First production project

J

jkf96a

Well-Known Member
As knifemakers y'all appreciate the tension between making what sells and making what you want. You may also be familiar with not having the time to make as many knives as your customers would buy. To get around those issues, I contracted with White River Knife and Tool out of Michigan to have them build a run of my standard utility hunter design. We used 1/8 S35VN and a variety of synthetic handle materials. I wanted to use a few varieties of the Ultrex Suretouch, but we had problems getting the material.

I put these out for preorder Monday, and yesterday had a large corporate order that pretty well paid for the whole batch. The Lord provides.

IMG_3912.jpg

Here's the purchase link if anyone's interested, although that's not really why I shared the pic with you all.
Preorder Here
 
Nice work, Jason. From my experience of a few years back trying to see if anyone would do kitchen knives, I am a tad surprised that White River had the excess capacity.
 
jmforge said:
Nice work, Jason. From my experience of a few years back trying to see if anyone would do kitchen knives, I am a tad surprised that White River had the excess capacity.
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IDK that it was excess capacity really. They did 120 of them for me, and lead time was roughly 5 months. I guess that's a small project, but it's huge for me!
 
jkf96a said:
IDK that it was excess capacity really. They did 120 of them for me, and lead time was roughly 5 months. I guess that's a small project, but it's huge for me!
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when I say excess capacity, I mean the ability to take on ANY outside work. This was a few years back, but when I was asking around, nobody was taking new work. Some of the firms were socked up with their own stuff and others were doing the "mid tech" version of what some today call the "Instagram folders." ;) I think I asked White River, but I don't remember.
 
Five months ago they said they were something like 15K knives behind due to covid shutdowns, but they still took my project. Another well known company was 30K knives behind and wasn't interested at all.
 
That's awesome man! I'm surprised they did it with a moq of 120 pieces, everywhere I've talked to us AT LEAST 200

They look incredible by the way, great job!!!
 
REK Knives said:
That's awesome man! I'm surprised they did it with a moq of 120 pieces, everywhere I've talked to us AT LEAST 200

They look incredible by the way, great job!!!
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They'll end up with alot more than 120 before we are done with this project, I bet. Kind of trying to follow the data and see how sales go, then make a quantity decision for a run available for the fall hunting season.
 
Good to hear. Those are nice looking knives. Between the blade shape, material, and the handle, I bet they make excellent skinning knives.

My go to skinner is an old Schrade with a stacked leather handle that my grandpa bought when he was 13 or 14.... :)

If I ever need a new one, it'll probably be in that style (if it isn't a reproduction or my Grandpa's knife).

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jkf96a said:
They'll end up with alot more than 120 before we are done with this project, I bet. Kind of trying to follow the data and see how sales go, then make a quantity decision for a run available for the fall hunting season.
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Well, if you over-estimate and need to make some room, send one to me :D

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