Are CNC made knives true Customs

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Blades'n'45

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Feb 24, 2013
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Wanted to see and hear what others think about this topic. I was watching a Youtube vid the other day of a knife maker making a run of knives and just
about every part of the knife is made with a CNC machine minus the hard wear which I believe was bought from a knife making website. Even the blade
was milled out from the CNC machine. I get that it still takes a lot of work and hand finishing to get every thing fitted right with acceptable fit and finish but
is it a true "Custom." What does a true Custom knife even mean.
With a CNC instead of making one knife at a time you can make a batch of them at a time. I know a lot of knife makers CNC out their handles but hand grind
their blades. Would this be considered a full custom or something different.
Whats your guys take on this? How do you define what is a custom, production, or a combination of both (midtech?)
 
Custom? Yes. Handmade? Debatable.

Let me clarify. Custom = made for you to the specifications you request - choice of handle, grind, finish, blade shape, engraving, etc. In this respect, CNC can clearly be custom.

Handmade can refer to the grinding, the forging, handle-building, and everything in between. Some people source pre-forged blanks, or have others do tempering, etc... so how much counts, is up for debate.


Production vs. custom is a bit different than CNC vs Handmade.

Production I take to mean, you are buying a knife with the same specs and options as anyone who buys a knife from the maker. No customization, especially not of major pieces - this could be cnc or handmade (if every handmade item is more or less the same and the buyer doesn't get inpuut). Mid-tech to me would mean a mostly stock production knife that offers a few limited options for customization (scales and clip position, or something).
 
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When I think of custom I think handmade or each knife made is slightly different from the next. With the precision of a CNC
machine each knife is pretty much identical to each other given that they are re creating the same design.
 
Well, even the term custom gets thrown around too liberally here. We have a lot of really talented knife makers on bf, however many of them make runs of identical, handmade knives. Getting one of those is not custom, unless you were in conversation with the maker discussing design changes, materials used, etc....
That is not to say a run of handmade knives is any worse than a true custom, just a different definition...

As far as cnc knives go, I believe putting a new design in takes a ridiculous amount of programming, so they are probably neither custom, nor fully "handmade", unless you actually did spend time discussing the design with them and they actually designed it for you.
 
I think of custom as a one off or tailored to the buyer. Beyond that it is a limited edition or what not - regardless of production method or tech used.
 
liamstrain said:
Custom? Yes. Handmade? Debatable.
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Pretty much sums it up. A CNC machine is just a tool used for profiling and drilling holes. Yes, once you have the code, you can produce as many of the same pattern as you want. My question is, where do you draw the line? Is a knife profiled with a cutting wheel and a grinder more of a handmade knife than one profiled with a drill and a hacksaw?Either way, they all fit the definition of "custom." Basically, it's made to order for a specific customer or purpose.
 
9blades said:
Yup.....
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Agreed

Blades'n'45 said:
When I think of custom I think handmade or each knife made is slightly different from the next. With the precision of a CNC
machine each knife is pretty much identical to each other given that they are re creating the same design.
Click to expand...
When is it not hand made? I can't forge or HT... All I'm doing... or trying to do is stock removal... basically I'm filing the metal into submission...

It's a point of debate I know.
 
Where do the midtech knives fall into. Knives like the VECP or Tim Gayleans Pro Series.
CNC made but hand fitted but no customizable options. I believe Tims blades were hand ground.
Does that make a difference?
 
I guess theres a lot of gray area regarding this topic. Would be nice if there was some sort of universal definition
and way to categorize different knives that are made by different methods.
 
I suppose it would depend if the makes setup the mill and wrote the program.
 
I have ripped out a few fixed blades for friends on my cnc at work, by just drawing them in feature cam and generating code for the outline and a rough flat "grind". Usually blast the outter shape with a 3/4 insertable turbo mill and cut the flat "grind" with a 1/2 inch solid carbide with y,z moves along the blade. ( I am using "grind" loosely because there is no actual grinding.)

In my honest opinion, making a knife with a cnc mill is not really handmade. The skill that many knife makers on this site exibit is far more difficult and time consuming than even complicated cnc work.
Hats off to the true knife makers out there.
 
