Hi All!

What would you like to see knifekits.com carry in the kit form?
We respect and want your suggestions.

I would certainly like a wharncliffe-bladed folder kit and even a big camp knife kit.

On the folder kits, perhaps some Ti frames or fixtures, (with instructions : how to begin to anodize them for nifty colors.)

Naturally I would like one of my designs.:lol: But I would agree with Sam,A nice big camp knife.Dave

Quality automatic kit would be really nice.

A variety of blade and handle designs and materials (folders).
I like Sam's thought on Ti liners (maybe bolsters).

While large knives are popular, maybe smaller gent's knives might be useful (I like a small knife around work and why not a cool small fixed blade) This would also let the beginner get a number of knives out of 1 set of scales.

Happy Designing,

Bob Sigmon

Darrel, Ti parts for the 605s would be great. I have my anodizing rig warming as I type.

OH, and the thought of an auto kit has my mouth watering.

Darrel,
I've been making my own fixed blades for quite a few years, and recently tried several of your folder kits obtained from Koval. They are terrific! I particularly like the new, smaller size, with the hidden pivot pin - also the ball bearing detent seems to better hold the blade closed on the smaller version.
For additional kit offerings, I would like the following:
- a kit with just the blade, and locking liner.
- titanium liners
- ATS-34, 154CM and/or reasonable priced SS damascus
- thumb stud provided, but not installed
- an auto version
- additional blade designs, like wharncliffe & stilleto

Try this on for size- make a hardened blade "pattern" available (talking 605/mini here) that is basically just a flat bar that has the pivot hole positioned as well as the locking angles to make it easier for folks to make their own blade shapes.

I'm thinking along the lines of a file guide that you could clamp to flat stock and file against/drill through to get the critical stuff right.

Then you could make whatever blade shape you wanted for this really neat kit from your own stock, without messing with a using a sharp blade as a pattern.

This would be a real boon for those among us who are, shall we say, less than perfect at figuring geometry out without endless "trial and error."

Good idea, or "get lost doofus!"?

My question is how educated folks are about stainless liners?
I refuse to use a ti liner under .09 thick; do you know why?
Because the wear properties of titanium in thinner liners is very bad . YES, very bad!
The lock will wear very fast on the back of the blade.
After having early knives made with thin titanium locks returned a few years later, I got tired of reparing them.
So I went on a search for the optimum material for a liner lock.
Stainless will not wear any where near as fast.

Titanium in frame lock or a lock over .090 does ok. Its the thin ones that just plain wear out.
Where is the advantage in that?
You can heat color your stainess liners to colors that are just like you titanium. For a sample look at the ddr1 picture on knifekits.com. Those are stainless bolsters. They are heat colored.
It takes a little skill and a prophane torch.
Polish them up , then heat them up to a gold or blue color with no problems.
I choose stainless liners for the great wear properties.
I use .07 stainless 410 liners in my liner locking style knives everday.
I dont get them back with the lock running all the way to one side either.
Mayby its time for a change and for someone to stand up and tell the truth about stainless liners.

Blades,
Our signature kits will have high end blade steels in them.
Look for the Rob Simonich design soon. You will be able to preorder them.

What straight knives would you like to see?
What blade lengths?

Bowie?
hunter?
tactical?
camp?

As for an automatic... we are working on a button lock style knife. It may be able to be converted to an auto? We would not recommend that you do this.
I think there are suppliers that have springs? I dont know.
;]

Darrel, I've seen folders and I have seen the basic fixed blades, but I can't remember seeing a good tactical knife in kit form. Something in about 5 to 5 1/2", micarta slabs,etc.

how about a 3" bladed ti frame lock knife like your edc

Terrill
YES The Rob Simonich folder that we have coming soon will fill this bill. It will not be 5 inchs blade length, but will fill the tactical folder kit slot that we want to fill . The blade will be 3.995 long (4 inchs) . The reason for this is we want to keep the blade length under the state requirements for blade lengths.
This folder is tactical. It will have g10 side plates. The liner will be thicker stanless steel than the smaller kits for a good strong lock up.
I will post an illustrated drawing of it for those who want to preorder it.
BTW the first 100 will be a signature kits. If it sells well we will then put it into production .
The signature kit will have .06 stainless liners, g10 scales, 154 cm bladeor another high end steel. We may offer carbon fiber (Rob is known for this)
As soon as I post the pictures we will accept orders on the knife. NO deposits will be required. You will be put on a waiting list for a signature kit. There will be ONLY 100 signature kits. This will be a skill level 3 folder.

