How many knives in a month?

[P.Brewster]

There are some long term and experienced part-time makers who think they could do 40 per week (2000 per year) if they "went full time" but most who try discover they've underestimated the endeavour...

I think Nathan hit the nail on the head. You approach your question the same way you approach any business strategy question. Specifically, you gather data, acknowledge that the data is inherently incomplete and flawed, and use that data as a starting point to establish your prices and business plan. After a year minimum, you now have new data - your records - that is accurate. You then use that new data to adjust your pricing and business plan. Repeat.

The wildcard is vendor delays, vendor errors and unforeseen setbacks. Outsourcing heat-treat is great - until Peters is running weeks behind schedule. CNC'ing the blanks is great - until your motherboard craps out, or your end mill snaps, etc. Waterjet cutting is great - until the mixing tube snaps and half of your $2500 plate of tool steel is scrap. In these scenarios, you can usually recover the lost money, but you can't recover lost time.

 

[jdm61]

At the height of the "bushcraft" craze in the UK circa 2008-2010, I had one Brit tell me that some guys could grind like 20 O1 Bushlore clones in one day. I don't recall if that included profiling. Obviously that is a fairly simple blade and they can't do 20 complete knives in one day, but that surprised me a bit as I was struggling to get ONE done at a time.

 

[jdm61]

And TIME is the most valuable commodity for most of us.

I think Nathan hit the nail on the head. You approach your question the same way you approach any business strategy question. Specifically, you gather data, acknowledge that the data is inherently incomplete and flawed, and use that data as a starting point to establish your prices and business plan. After a year minimum, you now have new data - your records - that is accurate. You then use that new data to adjust your pricing and business plan. Repeat.

The wildcard is vendor delays, vendor errors and unforeseen setbacks. Outsourcing heat-treat is great - until Peters is running weeks behind schedule. CNC'ing the blanks is great - until your motherboard craps out, or your end mill snaps, etc. Waterjet cutting is great - until the mixing tube snaps and half of your $2500 plate of tool steel is scrap. In these scenarios, you can usually recover the lost money, but you can't recover lost time.

 

[timos-]

That is a great point about outsourcing heat treat...I would have to say then from start to finish the answer is 0 knives! B/c turnaround is about 4-6 weeks lol...ive been dreaming about kilns alot lately.

 

[Drew Riley]

Lead time certainly is a factor, but then again, it depends on how many blanks you're getting done, and if you've got something else to work on while you're waiting.

It may take 4-6 weeks to have 200 knives waterjet and heat treated, but how long would it take me to profile and heat treat 200 blades myself? How many bandsaw blades, drill bits and sanding belts am I gonna burn through? Maybe I want jimping, sharpening choils, weight reduction in the handle tang, an elongated lanyard hole, etc... That's gonna extend time considerably, not to mention factoring in consistency. Now how long to heat treat those 200 blades?

Sure, you may have to wait a few weeks, but mean while you can be roughing out handle scales, kydex blanks or leather sheaths, or working on your last batch of x number of knives that have already be profiled and heat treated. Before you know it, you have 200 heat treated blanks showing up at the door, and you can spend the next few weeks finishing those while your next batch gets processed.

 

[Daniel Fairly Knives]

10 fixed blades a week in a basic finish would be quite a lot. 7-14 per week would be a huge goal and probably attainable. I can do 1-2 folders per week and maybe 5-10 fixed blades if I am fast.

 

[P.Brewster]

Lead time certainly is a factor, but then again, it depends on how many blanks you're getting done, and if you've got something else to work on while you're waiting. Sure, you may have to wait a few weeks, but mean while you can be roughing out handle scales, kydex blanks or leather sheaths, or working on your last batch of x number of knives that have already be profiled and heat treated. Before you know it, you have 200 heat treated blanks showing up at the door, and you can spend the next few weeks finishing those while your next batch gets processed.

