Override stock check per product

Is it possible to overide the stock checking on certain products. i.e. drop ship or made to order.

I have created a flag to say override this product and I have tried to call it / read it in an if statement in the tpl_shopping_cart_default.php but I cannot seem to get it to work.

I have also tried an switch case statement and split the looping of the product out between each case and tried to hide the out of stock flag that is part of this routine in this file.

can anyone help?

does anyone else have a mix of product some which they stock and some which they drop ship or make to order, or in the case of stock with say a text field perhaps print or engrave from what is provided in the text field by the customer.

I then have standard product which I want to show is in or out of stock.

Look foward to some thoughts.

Thanks

Does noone else drop ship? If you do perhaps you could share best practice in how you manage stock on your site and the orders if out of stock.

Thanks in advance.