FLYWEIGHT KNIVES—Damn Fine Titanium Knives!

[William Chilton]

I prefer the 2nd one, secondly Eric's, and thirdly the 1st one.
Hate the fly design – real flies are nuisance enough on many of our backpacking trips.

[Michael L]

For as many that liked the fly, people hated it. Let that be a warning. Better to go with a less polarizing one imho.

[Bob Steele]

Gotta say I love my new flyweight knife that arrived yesterday. First rate construction, especially when considering the pricing.

I'm in favor of the second down logo from the original group. I hate flies…

[Eric Lundquist]

Word must be spreading. I found this thread over on Whiteblaze.net

http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php/110118-Flyweight-UL-backpacking-knives!

[Steve B]

Got the standard long; weight is spot on at 0.77oz with supplied sheath.

Also got the smolt; weight is under the reported weight, knife is 0.12oz and the lighter of the two sheaths supplied is 0.07oz, so 0.19oz total.

I'm going to look into using kevlar for a sheath, weight might be less.

Steve

[Jim H]

Michael makes a good point about the fly being polarizing. Also I'm going to flip-flop a bit.

Seeing the fly by itself without text doesn't look good to me, even though I hoped it would. It's too much an actual fly silhouette, and not enough of an abstraction. It would be hard for it to become a logo people recognize as tied to your product first, whether or not the logo looks like a knife. Think of Spoyderco:

The logo is reminiscent of a spider at best. Seems something similar would have to happen for the fly to work long term.

[Chris Bruce]

I agree with Jim seeing the fly large and solo on the page didn't work as well as I was hoping. Solicited my better half's opinion and she likes the second option (she doesn't like flies). She suggested, however, about possibly using a dragonfly. Given they tend to have more positive connotations, can appeal to both sex's, and they have a light weight airy appearance.

[Bob Steele]

"She suggested, however, about possibly using a dragonfly. Given they tend to have more positive connotations, can appeal to both sex's, and they have a light weight airy appearance."

An excellent idea!

[Gregory Woodard]

Thanks yet again to everyone in the forum for their interest in my knives and for helping choose the logo. My two favorites were the top one and the bottom one, but I hadn't considered the negative association with flies. While I am certainly no fan of bloodsuckers like mosquitoes, ticks and deer flies, my bachelors degree is in entomology, so I am somewhat partial to insects, though lately my focus seems to be on the ones that trout like to eat. But the fly-haters have really got ne wondering if an actual fly would be such a good idea. The dragonfly suggestion is interesting. The third choice is definitely out because I have only sold two or three of that model in a year. I should change its name from angry duck to ugly duckling. I'll probably have a clearance sale sometime to get rid of the 30 or so that I have.
As far as kickstarter goes, they have a no weapons policy. I explained that these knives are not intended as nor particularly suitable for weapons, but they were not swayed. I am still very grateful for the offers of support from BPL nembers.
Due to the unexpected increase in sales, my inventory is dwindling rapidly. I have already temporarily run out of several popular designs. New blanks are being water-jetted as I speak, but I won't be able to get to the shop for a couple of weeks. I should have new knives ready by April 15th.

The slingshot is still in the design stage but I will be making some test models in June. I'm shooting for two ounces minus the rubber.
Thanks again to all of you, and especially to Matt.

[Matthew Perry]

Greg,
We need to ask them how this knife maker slipped through, then…

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/501586319/middleton-knife-design-mkd?ref=nav_search

Anyone have a good Kickstarter alternative? Gofundme, maybe?

M

[Matthew Perry]

First draft of the dragonfly knife logo. Thoughts?

[Michael L]

Indiegogo. Or something like that is another

Do you have to make the wings knives? It doesn't have to be so literal. A dragonfly as an emblem is good enough.

That said. I like the last

[Adam Kilpatrick]

Etsy is limited to US shipping only.
Ebay, I tried adding one of the knives to cart, but comes up with an error that the seller has been banned, or something like that.

[Terran Terran]

I just thought it was nice to find a nice little hand crafted knife without the feeling that I was paying for all the hype. More attention to detail and less on a corperate logo. The knives should sell themselves.

[Adam Kilpatrick]

Errr, like most cottage companies I have a feeling that they aren't spending that much time and effort on hype.

But there's only so much selling via ebay that a seller wants to do, there comes a time when a website is nice and worthwhile. Unless you want a text only website, usually that would include having a logo somewhere ;-)

The guy has skills and makes what seems a great product that fills a niche. Nothing wrong with him trying to market a little bit and increase his sales volume to make ends meet.

[Matthew Perry]

Hey, Adam,
I believe the reason you are having issues on Ebay (and possibly Etsy), is that we are sold out of most models except the Angry Duck/Ugly Duckling. I actually really like that knife….oh, well….If interested in an Angry Duck, contact Greg directly at: [email protected]

We are going to be putting the Angry Duck model up for clearance soon at a great price, as we will no longer be selling it after they are gone. If you guys wanted a screaming deal on a FWK, that's the one to get. Our new web site will be going live (hopefully) by next Monday, but selection will be limited at first. It takes time to make these and we have literally, sold out of all our stock because of BPL'ers like you. We are working as fast as we possibly can to catch up, but good things take time and we will not hurry just to pump out a sub-standard product and create unsafe working conditions for our associates.

