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company's that say their knives are custom hand made in the usa

i ask what is considered custom hand made ? there are company's out there that say that their knifes are custom hand made .but what i wonder is if there is a assembly line putting these knives togather even though they are hand made buy 10 or 12 people are this knifes custom hand made knives?this is unlike you have someone who fires the blade to putting it togather from start to end with their own hands.many would say that the only way you can get a custom hand made knife is to have a knife maker make it is this true?or can you get a custom hand made knife from a so called manafacture?i'm sure i'm not the only one who would like to know about this.thanks

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Comment by Kit Adams on August 28, 2011 at 20:29: @Don

Yes, but if it is made out of materials that cannot be exactly reproduced then its a custom because yours is the only one like it. Yes it might be a basic skinner design with a dark burl handle kit... but you put it together and noone will have that exact burl handle you do. Now just tweek it a bit to your own liking and boom, you have a custom. Heck, if i was to take my stock CS Recon 1 and dura coat it with a pattern, I have just customized it, therefore it is a custom. It will be a knife that noone else has an exact duplicate of.

Comment by Jan Carter on August 27, 2011 at 17:56: I do like this Kit

I like to think of custom as each one having something different about them

Different is always nice, having a knife that no one else has makes it special in it's own right.

@Don,

I like that your version has an explaination for custom, handmade and custom handmade.

@Alexander..Kit is right, I just call 'em mine, gives each one a special feel of its own with no label to have to define

Comment by Kit Adams on August 27, 2011 at 13:30: I like the way Alex put that... "I just call em mine..." I like to think of custom as each one having something different about them. So if you buy blanks and scales and then pin everything together I would say its a custom knife because there is no one who will have that exact same knife because you took the time to make it. However if every part is made by a machine to look exactly the same then no, its no longer a custom, its no longer hand made.

Comment by Jan Carter on August 25, 2011 at 19:50: And then there is the catagory "assembled" by hand. That probable best descibes GEC and Queen. Donnie conciders himself a handler. We buy the blank and he creates the knife from there. Billy is right, it is still a love of making knives. In my humble opinion, to be custom....Buying a billet, grinding the blank, heat treatment, and everything from there on

Comment by Alexander Noot on August 25, 2011 at 5:11: Whenever I give or sell someone a knife that I made, I type out a form that describes exactly what I've done, what materials I've used and with what techniques.

I don't call em custom, I don't call em handmade...I just call em mine and show them how they're mine.

Comment by Alexander Noot on August 25, 2011 at 5:10: So what does "Handmade" mean?

Buying a knife blank and scales and gluing the stuff together?

Buying a knife blank, buying scale blanks and pins and doing everything from there on?

Buying a billet, grinding the blank, shipping it out for heat treatment, and everything from there on?

I don't bother with terms such as handmade simply because they're vague terms. I just tell people what I made about my knives so they don't have to guess. It's just the easiest way.

I don't believe that ANY large scale production company delivers such a thing as "hand made" products. If they did they probably wouldn't be large scale.

Comment by Billy Oneale on August 24, 2011 at 23:05: Queen and GEC have some hand work done, but are not handmade. To me a handmade knife is one that someone builds from the piece of steel to the finished knife with his or her own hands. Someone who starts with a blade blank and sharpens, polishes and puts the scale on would be partially handmade, but even that is a work of love of knives. Some of the so called handmade knives that are probably made assembly line type to me are not handmade. I have seen some on ebay from China that claim to be handmade. I really doubt that they are "handmade". In my opinion , a handmade is the same as a custom built. Randalls are nice, but I don't know if I would consider that handbuilt.