What does the blade steel actually cost?

I’m a knife maker, and here’s a couple questions that pop up from time to time

How much money do you have in a knife?
How long does it take to make a knife?

If you’re buying a custom knife, you need to remember that every part of the process costs money and time. It’s not uncommon to spend hours on just the handle alone.
 
While considering these other answers, also consider that the price can change depending on the amount of steel needed, and that certain companies will have better or worse deals.

Prices for knives will include factors as warranty, customer service, heat treat, grind and finish, lock type, handle material, consistency of fit and finish, research and development, marketing, paying employees and their insurance etc, shipping costs and issues, quantity of knives being produced, quantity of employees, box for the knife, lot rent, etc.

Just like a steak at a restaurant. You can get it for $10 at the store or $40 at the restaurant. Both start the same, but the end result might be drastically different to what you can do compared to a career chef. The price isn’t just going to the chef, in fact, most of it isn’t. Unless it’s a one man operation, the price of most things reflect the cost for the company to produce something and still make a profit. Sometimes this margin can be large, like some 5 digit price tag knives, and some might be minimal, like some $10 knives. Location also matters, you can pay people way less than what is legal to pay people in the USA. You can produce much cheaper things in locations where people are paid much less to make the things. This can be by factors of double or even quadruple the price, it all depends. Steel is also going to be cheaper if it has to travel less usually. 20cv is american made, so probably is more expensive elsewhere. VG10 is produced in Japan and is probably more expensive in Australia. Location and travel time factor into price.


All these things go into the price of a blade, or anything really. This is why if you are spending decent amounts of money on something, you should invest time into finding out how it is made. Truthfully, this can be difficult as some companies lie and some companies hide how they make things. I would not doubt that some companies really just run a blade for 10 mins on a machine, and sell it at a profit, while some spend hundreds or dozens of hours on one knife.
 
Everyone is an armchair economist and "knows" what a fair price is 😉

As others have said, tooling is expensive, labor is expensive, factory space is expensive, transportation of raw materials is expensive, transportation of finished good is expensive, marketing is expensive, insurance is expensive, warranties are expensive. These elevate the cost of a knife, because making knives is what is paying for all that. The steel cost may not even make it to the first page of the expense report.

Conversely, what the "cost" of the knife can be affected by the "worth" put on the market. Is your company well known to put out great products and stand behind them? Is your product an "it" item where the scarcity and demand mean that it will sell for more $$$? Economics 101.

I've said it before, but everyone is rah-rah 'Merica capitalism until they have to pay the going rate. Then it's highway robbery and unfair and outrageous costs 🙃
 
I am a machinist. I primarily work with vertical mills. Just to add one small data point to the discussion, most people don’t appreciate just how costly tooling alone can be.

Today I am making a finished part from titanium raw stock. The process uses 19 tools. Just to pick two, the roughing end mill I am using, nothing fancy, costs about 100 bucks. The specialty drill I am using costs about 400 bucks. Each of them will need to be replaced several times over the course of the job run due to wear/breakage. Keep in mind that’s on a fully optimized program with a material whose behavior our shop is very familiar with.

Now imagine how quickly the costs escalate working with (insert your preferred supersteel here). I would not be at all surprised to find that each tool required to machine that blank runs into several hundred dollars, and that several of each is likely to be used in the course of a run.
 
Beelzebubba said:
I'm trying to find comparative knife steel prices, like for pieces of 6"x2"x1/8" of every type of steel.
I keep hearing that the type of steel can make big $ difference. Show me how much a blade sized piece actually costs! I can't find that one anywhere.
Yeah, I know that machineability and such has to be factored in, but I'm talking bare essentials. An extra ten minutes machining shouldn't cost that much...
All I hear is why I should spend more, always more, and I suspect that we are being played!
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]Not exactly sure your point? If you think you're being played, then quite simply, don't pay the prices that are asked. That is how the market works. Buy CRKT or Kershaw or MTech, and save your money.... That is your choice...

Do you think a carbon steel Winkler should cost the same as a Buck? Mad because a Microtech or Protech costs so much more than a kershaw launch? Do you want to "prove a point" trying to devalue and discredit the knife community, in a community made up of avid knife collectors, users, and makers, simply because "reeeeee, this bar stock only costs 14.5% more than that bar stock, so why does the knife cost 120% more, reeeeeee!" You're not going to get very far here. The other part of how the market works, while you're free to not pay what you don't think is worth the cost, folks who do feel it is worth spending the money, will spend the money willingly. Freedom to exchange goods and services in exchange for something else of a determined value
 
KVT said:
Wonder what Damasteel really costs. On a typical $225 WE knife, the Damasteel version is always slightly more than double the cost @ ~550.
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Anybody that has ever attempted to make or watched someone else make good quality Damascus (carbon or stainless) would probably never question the price again.

