A person I've recently met buys knife blanks from a trusted supplier, grinds them treats and sells the knives.
I'm very new so I'm learning the processes involved which is spending a heap of time hacksawing blanks out.
How do fellow knife makers view people buying pre cut blanks?
not at all. If you start with a pile of materials that isn't a knife and you end up with a finished knife, you are a knife maker. There isn't a license to qualify. There isn't a test to pass unless you want to join one of the professional knife making groups. Those groups are exclusive to a degree in requiring members to demonstrate a level of knife making skill in order to earn membership.
The knife maker community will get upset if you buy finished blade blanks (ground, heat treated already) and use these blanks telling people you did the grinding and heat treating your self. It's just not honest and you will get called out on it.
IF...You buy finished blade blanks (ground, heat treated already) and finish the knife off but do NOT mislead customers into thinking you did the blade grinding, heat treating, through clever wording or omission of facts or vague description intending to mislead, etc., no one should have a problem with that. I say should but I'm sure some will. It's the nature of things that involve money. Also, I personally don't see a problem putting your name on the knife you completed using a premade blade blank.
I will also tell you this wasn't always my opinion. I used to think you had to do everything from "scratch" if you wanted to call yourself a knife maker. Then a smarter guy than me told me I better go dig up the iron ore and smelt it into steel, (don't forget all the alloys that go into steel), turn the screws myself on a lathe, grow and harvest the wood for the handles (or go shoot a Sambar Stag for the antler) before I could say I made the knife.
The best thing for the knife making industry is to keep it healthy and that is bringing in new makers to replace those leaving. If we as "experienced" makers keep throwing up roadblocks to new guys simply because we got here earlier and we've paid our dues, we are being short sighted.
I would estimate that 80% to 90% of the knife buying population in the USA have no idea there is a custom cutlery industry out there as large as it is AND they could own a custom made knife for a reasonable amount of money....that would outperform any knife they currently own. This is absolutely insane from a business perspective. The more knife makers we have, the larger the awareness grows and the more business there is for everyone.