American made fixed blade to raise funds for veterans Please share your thoughts

Thomas Carey

Thomas Carey

Dealer / Materials Provider
Joined
Nov 26, 2010
Messages
722
Back when we were first looking at offering a knife under our brand name. We spoke with great folks like Darrell Lewis, Bill Harsey, & Dexter Ewing. They pointed us in the direction of some great folks who provide product to makers for use in Mid-Tech knives and also supply other brands with product. This led us to contact Les Halpern, Spartan Blades, and Randall King. We found out that Les and Spartan are so swamped they could not help us but despite the fact Randall King is also much in demand for his OEM, and ODM services etc. He was quite taken with our efforts to raise funds for veterans and so he did offer to work with us. I have just heard from Mr. King today as a few months ago we had set the wheels in motion for a knife with a design unique to our brand.

The design we have not seen as of yet but we do hope that by the end of this month we will have some live samples to review. The knife will be based on Randall King's Desert Enforcer model.

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Currently we plan for a knife of about the same overall length and blade length which would use the same G10 handles used in the Desert Enforcer to save on costs and allow us to produce smaller qty to start. The knives would also come with the same type of sheath. These would also ship in larger padded zipper cases coming from the same company that supply's our current cases.

Here are the specs on the Desert Enforcer.

Blade Length: 5"
Overall Length: 9.75"
Blade Details: Clip Point; DLC Coating
Handle Material: 3D Machined G10
Weight: 5.4 oz.
Handmade in USA

We opted to start with this model as we found it was quite popular for several reasons with military customers who make up about 50% of our customers on our watches.

Our plan has been to offer the knives in at least 4 versions. Two versions with tanto tip and two with spear point tip. Though based on lessons learned since with our ZT knife we may add 2 additional finish types. Each blade tip type would be offered in black DLC as well as Flat Dark Earth PVD coated by Ionbond.

Most likely we would make just do 200 knives in our first production run which would translate to just 25 for each version.

These would be sold direct through our current channels to keep the price down. It appears our unit cost will actually be a bit higher than our cost on the ZeroTolerance folders. So the retail price for these would be $299 and of course we would offer a pre-order discount price. Of course 25% of the profit will go to a charity that assists veterans.

I am sure many of you are wondering what blade steel we are planning on using. Based on discussions with the folks from Spartan Blades, Bill Harsey, and others we have selected CPM S35VN http://www.crucible.com/PDFs\DataSheets2010\dsS35VNrev12010.pdf

Based on the fact our retail price would be just under $300, we are a new brand without a track record, and this would be more or less a new knife design. My guess is we will have a bit of a challenge selling these knives. But given the fact we are only looking at producing 25 in each version initially I do think we will find enough interest to find good homes for those few.

Today Randall King told me that we should have some models ready to review in about 2 weeks and we will be sure to post photos of those.

At any rate we wanted to let all of you know about this effort and to ask for your thoughts on our plan.
 
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Nice. I will probably buy the Spear Point in Flat Dark Earth PVD. Very cool and glad to see you guys are going to be offering a variety of choices over time. :thumbup:
 
Wow. You made a lot of great choices on this one, Thomas. Who to collaborate with, design specs, steel, coatings; all right on. I just hope you made enough of them. :D Although it is true that fixed blades enjoy a smaller demand than folders. You're just not going to stick one of these on your belt, and go to work on Wall Street, or much of any where that is urban. Won't be a problem for me, though.

Put me down for at least a spear point in PVD. I'll decide on the rest once pics are posted. I think I'd like to see a simple SW version. Looks like it'll have a pretty nice sheath, too. Once again, Thomas; very well done.
 
With these we should be able to offer as many as we can sell. Though I believe for the first run we will offer a very limited number in an effort to get them out there for feedback. We may make some tweaks based on that feedback for a follow up run.

I have to say I am excited to see what Mr. Randall King has come up with for us. =)
 
You know when I first talked to Randall about blade shapes I told him for sure we want to do a spear point as those will sell much better than a tanto.....

Mr. King then replied that with their own brand on knives in which they offer the option of either tip style. That about 50% go for the tanto tip. Which caused me to re-think things and to thus offer both tanto as well as spear point shapes.

