Benchmade Quality

There are more than a few companies across the globe that claim to have a firm commitment to quality. It’s rare, however, to find a company that actually delivers the kind of quality products that make them stand out from the competition. Rarer still is a company that puts unwavering quality at the top of its priority list and continuously succeeds in not only meeting that commitment, but exceeding it. Benchmade is one of those companies. 

“The quality-first approach is at the forefront of everything we do,” says Tom Schaller, senior brand manager for Benchmade. “We’re trying to get better every day. We have that never-quit mindset, and we demand the best from ourselves with every knife we make.”

The concept of bringing high-quality knives to consumers is nothing new for Benchmade. In fact, it’s that very concept that the company was founded on when Les de Asis set out to deliver a top-of-the-line balisong knife to the U.S. market in the early 1980s.

“Most of the balisong knives at that time were made from the cheapest materials possible,” Schaller says. “Les loved balisong knives, especially because of how much they represented his Pilipino heritage, but he couldn’t find any that were up to his standards of quality. So he made his own.”

It was with that single blade, and de Asis’ commitment to quality, that the foundation for Benchmade was laid. That foundation has remained steadfast even as Benchmade grew and  expanded its offering from one knife type into a selection that includes a knife for nearly every activity and all walks of life.

Regardless of the kind of knife it’s making, however, quality continues to be the top priority at Benchmade. But it isn’t the only one. Function, practicality, and purpose all play a huge role when new knives are created. A great example of all these factors coming into play is Benchmade’s recently launched line of camp cutlery for outdoor enthusiasts. Designed with all the style and grace of a custom kitchen knife set with the durability and practicality of camp knives used for every step of the field-to-table process, Benchmade’s kitchen cutlery knives are as practical in the kitchen as they are in the woods. That same kind of quality and versatility is also built into Benchmade’s Water Collection, which significantly expands Benchmade’s category offering and embodies the brand’s dedication to craftsmanship and innovation. Santoprene handles on the fixed blade and fillet knives and textured Grivory handles on the folding knives are designed to maximize grip in cold, wet conditions, and the CPM-MagnaCut blades are specifically heat-treated for best-in-class corrosion resistance in harsh saltwater environments.

Quality isn’t just built into Benchmade’s knives, it’s also an integral part of the company’s commitment to its consumers. Benchmade offers a LifeSharp guarantee on all its knives, which means that anyone can send in a Benchmade knife that’s dull or needs routine maintenance, and Benchmade will get the blade back to Benchmade’s high standards of quality. 

“As long as we know it’s one of our knives, we’ll take care of it,” Schaller says. “The bottom line is that we want people to be happy with their knife and have confidence that it will do the job they need it to do whenever they reach for it. Anything we can do to help give our customers that kind of confidence, we’re going to do it.”

To deliver on that promise to an ever-expanding consumer base is no easy task. To help accomplish it, Benchmade routinely integrates the latest technology into its manufacturing center just outside of Portland, Oregon.

“Everything we do is about quality, cost, and efficiency,” says Travis Marks, Benchmade’s industrial manufacturing engineer. “When we find technology that allows us to improve efficiency and lower the cost to our customers without having to sacrifice quality, we do our best to implement it into our manufacturing process.”

Some of that technology includes automated machines that can consistently create the exact bevels and angles of the blades. Other machines grind and polish in a fraction of the time, while additional computer-programed machines run quality-control tests on blades in regular intervals to reduce the amount of wasted steel.

With more than 400 employees, however, Benchmade is far from a fully automated operation. “Our employees are the heart and soul of this company. They are invested in the quality of our products, and they take great pride in putting out the best possible knives they can because they know that the people carrying those knives might very well depend on them to save their life,” says category manager Austin Gray.

If any of those employees ever doubt how much, and how often, people around the world depend on their Benchmade knives, there is a wall of letters posted inside the warehouse with real stories about people whose lives have been saved, or how they might have saved someone else’s life, because of the quality of the Benchmade knife they carried.

For this reason, and many others, there are certain aspects of the manufacturing process—from custom-knife creation to assembly and final quality control—that are still performed by the skilled hands of a person sitting at a bench who understands the importance of making a top-quality knife.

After all, the name of the company is Benchmade. benchmade.com