In a perfect world it would work that way, but in real life it doesn't happen. The vendor delays are unforeseen - meaning you need knives back from heat-treat on June 1 to hit your required cash flow / business plan timeline. Instead, your knives come back on June 21 - which means your paycheck is 3 weeks late. The net result is that vendor delays, vendor errors, and other unforeseen setbacks directly affect your total production capacity (knives per year). Of course, the big problems aren't delays - they are the catastrophic problems that cause knives (or entire batches) to be scrapped partway through the process. I can speak from my experience, and I know American Kami is another case study of this problem.

 

[DanF]

In a perfect world it would work that way, but in real life it doesn't happen. The vendor delays are unforeseen - meaning you need knives back from heat-treat on June 1 to hit your required cash flow / business plan timeline. Instead, your knives come back on June 21 - which means your paycheck is 3 weeks late. The net result is that vendor delays, vendor errors, and other unforeseen setbacks directly affect your total production capacity (knives per year). Of course, the big problems aren't delays - they are the catastrophic problems that cause knives (or entire batches) to be scrapped partway through the process. I can speak from my experience, and I know American Kami is another case study of this problem.

I get what you are saying and agree, but I would also add that if someone was so strapped for cash that they could not carry themselves through whatever the issue is, they probably should not be making knives( or anything else), full time yet. Being that cash poor is not even working on a shoestring, I think.

 

[SirSpice]

I get what you are saying and agree, but I would also add that if someone was so strapped for cash that they could not carry themselves through whatever the issue is, they probably should not be making knives( or anything else), full time yet. Being that cash poor is not even working on a shoestring, I think.

Isn't that how a lot of businesses function though? They go into some amount of debt to invest in the business.

 

[DanF]

Certainly, but many fail due to not knowing how deep the water was before jumping in.
It made for an interesting ride when I was young, scares the crap outa me now.

 

[Huntsman Knife Co. LLC.]

In my experience, If I start with a waterjet cut blank and do everything by hand over the course of 8 hours, I can make 1 ~5in knife and sheath per day. But, I tend to use 3V, z wear and M390 which all suck to grind.

If I have CNC'd scales and I'm using a easy to grind steel like 52100, I can make 5 knives and sheaths.

But thats only if everything goes well and I don't have any major issues. As you probably know by now, something is always broken or not working in the shop, you always have to repeat a process or refinish a blade, you have to miss days because you are sick or have obligations, and biggest of all, you eventually experience burn out. Wearing a respirator 8 hours a day is hard enough. Doing it 300 days a year is just brutal. Truth be told, I wouldn't wish full time knife making on anyone. Its a tough job.

Part time for me It keeps the fun in it and I'm not stressed making money. Nothing worse than screwing up a knife that you needed to sell to pay your rent

 

[jdm61]

Hunter, in my limited experience, a shorter 3V knife is not that hard to grind and oddly, that steel seems to grind as easily if not more so when it is hardened. The alloying seems increase the risk of overheating no matter what state it is in.

 

[Huntsman Knife Co. LLC.]

Hunter, in my limited experience, a shorter 3V knife is not that hard to grind and oddly, that steel seems to grind as easily if not more so when it is hardened. The alloying seems increase the risk of overheating no matter what state it is in.

I hard grind all my knives so I don't have much of a reference for 3V soft v. hard. I think most hardened steels are easy to grind up to 120 grit. But when the Trizact belts come out 3V takes many more passes to finish and is more prone to stubborn scratches than something like 52100. Z wear is just awful to finish, I've had several "wall punching " moments while working on the stuff Luckily my walls are plywood so I only managed to hurt my fists.

 

[P.Brewster]

I get what you are saying and agree, but I would also add that if someone was so strapped for cash that they could not carry themselves through whatever the issue is, they probably should not be making knives( or anything else), full time yet. Being that cash poor is not even working on a shoestring, I think.

