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MicronKnives

MicronKnives

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Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
Joined
Sep 9, 2024
Messages
69
Starting a knife manufacturing business ain't easy. Let's discuss what you'd like to see! Tell me anything. What do you look for in a knife. What was your last/next knife? How important is a lifetime warranty or lifetime sharpening to you? Do you focus on material, design, aesthetic, company name, research and development, testing, social media content, or anything else when choosing to buy a knife? Do you like leather or kydex, or both? Are you brand loyal, or do you buy what you need to fill the void in your collection? How important is packaging and trinkets when you receive your knife? Do you want to see innovation, or refinement of an established style? Tell me what you think I should know, and what is important to you.

For some background, our first knife will not be based on market research. I am making what I want to see made well. A do-everything leave-anywhere fixed blade. ~8" drop point, mid hollow sabre grind, magnacut 63-64. Including a kydex sheath with mounts for aftermarket clips. Removable g10/micarta/titanium scales with custom hardware for lightweight backpacking. Our background is precision machining, we are going to make everything!
 
I like useful knives for both EDC and outdoors. I have a few makers that I plan to stick with for as long as possible because they make fantastic knives and are great to deal with. I do not care about sharpening services. I have never needed warranty work on a knife, but I also know my favorite makers stand behind them. I like Micarta and dislike carbon fiber that I have held. I dislike metal scales as they are cold and slippery in snow/rain. I care about performance, fit & finish and handle ergonomics. Kydex is great for so many things, but a great leather sheath is awesome (classy and quiet). I do like nice packaging- and a note about the knife is always appreciated. Social media (other than photos) I don’t care much about.

Best of luck on your venture. Your first knife sounds interesting.
 
beeinak said:
I like useful knives for both EDC and outdoors. I have a few makers that I plan to stick with for as long as possible because they make fantastic knives and are great to deal with. I do not care about sharpening services. I have never needed warranty work on a knife, but I also know my favorite makers stand behind them. I like Micarta and dislike carbon fiber that I have held. I dislike metal scales as they are cold and slippery in snow/rain. I care about performance, fit & finish and handle ergonomics. Kydex is great for so many things, but a great leather sheath is awesome (classy and quiet). I do like nice packaging- and a note about the knife is always appreciated. Social media (other than photos) I don’t care much about.

Best of luck on your venture. Your first knife sounds interesting.
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Fantastic! Thanks for the info!
 
Maximumbob54 said:
I like to see an offer for no jimping on the spine. If all I see is jimping I move along.
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Ohh that's a bit hard only cause that's how I was going to hold the blade in the sheath... I'll have to think about this one. Thanks for the response though!
 
Hi Jack,
For some of the newer people stopping by your sub-forum I thought a pic (repost) of the person behind the operation would be nice.


1000004105-jpg.2759665


I've never owned a knife from ... And I don't expect I will as there are too many other fine knife makers and knife companies out there. I just pass over them when they come up for sale on the secondary market.

I have followed another small family operated machinist knife maker (NTM) who has a sub-forum here on BF.

As for feedback regarding your future offerings:
Cutting performance and blade durability along with excellent fit/finish. Handle ergos/design that can work well with various hand sizes. I think the value should be concentrated in the knife itself: Steel, HT, good design and functional simple scale offerings like G10 or canvas/burlap micarta scales and a nice functional kydex sheath. Simple plain packaging is fine. I don't see the need for trinkets, perhaps a small card showing the model and specs. Regarding warranty I would expect that you would stand behind your offerings but not necessarily cover for something like intentional knife abuse. In time as your business grows you could expand upon scale offerings, possibly wood scales and maybe leather sheaths. I guess the whole dealer/retail venue(s) should be looked at sometime down the road as It is probably better to start off by selling direct here at BF, and your upcoming website. Also maybe exhibit at the BladeShow and use Instagram via a link back to your website.

I'm curious to see your first design...
"I am making what I want to see made well. A do-everything leave-anywhere fixed blade.
~8" drop point, mid hollow sabre grind, magnacut 63-64.
Including a kydex sheath with mounts for aftermarket clips.
Removable g10/micarta scales with custom hardware for lightweight backpacking."
 
PolRoger said:
Hi Jack,
For some of the newer people stopping by your sub-forum I thought a pic (repost) of the person behind the operation would be nice.


1000004105-jpg.2759665


I've never owned a knife from ... And I don't expect I will as there are too many other fine knife makers and knife companies out there. I just pass over them when they come up for sale on the secondary market.

I have followed another small family operated machinist knife maker (NTM) who has a sub-forum here on BF.

