Perks of being a knife maker

Larrin said:
Yes, after spending all of your time and money on knifemaking it’s practically free. Except for those expensive materials and the opportunity cost of a knife you didn’t sell. Dang it.
Click to expand...
Yeah I get that. But if you set out to make a knife for yourself after you are all set up and running - it's cheap.
 
David Mary said:
That's not actually true.... jussayin. ;)
Click to expand...
Of course you have the learning curve, the outlay on tooling etc.

But once you have all that, the cost of a piece of even premium steel and practical handle material is not much. The rest is your time, and your time is your own - make something useful .... or watch TV.
 
Look at it this way, my friend: A knifemaker spends considerable resources to be in a position to make these things for his or her friends. And the knife itself is a consumption of these resources. You say it is cheap, but the fact is that knifemakers, like anyone else, have other expenses, like groceries, rent (or mortgage), utilities, etc., and that is on top of the actual cost of making a knife.

If you have a "normal" job, half your income doesn't go to steel, handle material, plasma/waterjet cutting, heat treatment, shipping, etc. You can trivialize those expenses if you want, but don't fall for myth (whoever started it) that it is, by any stretch of the imagination, a trivial cost for the knifemaker to own and use a piece of his or her own work. I know some pretty high end and highly respected makers who, by the price of their work, you would think are "loaded", but are anything but, and just struggling to make ends meet like anyone else.

TLDR: There is a reason that I only own a handful at most of pieces of my own work at any given point, and eventually end up selling it anyway. - And I am not even the maker I was referring to. I am not even one of the guys with a high end shop.

I get to do what I love, serving people I love, but make no mistake: This job's expensive.
 
I fully understand. And you are describing the making a living aspect. I'm talking about making something for yourself, using the skills and tools you have, and the cost of materials. Yes, heat treatment etc. You could factor in your time, but again, this is not something for profit - to pay the bills.

Rather than cheap, I could rephrase to cheaper.
 
Okay, sure. If I work at McDonald's I get 30% for a staff discount. But I could have had a healthy grocery store meal for a lot less. Even if it's not a big Mac (or a Prevail in AEB-L steel with Grip-Tec™ scales). Only difference is I'm not just the employee who got the benefit of the discount, I am the franchise owner who paid for the materials for that knife and many more in the first place and is still trying to break even from them.
 
image.png


:)
 
David Mary said:
Okay, sure. If I work at McDonald's I get 30% for a staff discount. But I could have had a healthy grocery store meal for a lot less. Even if it's not a big Mac (or a Prevail in AEB-L steel with Grip-Tec™ scales). Only difference is I'm not just the employee who got the benefit of the discount, I am the franchise owner who paid for the materials for that knife and many more in the first place and is still trying to break even from them.
Click to expand...
Got it, I understand. 🙂👍
 
No one has mentioned the wife walking off with a "nice one" that was suppose to go on the website. I've lost more than several that way. In all this time I've only built one of myself and that was also kinda a commemorative thing with my brother. He paid for the steel and I traded for the handle material. Never even carried it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top