BLADE has learned the unfortunate news that Les de Asis, founder of Benchmade and a member of the BLADE Cutlery Hall of Fame, passed away on Friday, Feb. 21. The announcement came from official Benchmade social media channels.
It is with great sadness we share that Les de Asis passed away earlier today. No words can properly express the sadness of our loss. Benchmade has lost our founder, friend and visionary who built one of the greatest knife brands in the world. pic.twitter.com/dSU3VVYGBS
Les de Asis (right) with his son, Jon (left), at a Benchmade shop. (Benchmade photo)
In late 2018, Les turned the reins of Benchmade over to his son, Jon, as reported here. The company was a family affair from the very beginning. Les created Bali-Song®, Inc., in 1980, selling the now-iconic Model 68 butterfly knife. That evolved into Pacific Cutlery Corp. through 1987. Les started Benchmade a year later.
Under his guidance, Benchmade knives became some of the most ubiquitous in the world, supported by the popularity of the innovative AXIS® lock, Griptilian and much more.
Because of these achievements, Les was inducted into the BLADE Cutlery Hall of Fame in 2017. What follows is a portion of BLADE‘s write up from the event. Jon accepted the award on Les’s behalf.
Jon explained that his father visited his first custom gun and knife show in Glendale, California, in 1979 and met the craftsmen and marveled at the works they had made and offered for sale.
“I liked that they were independent and developed their skills by improving their products over time,” Jon related his father’s sentiments. “I also appreciated that they were independent and plied their skills in their home workshops.”
At the beginning of his career Les indicated he met pioneer knifemakers like Cutlery Hall-Of-Famer Bob Loveless, Barry Wood, Glen Hornby, Chuck Stapel and many more, talking knives and guns for hours at a time. Les visited their shops and learned how they worked, what their definition of quality was in regard to design, materials, fit and finish, walk and talk, and metallurgy.
“I have been constantly intrigued by all the personalities, processes, materials, artistry and innovation that are present in the custom knife world, and challenged in how to translate them into a unique, high-quality manufacturing environment able to serve an ever-growing customer base,” Jon shared his father’s words. “I confess, it wasn’t easy creating a world-class company, but the journey, one knife at a time, was worth the effort!”
BLADE extends its warmest wishes to Les’s family during this difficult time.
ABS master smith Wally Hayes details each step in this photo series. This demonstration wraps over a ray skin handle.
Step 1: Lay the middle of the silk wrap across the handle, overhanging the ray skin a little bit.Step 2: Start by folding the wrap a half turn down. The trick is to fold the wrap, not twist it.Step 3: Fold the wrap a half turn up.Step 4: Fold the wrap a half turn down, being sure to always turn the half-turned-down part into the handle side.Step 5: Fold the wrap a half turn up and lay it across the handle. Reach around the back of the handle and pull the ends of the wrap tight.Step 6: Start again on the right-hand side of the handle. Fold the wrap a half turn down.Step 7: Fold the wrap a half turn up.Step 8: Fold the wrap a half turn down and then a half turn up, lay it over the right side and grip it. Adjust your grip, pull the ends of the wrap tight and re-grip. The wraps will lock into each other. Keep the folds and crossover section in the middle of the handle. Pull both ends tight.Step 9: Continue wrapping down the handle. The first wrap on each side is left over right. As you continue down the handle, alternate left over right, then right over left.Step 10: Once you get to the handle butt, feed the wrap through the lanyard hole.Step 11: Feed the wrap through the lanyard hole until you cover the entire butt.Step 12: Hold both ends of the wrap and apply a drop of Crazy Glue® to freeze the wrap in place.Step 13: Turn the knife over and clamp the blade to a table. Cut off the ends of the wrap with an exacto blade.Step 14: Being careful not to get it on the ray skin, apply epoxy to the wrap with a small paintbrush.
There are different definitions of a full-time maker. My definition is that of a maker whose sole source of income comes from the making and selling of his/her knives. This is no easy task.
In fact, by my estimate, less than 2 percent of the makers worldwide fit into this category. The reason the number is so low is it is very difficult to depend on knifemaking as your sole source of income.
