Thinking about getting some knives manufactured overseas.

I'll be real honest here :
Have you sold more than 20 of these yet?
Do you have orders for more of them.
How many orders??? 10-100-1000?

These are real questions when considering making a commercial product. Lots of guys think they can make money on selling a line of knives. They may have a few fiends that say they would buy one. But you need customers every week, maybe every day to make any money at it. If you don't see a clear path to selling more than 100 a year, don't go the overseas manufacturer route.

I would suggest that if you want to try this, have 20 blade blanks and scale sets waterjet cut. Send the blades to Peters for HT. Have one of the USA shops that do commercial blade grinding grind the bevels and sharpen the blades. They probably will be able to assemble the handles, but that can be done by another person if needed. If all 20 sell within a reasonable time period, then order a couple hundred from overseas. Now, if your overseas guy is willing to do a small order of 20 pieces, that would be a wise test batch.

If you plan on selling them in any financially gainful way you will probably have to take out ads in sports and knife magazines.
Also, before even starting this venture, you should get all the business licenses, tax numbers, etc. needed to be legit. If you start importing you will be scrutinized.
 
I'm usually not one for Blade/handle Ratio but this looks really disproportionate. That said it looks ergonomic, but that also makes it kinda ugly to me.

I don't think that you can only sell it for 40$ or so, chinese quality certainly is there if you're willing to pay for it.

That all in mind: I'd 3D model and 3D print before I even thinking about getting in touch with a manufacturer
 
To be honest I doubt a knife in these config would even able to sold at $100 in knifemaker sell forum ...
 
There are only a couple of successful "knife designers" that I know of, who weren't already well known makers. If I'm not mistaken, they had hundreds of designs under their belt before they finally gained the interest of a big name company, and their designs were either very unique, or very innovative. There are perhaps a couple of makers besides, who seeming came out of no where and garnered nearly an overnight following, but again, their designs were quite unique/innovative, and they had some bigger names throwing their smaller names out there.

As for the price points, I'm sure you can get a bit more than the previously estimated $40-$50, if they're in fact going to be made from m390, or s35vn. Everybody seems to be going @pe$hit over these steels at the moment, so you'll have that going for you. Make them into titanium framelock flippers with bearings, and they'll probably sell themselves. :rolleyes:

Just make sure you're actually getting m390 or s35vn, and not some Chinese "equivalent" and make sure the heat treat is up to snuff. I've seen a few imports in those steels fail cutting tests in pretty short order.

And definitely listen to the advise on a prototype, even just a basic one. You're not just checking the fit and finish, but heat treat too.
 
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