Sharpening for income - what do you use or what have you seen?

[BossDog]

As a kid a long (long) time ago, I remember a guy would come around knocking on doors every few months on a bicycle asking to sharpen knives. His bike had a contraption attached to it that when he put the back wheel up on a stand, he could drive a stone sharpening wheel by pedaling in place. My mother always gave him all the kitchen knives to sharpen and her good sewing scissors. He would pedal away and get them all sharp and share a few dollars for the bunch.

I think sharpening is still alive and well but also a hugely undeveloped market that could get someone some extra income. I am asking for postings from those that do sharpen for income or have seen some set-ups to post here and help some one else get started.

1. What tools or equipment is needed to sharpen professionally?
2. How much can charged?
3. How do you build your business?
4. Besides knives, do you sharpen anything else?
5. What else should a guy know to get into the sharpening business?

 

[Darrin Sanders]

My grandfather was a sawmill foreman and had a sharpening service at home after he retired. He had over 40 years of experience in sharpening just about anything that needed to be sharpened. I learned most of what I know from him. As for the questions, I'll answer them in the order listed.

1. I use my grinder, buffer, stones, & files depending on what I'm sharpening.
2. For knives I charge $1 per inch.
3. Most of my business is local and is spread by word of mouth. I do have a few customers that send me knives they've bought from me but I do them for free.
4. I also sharpen chainsaws, hoes, planer blades, & a lot of mower blades.
5. The only other thing I can think of is to be careful with expensive knives to be sure you don't damage them. I guess that goes for any knife.

 

[Frank Hunter]

I might ramble a little here with associated thoughts, but here it is. I do it locally and have had some people bring knives along as they pass through for me to do, as well. My take on it - to really make money at sharpening you've got to go to the customer, just like the bicycle guy. I'm specifically going to put together a smaller belt grinder for this so I can work off of my tailgate. There are probably 100,000 kitchen knives even in my small town and if I can come to them, that's significant money.

As for equipment, I separate it into free hand (knives, scissors, lawn tools etc.) and jigged setups like planers and tool edges where the angle is critical. Free hand goes on the slack belt machine, anything requiring a rigid setup makes me often think I should have a proper tool grinder which is a different machine entirely. A lot of the tool grinders will also take a diamond wheel which opens up yet more things you can service.

I charge a dollar a knife for kitchen cutlery. If they're boogered up really bad I'll sometimes charge $5 to get all the nicks out of the edge and straighten the tips if necessary. Serrated blades are more, I have the tapered hones for those, a bread knife is $5. Large tools, yard shears etc are a couple of bucks. I will double the regular price to $2 if I come to the knives.

I can set up to sharpen about anything with an edge on it, and have done so. The easy stuff like ice auger blades and planer blades I simply set my work rest and backing platen to the original included angle and go from there. A tool grinder would be appropriate and allow me to sharpen annular cutters to a finer level of accuracy. I do drill bits free hand for a few bucks a handful. I have thought about doing saw chain but the guys who do felling for income sharpen their own around here so the investment in the machine to do it just isn't there - when someone occasionally brings me a dull chainsaw I just eyeball it and sharpen on the bar. Those are usually $5-10 dollars.

Getting into the business, and other thoughts about it - I'm going to have separate business cards made just for the sharpening service. I'll end up having to push it pretty hard, phone calls to restaurants and institutions etc. The wage, if I just had an unlimited stream of dull kitchen knives is quite decent but if I get a couple of jobs of half a dozen knives each day averaged around here to do that's likely to be it - definitely not going to be a full time job just for residential kitchens. If I had a slew of real classy restaurants that would be possible.

I've had quite a few people bring me their entire knife block plus whatever they had bouncing around in the drawers, and did $30+ in sharpening in much less than an hour. Going mobile will make it worth doing. Also, taking on a sharpening job lets me show off all the other knives I may have around at the time.

 

[rhinoknives]

Well the first thing I noticed when I started making knives and people then asked me to sharpen for them is that in the second largest city in the USA Most of the "Professional Sharpeners" here just plain SUCK at it!

There is a need in most places to have a competent sharpener for household and Restaurants.

The first problem I encountered was getting PAID with some of the restaurants. Don't let the billing get to far out if you take accounts with them.

Equipment I use is my 2 x 72" and fresh belts and no more than 30% speed or you can wreck the temper.
I also use files, stones and paper etc.
1)I sharpen Knives,Americana, Euro & Japanese. $1.00 to 1.50 an inch.
2)Scissors. $9.00-25.00 a set
3) Planer blades Minimum of $15.00 each
4) Hedge clippers & Pruners, The Manual kind. $10-25.00
and a few beauty items like Tweezers and such. 10.00 and up.

I am not mobile, I have a retail location when I sharpen, Make $ sell my custom knives and sell production knives. Mostly culinary but I have a lot of pocket, Tactical and some military collectables along with Automatic knives for those that can legally purchase them in California.

