Would you pay to have your knives sharpened??

steve-in-kville said:
Here's the thing: I've been looking for a little side gig at home. One reason is to keep my older sons busy, another is to raise some extra gas money.

I've been doing some knife and axe sharpening over the years for friends and family. My boys would like to learn the trade, too. It was recently suggested that I would expand a little. I've been doing everything by hand with a stone and I am looking at more automated equipment.

My question to the forum here is, would you pay someone to do a quality job on a knife? Or wouldn't you trust your blades with anyone else but yourself??
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The skill of sharpening with a stone and oil was hard learned and something I am glad I know.

So no , I would not pay anyone to sharpen my knives :D

Tostig
 
I paid Bronk $5 per knife before I got "into" knives myself. Kitchen knives, my Ka-Bar, my Ontario USAF survival knife, and my camping hatchet.

Since then I became a knife enthusiast. I bought a $8 Accu-Sharp to sharpen my kitchen knives, and despite derogatory comments on this site regarding carbide wheel sharpeners, it does a good job on my kitchen knives. Saves me trips and five dollar bills at Bronk's.

In the very near future I plan on buying a DMT Aligner and then also sharpening my other knives myself (lotsa Bucks and Moras). There's a possibility that I still might have certain knives sharpened professionally for a while, if they're hard to sharpen and don't need sharpened frequently (like my S30V knives). Eventually I hope to acquire enough skill sharpening to sharpen any of my knives.

I consider sharpening skills one of the benefits of being in this hobby. To answer the original question, enthusiasts might be more inclined to sharpen their own, but I would expect there are plenty of "civilians" out there who would be happy to pay a few bucks to get the job done right.

Also ... I'll keep quiet about possessing that particular skill. ;)
 
i am speachless.

a pencil sharpening service? a pencil sharpening service at $12.50 per pencil?

this is decadence on a scale not seen since the fall of Venice.
 
if I were going to send my blades anywhere to be sharpened, it'd probably be back to the maker or manufacturer, unless they were really awful at it, but in that case I probably wouldn't own one of their blades.
 
The best bet you'd have for making money with knife sharpening would likely be in servicing restaurants. I am a restaurant professional, and a lot of restaurants and chefs will pay to have their knives sharpened from time to time.

An even better set up is to do what some do, and bring a set of kitchen knives to a restaurant and offer to come back and sharpen them every week or every two weeks for a set fee. There is a company that does this for many of the restaurants I am familiar with, and they charge about $17/bi-weekly to sharpen a set of knives that they provide. Ever two weeks they will come in and drop off a set of sharp knives, and take the old set back with them to sharpen up. It works out pretty well. I dropped this service years ago when I acquired the skill of knife sharpening.
 
i think that people would pay if they are not realy that in to knife and such because sharpening is one of my favorite things about being a knife collecter but i think that if you want to make some extra money i think that you could
 
Not a chance. I might pay somebody to teach me how to sharpen BETTER. But as of right now, I'm more than satisfied with the edge I can put on my knives.
 
Well, I just bought a Spyderco Sharpmaker and want to try my hand on some kitchen knives that we have had for years. If I can bring those back to sharpness, then why pay someone, and I will invest in some stones or something. If I can't (and I can use sandpaper and mousepad to get what a coarse stone will do), then sell the Sharpmaker at a loss and chalk it up, or go to some knife sharpening guru and learn. But like some have said, acquiring the skill will be useful and part of the fun of having a knife.
 
steve-in-kville said:
My question to the forum here is, would you pay someone to do a quality job on a knife? Or wouldn't you trust your blades with anyone else but yourself??
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I would and already do. I ship my knives to a resident forumite. In fact I'm waiting to get mine back. He does the stuff I cannot do...convexing.
 
one looking to make a little x-tra money can do well at gun & flea market shows. motorized equipment is a must since you may be required to service 100 or more knives on a saturday. around here they usually get from 3 to 5 $ a knife. i'm not talking about a krein regrind but simply putting a quick usable edge on the blades. dennis
 
I would pay for someone knowledgeable to sharpen my knife and teach me how to do it.

I would also pay for a complete regrind or reshape a la Tom Krein.

I would not pay for anything else-even a mirror-edge, perfect bevels etc.
 
Steve

My dad used to sharpen knives with a little homemade sign hung from the mailbox in his sleepy town. he charged a $1 a blade. Ok he was retired and bored. He was good at and over time bought the electric equipment to do it right and taught me through the years how it's done to get hair splitting edges.

His clientele grew from the locals to travelers that would make a slight job off their path to catch the old man and the Fedex and UPS driver were frequents as well

My dad passed away in '06 and I tried to keep up the "business" when I would go by an see my mom each week but eventually the business dropped off because my dad would do it while they wait and it gave the locals a chance to chat it up some. All for a Buck!

The other service my dad provided was he would pick up decent quality knives from the flea market and even some of the import junk you can buy a dozen for $10. He'd put a decent edge on them and if a customer had a knife that was too far gone he would just give them a new one that he probably had .50 invested.

Granted 99% of my dad's customers were not knife nuts but it was a budding little business that I'm sure could have brought more in than $1 a blade.

Sorry for the long post as I recall fond memories I guess my opinion is yes it can work but I suspect your market will be locals that probably don't demand the sharpest hair splitting edge.
 
steve-in-kville said:
My question to the forum here is, would you pay someone to do a quality job on a knife? Or wouldn't you trust your blades with anyone else but yourself??
Click to expand...

No thanks. I'd rather do it myself. If, however, I didn't know how to sharpen, or could not get the results I seeked, then I'd try someone. Good luck with the endeavor.
 
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