Production blades

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griego knives

Joined
Mar 10, 2015
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Hello. I am new to blade forum so I don't know if I'm doing this right. I have a knife but I believe I can sell large quantities of. Does anybody know how or who to talk to about getting knife blanks cut Service ground heat-treated bevels Ground and then sent to me for finish work. Thank you.
 
Hey Anthony. I remember selling wood to you on Instagram.

Best place i know of would be to have the blanks water cut, and then ground at Tru Grit.
 
Greenberg Woods said:
Hey Anthony. I remember selling wood to you on Instagram.

Best place i know of would be to have the blanks water cut, and then ground at Tru Grit.
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Does TruGrit do surface grinding and bevel grinding?

Sent from my SM-T310 using Tapatalk
 
What kind of quantities are you thinking? Do you have a rendering of the finished knife? CAD drawings? We'd love to see your design(s).

There are lots of places that can cut blanks for you. Leading Edge Fabrication does some of the best work in the business as far as water jet, though you'll be time and money ahead if you already have a good .dxf/.dwg to work off of.

I'd advise that you get some designs out there and gather some feedback, start building a customer base, factor in every minuscule to major cost, and figure out exactly what each finished and shipped knife will cost you out of pocket before you go much farther. Chances are good that it's going to probably be a little more money (not to mention time) than you think it is.

Have you made any knives before? Outsourced any machining/services before? Do you have the equipment you need to finish a mass quantity of knives and sheaths and do it well? Just want to make sure you know what you're getting into before you tie a significant amount of money and otherwise into something that may or may not end up being profitable for you.
 
I called Trugrit a few months ago about grinding batches of blades and was told very politely, but clearly, that batches were not something the guy did, nor wanted to do.

There are threads on here already where people list places that will grind blades, but MOQ is 200-500. Try searching, it's how I found them before...sorry, don't have the links to hand now.

Regarding business model, John Grimsmo has some good advice on it in his YouTube videos. Basically, don't just come up with a design you like and dive into production. That's a good way to end up with a lot of knives you can't sell. His advice was to create brand and model interest, get your name and face out there, get people hot for the product before you have to commit heavily to manufacture.

Best of luck :)
 
From my personal experience I am not a fan of the waterjet. My experience is that laser is higher quality and a much much cheaper per blank cost. If you have that good of a design it may benefit you to speak with a knife manufacturer. I have heard that some of them build others designs. Usually though it has been someone that already has a name and reputation in the knife industry. I looked up Griego knives and found some images. If those are yours they look very nice. I have only made about 200 knives myself and feel as though I am just starting having only been going a little over a year. I also would be curious to know who if anyone is doing the service you described above.
 
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You could try Two Finger Knife. They're in Idaho Falls, Idaho. I just had them make blanks for 3 designs I did.

The final pieces I got from them were slightly off from my drawings (a little pointier at the guard and butt), but overall I am very pleased with the blanks, and I'll round them when I put the scales on. I did one of each, and it was right about $180 shipped for the 3 (5/32, 1095 steel), but I would guess quantity could bring the price per blade down. Of course, these are for me personally, and I'm not planning on going into mass production, so YMMV.

If you haven't, I would, at minimum, mockup your knife in wood or something (I did a thin type of MDF), so you can get a feel for them in your hand. I drew and mocked up nearly 40 different designs, and these are the only 3 that truly felt right in my hand.

 
What I'm looking for is a company that will cut grind bevels ht and send them to me for finish work. It's an insert for the keybar based on a cleaver I make
 
I have a dxf and I have a guy cutting me blanks. But I can't keep up with the demand. And I do hAve a regular job that takes up alot of my time.
 
griego knives said:
What I'm looking for is a company that will cut grind bevels ht and send them to me for finish work. It's an insert for the keybar based on a cleaver I make
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That's what I had done to the 3 I posted. All I have to do is add the scales.
 
BelnapCustomKnives said:
From my personal experience I am not a fan of the waterjet. My experience is that laser is higher quality and a much much cheaper per blank cost. If you have that good of a design it may benefit you to speak with a knife manufacturer. I have heard that some of them build others designs. Usually though it has been someone that already has a name and reputation in the knife industry. I looked up Griego knives and found some images. If those are yours they look very nice. I have only made about 200 knives myself and feel as though I am just starting having only been going a little over a year. I also would be curious to know who if anyone is doing the service you described above.
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Does the laser not harden the outer edge when its cut? I have had parts laser cut before, much more accurate, but thought knife blanks had to be water jetted to avoid the edge hardening. I'd love to have my blanks laser cut rather than water jet as the the water jet has had good and bad quality lately.
 
brianfive said:
Does the laser not harden the outer edge when its cut? I have had parts laser cut before, much more accurate, but thought knife blanks had to be water jetted to avoid the edge hardening. I'd love to have my blanks laser cut rather than water jet as the the water jet has had good and bad quality lately.
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Hi, The laser will harden the edges to a very small depth. Like just a few thousandths of an inch deep. This hardening is not a problem for my methods of grinding and I think anyone using power sander should not have a problem with it. I emailed Peter's heat treat to see if this localized hardening would be a problem with the heat treatment. They said no that the heat treat process gets hot enough to erase the previous hardening. After having 100 blanks cut by laser I do not see why waterjet is used for this application as the laser quality is so much better and costs in my experience where 20-30% of what the waterjet quote was. For the two profiles I did the smaller one cost $2.53/blank and the big one with lots of skeleton work was $3.80/blank. Waterjet quote for these two were $12.00 and $15.00 per blank with lower quality. Also the waterjet said they would only cut 60 blanks from the plate because they needed the extra metal in the remaining skeleton of the plate to hold it steady against the pressure of the waterjet. The same plate on the laser yielded 71 blanks. That is 11 more knives from the same steel that the waterjet would have wasted. The shop I used had never cut knife blanks so they went on the conservative side at 71. Now that they know the settings to use future runs will be able to yield 79 blanks from the same plate. I don't know about everyone else but the numbers speak for themselves in favor of the laser. If you do any post laser drilling in a hole to bring it to a final size you will need to use a carbide bit because of the hardening of the edge of the hole. But that is hardly a negative.
 
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