How much do the various steels affect knife cost?

Himalayan

Himalayan

Joined
Jan 22, 2023
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The obvious answer is "a lot". Expensive knives use high-end steels and budget knives use budget steels. But high end knives usually have many other factors contributing to the high price. I'm wondering what's the difference in price for the steel alone? For a $50 budget knife I'm guessing steel cost is no more than $5. For a $300 knife how much could it be?
 
Short answer is: Probably not as much as you think 😄 have a look yourself:
www.alphaknifesupply.com

Elmax Stainless Steel • Alpha Knife Supply - AKS™

Elmax Steel For Sale • Largest variety of thickness, lengths and widths of Elmax Billets and Elmax Bar Stock • Fast Shipping & Excellent Prices!
www.alphaknifesupply.com
This example is ELMAX but they have lots of other steels available. Keep in mind the site I used as an example is primarily for smaller scale production, I guess its safe to say the price goes down ever further if you buy in bulk, plus if you're buying in bulk you also have the option to buy directly from larger manufacturers.
Damascus/TiMascus/Mokume would be another story and depending on the pattern can contribute quite a lot to the final price
 
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OK. If I read their info right, their ELMAX is a very high end steel and a 19" x 1.5" x ,156" costs $105. It could make into four 4" long folder blades at a cost of approx. $26 each. Slightly narrower and thinner stock if it's available would probably be a bit less. This price is probably what a low volume custom maker would pay. I'm sure that the higher end big name brands (Benchmade, Spyderco, We for example) probably pay quite a bit less - maybe half that? So it seems to me that a large portion of the price of premium brands is the name and the choice of steel is more of a minor factor in production cost.
 
Probably even less. R&D, Advertisment, Man-hours,QC, machinery, maintenance and upkeep are also a factor as well as licence cost in some cases but otherwise you are right the largest chunk is paying for the name

#edit: Here is another example for high quality damascus steel, as you can clearly see prices vary a great deal: https://vegasforge.com/product-category/damascus-billets/
Of course you could get Pakistani "damascus" for a whole lot less but you get what you pay for
 
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Yikes! Some of that damascus is pricey. I've recently had my interest in knives rekindled after about 20 years. I'm amazed at the quality of the budget Chinese brands available now. It's interesting that We also makes Civivi and Sencut and even the low end is pretty damn good. While the We knives appear to be higher spec, I have to think the profit margins are much higher on them.
 
I recently saw the term pocket jewelry here on the forums, which is quite fitting 😂 I love knifes since I was small, my grandfather was a blacksmith so I blame him.
A lot has changed regarding to knives in the last 10-15 years, Chinese blades are no longer just flimsy knockoffs. I now own a few and I was really surprised at how good they got, some of them are up there with the large American brands quality wise and the prices are way more reasonable.
Competition is, in most cases, a good thing. I guess the next few years are going to be interesting with recession and import bans some people boycotting Russian made products, a few new Super-Steels. Guess we'll have to see where things are heading
 
When talking about a finished product, there are a few more things involved than just steel as a material, so it's not that simple to compare.
My understanding is that you pay (or should pay) mostly for the quality control of a certain steel, as in better heat-treatment / appropriate beveling to be in par to the steels characteristics, which would normally take the steel performance at the desired level.
(take TOPS for example..their prices are not really cheap and they mostly use 1095. What you get is the guarantee that you get everything out of the certain steel)
And if a company chooses to grind the bevels on their knives after heat-treat, then there's the extra cost on the workshop's consumables and the extra time required to get the job done (abrasives, electricity, employers' time, the knifemaker's expertise on dealing with the certain steel...).
Another point, is that some of these super steels' heat treatment requires higher temperatures and maybe more tempering cycles than a cheaper steel.

Also, another factor would be the hype connected to a steel as soon as it comes out (3V / M390 / Magnacut are just a few examples that pop to my mind). So, in this sense, you also pay for what a steel can be and how new it is, but not necessarily for what it is.
 
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I hadn't bought a new knife in 20 years and recently I picked up a base model Civivi Elementum ($50) and a mini-Praxis ($30). Both use D2 steel and both seem like incredibly good quality compared to budget knives of 20 years ago. I imagine they could substitute a higher end steel for the D2 and it wouldn't cost them more than $5 or $10 more per knife which they could tack onto the msrp. But I'm thinking that they don't do that because they want to sell more of their higher priced knives that have a higher margin. But it appears that the trend is beginning to happen where there are some under $100 knives with high end steel. Sort of a continuation of the trend that we see now of really nice quality knives in the $50 and under range. Maybe 10 years from now even the budget knives will have higher grade steel.
 
As far as I understand, working with higher end materials costs more money. (likely more than 5-10 bucks per unit)
I have read that some factories do not have the ability with their setups to work with certain steels.
A company like Bestech and can push out high end knives (quality/materials wise) for less, I assume, as they have high manufacture numbers and can be more flexible with costs as they have paid for the transitioning costs for working with different materials.
 
Business wise, companies usually want 10 to no more than 30% of their sale price tied up in materials. Overhead for all the things mentioned, i.e. marketing, R&D, HR, labor costs, etc often take up more than 50% of the sale price. And if a different steel causes additional wear, or slow downs in the process, that raises the overhead AND materials cost. And that cuts quickly into a margin. And then a clearance sale or promo can kill whatever is left in it.
 
Some of these "super" steels are very difficult to machine, and/or are very hard on the tooling. Some may require special tooling the company doesn't have.

So a lot more goes in to the cost of the blade than the raw steel. This is why companies like Spyderco only offer these steels in sprint runs. It's too costly to their machinery for full production runs and/or they lack the quantity of appropriate equipment for full production runs.
 
Similar post not too long ago:

What does the blade steel actually cost?

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...
www.bladeforums.com www.bladeforums.com
 
From what I can see, my customs are least $100 more when I ask for Damasteel. That is the cost over a blade of CPM 154, etc.
 
Chris*33 said:
take TOPS for example..their prices are not really cheap and they mostly use 1095. What you get is the guarantee that you get everything out of the certain steel)
Click to expand...
Tops is definitely the most expensive production 1095 knives out there, but not a crazy amount more so than Esee. Tops are slightly more expensive than Esee. The brands even out in my opinion, as Tops has a better heat treat and durability (IMO), and Esee has a better sheath (some models) and undoubtedly a better warranty.
 
Steels that take more work to produce and have been said to wear out machine parts about ten times faster as well as taking longer to complete. You bet you are going to pay extra for it.
 
The name of the company is the greatest differentiator on cost, followed by materials used in the scales and then blade steel I’d argue.
 
There’s a big difference between the cost to a company for raw material, and the cost to the consumer for the finished product. Not totally sure which you were asking about here.

That cost is multiplied of course when you were talking about a manufacturer using a steel that may be new for them, as they have to figure out hear treats, and there’s definitely some R&D that goes into that, the costa for which are passed along to the customer.

A good recent example though is the latest Buck knives release in magnacut. A standard 110 in 420 HC sells for $64.99. The Magnacut version sold for 139.99. Nothing in the knife was changed except for the steel; fit and finish were about what you’d expect from a standard 110.
 
So im wondering if Spyderco and Benchmade are still using S30v maybe because they are getting a ton of it real cheap ?
 
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