With the introduction of our web site, there will be a ton of new info about the knives, FWK's as a company, our values, where we have come from and where we are headed. You will all want to all pay special attention to the warranty… we are VERY proud to be able to offer you guys that one ;) We think you will like it! I will post a link in this thread when it's ready. Stay tuned.

All that said, as far as advertising and spin, this is basically it for us. LOL. Word of mouth on BPL. Really, there is no better place, though. Our advertising budget is at about, oh, yeah… (checking my pocket change), $1.75. All the people helping us, like Derek Hansen, are working for knives as we cannot afford to pay cash…yet.

M

[Adam Kilpatrick]

Interesting looking knife, but with my small hands I don't think the ugly ducking will work for me. My four fingers are just over 3 inches across, so would work better for me if there were four finger positions or none at all. You had a knife of similar dimensions but without the finger positions, I was thinking of that. Also one of your tiny trout/bird knives. For trips where I expect to do a lot of cutting (eg cycle touring-buy a lot of shop food on the way, and cut cheese, salami etc) the bigger knife is better, but for most backpacking trips I only need an emergency blade the little trout/bird one is perfect for that.

What would be sick are knives with some useful tools in the bulk of the stock, rather than just a weight saving cut-out. First thing that came to mind was a bottle opener. But maybe some people would find other things useful, eg some hex slots? Not ideal, potentially dangerous to use even with a sheath on…put some force on and you could pull the sheath off and then slice down your hand. But for the right tool/emergency purposes, could be handy.

I'd order a custom job on my bigger cycle touring knife with a bottle opener :-)

[David Moreno]

I received my 3" Ultralight Titanium Trout Knife yesterday.

It came with 2 different sheaths, one larger and one smaller.

Total weight with smaller sheath: 0.208 ounces (5.89 grams).

It's a light little sucker.

Edit: Forgot to give my 2 cents on the logo. I like the dragonfly logos, especially without any print.

[Eric Lundquist]

I like the new top left dragonfly logo. Could be very iconic and hints what the business is about without the adjoining text.

[Matthew Perry]

Well….i'm sorry (not really), but Greg, Boomer and I have decided that we like the actual fly logo better. That was always our favorite, anyway. After all, the company is called FLYweight Knives, not DRAGONflyweight Knives. We bought the domain name, too :)

And hopefully, this will be on the handles of all our future knives (eventually)…

Skeleton Fly:

And..since we can't really keep it a big secret anymore, you can now all take a look at our UNFINISHED web site. Please remember that it is not done yet and WILL be changing. I can't keep it a secret, as it comes up on a search engine anyways. Just remember, please be kind….

http://www.flyweightknives.com/

We are dangerously close to no inventory and have redirected all sales interest to Etsy and Ebay until we feel the site is to our standards. We have a shopping cart/SHOP page but it is hidden until we get all of it consolidated to FWK's.com and create a "QTY" on each knife. Our big fear is selling too many at this point and creating a huge backlog (angry customers), so we would rather sell none, than do that to you guys. Anyways, let us know what you think.
Thanks!

Matt

[Matthew Perry]

I'm sorry, guys, I don't mean to hog the thread or anything, but I just wanted to add that without you, FWK's would not be here now. We could make the best ultralight titanium knife the world has ever seen (well…we DO!), but without YOU, our fans and target audience, there would be no one buying them. It might take us a while, months possibly, but we are going to retool the shop, buy more materials and fix our designs, get everything running 100% and be back like a Rocky movie! We guarantee it.

Sincerely, from all of us at FWK's, thank you!

M

[Bradley Danyluk]

I'm glad you're getting sudden attention and growth. It's a fine product.
I worry that this is such a niche product that you may be close to already exhausting the market of people who really care about it. I certainly could be wrong, and I hope I am, but if it were my business, I'd be wary of investing in growth based on current sales. It's possible that most of the folks who want to buy your knives have already done so after the sudden exposure, and that things could die down as quickly as they exploded.
It's also possible there is broader appeal. But it's a bit of a risk.

Anyway, good luck!

[Kattt]

Unless the design all done….may I suggest the two "knobs" behind the wings that all flies have? They are called Halteres and are what allow the insect to fly so well and turn on a dime. Those little things are what make a fly a fly, so to speak. Other insects have four wings and these guys two plus the steering mechanism.

[Andrew U]

I love BPL and the support for cottage companies :)

Very cool knives, expect another sale once the website is finished!

[Matthew Perry]

"Very cool knives, expect another sale once the website is finished!"

We do still have some available on Etsy and Ebay. :)

M

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