Damascus Steel Letter Opener Kits

[Huntsman Knives]

Forgive me if I do this wrong but I am new here I will try to be specific in my questions:

I work with a maker of hand forged Damascus (and Stainless) steel knives and am trying to guage the interest in a line of Damascus steel letter opener kits, for starters, for turners to turn handles for themselves.

Something just seemed off to me on putting a high quality handle material on a $9.95 chrome plated blade so we wanted to make something people would be proud of having on their desk, maybe with handles matching their pen. So far we have come up with a few blade shapes and the kit is the blade, guard, collar, and pommel. The buyer would turn the handle of his/her choice.

I commissioned three styles to start and have a few in progress pictures with a sample handle

Questions:

Is this something you would be interested in?

If interested, what price point what make this viable for you to use?

What other accessories would you like to see in Damascus steel?

 

[gbpens]

The letter opener in Damascus is a great idea! Very appealing. A premium material would have to be used in the handle to do justice to the metal. Plating on the pommel has to high grade also. Price point is a big issue. I do not intend to insult you but a price of $20-$25 per blade would work but I doubt if you can produce a Damascus blade at that price. Perhaps $30-$35 might work. The blade style for a letter opener would be the double edge blade.

 

[InkyMike]

I'd be interested (heck, I'd probably be interested in a Damascus knife blade for myself) but I agree with the above about the price point.

 

[Huntsman Knives]

Guard, collar, pommel would either be matching steel (stainless or Damascus), or solid nickel silver or brass. I'm not a fan of plating on knives

It's hard to tell but the Bowie at the top is I think Damascus fittings. Just not etched or polished yet. I wanted him to use different materials for the test ones. also I didn't mention size but these are about 7 1/2" to 8" overall with handle. Not full size knives but not true miniatures either just long enough to get a decent grip on the handle and provide the proper balance between blade and handle to look right

 

[Huntsman Knives]

The letter opener in Damascus is a great idea! Very appealing. A premium material would have to be used in the handle to do justice to the metal. Plating on the pommel has to high grade also. Price point is a big issue. I do not intend to insult you but a price of $20-$25 per blade would work but I doubt if you can produce a Damascus blade at that price. Perhaps $30-$35 might work. The blade style for a letter opener would be the double edge blade.

No insult whatsoever this is exactly what I need to hear. I am using a working assumption that many of you sell your work and you need to price in materials (kit plus handle material) and time and still sell it at a market price so you make a profit.

 

[Todd in PA]

I prefer the 3rd design for the blade, with the double edge. I don't care for the round guard. An oval would compliment the blade better, imo.

I've had at least one request for a matching opener to a pen, but don't care for the designs I've seen (psi).

 

[duncsuss]

Nice. I also like the third best, but also like the others. The first one reminds me of the shape of the Opinel folding knife I've used for 40-some years - it's a great letter opener.

I think the third - with a pen that has a matching clip - would be a winner.

 

[Huntsman Knives]

Thank you for the input it is very helpful

Another interesting thing I noticed when sketching out these designs is you can change the whole look of the knife by simply where you put the "swell" in the handle. Up near the guard it looks a bit like a Commando dagger, close to the pommel gives it a vaguely Sheffield dirk knife look. The palm swell in the center is a very traditional look. You could probably even do a rounded coffin shape like on a early Bowie

I planned them out with three or four handle shapes, three or four blade shapes, different blade materials, a couple of different guards (the lugged variety looks nice), different materials for the fittings, and the variations were endless without adding in the different handle materials

 

[darrin1200]

My preference falls to the third one as well. I would also agree that the guard should be more oblong. ie…oval or rounded rectangle.
Would the handles screw on, or would it have to be epoxied. Personally, I would prefer some form of screw on.
The cost would also be a large deciding factor.

 

[Old Goat]

I do blacksmithing too and I see the same issue with price pointing. Even if I made my own I would be looking at several hours just making the blade. You have to prep and stack the steel, forge weld it, fold and reweld as many times as needed for your layer count, shape the blade, normalize, quench, temper, grind it to size, etch and polish. That's just the blade, not the guard and finial and you would have to create or attach a threaded end to put those on. I normally sell my Damascus knives in the $150 + range at a minimu due to the labor intensity. A lot of the cheap Damascus you see in stores is not real, just laser etched to look that way.

The only way I could see meeting the cost to value for the normal buyer would be to buy cheap Chinese pre-made Damascus and CNC it to size in bulk, but then I wouldn't call it handmade.

 

[Huntsman Knives]

you could never hit that price point made in the USA you would be looking at $100+ kits

I have my blades hand forged in Warizibad Pakistan. Yes there is a lot of Paki junk but there they also know how to do quality if you look for it and insist on quality materials. In the Napoleonic era sword blades from India (and Paki was considered India then) were prized it is why the US Marine officers sword and the British General's sword look like they do. They also did true damascus which almost no one does today (what you see today is almost all pattern welded steel made by forging alternating bars of high and low carbon steel)

we use alternating 1095C & 15N20 steel

This is a cutting test of one of our blades

 

[Huntsman Knives]

Pricing is going to work out to about $38 per kit with damascus blade and fittings (guard, collar, pommel)

It is a little on the high end but it is hard to get hand forged damascus much below that

I ordered a dozen kits as a test is there anyone who will be willing, for a fee, to turn handles for two of them to use as demo models? I was thinking a high quality burl wood to compliment the damascus.

 

[Jarod888]

For $38 a kit, I'd be interested in get a few when you come to market. I'm not sure I would be able to find the time to do the handles, but I do have some pretty wood.

 

[SteveG]

Just a thought on the letter opener model (excluding ANY knives): The demands on a letter opener are minimal, so lower grade Damascus would probably exceed the rigors of use for that model. That would be a way to lower the price point on that style. I fully understand the counter argument that favors true, and high quality Damascus, simply because it IS true and high quality.

 

[darrin1200]

Pricing is going to work out to about $38 per kit with damascus blade and fittings (guard, collar, pommel)

It is a little on the high end but it is hard to get hand forged damascus much below that

I ordered a dozen kits as a test is there anyone who will be willing, for a fee, to turn handles for two of them to use as demo models? I was thinking a high quality burl wood to compliment the damascus.

Which style did you decide on. I may be interested in trying one, but it would depend on shipping cost to Canada. That usually the killer.

 

[Huntsman Knives]

"Which style did you decide on. I may be interested in trying one, but it would depend on shipping cost to Canada. That usually the killer."

Top and bottom (Bowie and Dagger) mostly the dagger style but a few of the others. Be interesting to offer a set bowie and dagger

"The demands on a letter opener are minimal, so lower grade Damascus would probably exceed the rigors of use for that model"

Yes and no. Once you start making lower grade product to cut costs than you make lower grade product. I don't want to go down that road

 

[Huntsman Knives]

here's an in progress shot of the test ones nearing completion

 

[InkyMike]

here's an in progress shot of the test ones nearing completion

Those look great

 

[Huntsman Knives]

Damascus Steel Letter Opener Kits

I received the first 18 kits I had made as a test. I have 12 dagger style and 6 bowie style Each kit consists of a blade, guard, collar, and threaded pommel all of twist pattern damasus steel $38 plus $6 shipping additional kits free shipping (i.e. 1 for $44, 2 for $78, 3 for $120, etc.) Not...

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