#1 – Treat Your Knifemaking Business Like a Business
Fisk’s advice is to take college courses on business management, accounting and marketing prior to going full time. McIntyre agrees. He recommends putting as much effort into learning to run a small business as you do into making knives.
I recommend adding a certified public accountant (CPA) to your knifemaking team. In addition to handling your books, a CPA can recommend which type of business entity you should form. Perhaps the CPA’s best skill: tax planning.
#2 – Invest in Equipment
What kind of equipment? As Winkler noted, he and his partner, Karen Shook, “invest money in new equipment that will make our work better and more efficient.”
#3 – Find Your Niche
This is where your marketing plan comes into play. The objective is to optimize how you introduce your knives to potential buyers. At a minimum, your plan should address how you will make the most of attending knife shows, advertising in print and on the internet, and the potential of working with a dealer and/or purveyor.
#4 – Communication Matters
You must build time for interaction with your clients into your schedule. A basic rule of thumb: No customers, no business. The late John White (right) talks knives with a client during a past BLADE Show. (Point Seven photo)
For Hanson, it is one of the most important aspects of being a full-time maker.
“I answer phone calls and e-mails very quickly, and deliver on time or contact clients and let them know why there is a delay,” he stressed. “I listen to my clients.”
#5 – Create a Competitive Advantage
What separates you from your competitors? Winkler said adding Shook and her period style of sheathmaking to his operation years ago gave him a competitive advantage at the time.
“She brought a lot of business skills and makes sheaths that really put our work in a whole new league,” he observed.
More times than not your competitive advantage will come from being the first to adopt a new steel, handle material, design element, etc. You should incorporate such use of new materials or techniques into your business plan.
#6 – Delegate
No matter what their level of expertise, most makers realize they cannot do it all by themselves, though some try. Successful businessmen understand that utilizing the expertise of others frees them up to do the things they do best.
Enthusiasm and loving what you do are important factors in becoming a successful full-time knifemaker. However, understanding and implementing basic business concepts are equally important to building and maintaining a long-term, successful enterprise.
Final Words of Wisdom
Winkler may have summed it up best.
“I suspect very few makers are at [the full-time] level, as it’s the most difficult to survive in. It does not make your work more sought after. It does not put you in any kind of ‘exclusive club.’ But,” he observed, “if a maker can handle the pressure, it can be very rewarding mentally and somewhat rewarding financially.”
Editor’s note: “Micarta” has become the Kleenex of knife handles. It’s used so generically that it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that the word refers to something specific.
That’s why BLADE is bringing you this quick rundown of Micarta® from Kevin Brainard, a business development manager and 45-year veteran of Norplex, the company that owns Micarta® (the real deal). You may have caught the company at BLADE Show, where it runs the UltreX booth.
The goal of this piece is for knifemakers and knife collectors to become more aware of what is and isn’t actually Micarta®.
Hint: If it didn’t come from Norplex, it’s not genuine Micarta®!
by Kevin Brainard
1 – Micarta® is a Registered Trademark of Norplex/Micarta
We own several registrations for our Micarta® mark around the world, including U.S. Trademark Registration Nos. 0096374 (issued in 1914), 0320374 (issued in 1934), and 0324365 (issued in 1935), covering our high-quality industrial laminates.
These laminates have been offered by Norplex-Micarta and our predecessors since at least as early as 1912. As a result of the significant sales, promotion, and widespread use of Micarta® brand laminates, our mark is widely recognized around the world as a designation of the source of our products, which are used in a variety of applications ranging from electrical insulation to gun and knife handles.
In addition to our common law rights in the Micarta® mark, our incontestable federal trademark registrations constitute conclusive evidence of the validity of the mark, the registration thereof, and of our ownership and exclusive right to use Micarta® in connection with these products.
2 – Micarta® is Made in the USA
Available in several different colors, combinations, and surface treatments, UltreX™
paper and cotton phenolic materials use the original production methods of Westinghouse,
updated with today’s process and environmental controls.
