Thanks to all of my valued customers the move from Country Village has turned out to be far better than I expected, my customers have been keeping me a very busy man. Thanks also to Dan Erickson of Ring of Fire Forge, we are now open on Tuesdays as well.
Dan Erickson, my Tuesday partner, is building a new shop next to mine. It is a bit bigger, and we plan to move the sharpening service to that building and leave my building as the Grange rental office and machine shop. Hopefully this will give us a cleaner work space as well as some space to display some cool cutlery.
We hope to fill in gap of high end cutlery now that the cutlery shops at the malls have closed down. The cutlery will be of good quality because we won't have the space to carry any thing but and also because that's who we are.
As we progress forward, I would like to see folks support the local small businesses such as the farmers market, local butcher shops and other Ma and Pa shops rather than the mega corporations peddling Chinese goods.
And remember this, your older cutlery may perform as well or even better, as anything new, depending on the quality of it when it was manufactured. Carbon steel blades and many of the new space age stain resistant steels a good performers as a general rule. Many of the "stainless" steel blades, made today, however, are mediocre as explained elsewhere on this site. Don't toss them, sharpen them.
Update for the Xrossbar lock folding knife and Kickstarter launch.
It has been a long time since my initial announcement and efforts to launch the new knife due mostly to finding a suitable manufacturer and getting a quote for producing the knives. There were also some other factors involved with keeping things all tidy and legal as well.
Finding an onshore manufacturer has proven difficult, as they were mostly busy. I managed to get a bid from a Taiwan manufacturer, that a friend uses.
Developing the Xrossbar Lock was a real learning experience, Over the years, I had created several different versions of the Xrossvbar lock, each one an improvement, and the last one is rock solid.
The samples received from the manufacturer were absolutely amazing and actually surpassed my expectations. Today’s CNC machines are extremely accurate and extremely fast and a good fit for this particular project and is one of the main reasons why I’m doing this. My hand made knives were demanding that I charge $3,000.00 or more and that just didn’t make sense for a using knife.
When the steel embargo hit Taiwan, it unfortunately has forced the price of manufacturing the knife up a bit and consequently the retail price, as well as the reward price offered in Kickstarter. We will strive to keep the price as affordable as possible without sacrificing quality or scrimping on materials.
I was going to name the knife “The Montana” but the Montana Knife Company beat me to that with one of their knives, so I will rename the knife “The Bronk”.
We do apologize for the delay and appreciate and beg your patience with this project, however we are determined to bring this project to fruition.
It has been a bit of a challenge and a longer road than anticipated, however, we are now actively working with the manufacture on the details and should be launching it fairly soon.
Lyle Brunckhorst
Bronk’s Knifeworks
Bar X Cutlery LLC
Welcome to The Montana. Just prior to the "pandemic", I decided to take the Xrossbar lock folding knives to a new level by having them manufactured by one of the better manufacturers to keep the quality of the knife high.
The reasoning behind this is two fold. First I can only make a few of these knives by hand with the equipment that I now have and I believe that this new lock is going to take the town by storm when it gets out there. Second the hand made knives are really beautiful but the time it takes to make each one of them makes them prohibitively expensive for some and I want everyone, interested in this knife, to be able to afford one.
I and team have been working many hours, days, weeks, months and yes even years on the Xrossbar and I feel as though this knife is going to be one of the new standards for the cutlery field.
We are now working with a Washington based manufacturer with years of experience with knife manufacturing. We now have a bid and will be launching on Kickstarter in the very near future.
We now have the factory prototypes and I was indeed impressed with their work.
I do have just one more hurdle to cross and am currently working on the legal aspects of the process. Thanks for your patience.
I had Jim Cooper of jcooper@sharpbycoop.com photograph the knife and this is what he said, "I have handled many, many folders. I’m as impressed with Lyle’s innovative engineering and build as any others I have captured.”
Above on this page is a signup button for the Kickstarter project. Please give me your contact so that you won't miss our upcoming launch date.
I have a number of 5 star testimonials on Google, Square and Yelp
Misen was a huge success story and for good reason. They created several working cooks knives and had the good sense to use a well qualified and proven steel.
AUS 8 grade Japanese steel has been used by several reputable companies to make fine cutlery for years and now AUS10 is the new version that Misen uses for even better performance.
The 8" chef knife at $65.00 is a very good deal.
In order to keep the prices low, Misen will only sell direct and therefore I do not stock the knife myself. However, let them know that I sent you please.
https://misen.com/products/chefs-knife?variant=32749630554193
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