where to source a production run?

C

Command45

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Oct 25, 2010
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I havent made a knife myself, but have great admiration and respect for the craft. I have a large group of associates trying to source a small custom production run of about x200 folding knives. Does it make more sense for me to attempt doing this in the US or approaching an overseas manufacturer (the quality we want is mid to higher level like Benchmade or Ken Onion, so no China knives). If anyone has had some experience with this and/or would like to share valuable leads (maybe in exchange for finished knife :)) Feel free to PM me and exchange emails if that works better for you. Thanks in advance!
 
You won't find a company in China or Taiwan that will be interested in doing a 200 pc run. Are you wanting these knives to be made and assembled ? Will you be doing any warranty work on them if necessary? Sharpening yourself ? Or are you looking for more of a complete turn key product . Do you have CAD drawings?
I would recommend Halpern Titanium , or Slater Machine . Both are good guys. I do some mid tech parts for some folks but am pretty busy. You will also need to find a blade grinder as most part suppliers here in the USA don't grind blades . For that I would recommend Greg Larkin.
 
If you have not built a knife yet you really need to get some vendors that have knife experience. I do rapid prototypical design for some in the knife industry, Mostly taking drawings and converting them into 3d files using appropriate pivots, screws etc. and providing a plastic prototype (printed from a rapid prototyper)
If you dont have a prototype yet, a guy like me is the first guy you need to find. If you have a prototype and or cad files then next you need to line up water jet cutting for scales, frames and blades and a good machine shop to machine your components.
I second the Halpern guys for the stock and cutting of the stock (Water jet cutting). We have a pretty good machine shop here that does most of our knife parts. Excluding the knife grinding if you want it hollow ground. We mostly do a flat ground on the milling machine.
PS I too am pretty backed up as this is just a part time gig, but I am sure if you ask around there are probably many full time mechanical engineers willing to do a job like this.
 
Wow humbled that you would reply to my post. Thank you Ken and Blindhogg. We do have a concept but before doing the actual knife design I'm trying to gauge feasibility so knowing my min order is too small I'm going to check those shops and report back
 
Update: The purpose of this production is to attempt reproduction of a higher quality custom knife at increased quantities and thus a lower per unit price. The custom details maybe filework, exotic scales, assisted opening. Right now I am assessing the investment with rough price quotes. China does require atleast x1000 units at roughly $10per unit for a damascus blade or AUS80 and still unsure of actual quality. Also, you do need the cad assembly file to get accurate pricing from the USA machine shops but guessing the investments going to be similar near the 10k mark for x200 knives (about $50per unit). Next thing will be identifying materials needed.
 
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