How much $$$ to sharpen a knife?

[Eamon Mc Gowan]

I live and work on a gun range. The word is out about the Wicked Edge knifes that are coming out of my house. A couple of my friends suggested that I should charge a little fee for doing so? Sounds good to me and I know my cheap friends wouldn’t be by so much with their knifes! Lol, but for those that are willing? How much is the going rate to sharpen a knife???

[David]

I typically charge $5 up to 6″ then a dollar an inch after that.

[Tom Whittington]

It seems to vary pretty broadly, like any service. I know Clay is among the cheapest with good reason… first because it’s his system, and second because he’s actually a knife sharpening android capable of inhuman speed :silly:

I’ve seen rates generally fall between $1 and $3 per inch, which is right where I’m at. I do $1.50/inch flat including reprofiling and that gets an edge up to 1k diamond and cleaned up with a few whacks on the strops. High polish I charge extra for because of the extra time involved (I usually spend double or more time per grit past 1000 making sure I clean up all the scratches). I try not to make the pricing too complex, and people seem very content with that price range locally. Content enough to bring me bags of kitchen cutlery, anyway!

For oddball stuff like machetes I go by the job though, or for extreme changes in angle on large blades. I spent way too much time on a 7″ kitchen knife because it got profiled much more acutely and I really wished for those 50/80 stones!

Also hello to a fellow gun industry guy! 🙂

[Leo James Mitchell]

Interesting Apex! I see by the little avatar that you are an Applegate/Fairbairn fan. Fairbairn is a special favourite of mine. When I was a teen my friend and I bought war surplus Fairbairn-Sykes commando knives and practised throwing them much to the dismay of my mother and father. They were cheap then(1950). I was military crazy and was a cadet at high school and later an instructor of the maintenance and feeding of the then standard Light Machine and Sub Machine guns for the Canadian Army, the Bren and Sten.
Anyway, I never lost the love for that fine knife and so I bought a custom made version Pattern 2 from a knife-maker in New Zealand. I have thought about buying one of the Applegate/Fairbairn knives but never got around to it. Here is the Fairbairn/Sykes Fighting knife I bought.

Cheers
Leo

[Jende Industries]

Charge as much as you think it’s worth. If you don’t do it for the money, charge $5 If you find it takes more effort, charge more.

I almost never charge friends, and for a lot of local businesses, I work for food and drink 🙂

But that’s because I’m addicted to sharpening 🙂

[Josh]

I charge $10 to sharpen any knife to 1k grit finish, regardless of size, however that doesn’t include machetes. I also charge more for reprofiling (if I’m doing it on the weps). But if it needs reprofiling and they don’t care, I just back bevel the edge with my belt sander, lock it into my weps, and finish off the very edge with my 1k stones.

[Tom Whittington]

Leo,

Very cool! Though Gerber is not as highly regarded these days my avatar pic is a Mini Covert, which is basically a 3″ pocket version that mimics the Fairbairn/Sykes geometry on a smaller scale. It’s one of the least expensive 154CM blades I’ve found so I had to snag one while I had the chance. It remains my highest polished knife and serves as a nice functional showpiece when I do sharpening at flea markets and the like.

Sharpening is basically a hobby and side job for me because my primary business is gunsmithing. Since I’m usually doing knives in the evening instead of during shop hours I don’t mind making much less than my hourly rate on it 🙂 The flea market weekends were borne out of my folks having an online toy store I helped them set up several years back, so they do these sales all spring and the knife sharpening made a unique addition! Most of the event organizers have said they’ve never had anyone ask about sharpening before.

@Tom: Barter system is always nice 🙂 A lot of times at these community sales and flea markets I get business from the other vendors due to lack of folks in the area that sharpen knives. I’ve traded sharpen jobs for all sorts of stuff, even raffle tickets!

[Jende Industries]

Bartering or simply free sharpening with other vendors is actually a great way to get them to promote your business, too 😉

[Eamon Mc Gowan]

Thank you guys!!! I really don’t think I can charge my good buddies? I think this will be for the ones that are abusing it. It would probably be really nice to make $5.00 at least once though? ha ha ha

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