How much would I expect people to be willing to pay for their kitchen knives to be sharpened by me, being 16 but with 2 years of experience sharpening knives with my whetstones?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “misen knife sharpening service“
The professional sharpener I occasionally use for stuff I’m not equipped, or can’t be bothered, to handle on my own charges between 15 and 50 € per knife, depending on size and what exactly needs to be done.
That is a master tradesman with a fully equipped shop, taking full liability for possible mishaps, though.
And no matter how much grinding and so on is necessary, they deliver the knife entirely polished (handle and all).
As harsh as it may sound, I don’t get the impression you’d be willing and able to deliver that sort of service, and, more importantly for someone entrusting the tools of their trade to you, take on that liability.
If they fuck up my knives, it’s understood they will replace them with brand spanking new ones of equivalent quality.
With that out of the way:
If you’re using bench stones exclusively, you’ll take much longer than someone using appropriate power tools.
Unless you’re spectacularly good at using bench stones, your results won’t be better.
Two years experience might sound like a lot to you, but you’re going up against people who’ve been doing it for a living for decades, worst case. I’ve mainly only ever sharpened my own knives for a couple decades, and I all but guarantee I’ll sharpen a knife to perfection in half the time it takes you to do it.
With the kind of experience you have, you can’t realistically expect to charge enough to get an hourly rate that will sustain you, much less a shop, unless you’re willing to rip people off.
That said: the only way to rack up experience in a craft is to up and do it.
I’ll sharpen colleagues and random friends of friends’ kitchen knives for anything between ‘next round of drinks is on you’ and 50€. Depending very much on whether I want that job, what needs to be done and just how well I know them.
And I make it very clear from the beginning that I don’t do cosmetics. Knives I sharpen will shave, but they won’t usually look too pretty.
And that this is a personal favour, and I won’t accept liability for potential damage. I do my very best not to damage knives entrusted to my care, and I haven’t, yet. But I make it very clear to anyone who entrusts their knives to my care that I won’t take liability for anything.
But I don’t do this as a business.
The thing is, some people will pay you as much as you can convince them to for pretty much anything.
If you want to make a business out of it, at least invest the 30 currency units or so for a bench grinder running a polishing wheel. People tend to like their newly sharpened knives to be all polished up and shiny…
In that case, you’ll have to figure out what the local competition is charging, and, being the newcomer to the market, undercut that. Might well not be sustainable.
If you’re just doing it as a hobby/favour to friends and family and want to scare off the freeloaders, charge by the hour, going minimum wage plus 50 % at the very least.
What can you realistically expect people to be willing to pay you for Sharpening their knives? That Depends™.
On where you are, of course.
On just how good you are, compared to the realistic direct competition.
On whether you just want to make some pocket money on the side, or go into business for real.
How expensive the knife was in the first place (very few people will pay a tenner to have a 5 currency unit ‘disposable’ knife sharpened, for example).
And a ton of other factors.
If I knew and trusted you to take appropriate care of my knives (they’re the tools of my trade), I’d pay about 25€/$ for a 30cm Chef’s knife, a tenner for a 14cm office knife.
I’m not quite convinced people who don’t use their knives professionally would see the point, though. For the fanbois who pay absutely ridiculous prices for specific brands of cutlery, nothing but the ridiculously overpriced factory resharpening will do, many other people will probably think ‘for a fiver more, I can get a brand new one…
You’ll have to figure it out yourself. Whatever you do once you make a job/business/craft/profession out of it: don’t sell your time short.
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Charge based on length, like a set $ amount per inch. If you do an excellent job it’s not unreasonable to ask for $15 for a 8” chefs knife or $8 for a 4” paring.
If you get loyal customers, I’d keep their prices the same when you need to eventually raise them to account for inflation. If you eventually get $20 for something like a 10” chefs knife eventually and you have volume, you potentially earn $60+ per hour.
People who care can tell the difference between a $8 shitty job on an electric grinder and a $15 full hand sharpening with progressive grit stones.
Might be a good idea to start lower and then work up. But not too low.
Might also want to inform customers if you notice issues such as the knife needing thinning and potentially providing that service upon agreement as well. However, you might need more gear for that because thinning is rather slow on the stones when you need to go through like 25 knives in a day.
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I started at the age of 18 looking young and naive. I think there are several things to consider, first what does your current market like. For example if the current market charges $5US I say charge $8 being able to explain your service and quality lends to applied respect of your craft. At 52 I have charged more and billed more than my 27 year old son. There will always be cheapskates don’t worry about them. Worry about being properly paid for your skill set
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A2A : it depends on how good you are, how well you sell yourself, and how affluent your surroundings are. I actually run a business sharpening and repairing knives and other edged tools and would be happy to advise you about this one-on-one.
I can also tell you right now, for free, that you’re never going to make much money sharpening knives. However there are other tools you can use those stones to sharpen which provide a much more lucrative market with more turnover.
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It takes more than that. You need a cart bike. with peddle sharpeners & stones. You need be able to sharpen shears shovels, hoes. Then you need a regular rout. Like twice a month so they know day you will be in there area. You can make a living at it. But lower middle class with a good rout. This is in Asia were such is still done. Also some skill at repair. rehandle knifes & such.
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In the USA, the honest answer is $0. Most household kitchens just don’t use knives much: almost no one is butchering meat, or making sushi, or cutting up pounds of veggies on a daily basis. Supermarkets have replaced all that.
The average urban/suburban household is just going to buy a medium-priced block of knives every 5–10 years for $100.
Your only consumer base is old people, the poor, or vanity home chefs with way overpriced knives.
My sister-in-law has nice knives, and resharpens them as needed. She’d probably pay for your services. But even she would admit she cooks one meal per day, not the hundred plus she did when running a catering business, so how often does she need that sharpening service?
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This answer is to give you context more than anything else.
My last roommate had, and left me with, a full set of CutCo steak knives. These come with a lifetime waranty that allows me to return them to be sharpened free of charge.
The last chefs knife I bought came from Misen. It also has a free sharpening service.
I’m not sure what brand they were, but the last set of knives my parents bought came with a similar deal (free returns for resharpening for the life of the product).
Seems to me to be a common deal when buying knives, so many of your potential customers may already have that option available to them without having to hire you.
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For comparison: I pay roughly $7,50 per knife at a sharpener who has 35y experience and works for a knife sharpening company in business for 130 years. And as you know, ruining an angle or even a blade is easy enough. So, you’d have to convince me by showing your sharpening skill. In person or via YouTube. If you manage to convince me, I do not see the reason why I should pay less (or more) than what I was willing to pay for blades sharpened to my exact specifications.
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Take a formula minimum wage x’s time spent on the task plus material cost for a basic cost analysis. As you get a good reputation and become more proficient and efficient you can bring the cost up slightly
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