I depends also I guess the experience... I'm lousy at grinding bevels so I run the belt grinder real slow. It multiplies the time spent but avoids any errors. Now I spend hours to finish my grinding. As I learn the movement and get used to it i'll run it faster and faster, it will reduce the spent time to minutes. But profiling is a fast process, you can cut rough profile in 5 minutes with angle grinder and 5-10 minutes you can finish the profiling in a fast and low grit belt. Most of the time is spent on hand rubbing, It may take hours or days to remove all the scratches and going up to higher grits, depending on the dimensions of the knife. If you make more than one same type of knife at the same time, it reduces the time cost significantly. The steel type does matter even if it is annealed condition, some steels are wear resistant like D2 I use most of the time.
To be honest as a novice I spend for a 8" D2 knife:
Some times 2-3 hours on deciding the shape,
15 minutes on profiling,
1 hour on flattening by hand,
1-2 hours on distal tapering,
1-2 hours on bevels,
10-15 mins on drilling,
5 hours on stress relieving (1/2 hour waiting the kiln go up to 650 C) (2 hours holding at that temp)(2-3 hours slow cooling to 500 C),
2 hours on hardening (1 hour to heat up to 1030 C) (about 1 hour soak and cooling fast)
8 hours on sub zero,
3 hours on tempering,
2 - 3 hours on preparing handle material,
1 hour on shaping handle,
1 hour to 5 hour on finishing touches, file works, polishing etc.
Also add 1 hour on honing and sharpening.
If you make sheath, you should add at least a couple of hours...
In total it takes days to finish a knife, if I forge the D2 stock also we have to add at least 20 hours of annealing. The best thing to reduce the time is to gain experience and to make more knives at the same time. This way you will end up to an average of 8 - 10 hours of work for each knife. For that reason I guess a medium size knife properly put together will cost you more than 80 - 100 $. You add materials and energy, it will cost a knife maker an average 100 $ (including time).
For my first knife the cost was astronomical because of trials and errors, time spent on learning the method, not efficient use of tools etc. For that reason I keep my first knife, it would have cost me thousands on dollars. Now it is reduced to 100 I guess...
Emre
