how to become a knife maker?

n problem and i do appreciate the advice.thats what im looking for,everyones point of view.this has been a long time thing that i have wanted to try.i wanted to get you guys opinions as to if it is do-able or just a dream.
 
Here is what I would do if I were you. Find a knifemaker who can and will make for you a couple of each knife design that you want to produce. Have them made and then have them tested in say a pass around or by a knife reviewer. The pass around is something that forum guys do. They pass a knife around and all review it. After it has been reviewed and hopefully built some kind of good reputation have some made in small production. If no one likes the knives then design new ones or alter the designs based on the likes and dislikes, to some degree, of those that have had a chance to test and handle the knives.

Heres some questions for you. what type of steel are you planning on using? what type of handle material? what kind of fasteners, blots, screws, pins? what Rc are you planning? what kind of bevels flat hollow convex?

some reasons you should know what goes into making a knife are; Can it be made? can it be made within the budget? If you outsource or make them yourself you may well miss steps leaving you with expensive but worthless knife like objects. You will either have to learn all the steps yourself or hire a knifemaker who knows how.

Finally a water jet is the least of your worries or should be. To be honest it sounds like the cart got before the horse. You will need some one that knows how to make knives involved........
 
I think that the one knife is a good idea, even if the knife has a non completed finish or a simpler steel it will still be a working prototype.

Do you have a market that you are aiming for ie: collectors, hard-use/military, bushcraft/camping, hunters?
 
I have a friend who is starting out in the business. He's a great grinder and has a knack for design. He's ramping up to go from ones and twos to small series production. The type of knife he's trying to make and sell for ~$150+ is a hunter in CPM 3V steel (stock removal). He may eventually outsource cutting his blanks and he already has two sources for heat treat, the rest is all done by hand. The reason he will be able to sell that knife is it's made with one of the best steels available, the workmanship is far more than adequate, the design is nice and it's also a bit exclusive, he thinks he might be able to sell a few dozen in a year.

I think he's talented enough to make it as a knife maker. If he can get over the hump from small production to quiting his day job and selling hundreds of knives a year, I'll be very happy for him.

If you've never used a grinder or turned the handles on a mill, I think your present plan is almost certainly doomed to failure. You're going to get ripped off at every corner and you won't even see it happening.

My advice is if you don't want to get your hands dirty, find a small time maker who will. Get him to make your prototypes, then refine your designs until they perform well and start selling a few at shows. If one of them sells well, then you can look at automation and mass production. This approach will need money, the prototypes are not going to be especially cheap but it will certainly be cheaper than buying a water jet cutter without a workable plan.

Another alternative is to get a job at that cutlery company. It would probably be easier to get a knife made from inside and if you are really serious you could see what it takes to run a professional knife manufacturing facility.

There are very few people who can sit down with a pen and paper and make money. Most of them are lawyers (I'm going to send my kids to law school).
 
Andy - I'll be at the show and at Alan's table. Hope to catch you around for sure.

OP: hope you find whatever it is you're looking for. I don't know your situation, but I don't know a lot of folks who are serious about making knives or starting businesses who've done so little research before posting an open ended question. I can see why some posts may have insulted you, but one or two people might have been offended that you did virtually no research and asked such a broad stroked question without accurately describing your situation or intent.

Maybe you've got millions to burn and you just don't think on the same level that us working class folks do. I sure would like to be able to burn the cash on a waterjet without knowing what to do with it.
 
To answer your question:

Flow International provides training and tech support. They actually have a week-long training seminar (at your expense).

For basic cut-from-sheet jobs, the hard(est) part is drawing the CAD file. From the CAD file, you make the "path" file; as in cutting path. This is all done on a computer.

From that point on, you load the file at the machine, set the material and thickness, clamp down the material and run the parts. The interface at the the machine is another computer; you're pressing QWERTY buttons and clicking a mouse to operate the machine.

Things get more complicated when you are trying to cut a new feature (on an existing part) that is located in reference to an existing feature. Then you have to find and set homes (the 0,0 position).

It's LOT more straightforward and fool-proof than a laser.
 
Pat, you forgot to mention all of the fun expenses like nozzle, orfices, abrasive and rebuilding the pump. Maintenance is never ending. Cleaning is a must every day. Then the fun really starts when you plug a nozzle or break one. The CAD part is the fun part for me. Heck, I've got over 10K just in software to run the thing. Hope I never need a service call $$$$$$$$.:D
 
There's a lot of stuff already in this thread, a few ways for you to get started, and a lot more roadblocks that might be in the way.

