Hey everyone - I’m going to be doing some scratch tests on our aluminum finish to compare and contrast against other knives I own. It’ll be on live YouTube today at 5:30pm CST (30 minutes from this post), so if you’re not following me there go ahead and subscribe so you’ll be notified when I go live! 

-Michael

Hey everyone - we've gotten some info from our OEM on the aluminum Snarfs that we wanted to be sure everyone was aware of. After carrying the Sunburst and Moonburst Snarfs around, we started to notice we were losing some of the anodization, especially along the high contact areas like the spine...
...and near the edge of the butt of a handle


This is our first knife in aluminum to offer, so we reached out to Laura, our contact at Scikio to try to better understand the aluminum anodization process.

It turns out that when you're anodizing a solid color on aluminum, you're able to create a more resilient finish, but to be able to achieve one color fading into another you're not able to get as resilient of a finish. So the tradeoff for the wicked cool colorways we're doing is that they will show more wear over time as compared to a solid anodized finish.

The sunburst finish is off to see some reviewers, so we've asked them to do some scratch tests to see what it takes to remove the finish. We're also in talks with Laura to see if there are any additional finishes or processes we can do to increase the resiliency, but for now I think it's best to assume the finish will wear more quickly than a standard single color aluminum finish.

If you'd prefer to switch your order to a G10 option or to a titanium option you certainly can, or if you're comfortable knowing your aluminum Snarf will pick up a unique wear pattern early on then that's fine too. And of course if you'd rather not back the project due to this issue we totally understand. We just want to make sure folks get better from AKT than they expect, not worse!

Speaking of better than we expected, we're happy to announce that we are going to be able to serialize Snarf! So each Snarf will have a serial number on the blade in a place that can only be seen when half-open and hidden when open or closed. Serial numbers will be awarded based on how early a backer pledged but will not necessarily correspond to their order number. This is because invariably some knives don't pass QC, but it does mean your serial number will likely be lower than your order number.

Let us know if you've got any questions or concerns about the serializing process or the anodizing issue. We're continuing behind the scenes to make sure you get the best Snarf possible!

-Michael and Melody, AKT

G'mornin' everyone - we had a request to see the new colorways closer up since the poll photos are so tiny. Keep in mind these were edited by yours truly (and now that they're bigger it's even more obvious! 🤘😅) so these would not be the exact colors, but hopefully pretty close. The polls end at midnight CST tonight, so get your votes in before too late!

-Michael, AKT

Hey everyone - it's been just over a week since we launched Snarf and we're so excited about the response Snarf has gotten! Things have been moving so fast it's been hard to keep up, but we're so thankful for all the comments and feedback we've already gotten. We've been hard at work crunching the numbers to see what we can offer for stretch goals, and here's what we've been able to come up with:

$47,500 - Anodized Titanium and Timascus Accents
If we hit $47,500, we'll be able to offer accent kits for Snarf. These would be for sale as add-ons and we could offer satin and stonewashed finishes for blue, purple, rust, and teal accents. We can also offer timascus accents. We've mocked these up so you can see what they'd look like:



$50,000 - New Snarf Colorway #1
$53,500 - New Snarf Colorway #2
$57,000 - New Snarf Colorway #3
These we'll need your help on! We've mocked up ten new colorways and want you to vote to help us figure out which ones we offer first! You can see three polls here: Snarf Polls

We weren't able to do ranked choice on the polls, so you'll need to fill out three separate polls telling us your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice. Voting ends Monday at midnight, so get your vote in ASAP!

We're so thankful for all the support you fine folks have given us! Let us know if you have any questions or other ideas to help us get the word out about Snarf!

-Michael and Melody, AKT

Holeeee cow!!! We've smashed our initial goal and things have been moving so fast I've not even had time to consider how amazing things are going! As I'm furiously writing this email so I can help Melody and the kids with Sunday afternoon house cleaning (I've got 15 minutes before we start so it's gotta be quick), I just saw Snarf crossed the $25K mark, triple our initial goal!

I'll be sending an update soon with some stretch goal info, but for now, I just want to say how much we deeply appreciate the support. I stepped out in faith at the end of September and put in my two-week's notice with my full-time job so that starting mid-October I could be full-time with AKT...but I gotta tell ya I was doing a decent amount of sweating over that step of "faith!" 🤘😅

I say all that to say that the support for Snarf does more than help us launch an amazing new knife, it helps support us as we work to navigate what being full-time with AKT will look like. So years from now when we're still in the knife game making stuff...NEW. EVERY DAY. (that's our tagline that doesn't get used enough, I'll have to take that up with my rambling marketing guy, which is also me) just know that we're able to do what we do in the future because of what you've done this weekend.

There's more to come on this project, but for now, did you see the feature that Melissa Backwoods did on Snarf? If not, check it out!

Hey, just thought of this, but while I'm rambling, if you came here because of Melissa, respond to this post and let me know. We'll work out something awesome for Melissa based on the number of folks that tell us they came because of her. I don't know what because I'm making this up as I go (now down to 5 minutes before cleaning begins) 🤘😅
 

Early bird ends today, so if you know of someone who needs Snarf, pick up one for them, or let them know to jump in while they can save $10!And even though Halloween just passed, at the Reed house we stay in the spooky spirit, so we're still entering everyone who preorders Snarf this weekend to win 1 of 5 Spooky Truffles brought to you by Way of Knife!Anywho, thanks so much for bringing Snarf to life!!! One minute to go, so I'm pressing send! 

-Michael 
Chief Knife Nerd, AKT