How many knives a year?

C

cjensema

Joined
Dec 29, 1998
Messages
288
Last weekend I talked to a full time knife maker who told me he personally made and sold over 600 knives in the past year. That seems like a lot, since I don't think he has any assistants except his wife, who does the sheaths and paperwork. He does his own heat treating too. He works hard, often putting in 12 hour days.

My question: Is this some kind of record? It seems like an awful lot of knives, about two per working day. Do other full-time makers produce this kind of volume?

 
Among the makers I have known that would be way past the high end of production. Although, it seems I read in Blade a couple of years ago that Wayne Hendrix makes about that many anually. I suspect there are a very small minority having such high production rates.
 
If he has the blanks cut out for him and stays to some standard shapes it is possible but very boring. I must spend too long but at least I enjoy every minute. If he makes 600 and only sells them for $100 ea. thats $60,000 gross per year. I have seen the guys with the hollow grinder with the double rotating wheels that you can put a blank in and pull it out with both sides ground. They can make 30 knives a day. Its like pakystani here in the USA! They sell for $10 at the carnivals. Geez I spent 3 weeks on one of mine trying to make it better than the last one. I have some of the sheaths made for them. Anyway I enjoy my job and never get tired of it this way. Bruce B.
 
My current rate of production is around 50 full size knives, about 20 smaller blacksmith type knives and another 50 arrowheads per year. Its all relative as to whats in each project. I once made 125 full size knives a year but they cost more per knife now so the numbers don't mean much.

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http://www.livelyknives.com
 
Since I am part-part-time....I might make about 10 per year. Bill Bagwell told me the other day that he is doing about 45-50 per year.

 
as bruce stated i may be his machinery. i doult that they are free hand ground. if you have jigs and cnc anything is possilble, also white kind of steel makes a diff.

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Laurence Segal www.RHINOKNIVES.com
 
It can be done if the production has a lot of plain unguarded handles. Making and fitting guards as well would make it very difficult. Profiling takes about 5 minutes each with the right grinder. Grinding 20 or more blades in a day is also doable.

My target this year is 500 knives with well over half being kitchen knives.

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george
www.tichbourneknives.com
sales@tichbourneknives.com


 
It really is all relative. I know a maker that puts out knives that look really amazing to the untrained eye...and he can put out about 350-400 per year. He uses fossilized mammoth on most knives...because he has access to a GREAT DEAL of it. He grinds his blades using a modified "Hollow grinding made easy" jig, and after they're ground, me sands out all the grind marks with a Porter Cable Orbital sander.

This means he can put a nice mirror on 440-C, but he has no grind lines....they are hollow ground but almost look like convex.

If you show him a double ground, hand-rubbed blade he thinks your nuts for the time needed. But I think he's nuts for putting his name on crap (to me it's crap).

As a part time maker my best ever is about 8 in a month.

Nick
 
I probably will do 8-10 this year, very part time. I think I futz with em too much (and don't always improve them doing it!
redface.gif
).

Dave
 
I'm a part time maker that has a real job. Then I have two other passions, family and hunting. Both take up a lot of time that I'm not willing to give up. However I manage to make 25 to 30 knives a year. My "problem" is they all sell and I never have "enough" knives on hand to consider going into a show. Consider I'm going to the Calgary Knife and Gun show in the AM. I have one 95% finished blade to show TH and the boys. I am also in the middle of building a hydralic press to up my damascus output. Only 10 more years to pension at my real job then I'll get serious about knife quantities.

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Robert
Flat Land Knife Works
rdblad@telusplanet.net
http://members.tripod.com/knifeworks/index.html
 
I went to several shows and noticed that some makers only had one knife with a sold sign on it. That never stopped them from going and having fun. They take their order book also. Bruce B
 
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