A frame lock folder is in the works also.

We plan to offer around 20 high quality kits in the future.
A good warncliff design is being concidered. Also a tanto.

The folder is going to be great, the designing is basically done. I am going to try to have a handmade version by SHOT. I dont know if I will get it done though. It is curvey, ergonomic without limiting in various grips and beefy! Lots or room for customizing on the folder!

Fot fixed tactical, what do you guys think of a "Chute Knife" with 5 1/2" blade or so?

1. PRE-ENGRAVED BOLSTERS (nice scroll pattern)
2. BETTER PRICES ON THE PRE MADE GRIPS
3. PRE FILED BACKSTRAPS...
4. "KATZ" LEATHER CARRY POUCHES
5. A FOLDER WITH BLADE LIKE THE MINI-BOA...
( SINCE ONE CANT SEEM TO GET KEN ONIONS
EMAIL ADDRESS ANYWHERE NOWDAYS TO ORDER ONE) .......
6. A SINGLE BLADE BIRD N TROUT KNIFEKIT WITH
CURLY MAPE HANDLES...
7. SOMETHING VERY LIKE THE BUCK STRIDER 800-SP....
9. MORE AND DIFFERENT G10 COLORS AND TYPES

What colors of g10 would you like to see?
I have a bunch of blue and black striped.

We are working on several straight knife designs at this time.
A bird and trout is a great idea.
How about this
a bowie
a chute knife
a bird and trout
a camp knife
a hunter
a tactical fighter
a Japanese style

Then in the folder kits
We have three knives that can double as a gents or semi tactical folder.
Next step is a pure rough neck tactical folder. (Rob Simonich)
A frame lock is being worked on.

The Rob Simonich will be a level 2 - 4 Kit.


What else do wen need here?
Speak up!@@

Any G10 colors would be great.....Blue Green Red Black and the combo colors.

On the fixed blade styles you may want to offer the option of straight g10 or with stainless bolsters to dress them up.

All the kit that I have put together so far have been great. I have used stabilized wood and micarta and both look great.

Thanks all your work in this area... It really helps when your learning to fit and finish.

Bob Sigmon

I'll put in a vote for one of those button lock automatics that you don't recommend converting, with springs from those suppliers that you don't know anything about !
I'll even take credit for one of those blatant copies when I'm done !

Schuyler

what i had in mind was "cast"
..unless you could get the cnc work
done in good detail...

Thats a great Idea.
Ill look into it.

The kits look great. I'm anxious to see the Simonich folder kit you mentioned.

Here are some things i'd like to see:
-your ALB and 7" bl. fighter in kit forms
-how about a balisong kit?
-maybe a large camp knife
-talonite blade kits
-dagger kit with cast brass handle and guard
-frame lock large folder kit (5" blade)
-Hossom colaberation fighter kit :cool:
-CPM3V flat ground bowie fighter with stick tang and micarta handle material

Thanks

David

Drummer
Thanks for the post!
We will look into each and every post.
Someone asked for different colored scales for the upgrade kits.
We are adding blue black g10
We are adding green also
I have a few sets of red g10 we are working on also.
THe EV4N1 kit will have upgrades avaiable very soon.
The DDR1 is on the way !

Rob is designing a great straight knife for us .

We have 4 camp knives we are looking at right now and several hunters , bird and trout ect.

These all sound like great ideas! It is really getting difficult to find quality kit blades in steels other than AUS-6 without paying an arm and a leg.

Will the fixed blades be full or stick tang? Carbon or stainless? Here is hoping that all goes well with these ideas.

How about some steel ideas for the signature kits?
Lets hear what you want?

Remember signing up for a signature kits is the curse you bring upon yourself (evil grin)

How about some of the CPM stainless?

Maybe some 52100 from a forge guru?

Ti or mokume bolsters?

Is cost really a factor?

This could be really interesting for we who are learning the knifemaking craft........great materials, fantastic designs.....real cool!!

Thanks Darrel !

Bob Sigmon

Sig
Good ideas
For us to manufacute these items in very small quanties would be very costly.
Mayby you could buy the material and finish them off yourself.
Start with cheap steel , learn to grind the bevel, and send them to me for heat treat when you make the high end steel blade.

