Olszewski knives more unique. And this is why they are more sought after.
 
Coop,
I couldn't agree with you more. My first thought when Chuck mentioned a maker that sold 30 knives at the NY show was JWS. My first thought of John's response was the same as yours. I know how hard he works and how many hours he puts in.

Chuck, there are a number of makers that work on 25-30 knives at a time. I've been known to do it a few times myself. I have 5 basic folder styles and haven't had anything laser cut since the mid 90s. I stopped simply because I was overwhelmed and getting burned out. Due to some problems I've encountered, that's going to change in the near future for a new version of an old model.
That you've not made the same knife twice just tells me that you haven't made many knives. Rather than do quotes, go back and read Coops's thread. It says alot.

I get tired of reading about "those" makers and never see the names, or when I do see them, they don't add up.
 
I agree with Chuck. When I buy a knife these days I like the idea that it is unique, that no one in the world has one like it. When I hold it in my hand I can imagine the maker sanding and perfecting it to the best of his/her abilities. Even the flaws are cool to me, it makes the blade just that little more human. A couple of years ago I would never have had this attitude - if a blade wasn't perfectly ground it really bugged me. It's all a matter of what you are looking for I guess. I have 3 of Chuck's knives and love each one.
 
The custom part of a custom knife should be about an interesting set of choices, not an inability to reliably manufacture the same thing.

For example FrontSight is customizing grips to people's hand sizes in the HideAway knife. That is really, really cool. Having a knife maker imply that their knives are "more custom" because they make them all different (in some cases because they can't reliably duplicate something) is missing a very basic point.

And, I'll even come up with a goofy aphorism - "Custom knives are customized for the customer; not Make Knives makized for the maker.":rolleyes:
 
Personally, I like my knives (as a collector) to be unique pieces. This being said, I also like the idea of carrying a user's knife that is a custom - e.g., a tactical knife. For a user's knife, I want the best possible knife, with a style I like, etc. It would be impossible for Mr. Terzuola to come up with yet one more 100% effective design each time, plus, his knives would have to be much more expensive. Just my $0.02. (Of course, I find it strange to pay the price of an art knife for a run of the mill Loveless, but that's a separate issue. But I think Loveless knives are really well designed, and would amply deserve a $450 price point, for example.)

JD
 
Chuck,

First off, you got one wrong. Allan E. is cutting all the parts on his current knives in his shop. He will also tell you his methods. I think this is probably the most important aspect.

Have any of you ever heard of Fabbri shotguns? Arguably the BEST of the best in fine shotguns. They have made less than 1500 guns since 1968 when they went into business. Tulio Fabbri, the president of the firm, was critisized for using CNC equipment to manufacture soem of the parts on his guns. His reply was this; "We can make soem critical parts much more accurately than by hand. Some of the components are better hand fitted, and some of them have both machined steps and hand fitting. What we are concerned with is making the finest gun possible. If that entails using controvertial methods, so be it. Our customers have never complained."

I think most makers who make a living from knifemaking are similar to Fabbri. They are always looking to improve their product and methods.
 
Hey all,

Good posts. Coop, if only a maker's fingertips touch the machine, as he feeds it the information to profile his blade, can it still be considered a "hand tool"? :D

A knife made entirely by machine is still custom made, and can be functional and visually appealing, but how much of his soul did the maker pour into the knife as it was fashioned? How would you have felt, if when you finally spoke with Hill Pearce, he told you he milled his knives and that there were multiple copies of each knife in existence?

No one's right or wrong in this thread. It all depends on what the maker is trying to create and what the collector looks for in a knife.

-Jose
 
If a laser cuts the parts of a knife or parts are bought from elsewhere & fitted & put together by someone's hands, in my mind's eye, it's hand made & with changes, could be customized! If a machine 'dreams up' a knife design, 'cuts' the parts, 'fits' the parts, 'adjusts' the parts, 'refines' the parts, & 'assembles' the parts then you have a machine assembled knife. That, to me is not 'hand made'. A hand made knife, I believe, is just that - made by hand (with or without machine cut parts)! A custom knife, I believe, is a one of a kind designed by a knifemaker or in collaboration with a customer's ideas. Just my .02! Now pass that popcorn!:D I'll bring the beer!
 