And unlike some of the other “micarta” available in the market, UltreX™ Micarta® is produced in the USA in Postville, Iowa.
3 – G-10 is Not Micarta®
The Spyderco Persistence sports G-10 handles.
Micarta® is made with a cloth or paper substrate and coated with phenolic or melamine resin. G-10 is woven fiberglass and coated with epoxy resin.
The processes to make both materials are very similar in the fact that both are consolidated under heat and pressure to make the final laminate. There is a chemical reaction that is called polymerization that bonds the layers together into a high-pressure thermoset laminate.
According to the trademarks, G-10 is not Micarta®.
4 – “Micarta” Refers to a Specific Product
Like so many other trade names, Micarta® name is used like Kleenex is for facial tissue. Instead of calling it a “thermoset laminate” it is easier to call it Micarta®. This is true in the knife scales, handles and gun grip markets. We have similar issues with the Micarta® name in our other markets.
5 – Micarta® Goes Back to 1912
It was originally designed to be used as electrical insulation back in 1912 by George Westinghouse using a phenolic resin developed by Leo Baekeland called Bakelite.
Vine filework is my favorite style of filework. If you break it down into baby steps, it is quite easy to do.
The materials you will need are a Sharpie® marker, a vise, and a 5/32-inch round file and a small triangle file. You can use a bigger round file on thick blade material or a smaller round file when engraving liners or thin blades.
The triangle file is ground safe (sanded) on two sides to produce one corner that is sharper than the other two corners. This provides a left and right safe side for opening up your vine file cuts, and for giving them sharp points as well.
STEP 1
Using your Sharpie® marker, lay out half-round marks approximately 5/16 inch apart down one side of the blade spine. (Though not shown here, be sure to secure the blade in a vise.) (Hayes photo)
Step 2
File the marked side with the round file at a 45-degree angle. File into the spine, stopping just short of the middle of the blade. (Hayes photo)
Step 3
Using the marker, put marks down the other side of the blade spine in-between the notches. (Hayes photo)
Step 4
File in another row of half-round notches on the “new” side. Remember to keep the file at approximately a 45-degree angle and stop filing just short of the center of the blade. (Hayes photo)
Step 5
Next, take your triangle file and place it beside one of the notches. I leave about a sixteenth of an inch between the half-round notch and the triangle I am going to cut.
Before you cut, make sure you have a safe (sanded) side of your file closest to the notch you are cutting beside. Tilt the file so the cut closest to the notch is perpendicular (90 degrees to the blade). This gives you a straight line into your cut and an angle coming back out of the cut.
In other words, you want this “V” notch to be straight on one side and angled on the other. (Hayes photo)
Step 6
Turn the blade around in the vise and cut “V” notches in front of the other half-round notches. (Hayes photo)
Step 7
Take the triangle file and file the corner of each half-round notch, producing a gentle curve opening up one side of the half-round notch. (Hayes photo)
Step 8
Open up the other sides of the half-round notches. In both cases, they are in front of the “V” notches. This is how I remember so I do not get mixed up. (Hayes photo)
Step 9
Now let’s move on to the “V” notches. Open up one side of the blade spine first. File the “V” notch to produce an even arc to the edge of the blade spine. If you do not twist the file in your hand as you file, you will get a flat spot. GO SLOW AND EASY. (Hayes photo)
Step 10
Turn the blade around and open up the “V” notches on the other side of the spine. Remember the “V” notch is opened on one side only, behind the halfround notch. The safe 90-degree side is not touched. (Hayes photo)
Step 11
Take the sharp safe-sided angle of the triangle file and file into each point of the “V” notch. File it to a sharp, crisp point. (Hayes photo)
Step 12 (Final)
For the 12th and final step, go over the entire fileworked area with fine sandpaper. Increase 3-inch strips of 320-grit sandpaper and put the paper over the round file and triangle file to back up the paper. Do not push too hard and tilt the wrap away from the safe sides so you do not round safe (square) the corners of the filework.
Despite or perhaps because of its requirement for tight tolerances, the lockback has a substantial lineage.
