A visit to the Buck Knives Factory

A few days ago, we picked up brochures for various attractions in the area, and one of them was for Buck Knife Factory in Post Falls, Idaho. We had wanted to go to Couer d'Alene to go bike riding, so we decided to head there on Thursday.

Front of the factory / museum / factory store building

A plaque outside the building

An interesting chandelier and mounted heads in the lobby

A mounted moose head

I stopped at the front counter - we had read that we needed to have reservations to participate in the factory tours - I had called multiple times to try to make a reservation without ever getting an answer... the lady at the front desk said that the tour was full but that they would be able to take the two of us.

Hoyt's son Al, second generation knife maker

A picture of the factory from the upstairs of the museum area - we were not allowed to take pictures while on the factory tour.

Some of the imported knives for sale in the factory store - I think we heard that less than 15% of their knives are made outside the US, and they are all prominently identified with country of origin (China).

Some of the factory blemishes for sale in the factory store

Some of the Buck logo'd items in the factory store

Some of the boxes that Buck knives have come in through the years

How to determine the year your Buck knife was made

A catalog page from 1967 showing the Model 110, Folding Hunter, first introduced in 1964.

We were glad that we got to go on the factory tour, though it wasn't presented in the sequence of making a knife, so a little confusing to me about how the process would actually be done (just FYI, I'm not going to be starting my own knife factory as a result of going on the tour!). The two things that I was particularly impressed with were that (1) the family is still running the company, with the great grandson of Hoyt Buck as the current President, CEO and Chairman of the board (https://www.buckknives.com/about/history/), and (2), they use a proprietary heat treating process to create the desired strength and durability of their blades (https://www.buckknives.com/about-knives/heat-treating/).

It was a bit of a long drive, and we didn't end up being able to bike ride while there, but we still enjoyed our day!