They also know that the future of the industry is dependent on the people of Oregon. Oregon remains to be the hotbed for knife producers and Benchmade is setting the standard for adapting and overcoming. production remains the backbone of our business. With demand at historic levels, their dedication to 100% U.S. counterpart, Benchmade has refused to compromise on the commitment to domestic producers. While imported titanium is less expensive than its U.S. Those rigorous standards also extend to other materials, such as titanium. Most of the blade steels, from stalwarts like CPM-S30V to the new CPM-S45VN, are produced by Crucible Industries, a leader in U.S. In addition to the knives being made in the USA, Benchmade is committed to sourcing materials from domestic vendors of the highest caliber. I see why Matt and the Benchmade team is so proud and wants to get their story out there. Every Benchmade knife is made in this factory.
Knives are then stored in a warehouse and segregated by orders. The last step is one of the girls inspects every knife to ensure that it is sharp and functions as designed. It was cool to see some old-time workmanship. One employee with 23 years of seniority sat at a bench assembling knives one at a time according to the order. But one thing that really stood out to me was the making of their custom knives. They have a few in-line work stations and as one worker completes a task, they pass it on to the next co-worker. Wow, they have to be (and are) good to be able to apply different angles to each model of knife strictly by intuition.Īnother step that impressed me is how they assemble the knives. I was surprised to see that the actual cutting edge is not put on by a machine but is hand-ground on a grinding belt guided by the operator’s hands and eyes. To some degree, it is space-age technology with computers guiding some of the processes and yet some of the processes are done by hand. The metal is tempered and on and on the process goes. If I remember correctly after laser cutting the blank it is then transferred to the next department which puts the hollow grind on the blank, next it is polished smooth to remove any grinding marks and so forth.
The blanks then pass through the various departments. Since the metal is too hard to stamp, they laser cut the knife blanks. They are flat sheets somewhat similar to a sheet of plywood. They receive sheets of various grades of metal. The tour began with Alti showing me the sheets of metal they used to produce the knives. That tells you that it’s a good company to work for.
After talking with employees and finding out that there were quite a few with over 20 years of seniority I was impressed. To begin, I love that Benchmade is an American company and uses American parts. Upon arriving, Matt introduced me to Alti Einarsson, one of the Benchmade Manufacturing engineers. Matt Glass their marketing guru was driving down from Seattle. Everyone I talked to in the retail store was friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable. On a story of this nature, I like to talk to the employees and get a feel for the culture of the company. I arrived at the Benchmade factory early so I could take pictures of the outside and visit the retail store in the front of the building. shop in Clackamas to their current location in Oregon City which is 144,000 sq. Due to massive expansion, in 1996 they moved from the 15,000 sq.Portland alone has 19 knife manufacturers). (I didn’t realize it but Oregon is the knife capital of the world. They then became the world leader in automatic knife manufacturing and began supplying military units. They were the first knife company to employ laser cutters. In 1990 they moved to Clackamas, OR to be in knife country and changed their name to Benchmade Inc.Over the next 8-years, they grew in fame and changed their name to Pacific Cutlery Corp. They started off making butterfly knives (Hence, the butterfly logo). It all began in a small shop rented in a second-story mezzanine in California in 1980 by Les De Asis under the name of Bali-Song.
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