Actually if you have followed us on Facebook or been by our booth at an event you would know that we do indeed use existing tips as our starting point for the Ki-Techs...
Basically we will at some point acquire the equipment to punch our own but it's expensive and large... My 22 ton press might be able to manage but it is hydraulic and it would be very slow and I would need to fabricate some fixtures.... Doing our own would cut our costs so it is on the to do list going forward....
Basically what you have in cow is mineral tanned, chrome tanned and vegetable tanned... We recycle each tip differently based on the type of leather it is before we go back with elastomers and hardeners to create the hardness and spring rate we want for each grade.
The best thing to call our tips are hybrids.. At least that is what Royce at OB and I refer to them most often when we talk as they are a hybrid between leather and synthetic..... as the chemical compounds and not the leather are most responsible for their characteristics... This is why our tips can be the same leather type as another single layered but have totally different playing characteristics and grab......
For our soft we can use the elk master or any of 4-5 other tips as a starting point since when we are done breaking them down all we care about is the leather type as the different tanning types produce different fibrosity which is key to being able to adjust spring rates/hardness/sound......
That's about as detailed as I can get... We have been working on our processes for 4 years and I promise I have learned more ways to not make a tip than the ways that work the best to ensure our tips come out consistent and hold up over the life cycle.....
