2012 Forum Knife - Fate of the Knife Poll

Vote on the Fate of the 2012 Forum Knife

  • Keep it as is - I'm willing to pay $125

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Remove the clip blade to lower the cost

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Start from the drawing board

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • It's over Johnny. It was fun while it lasted

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Other (open to suggestions)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    0
  • Poll closed .
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Thanks Manfred! Take two aspirin, and call me in the morning!!:D


The final design:
The way I understand how the design evolved is this; the "sketch" is a pattern that was already on GEC's horizon. They agreed to move it up a year or two, to meet our demands. It is not exactly as we polled/planned, but it is as close as possible for a production knife at this time. And if the order is big enough (200) tooling charges should be minimal, ie. changes to our BF tang stamp, which is maybe $100.
Case has never been interested in a special pattern of less than 500 to 1000 knives, and they had to be based on their existing patterns already in production. I spent several years trying to get them to revive their Harness Jacks of years gone by, but they never saw it as a realistic possibility.
 
If it is true that this pattern is something that was already on GEC's horizon, then I don't see it fit that we should be the ones paying for tooling.

If however this is a special design made for us then I would be happy to pay for the tooling cost, as long as the design that they come up with meets our collective specifications.

Either way I would like to give my thanks to the planning committee for their hard work and trying to make this happen, I am sure it has not been easy. Thank You!
 
wintermute said:
OK,

Looks like alot of you are looking for some answers from the committee. Let me see if I can answer some of them.
Click to expand...

GREAT update Sir! Thanks to so many, who have put so much time and effort into this!

(as for the brain hurt... just bang your thumb really hard with hammer and you'll forget all about the brain pain... works for me.:D)
 
stevenkelby said:
Thanks wintermute :)

I didn't vote at all this year, was away for 6 months (NOT incarcerated if it sounds like that!), and will take whatever gets made.

One point I'm confused about, I thought I remembered last year paying for the knives months and months before delivery, before the tooling was made I assumed, and if everyone did that, then there's the $20'000k or whatever, and security for the whole project before any costs are paid out. I don't see why anyone had to put up any more money out of their own pocket? Obviously I'm wrong but how?

I do understand and agree that 200 knives is too much for volunteers to be handling the project, it's just too much work and I think it's a great idea to run it this way this year, as a business venture, not a volunteer project :) Also, it avoids suspicion (NOT by me but I read posts about it) about what happened to the extra money left over at the end of the previous years projects (if any), as it was supposed to be a non-profit thing.

Personally I don't care how it happens I'm just super grateful that it happens at all!

THANK YOU to the whole team.
Click to expand...

Someone had to put up the money in advance (before the money was collected from us) to allow us to put the Bladeforums name on the project. The advance money would cover the forum owner if the people collecting all that money disappeared with it instead of paying the maker for the knives
 
waynorth said:
Thanks Manfred! Take two aspirin, and call me in the morning!!:D


The final design:
The way I understand how the design evolved is this; the "sketch" is a pattern that was already on GEC's horizon. They agreed to move it up a year or two, to meet our demands. It is not exactly as we polled/planned, but it is as close as possible for a production knife at this time. And if the order is big enough (200) tooling charges should be minimal, ie. changes to our BF tang stamp, which is maybe $100.
Case has never been interested in a special pattern of less than 500 to 1000 knives, and they had to be based on their existing patterns already in production. I spent several years trying to get them to revive their Harness Jacks of years gone by, but they never saw it as a realistic possibility.
Click to expand...

confucius37 said:
If it is true that this pattern is something that was already on GEC's horizon, then I don't see it fit that we should be the ones paying for tooling.

If however this is a special design made for us then I would be happy to pay for the tooling cost, as long as the design that they come up with meets our collective specifications.

Either way I would like to give my thanks to the planning committee for their hard work and trying to make this happen, I am sure it has not been easy. Thank You!
Click to expand...


I'm sure GEC is glad they found just the chumps they were looking for to cover the start-up costs on a knife they were going to make anyway. Sure it's not exactly what *We want, but who are *We anyway?

*We give them what will be the single largest order of identical knives they have ever seen (unless they can show me otherwise) and we get to pay more than anyone else for them. And I mean BEFORE Spark gets to them. If Spark was paying what a regular dealer would pay, they would probaby cost us (*We) the same as regular dealers will sell them for after his markup.

Those reading this will probably think to them selves "Stu, you don't know that!"

They would be right, I don't know. But let's look at last years years knife vs. the same knives with a punch instead of cap-lifter. Those sold for the same price *We paid for ours at the same time *We received ours (paid for months earlier). The difference is *We bought direct from GEC and paid (almost exactly) what a dealer was able to sell them for and make a profit.
*We paid GEC the difference, and they are counting on us (*We) to do it again.

I hope I am proven wrong, and time WILL tell when dealers start selling the regular production versions of the 2012 knife, but history says otherwise.




* "We" by the way are the regulars of the Traditional Forum here on BF that ponied up for 180+ 2011 BFC knives last year, and are expected to follow that up with 200+ this year. "We" probably buy more GEC knives than any other identifiable group of consumers, period. How many GEC knives do you think "We" has bought since GEC opened the doors. I personally have 5, and had at least 5 more. That is probably a low-middle average for one of the "We", I would bet.