I let the biz come to me because I wouldn't last a month driving around in LA traffic without going postal and getting arrested or worse!

I could go on for hours about the sharpening biz but I have knives I need to go sharpen.

Laurence

www.westsidesharpening.com

 

[C Craft]

So what do you do when someone brings you one of those Walmart specials and the piece of crap is so hard a stone won't hardly touch it and yet it won't hold an edge!

My son brought me three knives and asked me to sharpen them. Two of them I was able to sharpen but the smallest one was so hard I had a heck of a time breaking the steel to get an edge on it and in fact I never could seem to get it too sharpen no matter what I tried. I finally told him not to bring it back as it wasn't worth the effort it took to get any edge on it at all and it wouldn't hold an edge! The first time you cut anything with it, it was dull again!

I don't know why some of these companies think just because the steel is hard it is good. Give me a good carbon steel anyday. You might have to hit it on a stone more often but at least it only takes a couple of passes to bring it back to a good edge!

The cheap ones is why I kind of quit sharpening for others!

 

[rhinoknives]

Cliff, Look to the force!

That my friend is well heat treated stainless steel. The chromium adds abrasive resistance along with stain resistance.

I use my 2 x 72 variable with a a slack 120 grit and then a 600 grit. Then buff off the burr with green chrome.

Laurence

www.rhinoknives.com

 

[REK Knives]

I might ramble a little here with associated thoughts, but here it is. I do it locally and have had some people bring knives along as they pass through for me to do, as well. My take on it - to really make money at sharpening you've got to go to the customer, just like the bicycle guy. I'm specifically going to put together a smaller belt grinder for this so I can work off of my tailgate. There are probably 100,000 kitchen knives even in my small town and if I can come to them, that's significant money.

As for equipment, I separate it into free hand (knives, scissors, lawn tools etc.) and jigged setups like planers and tool edges where the angle is critical. Free hand goes on the slack belt machine, anything requiring a rigid setup makes me often think I should have a proper tool grinder which is a different machine entirely. A lot of the tool grinders will also take a diamond wheel which opens up yet more things you can service.

I charge a dollar a knife for kitchen cutlery. If they're boogered up really bad I'll sometimes charge $5 to get all the nicks out of the edge and straighten the tips if necessary. Serrated blades are more, I have the tapered hones for those, a bread knife is $5. Large tools, yard shears etc are a couple of bucks. I will double the regular price to $2 if I come to the knives.

I can set up to sharpen about anything with an edge on it, and have done so. The easy stuff like ice auger blades and planer blades I simply set my work rest and backing platen to the original included angle and go from there. A tool grinder would be appropriate and allow me to sharpen annular cutters to a finer level of accuracy. I do drill bits free hand for a few bucks a handful. I have thought about doing saw chain but the guys who do felling for income sharpen their own around here so the investment in the machine to do it just isn't there - when someone occasionally brings me a dull chainsaw I just eyeball it and sharpen on the bar. Those are usually $5-10 dollars.

Getting into the business, and other thoughts about it - I'm going to have separate business cards made just for the sharpening service. I'll end up having to push it pretty hard, phone calls to restaurants and institutions etc. The wage, if I just had an unlimited stream of dull kitchen knives is quite decent but if I get a couple of jobs of half a dozen knives each day averaged around here to do that's likely to be it - definitely not going to be a full time job just for residential kitchens. If I had a slew of real classy restaurants that would be possible.

I've had quite a few people bring me their entire knife block plus whatever they had bouncing around in the drawers, and did $30+ in sharpening in much less than an hour. Going mobile will make it worth doing. Also, taking on a sharpening job lets me show off all the other knives I may have around at the time.

man, that's insanely cheap! only a dollar for a kitchen knife and $2 for serrated? I charge $5 for plain edge culinary knives and minimum of $7.50 for serrated... but I do spend about 5 min/knife on PE and about 10-15 on serrated, so I can't make it worth my time for much less than that. I just got set up to go mobile... got an 8x16' enclosed trailer.

I use a Twice As Sharp scissor sharpener... I am seeming to get good feedback from making phone calls and visits. Fabric stores and quilting guilds =) Don't forget orthopedic offices too, they have scissors they need sharpened frequently.

 

[REK Knives]

As a kid a long (long) time ago, I remember a guy would come around knocking on doors every few months on a bicycle asking to sharpen knives. His bike had a contraption attached to it that when he put the back wheel up on a stand, he could drive a stone sharpening wheel by pedaling in place. My mother always gave him all the kitchen knives to sharpen and her good sewing scissors. He would pedal away and get them all sharp and share a few dollars for the bunch.

I think sharpening is still alive and well but also a hugely undeveloped market that could get someone some extra income. I am asking for postings from those that do sharpen for income or have seen some set-ups to post here and help some one else get started.

1. What tools or equipment is needed to sharpen professionally?
2. How much can charged?
3. How do you build your business?
4. Besides knives, do you sharpen anything else?
5. What else should a guy know to get into the sharpening business?

