What Would It Be Called Today?

generally speaking, the only way I can afford to make the knives that I want to make is to sell them for $500+
now with the 35% potential tariff, (my work, for now, is exempt) that means $675!!! Talk about gov't making it harder for a small biz to succeed...
 
DanF said:
“The Fifty Dollar Knife Shop”.
When I was just getting into knifemaking back in the early 90s, my mentor sold a fairly large percentage of his knives for $75-$80 each for an every day user without ornamentation. What would that same, simple knife cost today?
Can a simple knife be made today for less than a hundred dollars?
Click to expand...

Fellows, we are drifting here. The question was what is the modern minimum you could spend to make a simple knife.
The question isn't about the government or what it costs to become a full time knifemaker.
 
Being a hobbyist knife maker and only selling to local “friends” and gifting to family, I have truly looked into the cost.
I use 14C28N - inexpensive and stainless, two things I like. I send out for heat treat, no torch, oven/kiln or really space for even simple carbon steel heat treat. I like micarta for handles and Loveless style bolts.
Steel: 8-10” OAL ~.125” thickness ~$6.00
Heat Treat: includes shipping both ways ~$ 8.00 ( It’s an economy of scale. Last batch 21 blades, round trip shipping ~ $30 HT ~$130. If I sent 40 blades shipping about same and HT ~$220 so total $6.50/blade)
Micarta .125” scale ~$0.25/sq in ( 18x24 sheet)
9 sq in/ scale ~ $4.50
Loveless bolts ~ $0.75 per bolt. ~ $1.50/blade
Epoxy, belts, etc ??
So it’s about $20-$25 per knife for me
 
Last edited:
IMO, if you want to do it cheap the trick is economies of scale and simplifying design. Looking at a aud$50-60 Victorinox Fibrox kitchen knife here, it's pretty clearly stamped out of very thin stock, cheap stainless, can't see a primary bevel, injection moulded handle. All of that makes for a knife that is really cheap if you're making 10,000 of them
Problem is it requires a lot of capital investment to get the machinery going, and material is cheaper in bulk. That's an expensive shop to make cheap knives

The best we can do is what Redmeadow posted: a solid steel utility knife. But a solid steel handle made of 2mm stock would be unpleasant, so there's either a bit of grinding or forging to get the blade thin enough. Also are you going to want to make it out of crappy steel? I make my workshop ones like that out of W1
If you start adding things like complex handles, decent fitting and finish, the labour costs just go up. Labour is the biggest cost in our knives, so one obvious way to make them cheaper is to put less work into them. AKA make crappy knives

I personally don't sell anything for less than aud$250, and that should probably be higher. I could probably do them faster if i did a quick burnt on handle and a machine finish, but that would be ugly (IMO). I'm in this to make things I think are beautiful and enrich people's lives, making ugly things is wasted time.
Of course i'm lucky enough to have a decent paying day job, so i can afford to be principled :P
(I do occasionally sell cheaper knives to poor folk who need a good kitchen knife, but that's me eating the costs to help out someone else)
 
Hogwash.

Knife-makin' don't cost a single thin dime, and don't let nobody never tell you different.

All these fancy knife tools are just a gimmick to steal your money on things you don't need. Only things a man needs is a lighter, a $20 bill, a rifle, a pair of britches, a shirt, a good pair of boots, and a knife. Now, here's how you make that last one, and it ain't gonna cost you that $20 bill.

All you need is a rail spike or even better, an old horse rasp. Pile up some charcoal and toss in the rasp 'till it glows. Grab it and put it up on a big rock, then start beatin' it with a smaller rock until it looks like a knife. Toss it back into the coals and let it get good and red again, then toss it in the creek. Take it out of the creek and sharpen it on the big rock.

That's how you make a knife, and it costs about as much as air.
 
Lorien said:
the last 20% of the work takes 80% of the time!
Click to expand...
FACTS! I am doing a collaboration project with a guy and it took me all day to hand sand three S90V blades yesterday, four more to go.

Been evaluating my overhead costs, in addition to material costs and labor costs, and while I am trying to keep the cost of each blade accessible, I am definitely undercharging.
 
Few of us make any profit on our knives if we figure all our time. I have had knives I likely spent 100 hours on that I sold for $500.
The question was how low the cost of making a simple hunting knife was.
 
That was the original question, but ALL responses relating to cost to makers are beneficial (in my humble opinion).
 
I've been selling handle material full time for about 5 years now, and while its never easy, especially given that I live in Los Angeles, I still love it.

Younger people often ask me of knifemaking is a viable job, and if you're younger, don't have many expenses, and are happy to live a simpler life I think it totally can be. You need skill, and patience, and a balance of sales and craftsmen ability. One can be made up for with an excess of the other, I know some mediocre makers who thrive on sales talent and some weird, unpleasant guys who are masters of their trade and the two are about as successful.

The biggest factor IMO is that I occasionally meet more middle aged guys with a wife and kids and whatever you want to quit their job and be craftsman, and I think that is vastly less viable. The income is super spiky and unpredictable, I might may 3 or 4 times more or less across 2 given months in a year, and its a market of increasing competition and trends.

Several years ago on bladeforums I recieved the greatest piece of wisdom I've encountered.

What's the most important thing for a self employed knife maker?

A wife with health insurance.
 
Been doing this long enough I can remember selling my relatively plain jane Coyote model with one of my sheaths for $85. A fancier knife, a damascus Buckaroo would go for $200 with a sheath. In fact, my wife and I use to joke about having our own currency. If we saw something we wanted to buy that might be three Buckaroos or maybe ten Coyotes or whatever. These prices were averages of course and I was able to maintain them for quite a while. Nowadays a low end average is about $350 or so. We still play that game. She saw a little ranch she wanted, beautiful house, lots of green grass and on a famous fly fishing river which is a bonus for us. I headed out to the shop cause that was gonna be about 4300 knives. Time to get started.

When I first started I tried to keep prices low as I was aiming at a specific market with some of my knives. Working cowboys don't make a lot of money and so I was trying to have some knives that a working cowboy could afford. But the reality is if you are a business you have to make a profit or then you're not in business. We still struggle with raising our prices but ya have to. The one thing that didn't seem to get bit for us in this recent inflationary cycle was leather. Now to get the leather to my shop doubled but the price of the leather itself stayed pretty stable. Recently it did go up, so we'll have to make adjustments.
 
Last edited:
Alex Topfer said:
Problem is it requires a lot of capital investment to get the machinery going, and material is cheaper in bulk. That's an expensive shop to make cheap knives
Click to expand...

This, big time. Minmaxing is pointless unless all you're after is quantity or profit. Until recently I was under the impression that the more knives I made, the more people would like them... quite silly of me.
Greenberg Woods said:
Several years ago on bladeforums I recieved the greatest piece of wisdom I've encountered.

What's the most important thing for a self employed knife maker?

A wife with health insurance.
Click to expand...

Sounds like something S Seedy Lot would say! :p
 
i just picked up some .04 thick aebl , im gonna make a lil filet and mount it in a wa handle and list it for 80$ ill let you guys know all the economics of the build afterwards. i think i can do it sunday morning while im doing some other knifey things
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top