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JTknives

JTknives

Joined
Jun 11, 2006
Messages
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As most of you know we provide a heat treated blade blank service To our customers “you”. I’m always looking for ways to grow and add more value to the service we provide. I am currently looking at the possibility of offering the service of etching/engraving simple names and logos onto the blades pre heat treat. I know in the past we have gotten requests to use makers stamps on their blades before the heat treat which we are happy to do. But this requires them to send us their stamp.

With the new upgrade we would be able to simply type in the name you want and select the font or upload a simple graphic. Load the blade in the machine and engrave said name into the blade. This idea started as a simple way for us to serialize each blade (on the tang) that we process so it is easily tracked.

With the rate we are growing we are having to shift again to a more streamlined system. This will include batching up like alloys that are the same as the next blade in line. Up to this point each order was done to completion in the order of oldest to newest. With this new change we will hopefully be able to increase throughput which we hope will decrease lead time. But the days of heating the oven to x temp to heat one blade and then adjust the temp for the next blade are done.

Another item we are looking at heavily is an extreme make over of the website. Our service provider has been good to us but we have reached the tipping point on what we can get it to do. We have already had to get creative to get the pricing structure to work. The option is to pay them $ to program custom plugins or pay $ to have our own site built. So in the end this should not affect your use of our site besides making ordering easier. A lot of people like our ordering system but some have a hard time with it. We agree it’s not up to our standards for what we want to provide.

We are always looking for ideas to help us improve our service to you our friends. If you have any ideas on my above comments or anything else please let me know here on this post. I look forward to any ideas you guys have.
 
1. Stamps
Great idea on the engraving. About how deep are we talking? I usually end up grinding quite a bit after HT. That could be changed though. How simple is simple? IE the logo in my profile pic.

2. Growth/Streamlining
I can't speak for the larger makers here, but you guys turned around 20 blades in roughly 4 weeks for me. That's pretty fast imo. Can't be a bad thing to get even faster.

3. Website
An efficient website is extremely important. You'll never lose business for having a well designed website. I think it'll pay off for sure.

That's my 2 cents.
 
On your choice between custom add-ons and a completely new website, you will be happier with a new website in the long run. However a custom built website can get expensive real quick. Is your current provider capable of that? Or will you need to find a new host? Lots of things to consider when building a site from scratch.
 
Etching would be nice, but I do most of my grinding post HT, especially on thinner blades so they won't warp, so it may disappear depending on grind/placement, etc. I like the website. I've been playing with the HT page trying to figure out a batch of stuff to send. I have blanks I am working on in Alabama Damascus (4), S35VN (5), 50100, 5160 (3-4 maybe?), Elmax(4-5), AEB-L and 1095 so far. Such a mix and it's nice to find a place I can send a mix of blade/steels to!
 
The etching will be quite deep. Laser is out of the question for the depth we want so there are a few other options but wanting to be around the depth of a cold stamp.
 
Hmmm. Maybe do something where it could be done on the ricasso area? There isn't a lot of heavy grinding there usually. If the blade is unground, maybe have the people mark where the plunge cut and handle scales would be? That would be a cool add on to do though!
 
JTknives said:
The etching will be quite deep. Laser is out of the question for the depth we want so there are a few other options but wanting to be around the depth of a cold stamp.
Click to expand...

Have you seen Ben Orford's video about his Fiber Laser? It looks really deep! With enough passes it could probably go to the other side. Cost on AliExpress is $2600.

 
I'v helped people with website creation, although it isn't my profession and I'm hardly an expert. I think you're website is really great. It's clean, not cluttered and has the information necessary to get the job done. I'm not sure how much more a new website would do for you.
There is plenty of data available from your site host as to how many hits your site gets, and what the daily flow is like. I would find out that data, and have someone do a little research as to how it fairs wrt to other sites that offer the same services. I would guesstimate that your site is doing quite well in that regard. This is a good way to guide your next step. Beautiful stuff on your site!
 
SirSpice said:
Have you seen Ben Orford's video about his Fiber Laser? It looks really deep! With enough passes it could probably go to the other side. Cost on AliExpress is $2600.

