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How do i know if my knives are ready to sell?


Virusds

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I was wondering if any of you more experience smiths and knife makers know how i can knos when i knife is good enough to sell. I dont have a ton of experience (I'm only 14 after all) and i don't think i am that good but ive succeeded in selling two blades so far. But those were sold to famly and friends and i dont know if i could get it out to more people and if they would buy. While we're at it i was wondering how much to sell for. The two i sold were both custom orders and were sold for a specific price that was mostly unrelated to the time it took to make them. 

This is my first post and i apologize for any spelling errors. And just so ya know the kriss dagger was a custom order and sold for $80 and the other knife/sword was based off a drawing and sold for 100. It is also impossible to mention that rhe sword is not tempered or sharpened and was made with the intention of it being a wall hang. The kriss dagger is fully functional, shaped, and tempered. Though it was made using purely stock removal techniques.  

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I promise I'm not being sarcastic so please don't take it that way. You're knives are good enough to sell when people are willing to buy them.

If you mean when are you finished with a knife the answer to that question is when you are satisfied with it or have done everything you can to improve it. 

You're work looks pretty good. I would suggest that you look into handle design so you can make handles from scales and other materials and not just wrapped handles. Keep it up. If you pay attention while you're working you will learn something every time and improve with each project. 

Welcome aboard, be safe, and remember it's supposed to be fun.

Pnut

 

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I agree with pnut..........."Your knives are good enough to sell when people are willing to buy them."  For me personally, there's another caveat.  With anything I make, (I was a custom furniture builder for 17 years)  I ask myself if I would be willing to take my hard earned money and buy it for my own use before offering it for sale to someone else.

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As a amateur bladesmith myself here is my opinion:

I agree with Pnut that a blade is ready to sell when someone is willing to buy it. But there are a couple of things that you should take into account. First you are responsible to sell a knife that is made well enough that it is safe to use. This means that it needs to be properly forged and heat treated. For example, a chopper needs to be able to withstand vibrations and strong blows, if it is to brittle it poses a threat to the user and anyone near by. Depending on the heat treatment you can change the properties of the steel to fit its need. That’s just my 2¢.

Also and this is up to your prerogative, you should set a standard for blades that leave the shop. Make a blade you are pleased with and one that you have done your best to make sure it is “perfect”. All blades you sell should meet this standard, this will increase your skill as a maker.

welcome to IFI there are a lots of great things here,

Mark 

 

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As you mentioned that you are 14, all your friends want a knife or blade, but can you legally sell to someone that age?  Look into the law and at what age the buyer need to be in order for you to legally sell them the blade. 

Staying out of trouble is easier then trying to get out of trouble.

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thanks for your concern Glenn but im in Idaho, knives are my states favorite. There realy arnt any laws on selling kives other than that it is totally legal for anyone over the ahe of 12 to buy any knife and u can have any knife over 4" blade length open carry and its totally legal (unless ur on scool ground of course). Again thanks for your concern and for all of u guys' help. 

i do have another queston though. if i was able to get my knives ro a broader auddiance of buyers, how muck would i want to sell for?

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How much would you pay for a knife like yours if you weren't the maker. Too little and people think they're junk, too much and people won't pay it. 

How many hours does it take you to finish one and how much money do you reckon your hour is worth at your skill level? I'm pretty inexperienced so I would estimate my hour to be worth much less than someone who has been doing it for twenty years. 

Pnut

 

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oh sorry i didnt even think abaut the fact that alot of u guus are pronably in other countreis! im in the USA so i would likd the answear in US dollers buf if u give an answear in another curency i could just run it through google anyway and find out what its worth. about the tests i usualy chop a litfle wood with a knives i make and do sharpness tests like paper cut tests. also the reply to pnut i usuly put myself at $7.50 an hour since thats Idaho's minimum wage.

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ya i have made one that i intended to keep but it ended up breaking. i didnt no what normalizing steel was at that time though and the hrain size was much to large for a knife. it was made of a lawn mower blade but i dont know exactly what the carbon content was. but was most likly 1050 carbon steel like most lanmower blades. i amaplaning on using peices of a large leaf spring i got from a fellow smith for further knife making. i also dont know what the exact carboj content is. do u know how i can find out? i mean i know its high carbon spring steel but if i was teying to sell online or somthing i might want to market it as a certan type of steel.

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May I suggest planning a well thought out learning exercise? 

Get an automotive coil spring---with as few miles as possible. (Places that do lifts or lowers on cars/trucks often throw them out, sometimes almost brand new!) 

Cut along a diameter to make 12-20 "(" pieces. (Cutting can be done with a hot cut, angle grinder, O-A torch, etc...).

Take the first piece and flatten an end so you can grab it securely and then forge it straight and flat so you can see how much stock you have to work with.

Design a knife that you can make from that amount of stock and forge the rest of the pieces into that design trying to make each one better than the last!

Take one of the earlier/rougher ones and start experimenting on heat treat, (Normalization cycles, Quench temperatures---non-magnetic, etc; Tempering temperatures/methods)  And wearing PPE  see how those affect the strength and flexibility and edge holding of the blade.

DOCUMENT your tests! (Normalized 3 times, heated to just above nonmagnetic, quenched in warm cannola oil, tempered to straw at the edge peacock at the spine;  test results:   )

Repeat until you are getting tough good edge holding blades regularly.

Then you are ready to experiment with other designs or different alloys/different designs and will have a feel for how to improve your blades with them.

As tedious as this seems; this actually is a fast track to becoming a pro!

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^This is an excellent suggestion. I'm right in the middle of a knifemaking project that involves making multiple copies of a Korean kitchen knife, and getting them all consistently the same size and shape is a real challenge. Remember, repetition is the mother of skill!

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Tanks for all the advise ThomasPowers! This will definitely be helpful! I just orderd my first propane forge and it will be here by Friday so that should make it easier to get a consistent heat on the entirety of the blade. Also i don't currently have any coil springs and i could get one or two sooner or later but o was wondering if I could use leaf spring for the same thing. I mean i wont be able to do the whole cutting along the diameter and drawing out and stuff but this is the same alloy that i plan to use for alot of my knives and i can still do the heat treatment/quenching, normalizing, non-magnetic, etc. 

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2 hours ago, pnut said:

How many hours does it take you to finish one and how much money do you reckon your hour is worth at your skill level?

This part is tricky.  When you are in the early stages of learning it will take you far longer to create a quality item and you may have had several failures before a good success.  If you include all that time spent you will probably find that even at minimum wage the selling price will be prohibitive.  If this is a hobby for you then try to cover the cost of all your materials and consumables at a minimum, but don't get hung up on the labor costs at the beginning.  As you start to become more proficient at producing quality items you will use less materials and consumables (probably) and your time becomes worth more.

It can be helpful to look at other custom work for sale and be honest with yourself about the quality of your work compared to what you see others selling similar items in a similar market.  That can help you get a rough idea about the current going rates.

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That is what i did for the above mentioned knives that ive already sold. I found a handmaid fnife of about the same size and subtracted some from it because of the lesser quality of my work. That brought me to $80. 

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Excessive quoting
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PPE: in particular please guard your ears, eyes and lungs.  I've know a number of people who gave no heed to them when young and so found themselves damaged  before they were even middle aged. My wife had her hearing damaged from her work in her early 20's and even with hearing aids that cost more than our cars did I still offer to make her a slate to hang around her neck with a piece of chalk on a regular basis.

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