Forming blades shapes at Buck?

[pinnah]

What sort of process does Buck use to create different blade shapes (particularly with 420HC)?

Is 420HC soft enough to be stamped and does this allow Buck to stamp out blades? Are blades forged to shape? Either way, does this mean that every new or old blade shape requires new tooling for the stamping?

Or, are blade blanks being cut using some variation of CNC processing?

The real question I'm getting at is how expensive is it for Buck to change blade shapes?

 

[heng em]

Most blades that we produce in 420HC are fine blanked. We do laser cut some 420HC, but it is usually because that knife is not driving much volume. So it really depends on the volume of said product that determines what route is used.
Tooling for high volume products....Yes tooling is expensive!
Laser cut for low volume products....

 

[pinnah]

Heng Em,

Thanks for the response. It's very very helpful.

Last question... when a blade shape like, say, the older Bucklite 442 disappears from the catalog, is it safe to assume that the tooling is past it's useful age or otherwise no longer available for use? That is, does the revival of older blade profiles generally require re-tooling costs?

Thanks again for the information. Really helpful!

 

[Plumberdv]

Most blades that we produce in 420HC are fine blanked. We do laser cut some 420HC, but it is usually because that knife is not driving much volume. So it really depends on the volume of said product that determines what route is used.
Tooling for high volume products....Yes tooling is expensive!
Laser cut for low volume products....

Thanks for the info Caleb.

 

[heng em]

Last question... when a blade shape like, say, the older Bucklite 442 disappears from the catalog, is it safe to assume that the tooling is past it's useful age or otherwise no longer available for use? That is, does the revival of older blade profiles generally require re-tooling costs?

Most of the tooling is archived...
The tooling usually does not wear out as fast as the sales for said knife that has been discontinued.