Actual cost of a sebenza?

mrknife

mrknife

Joined
May 9, 2010
Messages
10,151
Any one ever wondered what was the actual cost of a sebenza, small, or large? I mean in terms of materials, production, and warranty.
 
A big part of the cost is in workmanship. A lot of man hours are needed to achieve the quality and tolerances
 
From what I've seen, most knives have are about 50% msrp to dealers. However, CRK with its price fixing might be more than 50% since msrp is guarenteed.
 
Nikkogi said:
A big part of the cost is in workmanship. A lot of man hours are needed to achieve the quality and tolerances
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You mean hes taking each one individually and making sure everything functions smoothly?
 
mrknife said:
You mean hes taking each one individually and making sure everything functions smoothly?
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Yeah... One of his guys is. Hand fitting the locking mechanism, too. Blade HQ did a series of videos on a CR shop tour a year or so ago. It's a good video.
 
mrknife said:
Any one ever wondered what was the actual cost of a sebenza, small, or large? I mean in terms of materials, production, and warranty.
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The cost is the best money spent on a EDC knife, because it's the last knife you'll ever need to buy.:D
Been carry'n my lg, reg. Sebby(BG42)since the Fall of 2000.
LG
 
I'd guess the NET profit when all is factored in is 10% or less... Bart
 
No, I haven't, and won't.
No way of knowing anyway, and like with other companies I'm happy to pay their price if they're offering a product worthy of that price.

mrknife said:
I see, thanks. I'll look that up!
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Here you go....

[video=youtube_share;4QiEnhA3n0A]http://youtu.be/4QiEnhA3n0A?list=PLSI4ay_8F4TDC3oMu9yTH3YgPEf7jC6U V[/video]
[video=youtube_share;Nj6p8p6vfZQ]http://youtu.be/Nj6p8p6vfZQ?list=PLSI4ay_8F4TDC3oMu9yTH3YgPEf7jC6U V[/video]
 
Great videos! His sigh at 10:10 in the first video when mentioning his customers' calls for a flat grind was sort of funny. He's got a really impressive operation going.
 
I would guesstimate 10% material, 25% labor, 35% overhead (general & administrative charges, capital depreciation, utility and rent, etc...), 2% warranty, 5% marketing, 10% R&D, and 13% profit.....
 
I have not really wondered exactly what the cost is, but I have enough experience with the processes involved to understand why very few other makers can or will make a knife like it.
 
It's easy to judge. TILL you work with Ti.
What Chris uses is the same Ti alloy used for jet engine blades.
I have machined tons of it-HATED IT!-LOL
LG
 
I have no experience in manufacturing or knifemaking, so I have no idea what these actually cost. And this is pure speculation.

But my best guess would be $80 for a large plain for an all-in shipped-to-the-dealer cost.

Materials: $15 (Ti, S30V, screws & other standard hardware, purchased in bulk)
Heat Treat/Stonewash/sandblast: $10 (done in batches)
Machine Time: $20 (including electricity, labor for waterjet and sharpening, clip bending, etc)
Manual Fitting: $20 (assume 1 person: 30 minutes, incl wage & benefits)
Factory Overhead: $10 (depreciation of machinery, spoilage/waste, facility rent, etc)
Packaging: $1
Warranty: $1 (the vast majority of knives, including the 8 I have owned, will have zero problems)
Shipping to dealer: $3 (done in bulk)

A large plain sells at retail for $410. Let's assume CRK sells to dealers for $300 (tight dealer margins of under 40%, but I've heard that's about where some of the margins might be.) So at $80 in all manufacturing costs, that leaves good space for margin for CRK. Between 3x to 4x markup to the dealer sounds about right for their knives. We aren't talking about manufacturing tech gadgets which often have slim margins--we're talking about a very basic knife design with two slabs of titanium and a sharp piece of S30V. That's not to lessen the quality of this knife (I love all of my CRKs). But I think people who are expecting that these cost a ton of money to make are off the mark because they're often working backwards from what they paid, which is not the right way to tackle this question. What CRK charges to the consumer and what it costs them to make are not necessarily connected for higher-end luxury objects. I'd actually be surprised if the cost was as high as $80 and would imagine that the process and scale has been refined sufficiently to drive costs down closer to $50.

Side note, I don't expect that the cost for a large plain and small plain would differ materially. The expense difference is minuscule for materials--less than $5.

From the gross profit, take out admin/accounting expenses, amortization of the initial design and CAD, marketing (they have great CS and I'm not counting this in the production cost; they've responded to emails and sent me a brochure, stickers, and replacement Umnumzaan orings for free), interest expense on any machinery or the factory if those were financed by commercial loans, taxes, and I'd expect a net margin that's more reasonable, perhaps in the 20% to 30% of sales range across their entire line.

Again, all of these are just guesses.
 
experimentjon said:
i have no experience in manufacturing or knifemaking, so i have no idea what these actually cost. And this is pure speculation.

But my best guess would be $80 for a large plain for an all-in shipped-to-the-dealer cost.

Materials: $15 (ti, s30v, screws & other standard hardware, purchased in bulk)
heat treat/stonewash/sandblast: $10 (done in batches)
machine time: $20 (including electricity, labor for waterjet and sharpening, clip bending, etc)
manual fitting: $20 (assume 1 person: 30 minutes, incl wage & benefits)
factory overhead: $10 (depreciation of machinery, spoilage/waste, facility rent, etc)
packaging: $1
warranty: $1 (the vast majority of knives, including the 8 i have owned, will have zero problems)
shipping to dealer: $3 (done in bulk)

a large plain sells at retail for $410. Let's assume crk sells to dealers for $300 (tight dealer margins of under 40%, but i've heard that's about where some of the margins might be.) so at $80 in all manufacturing costs, that leaves good space for margin for crk. Between 3x to 4x markup to the dealer sounds about right for their knives. We aren't talking about manufacturing tech gadgets which often have slim margins--we're talking about a very basic knife design with two slabs of titanium and a sharp piece of s30v. That's not to lessen the quality of this knife (i love all of my crks). But i think people who are expecting that these cost a ton of money to make are off the mark because they're often working backwards from what they paid, which is not the right way to tackle this question. What crk charges to the consumer and what it costs them to make are not necessarily connected for higher-end luxury objects. I'd actually be surprised if the cost was as high as $80 and would imagine that the process and scale has been refined sufficiently to drive costs down closer to $50.

Side note, i don't expect that the cost for a large plain and small plain would differ materially. The expense difference is minuscule for materials--less than $5.

From the gross profit, take out admin/accounting expenses, amortization of the initial design and cad, marketing (they have great cs and i'm not counting this in the production cost; they've responded to emails and sent me a brochure, stickers, and replacement umnumzaan orings for free), interest expense on any machinery or the factory if those were financed by commercial loans, taxes, and i'd expect a net margin that's more reasonable, perhaps in the 20% to 30% of sales range across their entire line.

Again, all of these are just guesses.
Click to expand...

Yup-110% swag--
LG
 
lumpy grits said:
The cost is the best money spent on a EDC knife, because it's the last knife you'll ever need to buy.:D
Been carry'n my lg, reg. Sebby(BG42)since the Fall of 2000.
LG
Click to expand...

Seriously?! Maybe I should take the plunge and buy one.
 
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