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To many out there, custom means nothing more than "not factory", so if you take your standard kabar and put a scandi on it, boom you've got a custom.
I think there are lots of different levels of customness.
At the top you've got a knife which has been handmade or CNC'd or whatever the process might be to make a result in which all the various features and characteristics have been tailored by the user for the user.
Below that you've got the same kind of contact between maker and buyer, but with less options, like maybe he always starts with the same blank and then shapes that into the knife the user wants. Same process, but much more limited in how custom the knife can actually end up.
Below that you've got Semi custom, which I see as being where all the parts are more or less defined and pre-made and the user chooses from a combination of them to build up the combination that they choose. This has a huge range within it and probably needs some more subcategorisation. Top level of customisation within that would be like Chef's Armoury Design Your own Knife, where there are different types of steel with the blanks and different grinds and different types of damascus and all manner of handle options, but ultimately it's just a custom combination of pre-defined parts. At the bottom of it would be maybe the customize a griptilian service on the benchmade website. Just a lot less to choose from, just aesthetic stuff pretty much. Anything less than that I don't see as custom.
Also, if a master bladesmith forges out a one of a kind unique bowie and tries out some new handle style on it and you buy it off him from a table at a show, is that custom?
I don't think so, because it's not tailor made specifically for you. It's creative and amazing, yeah, but not quite custom.
 
Actually, there's a load more options in that griptilian one than I remember, kind of awesome actually. Substitute that example for one of those sodbuster type knives that I can't remmber the name of. You can choose wood or fake bone for the scales and whether to have a clip point or wharncliffe as a secondary blade and whether it has an awl or a screwdriver or something as an accessory.
 
I've seen knife makers (known as "grinders" from now on) have prejudice against other makers who use CNC machines. I've heard of grinders literally belittling CNC makers due to the fact that they don't put steel to belt.

BUT, let's look back a little further when knife making was solely of a FORGING nature.....then the stock removal process came along (forging= literally hammering out a knife from hot steel VS stock removal where you grind out the rough shape of a knife from pre-made steel). Can't you imagine that the forgers had prejudices against the grinders? Don't you think a forger once said "grinding a knife out of a pre-made blank of steel isn't REAL knife making!"

I see the CNC machine made knives as just another adavancement in knife making. It's gone from napping flint, to forging, to stock removal, to CNC. I'm sure prejudice ran rampant between each phase change.
 
For example: I ordered a large Calvary sebenza from CRK. I won't consider it custom because it will be just like every other large sebenza except for the graphic.
But I also am waiting on a longbow I have ordered from a custom bowyer. He is building it at a length I specified and draw weight I specified. I also picked out the wood for the risers, limbs and veneers. I will consider that bow a true custom.
 
CrimsonTideShooter said:
I've seen knife makers (known as "grinders" from now on) have prejudice against other makers who use CNC machines. I've heard of grinders literally belittling CNC makers due to the fact that they don't put steel to belt.

BUT, let's look back a little further when knife making was solely of a FORGING nature.....then the stock removal process came along (forging= literally hammering out a knife from hot steel VS stock removal where you grind out the rough shape of a knife from pre-made steel). Can't you imagine that the forgers had prejudices against the grinders? Don't you think a forger once said "grinding a knife out of a pre-made blank of steel isn't REAL knife making!"

I see the CNC machine made knives as just another adavancement in knife making. It's gone from napping flint, to forging, to stock removal, to CNC. I'm sure prejudice ran rampant between each phase change.
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Well said, John.
 
I think CNC is a great advancement in technology. I also think terms like "custom" and "handmade" get used too often. If a customer isn't giving design input to the maker or if the knife isn't a one of a kind design, how is it in any way custom? If a maker produces a low volume of knives that are the same design, that means that the knives are "limited edition" or "small volume" or some other term, but certainly not custom. A "custom" knife is one that is tailored to a person in the way a suit might be tailored. A custom suit is made for one person. A custom knife should be made per one person's input along with the maker's skill and vision.

I would like to see more precise use of terms, but in reality it probably doesn't matter all that much. People want to market things and people want to believe certain things about purchases. If people want to throw around the term "custom" to make it all-inclusive it'll become another empty, hollow word with no real meaning. All in all it doesn't bother me too much, but I would love to see more, for lack of a better word, honesty, and less marketing terminology.

There is nothing wrong with using a CNC machine to produce very precise tolerances, but I don't think using the same design over and over means you have a custom knife. Call it a "sprint run" or "limited edition". Those are both true in a lot more cases than "custom".
 
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