It is a labor and time intensive process that always includes lost time that you don't get paid for.

It takes days (sometimes a week or two) to make some complex patterns. If Damascus makers actually got paid a fair competitive wage for every minute they spent on making the billet, it could easily cost well over $1000 PER INCH. Few could afford that.
 
GunnersFan said:
Today I am making a finished part from titanium raw stock. The process uses 19 tools. Just to pick two, the roughing end mill I am using, nothing fancy, costs about 100 bucks. The specialty drill I am using costs about 400 bucks. Each of them will need to be replaced several times over the course of the job run due to wear/breakage. Keep in mind that’s on a fully optimized program with a material whose behavior our shop is very familiar with.
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Just squirt a bit of WD-40 on there and it should be fine. Or maybe use something softer than titanium. Like wood. I bet those drills would last a bit longer. There's always a solution.
 
I've gotten billets from Nichols and they've run 3-400+ dollars depending on what you get. Factor in the grind, prep, heat treat, I figure some those blades I had made came out to be around 500-1000+ dollars each, depending on the size.
 
Steely_Gunz said:
Everyone is an armchair economist and "knows" what a fair price is 😉

As others have said, tooling is expensive, labor is expensive, factory space is expensive, transportation of raw materials is expensive, transportation of finished good is expensive, marketing is expensive, insurance is expensive, warranties are expensive. These elevate the cost of a knife, because making knives is what is paying for all that. The steel cost may not even make it to the first page of the expense report.

Conversely, what the "cost" of the knife can be affected by the "worth" put on the market. Is your company well known to put out great products and stand behind them? Is your product an "it" item where the scarcity and demand mean that it will sell for more $$$? Economics 101.

I've said it before, but everyone is rah-rah 'Merica capitalism until they have to pay the going rate. Then it's highway robbery and unfair and outrageous costs 🙃
Click to expand...
I deal with the same shenanigans in tree care. People see that it takes me x hours to do a 2000 dollar removal and think it's all profit. Forget about fuel, equipment wear (not just power equipment, ropes are expensive and they need to be replaced frequently), liability insurance, vehicle insurance, and a medley of other crap that comes into play. Drives me nuts when I shoot someone a price and they're like "What if I pay you cash?".
 
Wild Willie said:
I deal with the same shenanigans in tree care. People see that it takes me x hours to do a 2000 dollar removal and think it's all profit. Forget about fuel, equipment wear (not just power equipment, ropes are expensive and they need to be replaced frequently), liability insurance, vehicle insurance, and a medley of other crap that comes into play. Drives me nuts when I shoot someone a price and they're like "What if I pay you cash?".
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Let’s not forget about the dreaded things that can unexpectedly go wrong and you end up losing a ton of money.
 
Many factors but here in the UK we aren't as lucky as you are there in the US. I'd happily pay what some of your best makers charge, most seem reasonable to me for what you get.

Here in the UK we have some custom makers but I ain't paying £400-500 for a 4" "bushcraft" knife in 01 steel or similar when I can get a Joker or TBS for a quarter of that. There are a few good custom makers who charge what I'd consider a fair price for materials, design, etc... But we are a country where if someone can rip you off they will.
 
KVT said:
Wonder what Damasteel really costs. On a typical $225 WE knife, the Damasteel version is always slightly more than double the cost @ ~550.
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J. Doyle said:
Anybody that has ever attempted to make or watched someone else make good quality Damascus (carbon or stainless) would probably never question the price again.

It is a labor and time intensive process that always includes lost time that you don't get paid for.

It takes days (sometimes a week or two) to make some complex patterns. If Damascus makers actually got paid a fair competitive wage for every minute they spent on making the billet, it could easily cost well over $1000 PER INCH. Few could afford that.
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Retail, a blank of less-expensive patterned Damasteel costs around 4x what the same size blank costs in Magnacut and more than 6x what 154CM costs. More complicated patterns can easily add 50% per inch to the material cost. Add to that shipping/import expenses (made in Sweden), and a huge increase in the amount of finishing work that goes into polishing, etching, and re-polishing a blade (compared to something like a satin or stonewash). You're paying for a combination of the increased material cost and a lot of extra labor.
 
I think every knife enthusiast should make a couple of knives.
Once you go through all the design, buying materials, and all the hours of work, it gives you a different perspective.

Of course economy of scale with full scale manufacturing changes things, but then you have all the leasing of buildings, payroll, taxes, insurance, worker's comp, tooling, utilities, etc.
 
