Commission A Custom Blade

Everything I do is completely custom

the only limit is what we can think up together

Tell me what you’ve got in mind and I’ll make it real.

I would love to build custom blade pieces for different types of clients including master chefs, serious collectors, and the everyday user. Tell me what you have in mind, and I will interpret your thoughts into a one-of-a-kind heirloom piece.

The first step is a conversation. Send me a message here to start the ball rolling. Tell me what you envision, what gave you the idea for the project, why it’s important to you. If you are looking for a variation of a knife I’ve made before, chances are I’ll be very happy to make it for you.

If you’re after something completely new and unique–which will make me very happy–it may involve a little bit more back-and-forth, and potentially a sketch or two before we nail down the particulars.

Once we have agreed on the details, I will send you an invoice for a deposit, a round number between 1/4 and 1/3 of the total price. The deposit makes sure we both have skin in the game, and once I’ve begun the work on your piece, it becomes non-refundable. The balance won’t be due until the work is almost finished.

I will schedule your project as my books allow. I am generally about six months out on new orders.

— The set pictured here was commissioned by a couple with five children. My clients provided me with one word describing each child, and I had to craft a knife representing each personality. The five knives had to be unique–as the children were–but also recognizable as a family.

Jonas Blade & Metalworks Owner and Founder

Zack Jonas

“As a bladesmith, I get to explore the balance of form and function through the endless variety of mankind’s oldest and most useful tool. My craft pushes me every day to learn more and work harder. I love the immediacy of seeing beautiful, useful objects take shape in my hands.” – Zack

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What will this cost?

The single biggest factor is my time for this 1 of a kind custom blade. Simply put, it’s a question of how much time it will take me to build your piece. I’ve made enough knives now that I can confidently estimate what a project will require, and I am proud of my fair pricing.

An overlapping factor is how complex the project is, which has the biggest impact on time, and the complexity can shift dramatically in ways that might not at first be obvious to a non-maker. I’ll make sure you understand the possibilities all the way through. I will never try to up-sell you on something I don’t think the project should include.

How do we know we are on the same page, budget-wise?

This is an interesting question. There are two ways to approach it: 1) You can tell me everything you want in your knife, and then I can work out an estimate, and we can start from there to determine if the project will work, or 2) You can give me some idea of what your budget is, and I can design the project to fit within the context of that boundary.

I prefer the second approach. It can save a lot of guess work on both sides of the project. The risk with the first approach is that I come back with a price beyond what you are prepared to spend, and the project never happens. But in many cases, there are ways that I can work a design to simplify things and bring the cost down while still delivering an outstanding piece. But if I don’t know what your expectation is, I can’t judge what changes will be fit the bill without undercutting the essence of what you’re looking for in your piece.

The risk with the first approach is yours, and I understand that. There’s an instinct not to show your hand; maybe you imagine that if you tell me your budget, I’ll just “estimate” that the project will cost exactly your upper limit, and you’ll have no way of knowing what I would have quoted you if you hadn’t. All I can do is try to assure you that that is categorically not the way I do business.

Commission A Project