Cost to machine a knife scale?

[Monkeyleg]

I recently bought a ZT 0561 knife. Gorgeous. The only thing that's been bugging me is that the designer put some plain G10 on the left side, but then did the right in beautiful machined titanium. This is it:



The G10 has been driving me nuts. My brother is a machinist, and I've though about asking him what it would cost to machine a left side scale to match from titanium. I don't know machining costs, though, and so don't want to insult him.

Any idea what it could cost to make a scale like that?

[dogmush]

I have a mill at home, and to machine that, from Ti, to even come close to matching, I would charge more than that knife costs.

And I know what ZT knives cost.

The other side is "3D Machined" on a 5-axis CNC machine.  I don't even want to think about the code for it, but it's more complex than anything I've written.  Without the code to start with?  Ugh.

Milling it by hand on a 3-axis machine would be a TON of work, with very little room for error at any point.

You might contact ZT, since they have the code already, but stopping their line for a custom project might well cost a pretty penny as well.

[Monkeyleg]

Yeah, that's what I thought.

Rick Hinderer was the designer of that knife. He has a couple of models that are almost identical, but not quite, and sells left side titanium scales for them.  $200 each.

I dyed the G10 black, so it's a least a little less obnoxious to me.

[cordex]

Pshhh, just cut open an aluminum can, cut some of the side to shape, dimple it with a nail set and call it good. /KD5

[brimic]

G10 on the left side makes perfect sense for functionality, but I can see how the asymmetry would drive a person nuts.

[Perd Hapley]

Class it up with some nice wood, you philistine.

[Fly320s]

Paint the titanium brown to match.   

[Monkeyleg]

Wiseguys.

[griz]

G10 on the left side makes perfect sense for functionality, but I can see how the asymmetry would drive a person nuts.

It does for me.  I bought a knife online with orange G-10 that I liked (just a decent user, not a high end pretty like shown) and was surprised to find the side not shown in the photo had no scale on it, just the frame lock.  Frame locks with bare metal on both sides are fine, but half and half looks unfinished to me.

[Monkeyleg]

Class it up with some nice wood, you philistine.

I'll bet your house is decorated with Thomas Kincaid-style paintings.

[Perd Hapley]

I'll bet your house is decorated with Thomas Kincaid-style paintings.

My wife likes the pre-Raphaelites, actually. I like C.M. Coolidge.  

[tokugawa]

Iz knife. Go cut something.