To address your original question, the cheapest way to access a waterjet cutter might be to find a college or technical school that has one and offers classes. Cost could range for a few hundred for a single class, or $10,000+ if you have to enroll. Keep in mind you'd likely need to familiarize yourself with CAD (which you may already know, depending on how you did your designs).

If you're a tinkerer and want to get your hands dirty, you could consider building a water jet cutter. It's non-trivial - you'd probably need an engineering background, a well-equipped shop, and some specialty parts. Also, I don't know of any internet tutorials, plans, or how-to guides, so you'd have to work a little blind (hence the engineering background). Building all of your knives with hand tools would certainly be faster and cheaper. Your time investment might pay off somewhere in the neighborhood of a few thousand blades (i.e. you could make a thousand knives by hand in the time it would take you to build a waterjet and then use it to make a thousand knives).

If you just want to see your design made, finding a willing maker and sending him a sketch would be the quickest way. It would probably run you a few hundred bucks, and be money well spent - then you could figure out if the blade looks right, feels right in the hand, etc. Prototyping is ALWAYS a good idea. Of course, you could do the shaping yourself, either for a fully-finished knife, or a soft-steel dummy model to get the lines right. If the prototype works out, you could outsource a few hundred waterjet blanks, outsource the grinding, outsource the heat treat, etc. However, on the scale you're talking (a few hundred blades per year), most makers do much of the work themselves, and still don't make huge amounts of money doing it. Outsourcing adds cost (in labor and shipping), so you'll have to charge more to make a profit. If you choose this route, you'll need a good business plan so you don't loose your shirt.

Penultimate option is giving a company a design, and letting them do everything. This could either be a "custom collaboration" - it's a Spyderco or Kershaw or Boker or Whatever with the design attributed to you, or the shop puts your name on it (A.G. Russell comes to mind). In the first case, you might be dealing with company structure in the U.S. (president, VP, whoever). In the second case, you'll likely need to travel overseas or have an intermediary who sets things up, and you'll also have to pay for prototyping, tooling, and materials, among other things. If you go this route, be careful with your designs - many less-reputable companies and overseas factories have pirated the designs of successful knifemakers. If you start mailing pictures around without signed contracts, you may see your design show up on the $5 flea market table with no mention of you and no money in your pocket.

Last option would be to get a copy of Goddard's $50 knife shop, adjust for inflation, and scrounge up some tools. You could probably have one serviceable knife in a month, and you'd be better at the "old school" tasks. Guys have suggested this because it's the quickest, easiest way for the average person to make a knife. The modern, technical way is certainly possible, but you need to add a few more zeros to the bankroll.

Regardless of which path you choose, you're going to learn something. Good luck finding a way to make this happen.
 
While your dreaming away you should research CNC Wire EDM, and multi axis robotic hollow grinding robots and oh a location to house all this fun stuff. AND learn to call people and mentors by more appropriate titles than "you guys"


Good Luck
 
:confused:man this thread is too much to read.

I understand what you're looking to do. you don't want work on one off customs.

you want a few designs you can blueprint up have made

you could look into companies like kershaw, or topps knives. they use designs by people who don't even make knives, they're just designers.

thats open. i think the set up of mass produced knives can be done on a ny scale depending on teh cash you have. some people go for stuff like tops knives.... some companies have design waterkjet cut and market them as mid tech by having them finished and ground Hted etc by custom makers and heat treat companies like hide away knives did (does?)it's a good way to have custom makers little groupies buy into the knives.

then you have guys like tom krein that i believe has someone waterjet a couple gozillion knives and he grind em all out and finishes them at a production rate. with a finished custom knife at rapid speed.

so basically you need to figure in money and humans or machines. i dont know
 
I will chime in with some business advice.
I regularly work with pattern making for production pieces of jewelery. The first 100 pieces will cost about the same as the next 1000 (in many cases the next 10,000). The set-up costs, design work, and manufacturing of a prototype can be very high. A knife is not a two-dimensional thing that can be water jet cut out, have a plastic handle stuck on, and shipped out. It requires many steps and processes. Most of these steps you don't understand yet. Take some time to do the necessary background work and learning.

Research knife making - stock removal is what you are talking about- and the entire process of heat treatment, steel metallurgy and use/function,handle material and fastening, etc.

That will give you an idea to start from.

You will need to explore the entire copy rite/patent thing,incorporation, business licenses,corporate taxes,business property tax,marketing,advertising,etc.
From what you have said so far, it appears you will need to invest from $10,000 to $1,000,000+ to get started. That is not including the startup of a physical presence, which can cost as much again, depending on what size plant you start with.