According to Bill Claussen, co-author of Sheffield Exhibition Knives, the lockback has been around in various forms since 15th-century Spain. Other European cutlers—including the French, Italians and English—have produced lockback variants during the past 500 years or so.
The Buck 110: A Gamechanger
In the modern era, Claussen cites the Buck 110, which hit the market in 1964, as an industry icon.
“It changed the face of modern pocketknives,” he commented. “Although lockbacks had been introduced to the U.S. for more than 200 years, they were not made affordable and convenient in mass production until Al Buck introduced his knife. This knife was quickly adopted by sportsmen, tradesmen, truckers and other workmen as an ideal, all-around, heavy-duty work knife. Vintage 110s are hard to find today, and one in mint condition will cost a small fortune if you can find one.”
Production Challenges
Chairman of the board at Buck Knives, Cutlery Hall-Of-Famer Chuck Buck recognizes the pivotal role the 110 has played in modern lockback development, and acknowledges the challenges that surrounded the original premise of a practical production lockback.
“The lockback actually is a bar that goes across the back of the blade with the spring under it, and when you push down on the bar it rocks on a stainless rivet,” he said. “So, that was always hard to get exact because you did not want it to be loose and it needed to fit perfectly.
“You need to do fine blanking of the blades to achieve that and for years components had been machined, but with fine blanking you can get that done. We worked with the design for quite a few months, and it was all new to us. That was in 1963. The first knives on the market totaled about 250 in 1964, and then in 1965 we ended up making about 10,000 of them. It just grew from there. The 110 continues to be one of our most popular knives, and we are producing them now at a rate of over 1,000 per day. We have a whole crew that just makes the 110 folding hunter. To Buck, it has been something that has sold every year, and it just keeps getting better.”
Over the years, there have been a few tweaks to the lockback design of the Buck 110. For example, during the 1970s it was discovered users were placing a great deal of pressure on the blade, and the brass rivet in the mechanism itself was shearing. The brass rivet was replaced with a stainless steel component, and the 110 continues to sell well around the world.
From large retailers to mom-and-pop hardware stores, from Main Street to Moscow, the Buck 110 is a knife user’s mainstay.
It’s Human Nature
Claussen asserts another aspect of the popularity of folding knives and of lockbacks in particular has to do with human nature.
“It’s their mystique,” he related. “People seem to have a fascination for complicated things, plain and simple. Th is is generally true in life and very specifically in the collecting field. Watches, clocks and other collectibles are favored because of their complication. The general rule, with all things being equal, is that the more complications, the more desirability, hence greater value. To have a locking feature with a knife definitely adds mystique, aura and increased value.”
“This has got to be through the old way of human contact,” Bob Loveless knife specialist John Denton observed, “sort of like the lunchroom in school. You hang out, listen, see what is moving, what dealers are buying and, of course, now with the ‘inter-web,’ we have so much more information within seconds, while in the ’70s or ’80s we had to wait for BLADE® Magazine or the gun magazines to run stories on Loveless.
“Shows are still important to attend, but nowhere like they were years ago. Face to face is still part of the knife world.”
2) Maker Charisma
A lot depends on whether the maker has the kind of personality that appeals to the knife enthusiast. At BladeGallery, Daniel O’Malley specializes in one-of-a-kind custom knives. The answer includes multiple factors.
“There are a lot of things that go into making a knifemaker’s knives ‘hot,’” he reasoned. “Part of it is the personality of the maker. When a collector meets a maker for the first time, the collector often has a picture in his head of what the maker will be like. If the maker falls short [of the collector’s expectations], it can be quite disillusioning.”
3) Customer Service
“[The maker] being willing to repair knives when there is a problem is also very important,” O’Malley continued. “It can easily make the difference in a collector continuing to purchase a maker’s work. It can even be the difference in whether a person continues to collect the maker’s knives over time.
“After all, if a collector has spent a large sum of money on their collection, it can be very nerve wracking to find that it’s hard to get a damaged knife repaired. Similarly, it can be comforting if a problem can be relatively painlessly solved.”
