The "Ask Nathan a question" thread

^^^ ironically that virtual wallet may have the right number of Benjies if I had to gu$timate, for one only :)
And you think that is expensive for a 12 inch Chopper made of some of the finest steel and craftsmanship available? I think your 1 benjie too high!!!
 
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^ no actually I think that around 600-700 is a DEAL and I'm not being facetious at all! In fact, you may be more on target considering that Nathan is a real man of the working folk and he will cut things to the bone so to make his knives more affordable to more customers. How in the world you got the idea that I thought it was expensive? I'll have three please, one for me and the two you are dying for :p
 
I think Nathan could keep the cost around 500 bucks for a 1/4" thick chopper with a 12" blade, he's basically a God at keeping prices affordable.

Edit: We all know folks would be willing to pay more for it too.
 
^ no actually I think that around 600-700 is a DEAL and I'm not being facetious at all! In fact, you may be more on target considering that Nathan is a real man of the working folk and he will cut things to the bone so to make his knives more affordable to more customers. How in the world you got the idea that I thought it was expensive? I'll have three please, one for me and the two you are dying for :p
See we already have 5 Pre-orders
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I can't imagine a pre-order for the Shiv, considering past comments he's made. I'm sure though it would be a helluva thing to watch four or five pages of orders fill up in minutes, so many seem to want it.

But I think it's about the last model he would put up for pre-order, which is why I've tried to grab any I saw come up available on the market. Certainly my favorite fighter, bar none. But that's just my opinion, I've been wrong about what he might or might not put out there for pre-order before, that's for sure.
 
I'd be in for one, even at $600. My LC chopped the literal shit out of everything I asked it to the other day so a longer, heavier, thicker Chopper would definitely be something I'd use. That would replace my axe in camp I'm thinking. :thumbsup:
 
I'm sure you guys know, but just to remind you that Nathan actually sold some 10" Heavy Choppers already. Last one that I can see was just over a year ago and it was $600 without a sheath. I'm guessing that a 12" could be a bit more...

http://www.bladeforums.com/threads/heavy-duty-3v-chopper-prototype-sold.1382894/
EtA: and yeah, i'd be in for one :)
Cheers,
C.
Prototypes are always more expensive than their production run counterparts because they are, well, prototypes. The costs of R&D, tweaking things along the way, trial and error etc all play a big part in the costs and a production knife that has its build streamlined does not bare these burdens. That being said, i'm 110% positive people would pay $600 + for a 1/4" thick 12" blade chopper made by Nathan.
 
Also some folks seem to have forgotten that Nathan had been vehemently opposed to preorders up until last year and if anything, he has tried to talk people out of placing preorders like any good salesman would :D

Luckily the higher demand for his products and the enthusiasm of CRK'ers motivated the powers that be to graciously offer preorders which only had started in 2016 with the FK, then the LC and now the N.A.S.K.
 
There are a lot of different ways to make a knife, milling being one of them. There are a lot of different ways to mill a knife, but in order to achieve a reasonable "bang for the buck" we try to make knives in quantities that lend themselves to fixturing and programming that can make something with a reasonable amount of spindle time and carbide and labor that achieves the design and performance we're aiming for and yields a good value to the end user. But this approach of manufacturing optimization and efficiency doesn't work for R&D and development, which are also areas we put a lot of effort into.

Without production fixtures things like profiling and milling bevels can still be done, but less efficiently. We do this to confirm design decisions and help us tweak and optimize designs, geometry and metallurgy decisions before going into production. These prototypes can be relatively crude compared to production work, but actually cost much more to produce. One reason there were not many Heavy Chopper prototypes produced was because they cost more to produce than they were sold for. This is because things like the bevels are not directly milled (because specific fixturing would be required for each grind geometry we want to test) so they're surface milled which takes over an hour of spindle time for each knife just for the bevels plus additional hand grinding etc. That's a lot of CNC time and carbide to put into a single knife. And then one-off heat treat rather than batches. It is difficult to make "knives for the masses" when you're doing it that way.

There were no production Heavy Choppers, they were all surface milled and hand finished and most were tested and consumed, there are only a few in circulation and I "lost money" on them, but they were surplus to our R&D.

This next batch of behemoth choppers will be made the same way, and some will be consumed in testing, but I'm more confident in what I want in this design and I'm going to go ahead and make most of the fixtures for it except for the bevel milling fixtures. Beveling milling the way we do it is a complex compound angle cut that requires a little extra complexity and I haven't settled on the geometry I want so I'm going to hold off on that tooling until I've finalized on the geometry I want. So this batch of 12" Choppers will be a mix of prototype and production machining techniques.

I'm getting long winded here. Long story short, no there will be no pre-order at this time because this is not a production pattern and there may only be a few. But, if I like the design and we go into production a pre-order would be in the cards after a process is worked out for it, but that would be later on down the road.


Edit to add: I do want to thank you all for your interest, it means a lot. :thumbsup:
 
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Thanks Nathan. Many of us are grateful for the pre-order process as it can be difficult to secure the blades via BF sales. For me, there is really not any of your blades that I would not be a willing participant in a pre-order. Your blades are just that good!
 
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There are a lot of different ways to make a knife, milling being one of them. There are a lot of different ways to mill a knife, but in order to achieve a reasonable "bang for the buck" we try to make knives in quantities that lend themselves to fixturing and programming that can make something with a reasonable amount of spindle time and carbide and labor that achieves the design and performance we're aiming for and yields a good value to the end user. But this approach of manufacturing optimization and efficiency doesn't work for R&D and development, which are also areas we put a lot of effort into.

Without production fixtures things like profiling and milling bevels can still be done, but less efficiently. We do this to confirm design decisions and help us tweak and optimize designs, geometry and metallurgy decisions before going into production. These prototypes can be relatively crude compared to production work, but actually cost much more to produce. One reason there were not many Heavy Chopper prototypes produced was because they cost more to produce than they were sold for. This is because things like the bevels are not directly milled (because specific fixturing would be required for each grind geometry we want to test) so they're surface milled which takes over an hour of spindle time for each knife just for the bevels plus additional hand grinding etc. That's a lot of CNC time and carbide to put into a single knife. And then one-off heat treat rather than batches. It is difficult to make "knives for the masses" when you're doing it that way.

There were no production Heavy Choppers, they were all surface milled and hand finished and most were tested and consumed, there are only a few in circulation and I "lost money" on them, but they were surplus to our R&D.

This next batch of behemoth choppers will be made the same way, and some will be consumed in testing, but I'm more confident in what I want in this design and I'm going to go ahead and make most of the fixtures for it except for the bevel milling fixtures. Beveling milling the way we do it is a complex compound angle cut that requires a little extra complexity and I haven't settled on the geometry I want so I'm going to hold off on that tooling until I've finalized on the geometry I want. So this batch of 12" Choppers will be a mix of prototype and production machining techniques.

I'm getting long winded here. Long story short, no there will be no pre-order at this time because this is not a production pattern and there may only be a few. But, if I like the design and we go into production a pre-order would be in the cards after a process is worked out for it, but that would be later on down the road.


Edit to add: I do want to thank you all for your interest, it means a lot. :thumbsup:

Sounds more than Reasonable to me, Thanks Nathan:thumbsup:
 
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Nathan,
Will the Behemoth Chopper resemble the HC, LC, or is it going to have it's own special look?
 
Now all I need is the knife fund Gods to smile on me when Nathan offers the Behemoth Choppers!
 
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