With the help of his SYIL 5 series, Dimitry Osarenko, founder of D.O.C.K. from Russia, now produces the most fantastic custom knives. Osarenko, a cutting-edge knife artist, adopted modern tools to turn his designs into bespoke, high-quality blades. His items include a personalised pocket knife and a custom bowie knife. He embraced SYIL's mini CNC machine to enhance his craftsmanship. Read on to learn how Osarenko was able to increase productivity, improve the quality of its knives, innovate and take a competitive position in the market for artisan bespoke knives.
Challenges
A crop of one-of-a-kind knife makers are taking a stand against mass-produced knives. Numerous knife artisans make the most beautiful pieces. However, thanks to the time required, bespoke knives are very costly. And sometimes, the actual quality and performance differ from what is expected. Osarenko was facing these same challenges. "I started out doing everything manually - literally from scratching lines into the stock to grinding and drilling all the holes manually - it's an insane amount of work," Dimitry Osarenko explains. "Then there was the issue of getting quality of each custom knife at the highest levels. You know, my customers are high-demanding. And I had trouble with precision and simply the performance of my handmade knives." In short, Osarenko needed a modern high-precision CNC kit to enhance his craftsmanship.
Mini CNC machine from SYIL
Solution
Osarenko came in touch with SYIL, and this was a true eye-opener. SYIL convinced him that a mini or personal CNC machine could help him realise his goals. SYIL provided him with a complete CNC kit and instructions. "D.O.C.K." uses the SYIL 5 mini CNC machine to produce knives of high quality and with incredible speed, reducing the time for production.
Benefits
Dimitry has discovered that automation with his mini CNC machine from SYIL has made the business significantly more efficient, and he is looking to do more. "The way I'm trying to set this up, the only hand work we will have is grinding the blades themselves. Virtually everything else is going to be machined. That probably saves me 70% of my time," he explains. "In my opinion, if you're going to get into this business, you're crazy not to get a personal CNC kit."
As part of a new generation of knife makers, Osarenko's background using CNC puts him in a rapidly expanding group of artisans mixing old craftsmanship with new technologies. “I think that hand-craftsmanship is one of those skills that you need to have as a knife maker, but there are real advantages to layout your designs on a computer,” he said. “I think it’s huge to see how parts will function and how things will work. Moreover, you can make products more accurately and consistently with a CNC. I still do all sorts of things by hand, like the blade grinding, embellishment, and the fit and finish. But if I needed to mill the integral frame locks manually, I’d be there just milling one frame for a week. It’s something I think the CNC is meant for. It’s a very complicated design with many little subtleties that need to be done precisely. This allows me to make my frames correctly and consistently; it’s highly repeatable.”
Personal CNC Machine from SYIL