4) Do Your Homework
Les Robertson of Robertson’s Custom Cutlery offers custom fixed blade and folding knives, including tacticals and presentation pieces, as well as some exclusives. His take on the delicate topic of a maker’s reliability and the quality of the maker’s work is sage advice for knife enthusiasts in any price range or level of experience.
“I give my client the very best information I have at the time,” Robertson asserted. “This includes issues with a maker or the quality of their work. Often, a maker’s skill level, quality, customer service, and/or delivery issues are overlooked because the knife can be sold immediately for a profit.
“Given the prices of many of the custom knives today, I highly recommend that collectors do their homework before purchasing a knife.
“I realize this takes away from the thrill of instant gratification and removes some of the fun out of the hobby. Long term, though, you will feel great about every knife you have bought, and your wallet will thank you.”
Purveyor John Denton said he turned down $60,000 at the 2014 BLADE Show for this Big Bear in sheep horn and Dan Wilkerson engraving. (PointSeven knife image)
5) Set An Allowance
Everyone, it seems, has spending limits. The role of the dealer often involves assisting clients in determining how much to spend. Recognition of the amount of disposable income available keeps a buyer/collector in the game.
6) Collect With A Purpose
Denton advises customers to acquire some knowledge on prices and to assess their real purpose for buying custom knives in the first place.
“First of all, you want collectors to be educated,” he commented, “and not to be buying just to make money. That is the most risky way to approach collecting. But then if they buy what they like and in three years can’t get 10 cents on the dollar, it will cut their knife buying down and drive them out of the market.”
Dealer Dave Ellis of Exquisiteknives.com notes that the investment perspective differs greatly from that of the collector who wants to enjoy, build and retain knives for years to come.
“When I chat with newbies,” he remarked, “a lot of them get into knives from an investment standpoint. They have read in the Wall Street Journal that investing in knives is a good idea, or heard about a knife that was purchased for $800 and then sold for $8,000. I tell them to buy what they like first and to worry about resale later because if it doesn’t pan out, then they won’t have to hold onto something they don’t like.”
Taking a measured approach is key to successful, price-sensitive acquisitions.
“I tell the collector to pace themselves,” Denton said. “Get into a knife that will be easy to turn if you get tired of it down the road. I’ve had several people ask me to build them a $300,000 collection, and I tell them I don’t do that because they will get mad if they don’t make 14 percent growth per year—and they don’t know why they’re buying the knife.
“The true collector has studied the knives and the market, and he will realize what knives are worth and what he can resell them for.”
Those who are new to the custom knife market can tap a great resource in a top dealer. Advice on the market, prevailing prices and hot makers is only part of the relationship. High-end folders by BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall-Of-Fame® member Ron Lake, Warren Osborne and Jim Martin, along with Loveless fixed blades, are among Ellis’s offerings.
When Dave talks with a new buyer/collector, he asks a few basic questions.
“There are more heavy hitters getting in the game with lots of money,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean they are buying the right things. What have their interests been up to now? Did they grow up with knives? Do they carry and use a knife? What is their reason for buying now? Use it? Collect it? Give it to a nephew for college graduation? I don’t want to offer a $7,000 Loveless hunter when a $150 skinner by any smith will do.”
7) Attend Shows That Fit
Though knife shows may be one of many ways to gain information and see what is out there, the individual contact with dealers, makers and other knife enthusiasts is invaluable. Attending shows that mean the most to the individual buyer’s needs and wants helps in the education process and in finding the people and knives that enhance the experience.
Robertson attends the BLADE Show due directly to its diversity of custom knives for sale. He says that the Arkansas Custom Knife Show is also one of the premier forged blade shows and features apprentice, journeyman and master smiths in the American Bladesmith Society.
“The New York Custom Knife Show offers a variety of knives from very well-known custom knifemakers,” Robertson added. “This show in recent years has had more of a tactical knife flavor. The USN Show offers the widest variety of tactical folders you will see at any show in the world.”
These are just a few of Robertson’s picks. Other shows are out there, and many of them are quite beneficial to knife enthusiasts looking for certain styles of knives and/or makers.
