What do the materials cost you to make your knives?

O

Omega Leather Works

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Jun 13, 2007
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I realize that you all may not break down the costs of making your knives, but I know that some of you do.

I also realize that the most expensive part is the time that you put into the making. That aside, how much do knives cost you in materials?

Of course it will depend on the knife, but around about is fine.
 
an 8" OAL knifecosts for me about 40$ minimum. That is with buying enough of everything to make 20 at a time and a stainless steel like AEB-L and cheapest G10 handle material.
 
I make knives using blanks...primarily the in-shop ground blades Jantz offers now rather than imports. For me, at my stage in this adventure, it's more cost effective for me to use blanks.

That being said, my breakdown for an average knife works similar to this:

1095 Jantz Pattern blade- $24.95
Handle scales- Varies...let's say $8 for some nice walnut
Pins- Also varies...$1.50 for a 6" piece of pinstock, 3 1" pieces is $0.75
Epoxy- Maybe $.25-.50

So for a basic 1095 blade with walnut handle I have $34.00 in used materials.

It's hard for me to figure things like my sanding belts and paper because I get a LOT of use out of my belts and I make use of every square inch of a piece of paper...that and I've been using files/rasps for rough shaping which has saved on my belt usage.

Now, if you also add sheaths to this there's the expense of leather, glue, thread and dye for a basic leather sheath or kydex, rivets and scews for kydex sheaths.
 
Counting materials only, this knife cost me less than $10 to make:
971308_508189822584072_1406123472_n.jpg

1/8" thick piece of linen micarta: about $1
3/8" thick dymondwood scales: about $4
11" x 1/8" 1084: $3.63
a little bit of Brownels acraglas: let's say $1

This does not count the tools I used, the time, the rest of the piece of steel I cut it from, or the shipping of the materials. This is about as cheap as it gets for materials, but this is a fine knife (if I do say so myself).

- Chris
 
crimsonfalcon07 said:
Depends on the steel and the handle scale material pretty heavily. Usually around 100-200.
Click to expand...

Wow, what are you typically using? I can see a sword or large chopper in a pm steel costing a lot, maybe a large ti folder?

It helps when you describe the knife/knives you make, and Chris, I really appreciate the pic and break down. :)

Grizz, was that you that made that thread in gb&u? It was a very enlightening thread! Do you sell your knives made from blanks? I've only made one blank knife. It was a Gene Martin B&T in d2. It was a very fun experience. :D
 
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That one looks good, is it dishwasher safe? Either way, can I ask how much shipped? I might have to ask for Xmas present!

Hesparus said:
Counting materials only, this knife cost me less than $10 to make:
971308_508189822584072_1406123472_n.jpg

1/8" thick piece of linen micarta: about $1
3/8" thick dymondwood scales: about $4
11" x 1/8" 1084: $3.63
a little bit of Brownels acraglas: let's say $1

This does not count the tools I used, the time, the rest of the piece of steel I cut it from, or the shipping of the materials. This is about as cheap as it gets for materials, but this is a fine knife (if I do say so myself).

- Chris
Click to expand...
 
cchu518: This one was a wedding gift for my brother, so it's not up for grabs. It's not dishwasher safe because it's not stainless and the heat damages the epoxy (you shouldn't put any halfway decent knife in the dishwasher even if it is stainless). I'm also not allowed to sell on this forum because of my membership level. But thanks for the offer!

- Chris
 
Hesparus said:
Counting materials only, this knife cost me less than $10 to make:
- Chris
Click to expand...


You realize this is what many guys are going to take from your post, and then think $16.25 is a perfectly reasonable price for your knife, right? :p ;)


The op's question is a really hard one to answer... because there are so many variables from knife to knife. It would be interesting to take a specific knife and figure it out, like Chris did in his post.
 
Not at all! Decent big brand knives run about $75 on the low, low, end. This would be a stepup. My big problem is i'm lazy and like stainless dishwasher safe knives. My own current chef knives run between $50 and $200 I have three right now.
 
Strigamort said:
Wow, what are you typically using? I can see a sword or large chopper in a pm steel costing a lot, maybe a large ti folder?

It helps when you describe the knife/knives you make, and Chris, I really appreciate the pic and break down. :)
Click to expand...

Good guess. You didn't ask for details in OP, so I didn't provide. I make primarily large knives (more than 12" OAL) and short swords (24" OAL). (I have a couple up in the exchange now). My expenses tend to be higher than those who do their own heat treat as well, because I ship them out to Peters, and in generally small batches, which means I pay shipping both ways and a higher cost for heat treat than if I were wealthy enough to buy a ton of steel up front and do a giant batch of the same steel. My last batch cost me over 280 in total (100 for each of 2 types of steel, plus around 40 shipping each way). (Generally you're safe assuming that I've got at least 40 in heat treat costs alone in each of my blades). Shipping costs honestly eat up a lot of money for me. I can generally only afford to buy a few lengths of steel from Aldo, and steel is heavy, so it's spendy to ship. I'm just glad I'm not overseas. Then shipping would be prohibitively expensive.

Also, a nice piece of stabilized burl can cost anywhere from 30-70 dollars. Add in mosaic pins, epoxy, pins, etc, and you have a bit of an investment just for handle materials. Also, I use up at least 2 belts and 3 cutting wheels grinding the blades out. And a bunch of sandpaper and oil, and other stuff. It adds up pretty quickly. Again, the hazards of doing larger blades.

