I started making knives as a hobby…

I hadn't made too many knives before I was asked "how much" by somebody who saw my work and wanted one. Was I ready to sell? I sure as heck didn't think so, but he was persistent, so I made the best knife I could, and sold it for little more than the cost of shipping and materials and maybe one or two consumables.

If you're like most makers, you'll one day look back on your first knives and wish you could take them all back. haha
At the very least, you'll have a healthy little checklist of things you would have done differently. At the top of most maker's lists are: 1) thinner stock 2) thinner edges 3) more shaping on the handles 4) fewer straight lines

Remember, you can always raise prices later, but it sure is hard to drop them.

Give your first few away, and ask for feed back. When you think you have one ready to sell, then charge enough to buy materials for 2 more. Until you've made at least 50 knives, I wouldn't even factor in your time.
 
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I got requests for sales fairly early on. I declined, but gave heaps away instead. Great gifts that people love, and heaps of valuable feedback.
Learned heaps from participating in a Kith here as well.

I wanted to be at a point where I would be happy unwrapping my knife had I paid money for it. I was less worried about making knives that were "flash" with all the bells and whistles and 100% concerned with making a knife that is well finished. For me it had to be equal or better finish quality than the Japanese knives I use in my own kitchen and the hunting knives I used in the field.

What it has meant for me is that when I started selling knives, several of my knives were allready in use in the community I sell in so had positive testimonials and made it pretty easy to sell the few knives I manage to make available.

Works well for me as I have no ambition to be a pro, but reinvest the profits into tooling.
 
My work is about as good as yours and I often get asked how much it would cost to make something. Usually these people are asking for high end kitchen knives or some intricate blade like a Kris, so I tell them to contact someone else. When they ask for a knife I CAN make, I usually make them one for free or a six pack of beer.

When one of these free knives happens to really blow them away, they tend to send me money regardless. When every knife I send out is met with "Wow sam, I really want to send you something for this!" then I will begin offering quotes for people to commission blades.
 
I started out years ago just wanting to just make knives for myself. And then family and friends. Eventually you get a following and the questions always comes up how much? I presently am working as a non profit knife building business. That wasn't my intention though! LOL I try to be honestly judge my work compared to others and what they charge. Honestly for what I see knives made equal to mine and what they sell for I'd have to work for $1 a hour to match their prices. That's not even remotely figuring in equipment I've invested in that will eventually need replaced or repaired. Thanks goodness I've got a a second side business that makes me money that I plan on working once I retire. Knife making, Well knife building just may keep me out of bars and hot spots and allow me to spend money on new belts and steel.

Seriously though I can't say enough how much people have appreciated gift knives though out the years. Free room and board and free hunting rights on out of state premiere hunts. Kids getting treated really great from college financial advisors after a gift knife. I could go on and on. Lots of folks appreciate being thought of and a hand made custom knife sure has closed many of deals with out a single dollar changing hands.
 
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For knives that you want real feedback on give them to people who will actually use them and give you real feedback. You will probably have a lot of experiments and a lot of them you should just learn from them. You can learn a fair bit by taking some thin edged chef knives to hardwood. I compared an M2 to an AEB-L chef and was surprised that ductile failure is more common and worse than chips. There are plenty of other things that you might want to learn as well. For me I found that I did get request for knives. At the start you probably aren't up to real handmade prices and selling is tricky. For me at that point and I haven't totally left that stage I was making knives that very much outperform most production knives but at times they aren't perfect. They make great gifts but when I start getting requests from a single person I will tell them that I will do it if they pay expenses. There are a couple of videos where people work up the expenses. A simple little knife usually cost $40 but if you are using fancy steel don't just think about steel think about your belts. There are a lot of things to learn about how to get the best out of belts and sometimes when you don't have all the right tools you wear on them faster or you don't treat them right and you might damage them. For example I don't have a buffer so I use a soft felt belt and using it on small wheels because I was to lazy to change it and I wore the bearings out far faster than I should have. Basically take in all the cost. Once you are making knives that are better than people buy if you are selling your knives for dirt cheap you are kinda screwing yourself and other knife makers and no one is going to appreciate your work. On the other hand when people realize that it's costing $80 or $200 just to build a knife and 20 or 80 hours they are going to at least feel that they got something of value. I feel that's a lot better than selling something for $120 and people thinking they are doing you a favor. Even if no one that you make a knife for ever buys a knife from you for what it's worth, you might help a fellow maker out by helping develop a market and you aren't doing any harm and people will value your gifts or work.

Its just my opinion. I think most of us will end up selling a few knives since it does get expensive. If you look at the for sale forum sometimes you see some rough work and sometimes you see nice work priced right but often when I look I see nice work by people who know what they are doing and probably put at least 20 hours in with really nice wood for prices that a lot of us would even be able to make the knife for if you really look at the cost including all the little things that you go through. Maybe they don't need the money but it's hard for people who are not makers to realize the value of the bargain they are getting. Its pretty common for most people to feel like the price reflects the quality. If you feel like you don't just want to not get anything for your work maybe tell people that you will build them the knife for cost plus a piece of equipment or beer or belts. That still educates people about the cost of building something but let's you slide on having to put a value on the knife and keeps it very much a favor and if it's something that is nice and useful but has some flaws will probably be understood since they never bought a finished handmade knife. A friend who is learning made them something really cool that they might not be perfect but will be more than they want to spend when you get the whole package right. Its just my opinion though.

You might think that your knives out if the forge perform perform well now. After you start working with steel that has been hardened flawlessly or higher performance steel with thin hard edges if you are like me you will feel like all of your first knives are all butter knives.

For advice I will say get a file guide right away. Give grinding you blades hardened a try. I find it more consistent and if you do stainless or higher alloy steels and plate quench it's going to become normal. Use your fresh belts for the last little bit of grinding. They will still hog off steel when they lose the first little bit of sharpness. If you are doing simple steel running full out can work well. If you get into ultra hard stuff run it slow with new sharp belts with lots of pressure. Learn how to get your edges thin. Unless you are doing big chopping knives there is really a reason to have edges over .010 and for knives like chefs knives .003 or less is where handmade knives show that they have value and can do things that you can't buy off the shelf.

Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith I know that I said a few things about prices in this but I don't think the context has anything to do with actually selling a knife. If I am out of line with the rules let me know and I will delete this or you can. If that's the case if you could just explain where I crossed the line.
 
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I'm also a hobbiest. I started off by doing custom orders. I felt that as I was new I needed a way to entice sales by doing customs. I got too busy and frustrated that it was becoming work as others have noted above. Now I simply do the knives I want to make and if someone wants to buy them they can. I'll still do customs for friends and family and good customers.

As for selling it'll take you some time to figure out what they really cost. If you go to my website I have an order form that customers can download. It's an excel form with various options and boxes. Put a 1 next to the option you like and it pops out a quote. I did this up so I could be consistent with my pricing and it was quick and easy to make a quote. It's also easy to change your pricing scheme. Your free to use the form if you want. Here's the link.

Scott kozub knives
 
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