Benchmade Custom 940 – Crafting your Very Own, One-of-a-Kind Knife
Patrik Orcutt 11.14.23
The origin of Benchmade can be traced back to California in 1979, when Les de Asis, the founder, was inspired to create a better quality knife than those he had used during his childhood. Dissatisfied with the poorly made butterfly knives available at the time, Les aimed to leverage the latest materials and manufacturing techniques to revolutionize this market. The initial focus was on crafting high-quality butterfly knives, known as Bali-Songs, as reflected in the company’s logo and name at the time. Using his skills from high school shop classes, Les developed a prototype of his improved knife design. Encouraged by the positive response he received from a local gun store owner who saw the prototype, Les embarked on the journey of creating more knives. This marked the humble beginnings of the company, which initially operated under the name Bali-Song. Aside from now offering a knife for every possible adventure or EDC style, they have stepped it up and now allow you to completely customize a select few of their knives. I went through the process of creating my very own Benchmade Custom 940 Osborne for a truly one-of-a-kind knife.
Benchmade Coverage on AllOutdoor
- AllOutdoor Review: Mini Barrage Blue Canyon Richlite – “Sustainably Cool”
- AllOutdoor Review – Benchmade Proper “Old School Cool”
- AllOutdoor Historical Review – A Brief History of Benchmade Knives
- AllOutdoor Review: Benchmade 940 Osborne – “A True Classic”
A few weeks ago Benchmade reached out to me about trying out their new knife customizer on their website. While in the past, many knife companies have allowed you to add a different blade coating or some text to one side of the blade, and this was meant to be seen as “Custom.” Up until now, that was about as custom as knives directly from major manufacturers came. Benchmade asked me to use their customizer to make any version of the 940 that I wanted, and they would foot the bill. All they wanted in exchange was my opinions on the process with what I like and didn’t like. So, without further ado, let’s get into it!
This will be more of a review of the customization process from Benchmade Custom and not as much of the 940 I made, but it’s still important to state that this knife was provided by Benchmade and while I do get to keep it indefinitely, this does and will not change my opinion on any of Benchmade’s current or future products.
Once I started creating the 940, the first issue I ran into was just how many options there are and the potential possibilities Benchmade Custom gives you. You can customize almost every component of the 940 Osborne. There are 3 handle options: G-10, Carbon Fiber, and Titanium. There are lots of fun color options for the G-10, but only one color option for Carbon Fiber and Titanium. This is a missed opportunity to me as it would be great to see a few more colors for both of these options. I would love to see a blue or black titanium in the future and considering how much extra these handles cost, I think it’s not asking much.
The blade can only be had in a satin or black finish with Dama Ladder being an option if you pick that steel, and while I like these options, I would love to see M4 included as a few years ago Benchmade did do a run for Blade HQ that incorporated this steel. There is the option to have custom text and even custom logos added to the blade for a small charge of $10 and this is a great way to really personalize a knife that will be gifted to someone for a special occasion. This is a very common gift when soldiers leave their units in the Military. I do love that you can customize all of the hardware on the knife from satin to black and this includes the thumb stud clip, screws, and locking mechanism. There are more color options for the thumb stud ranging from blue to pink.
I created a pretty tame-looking knife, but decided to go with top-quality materials and a very subdued aesthetic. I went with the Titanium handles, a black S-90V blade, all-black hardware, and a subdued brass thumb stud and spacers. While I love how the knife ended up looking once I got it in hand, some of the colors did not translate well from design to final product. This is even easier to see when you look at this custom model below.
In the end I think this is a great way to get your hands on a Benchmade Custom knife direct from the factory. I would like to see Benchmade offer different colored parts for their knives and accessories so if you just wanted a different colored thumb stuff or spacer you could just add it to your cart and install it yourself. I also think that they need to get the color to be more accurate on their website to what they look like in real life. I know I have been doing a lot of complaining in this review, but I do like the overall process and the experience of using their Benchmade Custom knife builder, it just needs some tweaks. They also got me my knife built and to my door in less than 14 days and I live on the opposite side of the country from their HQ. If you want to build your own Benchmade Custom 940 Osborne or Bugout, check this link HERE.
