holy crap @ BM Rukus scales

hardheart

hardheart

Joined
Sep 19, 2001
Messages
8,968
$65 for ivory micarta replacement scales for the Rukus!?!? Yowza, that's crazy, how much labor is actually involved in shaping those things from a volume producer? I'd figure they'd have cnc doing that.

*at knifecenter
 
hardheart said:
how much labor is actually involved in shaping those things from a volume producer? I'd figure they'd have cnc doing that.
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How many of these scales do you think they are actually making and selling? It may not be a large enough quantity to be mass produced. It's a specialty item. You pay more for specialty items.
 
yeah, but I don't think they need dedicated machinery for it, and the price of micarta even at small quantities doesn't come close to this.
 
hardheart said:
yeah, but I don't think they need dedicated machinery for it, and the price of micarta even at small quantities doesn't come close to this.
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It would not be the machinery or the material, for high costing. It would be the labor to set up the materials, QC it, catalog it, and ship it. That adds up in a hurry, and there is really no way to amortize it.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
 
You're paying for the labor and the skill in making them, plus the low-volume that they sell. They have to make money out of it to be worthwhile. I know you guys wouldn't be shocked at the price of a piece of steel (cost: a few bucks) when it is turned into a fine hand made knife (price: a lot of bucks).
 
Actually I think the Winewood would look nice on my Rukus. They are expensive but it looks like a nice way to personalize your knife, maybe even have a set ingraved.
 
TorzJohnson said:
You're paying for the labor and the skill in making them, plus the low-volume that they sell. They have to make money out of it to be worthwhile.
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I beg to differ. I told my girlfriend - who is a skilled goldsmith - about this product a few hours ago. She would be able to make a pair of nicely contoured, totally handmade scales for the Rukus in silver sterling for that price and she could even make an honest profit. $95 for two pieces of G10? Puh-lease! :rolleyes:
 
Ever see the stories on what a car would cost if you bought the parts as "replacements"? It's several times the cost of the new car WITHOUT the labor to assemble the parts.

There may be a message in a price this high for some plastic ("Go away.")
 
Redguy said:
I beg to differ. I told my girlfriend - who is a skilled goldsmith - about this product a few hours ago. She would be able to make a pair of nicely contoured, totally handmade scales for the Rukus in silver sterling for that price and she could even make an honest profit. $95 for two pieces of G10? Puh-lease! :rolleyes:
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How long would it take her to make them? An hour? Two hours? Or much longer? What if you're paying her $20-30 an hour for her skill to make them. Say it takes her 4 hours and the materials cost her $10. You now have $90-130 invested into the scales. What are you going to sell them for to a dealer? $150? Then shipping costs to the dealer another $5. Then they dealer will want to make some money and could easily mark them up to $200.



So by the time Benchmade gets the materials, pays some skilled laborer to sit and make a pair of scales to detailed specifications, ships them out to their dealers, and the dealers resell them, what exactly do you think they should cost? $20-40? Maybe in China or Mexico...
 
What a cool idea. I hope they offer replacement scales on more of their knives in the future. I personally can't get enough of silver twill g10.

The price IS pretty dang steep. 65 dollars is more than an entire minigrip. It's more than 35% the price of a whole new 610. I rather think that a minigrip cost more to make than half(!) the scale of the Rukus. And I don't think that half the scales of the 610 make up more than 35% of its cost.

But, I still think it's a neat idea and hey, what's money.
 
WadeF said:
How long would it take her to make them? An hour? Two hours? Or much longer? What if you're paying her $20-30 an hour for her skill to make them. Say it takes her 4 hours and the materials cost her $10. You now have $90-130 invested into the scales. What are you going to sell them for to a dealer? $150? Then shipping costs to the dealer another $5. Then they dealer will want to make some money and could easily mark them up to $200.



So by the time Benchmade gets the materials, pays some skilled laborer to sit and make a pair of scales to detailed specifications, ships them out to their dealers, and the dealers resell them, what exactly do you think they should cost? $20-40? Maybe in China or Mexico...
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You are comparing expensive material (silver) made totally by hand with CNC machined plastic.
I would think pricing is about this: $1 material, $10 machining, $5 additional costs (storage, database, added "wrench tool" etc), $5 shipping to dealers. Sums $21. Say you want reasonable profit, therefore $30 would be fair cost.
I wonder what volumes they sell...
 
BTW look here - what is it, that allows protech to made special scales (from more expensive material) and sell them for way less?
 
huugh said:
BTW look here - what is it, that allows protech to made special scales (from more expensive material) and sell them for way less?
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Compare the two simple slabs you linked to, to the precision-shaped slabs for this BM. A flat rectangle cut out of material should cost a lost less than a complicated shape with lots of contours and cutouts.

610b.jpg


cfscalesprotech.jpg
 
I'm still not seeing it. Especially for the silver G10. They use that in other models already, so it's not new material. Heck, they might have too much of this stuff left over from gold class and limited runs and decided to do this. It's still G10, I don't think it matters to the milling machine what color it is. The winewood might need a different bit, but these are cut to the exact same dimensions as the default pieces. Seems it should go right down the line along with the standard stuff.

Did the all CF 690s, silver G10 705s, CF/cherry 730s (don't have the specific #s handy) demand this premium? I can understand the gold class knives, things like the framelock stryker with the fancy anodizing and filework. This is the same scale in other common handle materials. There just doesn't seem to be 'extra' work involved. At least not as much as the price suggests. All the Skirmish variants were priced in the same range, even though they had slightly different requirements.

When I snapped the blade on my 806, they charged me $45 for a replacement 4", BK coated, D2 blade(abuse, no warranty coverage) I got a brand new 806 in the mail for that $45, not just a replaced blade.

I understand things taking on a premium price and bit of prestige thrown in (maap, anyone?). This is just higher than I expect even with that given.
 
TorzJohnson said:
Compare the two simple slabs you linked to, to the precision-shaped slabs for this BM. A flat rectangle cut out of material should cost a lost less than a complicated shape with lots of contours and cutouts.
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Yes shape is more complicated but I don't think CNC machine minds. :)

There is no difference between standard and these "extra" inlays as they are EXACTLY the same shape.

BTW if BM has to invest $90 into inlays on Rukus, I think they would make a great seller of $70 Rukus without any inlays :D
 
hardheart said:
I'm still not seeing it. Especially for the silver G10. They use that in other models already, so it's not new material. Heck, they might have too much of this stuff left over from gold class and limited runs and decided to do this. It's still G10, I don't think it matters to the milling machine what color it is.
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You're right, they're making them on the same line the regular ones are made on. Before, I was thinking it was an aftermarket company that made them, but those scales have a BM part number.

I don't know much about economics, but I also think there's something about the law of supply and demand that applies here; the scales sell at this price, so that's what they charge for them. Like I said, my knowledge of the laws of economics is very limited - maybe Gollnick will come along and go in-depth on the subject.
 
Well, at a very basic level, at a certain price producers are willing to generate X number of product, and consumers are willing to buy Y. If X=Y, then it's called equilibrium price, and people will buy as much as manufacturers produce. Otherwise there is loss for either the producer or consumer. Price ceilings, floors, subsidies, minimum wage, all create loss.

Like with these scales, if BM could make a good profit, then say they'll produce 1000 or whatever. But, if consumers feel it is too high, there may be only 200 people willing to buy at this price. Switch it around, and drop the price, 1000 people may be willing to buy, but BM would only produce 200 because of production expense. My econ class right now deals with international stuff, like tariffs and terms of trade, I can't recall the details of micro ATM
 
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