As for feedback regarding your future offerings:
Cutting performance and blade durability along with excellent fit/finish. Handle ergos/design that can work well with various hand sizes. I think the value should be concentrated in the knife itself: Steel, HT, good design and functional simple scale offerings like G10 or canvas/burlap micarta scales and a nice functional kydex sheath. Simple plain packaging is fine. I don't see the need for trinkets, perhaps a small card showing the model and specs. Regarding warranty I would expect that you would stand behind your offerings but not necessarily cover for something like intentional knife abuse. In time as your business grows you could expand upon scale offerings, possibly wood scales and maybe leather sheaths. I guess the whole dealer/retail venue(s) should be looked at sometime down the road as It is probably better to start off by selling direct here at BF, and your upcoming website. Also maybe exhibit at the BladeShow and use Instagram via a link back to your website.

I'm curious to see your first design...
"I am making what I want to see made well. A do-everything leave-anywhere fixed blade.
~8" drop point, mid hollow sabre grind, magnacut 63-64.
Including a kydex sheath with mounts for aftermarket clips.
Removable g10/micarta scales with custom hardware for lightweight backpacking."
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Thanks for following along, and thanks for the input! The pa outdoor show is right down the road from us, so that'll definitely be in the future. I'll also follow NTM.

Im hopeful that the website and socials work well to get our name out there, as showing up to bladeshow and the PA outdoor show would be awesome with some meetings set up.

Thanks again for the input!
 
The True North said:
FOCUS on providing a quality, well thought out, practical, and attractive sheath.

A knife is worthless without a GOOD carry method.
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It seems easy... Quickly walking back this thought as I dont think I'll have the time to do it right. This and the heat treat may need to be outsourced.

My CCW is a half leather half kydex which is phenomenal. I thought knives would greatly benefit from this, but it'll be a while till I can prototype one and play around.
 
Handle ergonomics (in my opinion the #1 factor of importance), good heat treating, durability, and value are key factors in my mind to develop a good following. I don't need the latest and greatest, but good heat treating to get the most out of the steel type you use matters. I like well balanced steels for utility EDC blades.

Micarta, TeroTuf, and wood are my choices of handle material for fixed blades. I don't mind Ti scales on folders, but I have to say I prefer micarta or wood inlays even on Ti folders. If it's a heavy use knife micarta is my personal preference on any knife.

For me a sharpening service has no bearing on my purchases personally as I think everyone who carries a knife should learn how to put at least a good working edge on a knife. A good functional sheath for a fixed blade is a must in my opinion. Kydex on the value/functional side offering an option for drop loop/other carry options minimum. If you use nice wood handle scales on fixed blades leather is a big bonus.

I tend to be very brand loyal when I find quality in a product and good people to deal with. In this day and age transparency and honesty go a long way for me also.

Blade Forums and a couple other forums are my extent of social media use so that isn't a factor for me personally. Good packaging for shipping is important in my book, but I don't need a lot of fluff or trinkets that add to the bottom line.

Standing behind your product is what insures the loyalty and keeps customers coming back.

Best of luck with your new business.
 
I made the comment about jimping on the spine. I would like to add to that, thumb ramps. I know some people like/love both features. I am not those people.
 
The True North said:
Inversely, I basically won't buy a fixed blade without jimping and thumb ramps.

Can't please us all.
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Maximumbob54 said:
You, sir, are one of "those" people... ;)
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Healthy discussion is productive... Now start fighting

I could go either way, but I do love a thumb ramp. It one of those things that's hard to design in a unique way, especially on a smaller EDC. We shall see. More 3d printing and clay modeling and foam cutting to do
 
Outsourcing heat treating is a good idea. To do it right is time consuming! I outsourced it previously, but now that I built my own oven, I am doing most of it myself. It takes time to heat up my oven (only 1 240v outlet in the shop, so I can't use my belt sander if I am using the oven), but I can do a handful of blades at a time instead of waiting until I have a big batch to go out. If I have a lot of blades to do, I will still send them out. For me to go through the heat treat, cryo and tempering cycles, it takes up most of 2 shop days for me. 3 hours to get the oven to stainless temps and to stabilize, figure around an hour of cycling a few blades at a time (aluminum plates, I can usually do 2 at a time for my small plates, 3 at a time for my long plates), then an hour soak in cryo, then I try to let them warm up for 30-60 minutes before the first snap temper in the kitchen oven in the low 300 degree range. I HRC after the first temper and then work up the tempering temps until I am at the HRC I want. Day 2 is usually all of the tempering cycles to dial in the HT, so I can at least get some grinding and stuff done that day since I temper in the kitchen oven, but monitor with digital thermometers.

If I am doing thermocycling, DET annealing, etc for forged stuff, that adds a lot of time to the process, sometimes a full day if I am doing multiple steels!! Same with doing stainless and carbon on the same day!

Bos Heat Treating at Buck Knives and Peters Heat Treating are both very good and great pricing when dealing in quantity! Peters is even in Pennsylvania, too!
 
MicronKnives said:
It seems easy... Quickly walking back this thought as I dont think I'll have the time to do it right. This and the heat treat may need to be outsourced.

My CCW is a half leather half kydex which is phenomenal. I thought knives would greatly benefit from this, but it'll be a while till I can prototype one and play around.
Click to expand...
C. Pirtle makes combo sheaths.
 
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