How Long Did IT Take You To Make This Knife?

A

akivory

Joined
Feb 5, 2001
Messages
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How do you respond to this question? As a professional artist I often get asked how long a carving takes me to complete. I do not like lie and usually find a way to avoid an answer. All my work is sold in galleries and they at least double the price I am payed. The time a sculpture took to create is only part of what it is sold for. I am just wondering if anyone has a good responseto this question.
 
How about 15 hours and 42 years.
First part is what it took and second the experience to get there.
Chris
 
I usually give them an "about" amount of time ("about 20 hours") I've found that most of the time, when a person asks that, it means they want to make one too. And want to see what kind of time frame they are getting into.

Jason
 
The amount of time taken to make something is irrelevant. It is the end result that is what matters. I have never asked how long it took a maker to make one of my knives, because I don't care.
 
Both of the knives I have made took about three days total each. So I just tell people it took three days for everything to be finished.
 
I don't even keep track...if I think about it, I don't want to sell it :D
 
I agree with the others who have spoken in years. That questions comes more often than you would think, and my response is always 20+ years. Thats not a smart remark, but the truth. I put all of my experience and knowledge into each knife I produce, and its taken me my entire knifemaking career to acquire that knowledge and experience.
 
blindhogg said:
How about 15 hours and 42 years.
First part is what it took and second the experience to get there.
Chris
Click to expand...

I think that's the best answer I've ever heard for this question, and I'm going to use it for the rest of my life.

But I do think the time it takes to complete a project is relevant - to the maker. Even of he's making whatever it is purely for enjoyment and only cares to recover his actual money costs in the project, it only makes sense to understand what his time is worth. That's like saying it doesn't matter what your investments earn - whether you put your money in a sock in a drawer or in an IRA. It does matter.

Well, that's not exactly the same thing; you can always get more money. But you can never get more time - it is your one irreplaceable asset, and it is constantly draining away. Even one minute squandered unknowingly is wasted; it cannot be replaced. It's something else to choose to use your time in a way that its value is lower than some other way you might spend it - that's a conscious decision. But choosing not to know seems potentially tragic to me. I value every minute of my time, I know how I'm spending it, and I know what its value is compared to something else I might be doing. Most of what I do does not earn me money, but I spend my time with full knowledge of all the tradeoffs.

Okay, off the soapbox. ;)
 
I think it depends on who is asking.

If the question is coming from someone interested in knifemaking, and they want a realistic expectation of how long it takes to produce a custom knife, then I would give them a legitimate answer.

If the question is coming from a buyer who thinks that a custom knife should be priced based on cost of materials + an hourly shop rate, then the question is irrelevant.
 
I've tryed to add it up several times and in the end I always figure I'm making somewhere around a dollar to a dollar and a half a day depending on how smooth things go.
 
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