And right now, I'm doing mostly CPM 3V, which seems to be many times more expensive than simpler steels. I'm somewhat limited because I want to do blades over 24" in length, and virtually every place that does blades that long, it's got to be air hardening steels, and 3V is as good as they come for my applications for that type of steel. End result is that I don't end up charging much at all for my time. To put it in perspective, most of the blades I sell, I'm generally not even getting $4 an hour for. I mainly just try to recoup the material and shipping expenses, and mostly write labor off as an educational expense.
 
Don't forget:

Electricity Bill
Gas Bill (if you use it to heat your shop in the winter)
Water Bill
XM Radio Subscription (can't work without music)
Leather, dye, topcoats, sewing machine, thread, needles and all sorts of assorted stamps, blades, etc.
Shipping materials and shipping costs
If you are forging, don't forget the cost of gas or coal
Drill bits, end-mills, handle bolts, adhesives
If you have a website, you must include the cost. (some are free, but you get what you pay for)

These are just a few general items that need to be considered. The list is endless.

That is why, based on the total picture, including the ridiculous amount of time I put into each knife..............

I USUALLY SEE SOMEWHERE AROUND $0.29 PROFIT ON EACH BLADE. However, as long as I am having a good time and making people happy, I can live with that.

Robert
 
Okay, I came back in to ask a question (my mind was pondering this topic way too much when I went back to work, LOL).

Are you wanting to know the cost of just the materials themselves, i.e. blade steel, guard stock, and handle material? Or are you wanting to hear figures for the whole she-bang?
 
Strigamort said:
That aside, how much do knives cost you in materials?
Click to expand...

It's absolutely impossible to answer your question as posed.

My question is, why do you want to know? If you are looking for the most inexpensive way to make a good knife, just re-temper old file blades from rummage sales, grind the bevels and put "firewood" or dymondwood handles on them. The next step up (and I think it's a big one, performance-wise) is to use 1084, canola oil quench and plain wood scales. Other than that, the sky's the limit...

Costs can vary as much as $50-100 in materials alone (disregarding labor) for the exact same basic DP hunter pattern, without even getting into exotic stuff like giraffe bone or ivory handles, or some of the really crazy super-steels or damascus. What about a 2,000 grit hand-rubbed finish vs. a 400-grit belt finish?

Let's not forget that it takes different HT protocols and a lot more abrasives to grind and finish high-alloy steels than it does plain carbon ones... so while it may look to a casual observer that a bar of "stainless type ABC" only costs 50% more than a bar of "carbon XYZ", it might cost the maker 100-200% as much to actually make it into a knife.

I have costed-out many of my knives, especially custom orders, and it gets a bit mind-numbing... there's a point where counting beans takes as much time as finishing the darn knife :p
 
I left out all of the things that did not end up as an actual part of the knife because that's what I thought the OP was asking. But those things are also pretty tough to estimate since we don't count the number of sheets of sand paper we use, and because each individual grinding belt works on multiple knives. I used 60, 220 and 400 grit belts (top shelf) plus a scotchbrite belt on this, but they were used on probably 10 other knives as well. Shipping materials from the suppliers and to and from the heat treater are expensive, but they are harder to factor into an individual knife since we don't pay for them individually. Even tougher is the cost of electricity and wear on machines. Some of these things count as materials (belts, sand paper), but others do not (electricity, machine wear). Is one more important than the other? No.
Time is obviously one of if not the biggest cost for making knives. We are skilled craftsmen (some more so than others, and most more so than me), and our time is worth a lot. A $10 pile of materials is just a pile until a skilled craftsman turns it into a knife, and the quality of the resulting knife has much more to do with the artisan behind it than the properties of the original pile. I'm very happy with what I did with my $10 pile, but it could have become much more if it had started out on the bench of some of the fine artisans we have on this forum than it did on mine.
Perhaps a working definition of "materials" in this case could mean the value/cost of the knife minus the cost of labor. In this case, I would say the material cost is closer to $100 for the knife I showed.

- Chris
 
... there's a point where counting beans takes as much time as finishing the darn knife
Click to expand...
I like that. Sometimes the steel & the handle aren't much, in relative cost to a finished knife, but there sometimes a decades worth of tool collecting and everything associated with using the tools properly..belts, discs, bits, files, buffing pads, saw blades...I can honestly sayI don't think I've never made any money on I knife I've made...and I'd consider myself lucky if I've broken even. Maybe someday I'll be in the big money of custom knife making;)
 
The steel and materials are cheap, the thousands of dollars in equipment along with the years invested in experience is what people pay for. Then you have maintenance on those machines and tools along with replacement cost when they wear out. Add to that your sanding belts, sand paper, quench oil and a hundred other things you accumulate of time to make the knives you want to make. Then include a shop and all the related cost that go along with that. Like I said to begin with the steel and handle material is nothing compared to everything else.
 
And there it is,it's been said before. If you want to become a millionaire as a Knife Maker,start with 2 million.Someone told me I had found my calling when I first started.They said I would become RICH doing this.I told him I was already RICH because it made me so happy doing it.
Eddie
 
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