Why would you want a Handmade or Custom knife.
(All this relates offcourse a maker that knows what he's doing)
There are a LOT of knives available in todays market. Even MORE with the global economy today. So why should you go the hard route? Why buy a Handmade or Custom knife? You'd have to wait for it to be finished, there might not be spare parts around if something breaks. These are all things that might be going through your head.
On the other hand there are some very good reasons to choose something handmade. Like:
Quality
Since the knives are generally made one at a time. A lot more care is put into them than when they're made hundreds per batch. A custom knife maker inspects each and every piece he works with. Personally when polishing a blade I spend about 30% of my time checking closely to see if all the scratches are out. And if I missed one....back again to work.
Handmade vs Factory made
There are some things they're just not going to do in a factory.
Special shapes, sized to your specs, little changes to a model you like but not quite the way it was. All personalisations like that.
Then there are the things that they won't do because of the production processes.
Did you know most factory knives are nowhere near hardened to the optimal hardness for the steel? This is because when you do that in large batches there's a higher risk of losing blades to warping or cracking. So they take the lower risk road and you end up with a less functional blade.
The same thing goes for factory blade grinds. Did you know most custom knifemakers grind knives much thinner than any factory blade ever will be ground? There's a reason mr. Tom Krein was so popular with his blade regrinds. This is for the same reason as the hardness issue.
In short, a good custom knife, will simply perform better than a good factory knife in the same category.
Custom/Personal/Unique
When you get a custom knife, you know that the maker spent hours on hours on it. Not even just working on it, but thinking about how to work out your wishes in the best way. This is true for each and every knife. My knives are my children. I have a hard time sending each and every one of them to their new owners. Try finding that in a knife of which 3000 were made.
Besides that with a custom maker he'll transfer YOUR ideas into a workable knife. YOU tell ME what you'd like and I make it for you. And if you don't like the look of the pictures I send you as it's coming into being...we change it.
Garantee
I stand for what I've made.
Sure, I make misstakes every now and then but so does everyone and every company. But if a knife breaks or get's damaged, whether it's your fault or not, you can send it back to me and I'll try to repair it.
If I can't...I'll be more than happy to make you a new one at similar value for $40+shipping. (And believe me...in most cases that won't even cover my material and tool costs)