Overview
A Bolt Action Knife - a knife that deploys with a bolt along the side of the body. Made with titanium, brass, and copper bodies. EDC!
Story
The Tactile Turn BAK is an all new type of blade deployment. Bolt actions have been around for rifles for a very long time. In the last few years there have been several bolt action pens. There is even an older patent for a bolt action knife that applies to a folding knife, but I have a patent pending on the use of this type of bolt action as it applies to a knife that has a blade that exits the end of the knife. There is only a spring to help retract this blade, so it is not an automatic.
When I look for a knife, I want three things:
1 - Amazing materials. I don't want some garbage steel for the blade. I don't want plastic handles. I want a knife made from great materials that I know will last.
2 - Made in the USA. This is something that is getting hard to find unless the price is astronomical. Tactile Turn products will never play games to make you wonder if we actually make our products in the USA. If you are ever in Garland, Texas, please come by our shop and we will gladly show you how we make our products in house.
3 - Have a reasonable price. I do have a few knives with borderline ridiculous price points, but there are almost no knives that fit the first two requirements and also have a reasonable price.
I know this knife is not for everyone. It only has a one inch blade. It does perform most of the functions that an everyday carry knife needs extremely well because it has a large handle area. The small blade might not be for everyone, but it works really well for 99% of what I need a blade for.
This is an entirely new knife segment. I have a patent pending on using a bolt action for the advancement of a blade through the front of the knife. There are other mechanisms for Out The Front (OTF) knives, but this is a first for this style.
The blades for the entire internal mechanism part. One solid piece means that it is going to be strong and simple, so it will be reliable. I initially started designing this around a hobby style blade like an Xacto blade, but decided that I wanted a blade that was sturdier to launch this product. The spine of the blade is about 0.070" thick compared to most hobby blades at 0.015-0.025".
These blades will be offered as replacements for $25 each. We have a commitment to standing behind our products and we will be making these for a very long time. We still support our first pens we made 7 years ago, and we continue to do so. We will support these knives in the same way.
This blade is a Tanto style grind with a chisel grind. That means the belly of the blade has one flat side where the other has the actual edge ground into it. This will make resharpening easy to get back to an ultra sharp edge.
We use D2 tool steel for these blades and harden them to Rockwell 60 C. D2 is a very tough steel that has a great balance of edge retention and can take abuse. Since these blades are made from round rods of material, there are limited steels available in round rods unless we order 10,000 pounds of the material. If this Kickstarter does really well I can consider ordering something like S35VN, CTS-XHP, or something like that, but that is a $200,000-$300,000 order so the Kickstarter will have to do really well to make that a possibility.
We also want to offer a Damascus steel blade, but to get the material made in a small round rod we have to make a custom order. I'm already in talks with Damasteel about getting this, but again, it requires a pretty huge order and will take time to receive the material.
There will be a replaceable blade version of these that uses a hobby style blade or a scalpel blade, but we are still in development on that model. Hopefully we will be able to show it during the funding period of this Kickstarter, but it might take enough time to develop that it has to be a separate campaign.
I stopped carrying a knife for a little while because most of my knives just took up too much room in my pocket. These are nice and slim with a deep carry clip that allows them to fit perfectly in my pants pocket for easy carry. With great one hand deployment they are perfect for self defense, but also for the person that wants to keep their EDC minimal.
As always, every Tactile Turn product has our signature texture that makes grip a non issue. It's subtle, but distinctive. It allows you to have complete control of the BAK.
This will be the 12th Kickstarter I have run. From the very beginning I wanted to make as much of every item I sell in my own shop. I started my first Kickstarter project owning no equipment and not having a shop. The first Kickstarter got me a corner of a friends shop, about 160 square feet, and my first manual lathe. Since then we are now in a 9000 square foot shop, have four CNC lathes, one CNC mill, and a ton of other equipment as well as 4 other full time employees and 4 part time employees. Tactile Turn is still a small company, but we have plenty of room to grow in our new facility, and as we increase sales, we can acquire more machinery and talented employees. Kickstarter has given us a platform where we can show off what we do and I haven't found a better way to launch a product.
Kickstarter backers always receive the best pricing as a thank you for supporting the launch of a new product. For the first 48 hours, there will be an extra incentive with an extra $10 off each model to encourage early support. After that, the pricing will as shown be below. After the Kickstarter is over the price for the MSRP will be 25-40% higher than the Kickstarter price.
Brass - Kickstarter price - $79, MSRP $99
Copper - Kickstarter price - $89, MSRP $119
Titanium - Kickstarter price - $99, MSRP $139
DLC Coated Titanium - Kickstarter price - $179, MSRP $239
For those of you that love Damascus Steel, we offer a Damascus Steel bolt as an upgrade. This is jus the small part that your thumb pushes on to advance and retract the knife blade. It's a really cool detail to add to your knife.
Damascus Bolt - Kickstarter price - $15, MSRP $20
DLC coating is an incredibly tough Physical Vapor Deposition process that leaves parts a glossy black color. This isn't your average black coating. It'll last an incredibly long time, even with lots of hard use. It's an expensive coating to get done, but it does add a great look to compliment models other than the all DLC coated version.
DLC Coated Bolt (replaces standard bolt) - Kickstarter Price - $5, MSRP $5.
DLC Coated Clip (replaces standard clip) - Kickstarter Price - $5, MSRP $5
DLC Coated blade (this is the whole internal piece) - Kickstarter price $30, MSRP $40
If you need more than one BAK select the first BAK you want as a reward to the right, then change the pledge amount to add the funds for whichever other BAKs that you want. Do not add any extra funds for shipping as the $3 for people in the USA or $8 for those that are international is all you will ever need to pay for shipping.
Risks and challenges
We've done enough projects on Kickstarter to know how to get things made. We have our own facility with our own machinery that has been built up over the years. There are possibilities on materials deliveries taking slightly longer than expected, but that has been built into the expected delivery timeline. Same can go for a machine breakdown, but it has been accounted for in the delivery timeline.
Comes with pen, and replacement blade in tube. Excellent condition.