Finally, If it is a knife design that can be water jet cut (just a knife shape, not an innovative lock or opening device), it is unlikely that it isn't already being made in China ( or somewhere else) in a $100,000,000 factory, with all the technology that modern metallurgy and computer science can provide.
Even if your knife is the very first of its kind (again, unlikely) it will be copied soon, and be made overseas for a fraction of what you are making them for. Unless you have everything down right, and a huge (maybe many millions) bankroll to protect your design, you will be selling them for way more than the importers.

Another thing that will help with answers on this forum,is filling out your profile.
Stacy
 
The Discovery Channel,How its made,had a segment about production knives being made.Might be worth watching.Also,I have worked alone,and employed 50 people,and either way,the only way to make it is hard work.You cant get around the hard work part.Chad
 
thanks everyone.i learned a lot. i see now that in order to attempt this i will have to first have an example of my designs made and then. see if i can get a factory to produce them for me at a reasonable price so that i can resell them.lucky for me i live very close to a couple of big cutlery companys.and the times being as they are perhaps i can get some reasonable estimates for a run or two.i know ne of the factories does contract work. i actually have a couple of their bayonets and they seem quite well made and durable.
 
Sir,
Earlier in this thread you said you wanted to retail your knives for between $150 and $200 dollars. A local machine shop that specializes in tool and die makes knives on the side, they have all the equipment, metal, skills, workers ect. already on site, and still cannot MAKE their knives for that much. and end up retailing them for considerably more than that. talking to the owner of the shop, I asked him if he planned on producing a folding knife. He said it would cost too much, and end up being over $500 per knife for the end consumer. This guy makes the knives in small batches, all by machine, and they are semi-production. (IE: several models of knives, all made identical)
I like the idea of having a few prototypes made up, to give you an idea of how they will work out for ya. Keep working at it, you just might make a go of it.
Jeff W.
Circle J Knives
 
yoz's friend said:
i live a couple of miles away from a cutlery company that used to do gvt contracts bayonets, fighting knives etc.im thinking of approaching them to make a small run. say 100 of my design and sell them thru a website ala swamprat,scrapyard etc...probably more like scrapyard. see if they sell.i have a couple of designs i think are pretty cool. im just thrwing this out there to you guys for your imput and suggestions.thanks.
Click to expand...

Look I kind of went off on you but you were a little insulting. I have been down the combat knives route. Thats pretty much all I make anymore because of my clientel base. I tried a few years back to approach a mass producer. When these guys say it's all been done before it's true. I thought I had been making a unique knife for a few years. When I approached this producer he took designs out of a drawer and after flipping though them for a while came up with the design I had. It's all been done before!
I am not saying that you can't curve your handle a certain way or the blade a certain way. But there is a reason that the most popular designs are popular, they work.
The most you can hope for is that the guy doesn't steal your design, if it is unique, and tell you to walk. That world is very competitive. Ask yourself why they would buy a knife from you when they are already heavily set up to produce their own knives? Especially if they have government contracts.
I am sorry to say this but the guys here are trying to help you even if what we say doesn't exactly fit into your plans.
My suggestion to you is, if you have all this money to burn, go and buy some simple tools and make a knife. Find out if you have the gift to turn out quality blades before you go all hog wild and make a 100k purchase that you may not ever recoup.
The truth of the matter is something has to give when you are mass producing knives. You have to pay off your equipment and make a living at the same time. Your quality will eventually go down to produce more knives at a faster pace to be able to make ends meet. If your customer base is like me, you will lose them fast, because no one wants a blade that won't perform or keep an edge. Have you worked out how you will heat treat, grind the bevels, etch, polish, make the handles, bolsters, fittings, and sheath? These are things you can't do with a water jet.
I wish you all the luck in the world but I think you are putting the cart before the horse.
 
Here's what I'd do:
Have a custom maker make a couple prototypes,get a table at a knife show. Not to sell but to get opinions. Know your product,blade steel, tempering, handle materials, Have maybe a video set-up showing how your knives perform.
Listen to your perspective customers. Take notes. These are the people that will make or break your company.
This research will be priceless,
 
Something that I don't think has been mentioned yet, and to me would be the most important thing, is interest. If you are getting a loan, or someone is getting it for you, the interest starts ticking right away. It's very easy to fall behind. The payment on a 5 year, 14%, $50,000 loan is around $1,100 a month. Not trying to discourage you, but if you haven't had loans before, they tend to take more out of the business than may be first realized.

I would strongly suggest learning everything you can about running a small to medium sized business along with knifemaking skills.
 
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