hand forged vs. production

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emmawilson

Member
I have been doing a bit of blade shopping and generally find that hand forged knives, axes, etc are more expensive. Are they better or is it a lot of hype? Is a well-made hand-forged blade really better than a consistent production-line blade with good quality control?
 
I am not sure if this is a real post or something else but I will bite and give my opinion. Forging a blade in and of itself, does not impart any better property to any given steel than any other manner of shaping a blade. In short (all things being equal) forging a blade does not make it better, if better means stronger, tougher, sharper etc. So the question you are really asking is if a hand-made blade is superior to mass produced blade. The answer to that question is maybe or maybe not it really depends on what you value in a knife (axe, etc) and who is making/producing it. Your question is much too broad for anyone to truly answer because some mass producers of knives suck and some are OK and some are superior. Some people who claim to be able to make a knifes by hand suck and some are Ok and some are superior. If you have a specific company and or maker you want opinions on that can be answered but this topic does not lend itself well to generalizations.
 
emmawilson said:
I have been doing a bit of blade shopping and generally find that hand forged knives, axes, etc are more expensive. Are they better or is it a lot of hype? Is a well-made hand-forged blade really better than a consistent production-line blade with good quality control?
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Chris gave a good answer on a broad stroke question. There is no hype if you do the research.
 
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The knives in the link you gave under "hand forged knives" are dirt cheap compared to known truly forged blades. A set of "4-piece set, chef’s knife, Santoku knife, boning knife, peel knife" for $250, and that's with feather Damascus over a San Mai type core it looks like. I didn't find any description of type of steel, etc anywhere, nor where they're made.
 
I will take a shot at an answer. Generally speaking if a single person hand forges a blade, it takes longer than in a production line setting. So a hand forged blade will cost more because of the hours needed to complete the knife/axe/cleaver/etc.. I equate your hand forged term to hand made/hand produced. As opposed to production made to machine made.
 
I've seen excellent production knives at a good price and horrible, expensive custom/hand forged knives that were garbage. Hand Forged/Custom made does not always equal quality and now, there are many knives "hand forged" that are mass produced turds and resold online by tons of people who claimed to make the knives themselves, but really imported them from overseas.
 
I would buy this fixed blade from estwing. I didn't know they made knives. When I first got into making knives I had an AUS-8 kit hunting knife that I sharpened to hair shaving. When I asked the user how it did he said he made it through 5 animals (med sized game.) before needing to be resharpened. The AUS-8 blade I had was also commercially produced so hardness unknown.

But as a knifemaker I would also add some "custom" features - in this case basically grinding it different. But I am thinking of buying it. Good grip and if it did perform well I think I'd be up one.

www.estwinggear.com

Estwing

Estwing Gear manufactures work gear, rigs, backpacks, tool bags, sledge hammers and more.
www.estwinggear.com www.estwinggear.com

But I like my own knives, that I've made, too. You can't beat using a knife for what you made it for. I'm still low level.

It'd be good to actually meet a custom knifemaker and talk to them in person.

I think both have their place. But, yeah, I would avoid the junk and knock offs. I let my son buy one just so he could see the difference between what I'm learning to make and the knock offs.
 
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