Handmade Knives

What makes a knife handmade?

On a factory line a blade is stamped out of a sheet of steel and the handle is moulded or machined to a template, thousands at a time. A handmade knife is built by people working one blade at a time: the steel is forged, the bevels are ground, the handle is shaped and fitted, and the finish is done by eye. The small differences between two knives of the same model are the mark of that.

How a Bigcat blade is made

It starts as a stack of 15N20 and 1080 steel, heated and forge-welded into one bar, then folded until the bar holds 288 layers. The blade is shaped from that bar, heat-treated, ground and sharpened, then etched so the two steels show as the pattern. The D2 knives skip the layering and are cut from a single bar of tool steel.

Why every pattern is different

The pattern comes out of the folding and the grind, and nobody can make it repeat exactly. So the knife you receive will not match the photo line for line, and it will not match anyone else's. That is how you can tell a pattern-welded blade from a pattern printed or etched onto a single steel.

The handle and the sheath

Handles are walnut on most of the range, olive wood on one Predator Hunter, black Micarta on both Trackers and black wood on the Karambit, shaped with grooves for your fingers and fixed with pins. Each sheath is leather, cut and formed for its own blade, most with contrast stitching and a crocodile-texture inlay down the front.

Handmade, and still covered

Handmade does not mean unsupported. Every knife carries a 12 month warranty against defects in workmanship and materials, and it ships under a light coat of oil so it arrives ready to use.