I was also torn on whether to offer Flat Dark Earth or black DLC. After some discussion with Mr. King we decided to offer both.

Which was a good way for us to give folks a wider array to choose from. =)
 
I have found that tanto blades offer just as much if not slightly more versatility than spear, drop, clip, or any other blade style. You can cut, scrape, score, slice, chop, slash, nick, and notch just about anything with the same efficiency.
 
Soas not to be a party pooper your title say, "to raise funds for veterans", how much fron the sales of eac knife goes to veterans, and what veterans group is getting the funds.
 
Akapennypincher said:
Soas not to be a party pooper your title say, "to raise funds for veterans", how much fron the sales of eac knife goes to veterans, and what veterans group is getting the funds.
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25% of the profit goes to veterans and the actual dollar amount depends on what the profit actually ends up being. We have donated funds to The Gary Sinise Foundation, and are also now raising funds for Mercury one for their Active Military and Veterans Support Fund Fund with funds being raised from the sale of watch straps and the ZeroTolerance knives we are offering.

For this knife effort we don't have a charity picked yet but Fisher House has been on our to do list. We tend to go with charities in which 80% or more goes to the core charity. With Sinise and Mercury 100% of funds they get go to the core charity.

The main reason we created our brand was to raise funds for veterans followed by providing work for fellow Americans buy having things done on the U.S. when we can. The more product we sell the more we can raise. =)
 
Akapennypincher said:
Soas not to be a party pooper your title say, "to raise funds for veterans", how much fron the sales of eac knife goes to veterans, and what veterans group is getting the funds.
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Click the link in the signature line, all the information is right there.
 
Which finish type do you fine folks think will be of most interest Black DLC or Flat Dark Earth PVD?
 
FDE is very nice, as is a satin finish. If satin finish is not available, then by all means FDE.
 
I think this would be too expensive to see these sell super fast or allow higher quantity.
 
pnsxyr said:
I think this would be too expensive to see these sell super fast or allow higher quantity.
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I actually agree with you on both points. But our only other choice at this point is to source from China which runs totally counter to our brand. Unless we offer a smaller knife of lesser quality and use lower grade materials. Even then the cost of U.S. production would still most likely be high for many as we can not produce these in massive qty.
 
pnsxyr said:
I think this would be too expensive to see these sell super fast or allow higher quantity.
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Agreed.

Right now, BladeHQ is selling the various HTM Randall King Desert Enforcer Fixed Blade knives for $160-$200! Only difference being S30V vs. the proposed S35VN. For $300 I'd like to see something more unique and premium. Anything from Spartan Blades would've been my first choice even if it becomes much lower quantity.
 
If you are raising funds for Veterans we will do anything and everything in our power to help and promote you! Shoot me a PM if we can be of any assistance!
 
RamZar said:
Agreed.

Right now, BladeHQ is selling the various HTM Randall King Desert Enforcer Fixed Blade knives for $160-$200! Only difference being S30V vs. the proposed S35VN. For $300 I'd like to see something more unique and premium. Anything from Spartan Blades would've been my first choice even if it becomes much lower quantity.
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In which case you will not be shocked if I told you after our research we contacted Spartan first. We were even introduced by Bill Harsey to them. But which is something we keep running into Spartan is so busy trying to keep up with their current demand that they just can not supply us.

So my question to you is other than the brand name (As we just can't get product from the red hot ones who are swamped already.) what would make the knife more premium in terms of technical specifications.

I had thought about seeing if we could switch to M390 but to be honest I don't know that would matter much to most people.

Our cost is a lot more than you would ever guess sadly. In fact higher than what a Desert Enforcer would wholesale for once you add in our upgrade in steel, design cost, tooling cost, addition of our knife cases etc. A bargain they for sure will not be.

But here are some points I feel that one should keep in mind.

I do suspect that most would sell via pre-sale at a discounted price of around $250 which is going to get it much closer plus consider upgrade in steel and the charitable aspect. Plus and not that it matters but our packaging will be of a higher quality and more useful than the norm. By that I mean our knife cases are nice and can be re-used. So its not like the knife is coming in just a throw away box.

We don't have final pricing sorted as of yet and will not till we settle on the final spec's and such. Also if it likes like it will just not work then we will shelve the plan for now.
 
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