Spyderco Forums

Hi guys,

I love the concept of Benchmade’s customizer, and I might actually be getting a custom griptillian from my fiancé that will be fighting my shaman for pocket space...

Will we ever potentially see a Spyderco customizer system, where we could order some of Spyderco’s most popular knives with our own desired scale color/material and blade steel? M390 Delica with red FRN? Maxamet Para 2 with carbon scales? LC200N Shaman? (Caribbean’s scales don’t appeal to me much)

I could see such a thing drastically bumping Spyderco’s American factory up in the demand market, but I know it’d probably require special equipment and new employees, but a man can dream, can’t he?

This idea has been discussed before. I like the concept but from what I remember it seems like a no go from Spyderco's viewpoint:


http://www.spyderco.com/forumII/viewtop ... =2&t=80885

Won't see it plausible for Spyderco in the foreseeable future.
Spyderco's manufacturing lines aren't as concentrated nor interchangeable like Benchmade or Leatherman, the two current major cutlery brands offering such services on limited models. Shipping, heat-treating, machining exotic steels in existing overseas factories can be time and resource consuming with little payback.
In fact the steady flow of sprint runs, dealer/distributor exclusives, limited production runs actually compensate well for similar outcomes. Just look at all the different version of Dragonfly, Delica, Endura, PM 2, Para 3, Manix, Military, Natives...... Provided one can acquire the desired handle/steel variations of a model, since the knives themselves being modular they can always be mixed and matched to create the one that meets one's own taste.

As of your specific suggestions, M390 would be a huge challenge for Seki workers, they have just recently adapted to S30V and that's a huge leap already. LC200N can now be heat treated in Golden plant but still mostly exclusive to Taichung models. Maxamet PM2 is absolutely doable.

Just to add to what's already been said, Sal Glesser has pretty much unequivocally nixed the idea of a customizable PM2 (or otherwise) shop. And his reasoning makes sense despite how "cool" the idea sounds (and it does), so it looks like we'll have to suffer through all this incredible variation in models and materials that Spyderco already provides without being able to custom order knives

This would be very cool, although I doubt it will ever happen based on reasons previously mentioned. Even if Spyderco just offered customization on 3-4 most popular models.......that would be really cool. It also would help people to access upgraded handles materials and steels if they miss out on dealer exclusives. It seems like what happens with the dealer exclusives is folks buy several of them abs then sell them on blade Forum or eBay for double or triple the price. Makes it harder for someone who buys knives to use and not ‘flip’ to get them.

JonLeBlanc wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 18, 2019 4:04 pm

...it looks like we'll have to suffer through all this incredible variation in models and materials that Spyderco already provides without being able to custom order knives

Good point. :)

I'm wondering how many people here have bought a customized knife thru Benchmade's website. I've been there a few times; spent some time making one up and saved it away for another day; which has never come.

CG

This will only become reality when a downturn in the ebbs and flows of knife sales are felt by Spyderco. The brand is popular now so I would not expect to see it anytime soon. However like all industries there will come a time when the Spyderco Customizer will be created to generate more knife sales to help balance the books when normal knife sales channels are struggling. If I were Sypderco, I would keep this idea in my backup/recovery plan and use it when times are tough to keep the lights on.

To be honest this would probably hurt sales from me more than help, because if I were able to choose whatever model/blade shape/edge type/steel/handle material/clip style/etc then I would buy a lot less knives. Sure, I'd spend a lot on a few but they would fill my needs and desires so well that everything else would become redundant.

It is a shame that Spyderco is not likely to do a custom shop like Benchmade or Buck knives. I was hoping they would do something like that with their Golden made products.