- Joined
- Oct 2, 1998
- Messages
- 5,461
Well I just got back from Microtech and met with Tony and Al while there. I also took some pics (see below).
First the Bali-Song news.
We worked out the functional design of the knife today, the asthetics will come later but some ideas were discussed.
The knife will have user replacable blades. This serves two puroposes.
Several people have expressed concern that having a user replacable blade will hurt the integrity of the knife. This will NOT be the case with this model. Why? Well, I can't tell you yet
But let's just say that Al and Tony have a solution that has never been done on a production butterfly.
Also there will be NO blade play. Now to do that and still have the knife be "loose" enough to flip, twrill and spin will be a cool trick.
The handles will be Titanium. The first production run will be of a similar finish to the bolster on the LCC. Then we will do a batch in Black Titanium Boride, handles and blade! Now this will be WAY COOL! Then a batch of Damascus and we will have custom versions as well. So stay tuned and I will make an email list to keep consumer informed and I will list ALL dealers who sign up to carry them.
Now the handles will be really cool. Not too much detail here as yet but you will be able to see through the handle. Meaning, no spine! This will reduce weight, make cleaning easier and make it looks ohhh so sexy.
The latch, ahh yes my pet peeve on EVERY BALI I have ever played with. I want a latch on the Bali-Song like most all of you but I also want to be able to remove it if I want. Well problem solved. I ran an idea I had past Al to see it it is workable. It is! First the simple fix is to make the latch removable and reversible by the user at will. We will do this but the details are not clear yet but you will see Torx screws hold the latch and the other handle will also have a dummy screw so visually the symetry is nice.
My other pet peeve is that you mark up the knife by forcing the latch over the side of the handle. Not so here. There will be detents on the inside of the latch. I used my Combat Talon as an example. The slide on the Combat Talon is held in place by a detent. So will the latch on the Bali-Song. Also closing it will still have that distinct snap feel but you will no longer be forcing it over the handle making the latch looser with each use. Burke had a similar idea for the outside of the handle and this gave me the idea for the inside of the latch! Thanks Burke!
The first blade style will be similar to that on the CFO. Others will follow including a double edge Nemisis style blade which I will do a limited run on
Ya Baby!
I will hold off on inserts for now. You guys brought up a good point about dropping the knife and screwing up the inserts and I want to hit my target price.
More later!
Now for pics at Microtech!
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000447.jpg
The above pic is of the model/tooling shop. This is where most all of the R&D is done as well as building tools and jigs that help them build the knives.
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000448.jpg
The above pic is of the CNC machines. These are fun to watch in action. I could not take pics of the inside while they were on because the tooling is much of the magic at Microtech and is a trade secret. But what you would see is a drill head that basically cuts into whatever material while water sprays it to blow away material and keep it cool.
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000449.jpg
Here you see one of the 2 blade grinders in action. A blade is gound in 2 minutes and inside you see a L-UDT blade. One machine does one side and the other the other side speeding things up. The jig the blade is sitting in is also made by Microtech. Unlike most companies, Microtech does a huge percentage of the work in house.
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000450.jpg
Here you see a MT employee setting up the surface grinder. They have two machines and as you can see many blades are done at once. The entire tray slides back and forth while the grinder (The white thingy
) moves down and then remains still.
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000452.jpg
Here Al shows how the Stone Wash is done. Actually in the machine now is a different media which smooths the edges on the blades. In the machine while the pic was taken was 136 blades! Basically the entire media vibrates while the blades move around and get tumled. Just like a brass tumbler but on a much larger scale.
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000453.jpg
Here you see blades on the white card just back from getting laser etched at Anoylaze and some LCC bolsters getting ready for finishing.
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000454.jpg
The ever complex LCC liner!
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000455.jpg
Fresh L-UDT handles!
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000456.jpg
Here an MT employee bead blasts some parts.
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000457.jpg
Tony's hang out! This is the grinder/Sharpening room. The employee here is not sharpening, Tony does that. He is working on some parts.
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000458.jpg
Here you see some special LCC parts and one on top is for John at Cheifs Cutlery
Looks sweet John! Also I got to see the pearl that will be used in some of John's upcomming LCC's, nice!
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000459jpg
Did someone say RaySkin SOCOM Elites?
http://www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000460.jpg
Ahh the mystery CFO handles! Most are Titanium but the lower right (blue) are Aluminum and the top left is stainless (Heavy).
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000461.jpg
Here you will see the birth of the Ultratech. In the pic is a cheapo Nato (K-108), A CF slab and a couple UltraTech unfinished blades. The perforations in the blade is to reduce weight, as is the blood groove.
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000462.jpg
This is the assembly/Order filling area.
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000463.jpg
This is the KICK ASS new lathe they have now. It makes the screws and various other parts that need to be turned.
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000464.jpg
The fruit of the labor! 1998, 1999 & 2000
Congrats!
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000465.jpg
Here are the handles for the new Bali-Song!
This is raw bar Ti.
So for the grammer (Long Day!) and more news later, stay tuned!
------------------
Best Regards,
Mike Turber
BladeForums Site Owner and Administrator
Do it! Do it right! Do it right NOW!
Show Your Support -Visit Our Sponsors - Click On The Banners!
