Fair price for sharpening

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I sharpen only for friends and relatives gratis.

Just my thoughts if I were inclined to charge and sharpen for the public.
$10 to sharpen to 320 rough and toothy
$25 to polish to .5 micron- hair splitting sharp
$25 to repair, in addition to sharpening charge

I believe that this schedule would assure a small, but loyal, following, and over a very short time, drastically reduce demand for "repairs.":D
 
What's that famous quote? "Right now I need some atomas or a grinder." Ok maybe not famous. But still.

3 hours. 4" and 6" knife no longer are saw blades and now slicing phonebook paper at 400 grit. Should've stopped at 220. One hell of a dished 120 grit stone. 4 left. All 8-9" that apparently were used to cut through a Buick.
 
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Think I may settle on the tiered pricing with a few disclaimers. Undamaged knives at a factory angle I can pump out pretty quick at a low grit. Damaged knives in need of repair must be disclosed upfront and will incur additional fee. Reprofiles to anything other than factory angle will incur additional fee. Microbevels tacked on to a sharpening job incurs additional fee such as if 15/20 is requested. Adder for super steels. And may drop the lowest tier from EP 400 to 220 because 400 gives a somewhat decently shiny edge that cuts well and plenty good enough for most people, not allowing them to see the need for anything better.
 
It's not going to work out well for you. When you have too many sharpening options it become confusing to the customer. Very few will understand the difference in grits, they just want a sharp knife.

Charging different for following a factory bevel? As a professional it should be a VERY RARE occasion that the factory bevel is at a acceptable angle. Every edge needs to be thinned as part of the sharpening and only edges that need major repair get different pricing. Blunted edges with small nicks is just part of the gig.


Also, if your only sharpening to coarse grits then a belt sander would be a faster and better option that will provide sharper and more consistent results.
 
knifenut1013 said:
It's not going to work out well for you. When you have too many sharpening options it become confusing to the customer. Very few will understand the difference in grits, they just want a sharp knife.

Charging different for following a factory bevel? As a professional it should be a VERY RARE occasion that the factory bevel is at a acceptable angle. Every edge needs to be thinned as part of the sharpening and only edges that need major repair get different pricing. Blunted edges with small nicks is just part of the gig.
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Will take it into consideration, but reprofiling a 20* edge to 15* in M4 isn't a quick task. Not with my average joe equipment. I do agree with you that the tiered pricing isn't a good idea after some thought. I think the two options like Ben was saying is much better. Good thing I'm not trying to make a living off this lol.
 
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uofaengr said:
3 hours. 4" and 6" knife no longer are saw blades and now slicing phonebook paper at 400 grit.
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Yep. This is the main reason I bought a WorkSharp Ken Onion. I wanted more speed for these blades people keep bringing me. I like how you've described them here. Cutting through a Buick! :) That sounds like 90% of the blades I get to work on.

Brian.
 
I charge usually 5 bucks per blade, 3 bucks for small folders and that's when I used stones up to 1200#.
Mirror finish was an extra 5 bucks.
I always ALWAYS did free sharpeneing for friends except once where I had to repair a knife handed down to my friend that was a Ka-Bar Combat from the 70s.
Apparently his father hit it against the grinder and COMPLETELY ruined the bevel and edge.
Took 13 hours to fix it, I so I did charge him 20 bucks for a new 600 grit stone.

Alot of my friends still give me money for sharpening even their cheap 10 buck flea market knives.
Funy because I've taught most of them how to sharpen yet they don't use it and let their blades go to hell.

Now that I have a Ken Onion Work Sharp, and use 6 different grits up to a high mirror polish with an edge that tree topps hair.
I might charge around 10 bucks depending on the blade depending on the length and blade shape.
 
I charge the same as Auraria on my edge pro. I don't know if I'm undercharging or not, but I'm happy with it. I do 6.50 for straights, which i recently figured out can be sharpened on an edge pro.
Also, thanks for mentioning me, haha!
 
I too own a Edge Pro and people have taken note of the shinny edge. I think the price should take into consideration of the following: starting blade edge, how high up on the grit they want, does it need to be reprofiled or touched up, blade material.

To me, blade length doesn't have any bearing if its a pocket knife or chief knife.

I don't think $20 a knife is a bad price it the knifes are in decent shape and using all the polish tape and/or using Chosera stones.

Personally I rather work with better quality steal. Not to sound snobbish, but its generally easier to work with and can take a better edge. I don't see the point of putting a descent edge on a piece of crap, made in China knife. If the knife was made in China the customer would be better off buying a new knife.
 
The rule-of-thumb I have heard in the last few years was about $1 per inch for hand sharpening. That's what I charge (friends free). I use paper wheels or Edge Pro usually.

Good sharpening,
Dave
 
I don't advertise the fact that I know how to sharpen knives all that often, I made that mistake when I became a computer geek and has resulted in a lot of people expecting me to fix their computers for free. Took me 10 years but people no longer call me for help on microsoft office as I haven't used it that long, kept telling them every time I don't use it and don't know how to fix it and it finally just clicked for them recently. Same thing with Windows 8, Internet Explorer, etc. I tend to not let others know my specialties now, or advertise them at least, too much hassle.

Unless I switched to using a powered setup I don't think I could charge people a cheap enough price that be fair for my time, as I don't want to charge someone $20-30 for a damaged knife to repair because I do it free hand and that would be more fair to the time it takes me to fix it.
 
I can do a sharp mirror on my belt in 5 minutes or less, but on my W/E I can spend a half to full hour doing a super cool edge.
 
I asked a guy "How much he would charge to sharpen my Dad's Puma White Hunter," quoted me $100 a few years back.
 
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I run a mobile sharpening service and I charge $5 per knife for 9 or less and $4 for 10 or more. That includes reshaping bolsters, bent or broken tips, and reverse bevel issues (from repeat abuse from a honing steal), and re-serrations.

I charge more for single bevel, and dagger type knives.

Pairing knives are always $3. SADDEN is correct. The long slicing knives used in food service is very thin and takes very little time to sharpen. Old Chefs knives some times need to be "thinned". Regardless of what is used to sharpen, over time some metal is lost.
 
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