Click to expand...
What if something goes wrong and it needs to be fixed? Then you would have a $2600 paperweight unless you could figure it out
 
Stamp: Very interested in that concept. I cold stamp these days myself and still occasionally grind one out when finishing or get one thats deeper on side than the other. Cost per blade would be a deciding factor

Batching: Heck I've been batching for decades not only for knives but leather work too. It works. You mentioned the days of one knife at a time are over and as we'd say: "That horse has left the barn."

Website. I am one that struggles placing an order with you and do every time. I usually get mad, walk away, same some bad words and come back and it works for me. Really have problems sending different steels. If you are changing providers we've been very happy with 3Dcart.
 
I should also mention that my CFO (spelled wife) really likes how the financial side of things is arranged with your website. We like paying in advance for the job. Other services ya send off a batch of knives and sometime between now and some other time you are gonna get hit with an unknown cost at an unknown time. Hard to keep the books and run an account that way. With you its all simple and up front, already done when ya ship em off to ya!
 
Not sure who you have working on your website, but commerce programmers are plenty. Some are expensive, some are dirt cheap. Most are overseas. Freelancer.com is invaluable when it comes to programming. I've been using them for over ten years.

I really liked the fiber laser that did my logo on the ricasso and my name on the spine. $20 at the Smoky Mountain Knife Works store in Pigeon Forge, TN. Plenty deep, but they could have made it deeper if I had wished. I would use this service often if I was sending out blades for HT.
 
Also, marketing. I despise the social media platforms, but an active presence is some of the best marketing you can get. I haven't seen ANY heat treat services active on the various FB groups. Although, Larrin is somewhat active on "Bladesmithing for Beginners". That's about the only competent HT info on there. I've sent people your way in dozens of HT threads. Especially when beginners want to HT AEB-L in their forge. . . :(
 
my question's is what are you going to use to put the makers marks on with ??
can you still mark the blades After heat treat ?? how deep can you go ?? how complicated of logos can you do ??
i have a stamp/etcher (Never use) poor unpredictable results, and a engraver with diamond to scratch the image in ..

Having control of Your web site is very important, the Web hosting site/Domain names are usually paid for in several year increments ,so you only cry once..
getting a good site built can be difficult if you want say 4plus pages of content.
less than that is easy to DIY.. i paid a pro waay back ,then found it did little for me once i became a "Known Name"... ill still get a site back up someday..
just my Opinions....
 
The main issue with the web site is on the back end. For example when ordering custom knives. I wanted the customer to be able to type in length 10” and width 2” and select the alloy from the drop down and it create a price But it cat do that. So what I had to do is create the custom blade item and give it all the options like pin holes, HT exc. then I had to give it variants. So now each variation is a type of alloy with a price attached for one square inch. So that’s why there is a drop down for square inches. What it does is if you select 20 square inches it times the variant 1^2in cost by 1900% and adds the option prices. It’s very convoluted and very difficult when a price changes. Or if we run out if material we have to delete all that info for that material we can’t just turn it off. Also we can’t offer any other quantity discounts on things because there is only the one bulk volume discount option. So it’s the back end that’s frustrating. Takes hours to add anything new and make sure it’s all up dated throughout the other parts of the store.

what I want is a actual wizard. You click on it and it asks what your wanting to do. You select plasma cutting. It would ask you a series of questions in order and at the end ask if you have any other things you wanted to add. If so it would start you back at the beginning and alow you to add more items.
 
Was going to call you but no number listed, no Private message you options .... good luck i guess..
 
Pinoy Knife said:
Was going to call you but no number listed, no Private message you options .... good luck i guess..
Click to expand...
Sorry, reaching me by phone is inconsistent at best. I work a full time job and full time in the shop so half the time I can’t answer and half the time I’m in the shop where I don’t have signal. We have message service on our website. But let me check my PM folder, it might be fill. It seams to fill up way to fast for being a paid service.
 
razor-edge-knives said:
What if something goes wrong and it needs to be fixed? Then you would have a $2600 paperweight unless you could figure it out
Click to expand...

Uhhh...you fix it yourself of course! They didn't teach you Laser Repair 101 in high school? Brief Googling shows some US retailers of the same machine for a markup. Maybe those have a warranty?

My point was more about the process. It seems to mark very similarly to electro-etching with less user involvement.
 
+1 Everything Horsewright said
 
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