Something to think about.
 
Let me re-state this clearly!!
GEC did NOT charge us extra for tooling the 2011 knife!! Even though we ordered less than 200 knives. If we want an exclusive pattern, not to be used in the future by anyone but us, we pay the $5000 tooling fee. Despite what has been posted before, I believe GEC will not charge the tooling fee, for 200 knives. However some profit has replaced the risk to the volunteers. The owner takes the risk, he has to make something.
GEC does not think of us as chumps. They operate on a small budget, and hopefully they will survive the decade. They are the last bastion of quality production knives, and that alone shows the respect that they give us, their customers!
 
Can we use this existing Trapper frame for the Wharnie Trapper. Closed is 3.87 according to GPknives site. That should lower cost, no? JT

TrapperFrame.jpg
 
Had a feeling that was the case, but still a nice frame that keeps knife pretty slim and not far off from the Bose frame (especially with barehead, not cap). Oh well, I am a huge fan of the Wharncliffe Trapper so I am in either way.

waynorth said:
We discussed that frame at length when we were collectively designing the knife, and decided we wanted something different.
Click to expand...
 
Sounds good to me at $125.
I think I am in for five of them and still am.
Thanks for all the hard work!!! :thumbup:
Take care............ ;)
 
waynorth said:
Let me re-state this clearly!!
GEC did NOT charge us extra for tooling the 2011 knife!! Even though we ordered less than 200 knives. If we want an exclusive pattern, not to be used in the future by anyone but us, we pay the $5000 tooling fee. Despite what has been posted before, I believe GEC will not charge the tooling fee, for 200 knives. However some profit has replaced the risk to the volunteers. The owner takes the risk, he has to make something. No, he dosen't have to make something - he want's to. He could just donate his time and effort for one of his most popular forums. How much of the $125.00 does he want?
GEC does not think of us as chumps. They operate on a small budget, and hopefully they will survive the decade. They are the last bastion of quality production knives, and that alone shows the respect that they give us, their customers!
Click to expand...

Are you implying that GEC is gasping for their last breath Charlie? I think they'll be around for years to come as long as there are guys and gals like us who buy knives like kids do candy.

The next thing we know the "non-refundable deposit" beast will rear it's head.
 
waynorth said:
Let me re-state this clearly!!
GEC did NOT charge us extra for tooling the 2011 knife!! Even though we ordered less than 200 knives. If we want an exclusive pattern, not to be used in the future by anyone but us, we pay the $5000 tooling fee. Despite what has been posted before, I believe GEC will not charge the tooling fee, for 200 knives. However some profit has replaced the risk to the volunteers. The owner takes the risk, he has to make something.
GEC does not think of us as chumps. They operate on a small budget, and hopefully they will survive the decade. They are the last bastion of quality production knives, and that alone shows the respect that they give us, their customers!
Click to expand...

The cost of the tooling is mentioned here, for what it's worth. Were they not charging for the tooling, I can only imagine Bill would'nt have said anything about it. It surely didn't cost us on the 2011 knife. That or they chose to "absorb" the cost of tooling then, perhaps figuring they'd make back their investment easliy in sales by assuming it'd be a popular selling pattern.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...PDATE-4-21-2012-Forum-Knife-Knife-Description
 
Look everyone, we're on top of the tooling cost issue but it hasn't been resolved yet. At this point, we're not even sure they are charging us an up-front tooling charge. This all stems from Spark's initial discussions with GEC:

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/939309-UPDATE-4-21-2012-Forum-Knife-Knife-Description

and may have been resolved already. We're just waiting to have it confirmed if there is or isn't a tooling cost thrown on top of the price. We are going to do our best to have the cost negotiated down to the lowest price possible, but that price may be $125. But before it makes sense for Spark to put in the effort, we're running this poll to confirm that there is still enough interest in the forum knife.

Even though this is a pattern that GEC was eventually planning on releasing, this can be somewhat of a risk to them. Their business plan so far revolves around releasing a new and intesting pattern a couple times a year. If they let all of their cats out of the bag (assuming they had the labor to do so), the company would have a very interesting, but very short, life. They're letting this cat out of the bag a couple of years early for us - that's pretty cool. And that's way more than what we got from Canal Street (reading between the lines: we don't want to pin our shields) and Queen (not returning phone calls). GEC is designing a new shield for us, bringing back jigging they haven't used for years, working with our tang stamp, and keeping etches off the blades.

I think I'm rambling.
 
FLymon said:
Understood,

I am IN for 1 for sure!

If it helps you, and you can do it, change my vote from option 5 to option 1.
Click to expand...

Thanks. It's not a problem. We're hand-counting the number of knives anyway. Hopefully there's no hanging or pregnant chads!
 
I'm in for 1 as long as we go with two blades. I voted to keep it as is.

Thanks again to everybody involved. It seems that the transition to this new process is proving to be quite a challenge and I appreciate the time and effort that has gone into trying to make it work.
 
Im in for two as pictured or very similar.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
 
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