commercial heat treating companies

M

manassas dragon

Joined
Dec 3, 2009
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158
a couple of days ago, i got a letter from peters heat treating stating that they were raising
the price per blade to $25. ouch! can anybody suggest an alternate heat treating company
with equal expertise and lower prices?
 
did they change the "up to 20 lbs" rate?
The other biggy is Paul Bos (now run by his old assistant, but same high quality work at the same facility).
Texas Knife Supply also does it, but they're less of a premium place and more just a general service.
 
Although I have never tried Peters', I have heard nothing but good about their service. I have used BOS on numerous occasions and have had nothing less than stellar results.

I hate to hear of the price increase, however, in today's fluctuating economy, I'm not at all surprised. Makers that don't usually do a "relatively" high volume have to pay a tad bit more for quality services. Tho it may be somewhat of a pain-in-the-wallet, that is just the nature of the beast.

Robert
 
Yep, its over the 20lbs for 70 bucks is a thing of the past come Mar 1! I had a nice conversation with Brad they've been runnin at cost for a number of years, the new deal is fare 25 bucks each for your first 4, up to 20 after the fourth for a 100 bucks (same blade steel), after 20 2 bucks a pop all the way up. He and his crew handle every blade, cryo is standard, and the results are superb! Ive run myself out of stee and am gettin in one more decent one in on the old prices!!:D
GHaile
 
Even with the price jump I think it's a great deal. If you were doing it yourself there is no way you could come in under $25 per blade when you take your time into account. The big majority of guys are fooling themselves if they think their work is superior to guys that do this every day all day with vastly better equipment. Shoot they cryo, straighten, and test each blade. I'll continue to send my blades to Peters but I may work in slightly larger batches.
 
$25 for a single blade is a bit stiff. $5 per blade for 20 and $2 for every blade above that is still a darn good deal. The only thing that I don't like about Peters from what I have read on their own site is that they do not appear to offer salt HT at this time. If I am going to pay someone else to do large numbers of non-stainless blades, I want salt.
 
I do H/T on carbon steel blades. Blades less than 12" are $10 each. Blades over 12" are $15 each. I have a digital oven, Parks #50, & McMaster-Carr 11 second quench oils. I don not have a hardness tester but I have blades checked occasionally at a local machine shop to be sure everything is still coming out right. PM me if interested.
 
blackcatt said:
Even with the price jump I think it's a great deal. If you were doing it yourself there is no way you could come in under $25 per blade when you take your time into account. The big majority of guys are fooling themselves if they think their work is superior to guys that do this every day all day with vastly better equipment. Shoot they cryo, straighten, and test each blade. I'll continue to send my blades to Peters but I may work in slightly larger batches.
Click to expand...

+plus one
 
jdm61 said:
$25 for a single blade is a bit stiff. $5 per blade for 20 and $2 for every blade above that is still a darn good deal. The only thing that I don't like about Peters from what I have read on their own site is that they do not appear to offer salt HT at this time. If I am going to pay someone else to do large numbers of non-stainless blades, I want salt.
Click to expand...

I would e-mail or call Brad at Peters' if you have a question about salt.
 
I was going to use Peters for a big job of specialty blades I am prepping now of 400 blades that would have fallen under the 20 pounds they were doing before, for $70 to now $1060. I don't think I will be using Peters now but I have nothing but good about them.
 
I live in Canada and have been using Canadian Knifemaker Supply to get my blades heat treated. Most have been a variety of stainless knife steels like 154CM, Elmax, M390 and others. Rob Ridely and wife Marilyn do a super job and the rates have been very reasonable. They record the hardness on every blade.
 
jdm61 said:
$25 for a single blade is a bit stiff.
Click to expand...

For that $25 they have to "receive" your blade, process your request, heat treat it, test it, package it, ship it and bill it. Most shops couldn't do all that for under $100 without going bankrupt.
 
blackcatt said:
If you were doing it yourself there is no way you could come in under $25 per blade when you take your time into account. The big majority of guys are fooling themselves if they think their work is superior to guys that do this every day all day with vastly better equipment. Shoot they cryo, straighten, and test each blade. I'll continue to send my blades to Peters but I may work in slightly larger batches.
Click to expand...

That's how I feel as well. I'll have to re-run the numbers but when I did the math in the past, I couldn't match their prices in my own shop, even considering $hipping and the fact that I'm not set up for cryo. On a blade or three, yeah, but certainly not on a dozen or more.

I would guess the price increase has to do mostly with energy costs. Can you imagine the utility bill for that place? :eek:
 
I think folks may be underestimating the value of an accurate hardness test. Sure if you're working with 1080 the difference between 58 and 59 may not make a big difference, but with the modern high hardness alloys it is a blessing to have an accurate test value.
 
Everything is going up. In order to survive shops have no choice but to raise prices. The tool and die company I work for just raised the shop rate by 30%. None of the employees will see a pay increase from this, but maybe we will still be employed. I'm blessed to have the equipment to do my own heat treat. I also do heat treat for other makers, to help pay for foil and power. Pieces that are too large for my ovens go to BOS.
 
It's alright with me. The last batch I sent was about 12lbs (40+ knives) and it was just an exhausting blade grinding marathon.

I think this will make me slow down and pay more attention to my work, and keep production flowing for me.

Grinding up to 20lbs of steel to get sent off is just that. Grinding and grinding, and not finishing any knives.

Most knifemakers here can pay for their HT costs at Peters with the sale of just one knife out of the 20 they send.

I think it's still a great deal.
 
blackcatt said:
I think folks may be underestimating the value of an accurate hardness test.
Click to expand...

I agree with you again. It's just not feasible for me to buy and maintain a Rockwell tester at this point; Peters' checks each and every blade for me.

JBS also raises an excellent point; Peters' employs folks just like us who have families to feed.
 
I was a bit confused with the pricing increase at Peter's that I've read about in different posts so I sent Brad an email. Just to clarify if anybody else was confused, here's his response:

"The new pricing is as follows: the 1st 4 blades of the same or similar steel are $25/ea. The 4 blade price of $100 will also cover up to 20 blades. Add $2/ blade over 20 blades. Return shipping is extra.

I hope to get this pricing posted on Knifedogs in a day or so.

Thanks, Brad"


I haven't used them yet as I'm just starting to get back into it. Now, I just need to get to grinding.

Paul
 
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