From a collector's standpoint, there are many handmade knives that are really what I would describe as "classics". Some of the Carsons and Mayos are really classic tactical designs. I don't collect these anymore, because they fall into the category of "using" knives for me. The fact that these designs can be licensed to major companies and fly off the retailers shelves certainly says an aweful lot about the design, and that's part of the issue. People like origional designs that work. If they work SO WELL that they can be produced for the mass market, that's a statement. If every knife a maker produces is a "new, origional" design then one might argue that the maker hasn't created a truly great design yet, and is still searching, and perhaps learning. "Handmade" is only worth so much, how that translates to final fit and finish, aesthetic appeal, and the overall quality of the product is for the consumer to judge. I used to subscribe to the idea that "it had to be all done by hand". If a maker can get blanks laser cut, and it yeilds an overall better product, (particularly at a more reasonable price)....sign me up! But when push come to shove on the higher end market, face facts. It's not reasonable to think that a maker is going to "crank out" frames and blades on CNC machining to produce, say 50 Sawby skimmers for sake of argument, it's not worth the time. If folks want to pay $500 for a handmade knife that has a few parts machined, that's fine with me, hell they pay more than that for a fancy Sebenza!
 
INtresting to see all the different input on this thread. Especially now that some makers that I know(dont' know many custom makers, so don't feel slighted if you think I'm saying I don't nkow you, cuz I probably don't :) ) are chiming in. Or at least peeking in and eating the popcorn
 
Originally posted by marcangel
If every knife a maker produces is a "new, origional" design then one might argue that the maker hasn't created a truly great design yet, and is still searching, and perhaps learning.
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Though in some cases this may well be true, I believe that there are many makers that just don't like to make the same knife twice. It has nothing to do with not having found a truely great design. As far as I am concerned every great maker continues to learn until the day they stop making knives.

There was a time that I belived that to be a handmade knife every stage of making a knife hand to be done by hand. As long as either the knife of tool was held in the hand, power tools were ok. This would eliminate milling machines and drill presses, which at the time I never really considered. I do believe these machines are perfectly fine to use to make a handmade knife. Due to the points put forward by people like Coop and Les Robertson I now believe that CAD and CNC do have a place in the world of handmade knives, but only as tools for profiling parts, precision drilling of holes, threading holes that will take screws and possibly some decorative work. I am not one of the ones that believes that because a computer is programmed by hand it is just another hand tool. This may have some validity for the first knife in the run, but every one that follows is totally made by the computer and there is no further human involvement.

Everyone has to make up their own mind as to how important automated processes are in defining a handmade knife. I know what I believe and that is all that is important to me. I will always prefer a forged knife and I don't think that computers and outsourcing are being used to make knives this way at the present time. If they do get used in the future I will have to decide if I want knives made this way. Right now that decision would be a resounding -no-, but who knows what the future may bring. My opinions have changed in the past and will again I am sure.
 
Well said, Keith. Good attitude.

My own current vision of a custom knife allows for automation, but there is always a degree at which anything gets extreme.

Chuck you point towards these makers as ones whom you are striving and admiring: Bill Mchenry, Jason Williams, Ralph Selvideo and Steve Olszewski. One-of-a-kind makers who sell exclusively to a *very* elite and narrow custom knife collector's crowd. I have handled every one of these fine maker's work and they are to be admired for sure. But these are COMPLETELY 'apples and oranges'. None of these makers or any other maker aspiring to compete on that playing field are going to sell to that audience with CNC, automation, and repeatable products.

If that's the area you want to be in with, you shall have no competition with 'production runs'. Keep at it.

But.... I think a majority of collectors like specificity. Make a few successful models and keep making them. In fact, keep making them better and better, however it takes.

This is why these 'other' folks are making <$500 QUALITY folders to sell to the masses. Let's do the math: 30 X $400 = $12,000 at one prominent show!! Sounds like a good business plan to me. :)

Strangely, not ONE of the aforementioned names were present at the NYC ECCKS, where it is regarded as the premier high-end show in the East. Don't let the tail wag the dog...

This is going beyond your original point, but my point back to you is: define YOUR market and use the best marketing plan to create a desire, and tooling to deliver a quality product. These others sure have!

Jose: TOUCHE!!! ;)

Coop
 
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