Bolsters can be made from the bolster you have. Just trace it,rough it in, clamp the bolster you have to it, drill it and counter bore it.
Try it on another material first to see what is involved.
They try the high end material.
This way you increase your understanding about making knives.

Thoughts?

I would like to see:

clip point gentlemens knife with a thin 3" blade

something with the blade profile of the BM710

of course the auto look alike ;o)

A hunter style fixed blade knife

something with a curved "hawkbill" in a small to medium size
maybe in damascus maybe some type of red handle material (could be red spacer or even dyed bone) in a folder

would also like some type of emt/rescue tool design with window point on butt of handle and one or two good usefull blades in folder

How about selling individual replacemant parts for the kits already offered. You know, I was trying some file work and now the blade on this folder is screwed up or OOPS, edge of belt just ate my bolster. Perhaps if we could buy just the blades, bolsters, right or left liners, we would see some more attempts at filework coloring and such.
Thanks for the great kits!!!
Dan

Great suggestions guys!
They are being filed away!

Maybe some designs from customers.(I have about a thousand drawings) :) I really like the Tactical Folder idea. I also like the idea of a Wharnie or Hawkbill profile.

How about a Lefty Liner set for your collection. Also, untapped bolster for the DDR1. It ain't easy being a lefty knife nut:-)

Darrel, I would love to see some sliplock kits. Stockman, whittler, etc. There are some kits out there, but the quality isnt really there. Also, how bout an Interframe folder?

How bout making a generic handle chassis, and 2 or 3 diff style interchangeable blades? Like a drop, warnie, and spear point?


I think some nice traditional stlye knives would be great. Hunter, semiskinner, Spear point, Bird and trout, Camp knives, maybe some Chute knife or Big Bear style stuff.

I like 154-cm steel, how bout some D2, S30V, or even O-1 on some of the other blades?

A nice balisong kit would be nice. Actually I have never seen one (hint)

How about hollow ground blades and .125 blade thickness (for knives like the DDRII). Also, ,thicker liners, .050 or .060 maybe. I have done two of your DDRII kits and they turned out very well. The thicker liner would lend themselves to better file work. Thanks

For folders a krait or osprey style the size of a DDR II ie a small tanto point with recurve. A 4-6" fixed blade camp knife that could be done with a tactical type finish. Most important just keep them coming. These things are addictive and better than some(most) factory production knives I've seen. I'm waiting on my second to get here, even though I still keep messing with my first DDR II. I know I need to post some pictures, I've been trying to borrow a camera, mine broke.

Droopy

I am hear with my ear to the ground.
Keep um coming . I am reading every one of the posts.
We are looking into several new ideas. This takes time. Please keep calm and post away!

The new folder designs have filled some of these requests.
We are working on several other projects.

I would like to see more good fixed blade tacticals/ camp/survival knives. As I posted earlier I can never find the "knife" I want. Cory

I suspect that these designs may be protected, but, if not, how about folder kits with actions similar to Ken Onion's and Benchmade's Axis lock.

Cory,
You are right about the protection.
We are working on a project right now that will fill this bill . It will be very interesting.

Darrel,
Another nice design that might be good for a kit is the use of the thumb stud/frame stop which I saw on a folder of yours at the Blade show.
This doesn't fall into the general category of "kits", and may not fit your business objectives, but I would like to be able to buy more components separately - for example, the pivot pins and heat treated liners already cut for the liner lock. I do grind my own blades, and have made several kits useing only your liners, pivot pins and screws. For my own occasional folders, I use titanium for liners in order to avoid the added expense of sending them out for heat treating, but agree with your comments about SS liners, and also find them smoother in operation as they break in.

Darrel,
thanks for being here & listening to the requirements of your (current & future) customers.
Sorry to say, I've never been interested in kits or folders (read: know nothing) but:o I've recently been asked to make a two bladed lock knife & wondered if you (as a maker) or any of your customers have given any thought to this.
My (prospective) customer will be sending a design for an archeaological tool that she wants in a two bladed, locking folder design (not sure if she wants concurrent use, or not) but, I will be giving you a quickie mail (if that's ok) on the possibility of some help on the design/supply of such a beast.

Again, thanks for listening


Colin

AN EMS/FIRE RESCUE KNIFE...
IF DESIGNED PROPERLY.. IT WOULD SELL VERY WELL...
( id offer some imput on it)