Wild Willie said:
I deal with the same shenanigans in tree care. People see that it takes me x hours to do a 2000 dollar removal and think it's all profit. Forget about fuel, equipment wear (not just power equipment, ropes are expensive and they need to be replaced frequently), liability insurance, vehicle insurance, and a medley of other crap that comes into play. Drives me nuts when I shoot someone a price and they're like "What if I pay you cash?".
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100% get it. In the line of work I do, the going rate averages around $50,000 and up and takes about 100 man-hours to complete. Once you factor in paying my guys, insurance, equipment maintenance, specialty equipment rental, materials, delivery, and hoping mama nature is kind, I might clear 10% for the company. That's not what goes into my pocket. That's what goes into the coffers to be spread out and socked away in case something expensive breaks or the weather turns to garbage and we are sidelined for a week or a month.

But of course every customer just KNOWS that business owners are rich, right? 😉
 
Steely_Gunz said:
100% get it. In the line of work I do, the going rate averages around $50,000 and up and takes about 100 man-hours to complete. Once you factor in paying my guys, insurance, equipment maintenance, specialty equipment rental, materials, delivery, and hoping mama nature is kind, I might clear 10% for the company. That's not what goes into my pocket. That's what goes into the coffers to be spread out and socked away in case something expensive breaks or the weather turns to garbage and we are sidelined for a week or a month.

But of course every customer just KNOWS that business owners are rich, right? 😉
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Exactly, we were having a great year up until August, then we had a catastrophic chain of break downs and family health emergencies involving elderly grandparents. Burned through most of what we'd been able to sock away, and right now we're in the midst of replacing the turbo and egr cooler in our main pickup... I'm ready to turn the page on this year.
 
Beelzebubba said:
I'm trying to find comparative knife steel prices, like for pieces of 6"x2"x1/8" of every type of steel.
I keep hearing that the type of steel can make big $ difference. Show me how much a blade sized piece actually costs! I can't find that one anywhere.
Yeah, I know that machineability and such has to be factored in, but I'm talking bare essentials. An extra ten minutes machining shouldn't cost that much...
All I hear is why I should spend more, always more, and I suspect that we are being played!
Click to expand...


Materials are much more than just the cost of the steel. If the blanks are being CNC cut, not only does the time on the machine matter, but that time also has to include the increased wear on bits and upkeep on the machine. Now start adding in additional costs of heat treating. Start adding in limited availability of the materials, or that some orders need to be placed in bulk. Plus we need to figure the additional man power hours that working with the harder steels bring with them. Abrasives and polishing items get eaten up much quicker, and that needs to be factored in.

Most guys can't afford their own CNC machine, so they have to rent the time. A production which costs 25% more time, doesn't just mean 25% less material cut. It means the profit from the other blades which could be made during that time is also lost. The difference has to get factored in.

Yes, the upper end blades are going to cost more due to the above, but anything "premium", is also going to need to cost more to fill in the above holes, as well as create the "need" to go along with it. Good pictures for the websites are going to cost money, and they are pretty much mandatory for upper end items. Now add in any extras that tend to pop up, like blemish or defective blades, employees getting sick, heat treat ruining a batch, and those extras add up quick.
 
For just about anything sold commercially, trying to reason your way to a price from the materials is usually a terrible way to do it. Very few things are sold these days without much "value add". To pick a non-knife example, you can make yourself a bowl of oats at home for less than a buck, if you price your time at zero and don't break a dish. That same bowl at a restaurant is probably four times that cost because of rent, utilities, labor, insurance, etc. The cost of materials is a trivial component of the price of the finished good.

I think there are instances of hard-to-justify price-inflation in the knife market, and have more or less stopped buying knives from one maker I really like, just because I think they're high on their own supply right now. But unless you're talking about the low end of the market (I bet materials are a large fraction of the cost of those Civivi Damascus knives, for instance), materials don't tend to be the major drivers of price. Especially for US-made knives, labor is much more dominant.

And then there's the price of the logo, which is where I do start taking issue...
 
I'm a green maker without a ton of experience......

I like making User knives. I personally think they look really good, but I am not really concerned with my final finishes. a few little scratches or blemishes are ok (with me).
Again, they are not Show Pieces.
Fancier finishes would add considerable time.
I try/hope to keep my production time to under 10 hours per knife.
idk what other makers take? I'm guessing a lot less than that. But some I've heard, might just hand sand for that time period..... Ugh.

Take the cost and divide it up to around ten hours. It puts a different perspective on things.

(I know I am slow........ I could maybe get a bit faster, please don't shame me..... haha)
 
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