Think of it this way. I'm going to hire you as a full time employee starting Jan 1. Lets say you have $3K in the bank. Your salary will be close to your cost of living. Here's the catch - half of your paychecks will be late, on average. Some of the paychecks will be 2 weeks late, some might be 3, some might be 5 or 6 weeks late. Where will you be a year later? Two years later?

We are talking about the very well-understood concept of cash flow. It doesn't matter how big the business is, if cash is departing the bank account faster than it is arriving, the business will sink.

What I'm saying is that the setbacks must be treated as cost of doing business, and they must be accounted for as both a real cost and a constraint that affects total production capacity (knives per year). If you treat them as one-off flukes, you'll start sinking.

 

[Lierne Kniver Norway]

My wife and I were just talking, just hanging out enjoying the day, and knives came up; me loving knives and she loving me, and my recent little spending splurge, and she asked a question and I had no idea the answer, so I want to ask you knife makers out there...

An experienced knife maker, with a full arsenal of all that he needed at his disposal; (materials, equip., space, hardware), being able to work on multiples at one time, with no other job but knife making... How many knives, working say 10-12 hrs a day, (a normal full time schedule + some overtime), how many quality fully fit & finished knives would you say one person can reasonably produce start to finish on avg. in one months time without rushing the process?

Hi,
i’m a fulltime knifemaker from Norway. After 6 years making knives i can say between 15-25 knives a month a can make. Of course depends models. A normal week with 35-40 hours i finish 5 incl. the sheath

 

[Taz]

Last week, I started with 4 Nitro V blanks that were hardened, drilled and profiled that were around a 3-3.25" cutting edge length. I did the blade grinding and finishing, as well as getting handle scales, pins, etc all attached and shaped out in around an 8 hour day or so. A couple days later, I did 6 kydex sheaths, sharpened them and put the logo's on the blade. Full tang knives take around 15-30 minutes to do the handles from rough oversized scales to up to 400 grit. Hidden tang with a guard take a bit longer because I gotta glue the scales to the frame, fit the guard to the tang, glue the guard to the scale set after I square everything up, then shape it out.

 

[Crag the Brewer]

Last week, I started with 4 Nitro V blanks that were hardened, drilled and profiled that were around a 3-3.25" cutting edge length. I did the blade grinding and finishing, as well as getting handle scales, pins, etc all attached and shaped out in around an 8 hour day or so. A couple days later, I did 6 kydex sheaths, sharpened them and put the logo's on the blade. Full tang knives take around 15-30 minutes to do the handles from rough oversized scales to up to 400 grit. Hidden tang with a guard take a bit longer because I gotta glue the scales to the frame, fit the guard to the tang, glue the guard to the scale set after I square everything up, then shape it out.

I need to step up my game...... I know I never could do this gig, for Real.... I'm way to slow.
I'm only on the weekends, but what you are holding would be 2 months for me.

*my goal was to be able to do 1 per week, and That even seems insurmountable to me. :/


**NIce work. I like the two middle ones, Super Cool.

 

[Taz]

Thanks! A lot depends on the steel, handle materials, etc, too. Ironwood takes a lot longer than G10 or Micarta! My home made micarta handle material takes a lot longer as well.

 

[Horsewright]

Yesterday.

All handle materials are now on and pinned on all the knives, 23 total, including two rehandles (a bolo and a dagger) and 2 Green River Skinners that have never had a handle and a roundknife The rest are my regular EDC types. Oops incorrect. 20 knives. I'm waiting on the handle material for two of them and since one of them is the same I set it aside too. Numbers 2, 3 and 8. So 20 knives total and 3 on standby. I'll get going on them later today. Gotta open a couple hours on making a pair of chaps.

 

[Taz]

Batching makes things much faster I found. Cut and drill all the handle materials. Then epoxy them as a batch, then shape as a batch. Use the 40 grit belt on all, swap to the 80 grit on all, 120, 220, 320, 400. Works much better than going start to finish on one knife at a time!