Visit www.onestopknifeshop.com
Sales from 1 Stop Knife Shop help support this site!
First the Bali-Song news.
We worked out the functional design of the knife today, the asthetics will come later but some ideas were discussed.
The knife will have user replacable blades. This serves two puroposes.
- The user can get a different blade shape down the road if wanted without buying an entire new knife.
- The butterfly knife, by design, will dropped more often that any other type of knife. If you break the blade, YOU will be able to replace it, without sending the knife back to us or Microtech.
Several people have expressed concern that having a user replacable blade will hurt the integrity of the knife. This will NOT be the case with this model. Why? Well, I can't tell you yet
Also there will be NO blade play. Now to do that and still have the knife be "loose" enough to flip, twrill and spin will be a cool trick.
The handles will be Titanium. The first production run will be of a similar finish to the bolster on the LCC. Then we will do a batch in Black Titanium Boride, handles and blade! Now this will be WAY COOL! Then a batch of Damascus and we will have custom versions as well. So stay tuned and I will make an email list to keep consumer informed and I will list ALL dealers who sign up to carry them.
Now the handles will be really cool. Not too much detail here as yet but you will be able to see through the handle. Meaning, no spine! This will reduce weight, make cleaning easier and make it looks ohhh so sexy.
The latch, ahh yes my pet peeve on EVERY BALI I have ever played with. I want a latch on the Bali-Song like most all of you but I also want to be able to remove it if I want. Well problem solved. I ran an idea I had past Al to see it it is workable. It is! First the simple fix is to make the latch removable and reversible by the user at will. We will do this but the details are not clear yet but you will see Torx screws hold the latch and the other handle will also have a dummy screw so visually the symetry is nice.
My other pet peeve is that you mark up the knife by forcing the latch over the side of the handle. Not so here. There will be detents on the inside of the latch. I used my Combat Talon as an example. The slide on the Combat Talon is held in place by a detent. So will the latch on the Bali-Song. Also closing it will still have that distinct snap feel but you will no longer be forcing it over the handle making the latch looser with each use. Burke had a similar idea for the outside of the handle and this gave me the idea for the inside of the latch! Thanks Burke!
The first blade style will be similar to that on the CFO. Others will follow including a double edge Nemisis style blade which I will do a limited run on
I will hold off on inserts for now. You guys brought up a good point about dropping the knife and screwing up the inserts and I want to hit my target price.
More later!
Now for pics at Microtech!
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000447.jpg
The above pic is of the model/tooling shop. This is where most all of the R&D is done as well as building tools and jigs that help them build the knives.
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000448.jpg
The above pic is of the CNC machines. These are fun to watch in action. I could not take pics of the inside while they were on because the tooling is much of the magic at Microtech and is a trade secret. But what you would see is a drill head that basically cuts into whatever material while water sprays it to blow away material and keep it cool.
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000449.jpg
Here you see one of the 2 blade grinders in action. A blade is gound in 2 minutes and inside you see a L-UDT blade. One machine does one side and the other the other side speeding things up. The jig the blade is sitting in is also made by Microtech. Unlike most companies, Microtech does a huge percentage of the work in house.
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000450.jpg
Here you see a MT employee setting up the surface grinder. They have two machines and as you can see many blades are done at once. The entire tray slides back and forth while the grinder (The white thingy
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000452.jpg
Here Al shows how the Stone Wash is done. Actually in the machine now is a different media which smooths the edges on the blades. In the machine while the pic was taken was 136 blades! Basically the entire media vibrates while the blades move around and get tumled. Just like a brass tumbler but on a much larger scale.
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000453.jpg
Here you see blades on the white card just back from getting laser etched at Anoylaze and some LCC bolsters getting ready for finishing.
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000454.jpg
The ever complex LCC liner!
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000455.jpg
Fresh L-UDT handles!
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000456.jpg
Here an MT employee bead blasts some parts.
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000457.jpg
Tony's hang out! This is the grinder/Sharpening room. The employee here is not sharpening, Tony does that. He is working on some parts.
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000458.jpg
Here you see some special LCC parts and one on top is for John at Cheifs Cutlery
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000459jpg
Did someone say RaySkin SOCOM Elites?
http://www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000460.jpg
Ahh the mystery CFO handles! Most are Titanium but the lower right (blue) are Aluminum and the top left is stainless (Heavy).
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000461.jpg
Here you will see the birth of the Ultratech. In the pic is a cheapo Nato (K-108), A CF slab and a couple UltraTech unfinished blades. The perforations in the blade is to reduce weight, as is the blood groove.
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000462.jpg
This is the assembly/Order filling area.
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000463.jpg
This is the KICK ASS new lathe they have now. It makes the screws and various other parts that need to be turned.
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000464.jpg
The fruit of the labor! 1998, 1999 & 2000
Congrats!
www.wowinc.com/mt/P0000465.jpg
Here are the handles for the new Bali-Song!
This is raw bar Ti.
So for the grammer (Long Day!) and more news later, stay tuned!
------------------
Best Regards,
Mike Turber
BladeForums Site Owner and Administrator
Do it! Do it right! Do it right NOW!
Show Your Support -Visit Our Sponsors - Click On The Banners!
Visit www.onestopknifeshop.com
Sales from 1 Stop Knife Shop help support this site!