Great post tracy, thanks!

1. Belt sander (most general work), paper wheels system I use for serrated knives, Twice as Sharp (for scissors), and a WEPS for high end chef knives (getting ready to start getting into that market) and maybe the Viel S-5 (see video below - its in french but you get the idea). Viel makes planer blade attachment, drill bit jig, scissor jig, etc. which are VERY handy... I may try to make my own "holder" for it that I can just buy their jigs for and use w/ my 2x72.
2. 5/regular plain edge (regardless of size - if considered a "knife"), $7.50 for serrated (unless wasted serrations, then more), 7.50 for scissors (unless at event or bulk quantity), $20/straight razor. I sharpen a few more things, but not as many things as others here. I would like to expand to do chainsaw blades, hedge trimmers, and planer blades at some point.
3. website, cards, google + page, keywords, craigslist, phone calls. I will at some point soon probably canvas neighborhoods w/ flyers... what do you guys think about this? I use a generator on my 8x16 trailer now, so its kind of loud unfortunately. I may build a box around it w/ a muffler on it to quiet it somewhat. thought about a battery bank, but can't run my 2x72 off of it since its 230v lol.
4. answered above
5. get the right equipment the first time around! even if it costs more. try to build your business w/ out going into debt. a belt sander is not optional as you will have to have it for repairs at the very least.

[video=youtube;oh0NIumzqUE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh0NIumzqUE[/video]

 

[Diamond G Knives]

I agree with Laurence that there are many who represent themselves as professional sharpeners but are not.
My Sister brought me a knife I had made for her many tears ago. She was very upset. The Sharp Pro at the mall
sharpened it for her, then made the comment to her that the steel wasn't any good because he couldn't get a burr on it!
The knife looked like it had been sharpened on one of the can opener type gizmos! I was livid!
I cleaned the knife up and re sharpened for her, and gave it back to her in a piece of PVC pipe with screw on caps to mail back to me
whenever It needs sharpening!

And if I ever get to meet the guy at the mall in Richmond, VA I will give him an ear full!

I believe as makers we take a lot of pride in our efforts and strive for perfection in each new piece we make. I feel that as a Professional Sharpener that person has the responsibility to know how to sharpen properly (stone, belt, paper wheel) If the end product is a properly sharpened knife, so be it. But said sharpener should also be aware of what knives need to be sharpened in the proper method for that particular knife. What the knife is used for (bevel angles) Single bevel knives ect.

Sorry to rant, just a sore spot with me

I sharpen with a series of fresh belts on the 2x72 from 220 (if needed) to 5 micron, then to leather strops with different compounds.
I have recently purchased a Edge Pro system with Chosera (sp?) stones that I am still playing with to get the hang of it. It shows promise but is very slow compared to my old method. We will see!

Thanks and God Bless
Mike

 

[grumpasaurus]

Good evening. I'm new to the site and forums, but will try to add a bit to the discussion. For background, I've been sharpening all my life in one way or another since Boy Scouts on. Currently I have been sharpening commercially for just over a year - part time on the weekends at a couple of farmers markets here in Central Florida - one Saturday and one Sunday. The response has been very satisfactory. I chose this path in order to build my business in preparation for retirement sometime next year. In response to the questions:
1 I started off with Edge Pro Professional model and a selection of 8 x 3" diamond stones. There were also smaller tools in my collection when I started. I've added other items as I saw a need/opportunity develop. Now have 1 x 42 belt sander and 1/4 hp buffer as major tools and additional smaller tools that fit my needs.
2. Currently I charge $5 for any straight knife 6" or less, $7 for greater than 6". Serrated is $1.25/inch. I think I may still be undercharging what the market will support. My equipment will allow me to hand sharpen scissors ($5 for small, $7.50 for larger, and $10 for beautician/barber). Hair Clipper blades are $5. The list goes on.
3. How to grow - I've been developing new skills regularly which enables me to add items to my list of services. Because I only have two days per week to work my business, I'm not actively pursuing new markets, but will change that when I retire. I'm investigating purchase of a van which I'll fit out for mobile work and want to try to develop the restaurant/food service market a couple days per week to compliment the farmers market part. Currently, I have more business than I can complete at the markets I service most weekends, so I do bring some work home.
4. Besides knives: scissors, hair clippers, lawn and garden tools (pruners, hedge clippers, mower blades, axe/hatches, machete), and the occasional odd/unusual item - miter cutter blade, ice shaver, slicer blade, food processor blade. Do your homework and study your challenge carefully. When a customer brings me something I have not done before, I'll tell them that and if I am confident I can make it better I will offer to do it for free so I can gain the experience. I've had no complaints to date.
5. What else? I agree with several of the contributors above. There are a lot of folks out there taking people's money and making their tools worse. Always strive to learn more. Don't be afraid to turn down a job you aren't comfortable doing. You could very easily ruin your business with one botched job. Part of your job is to be an educator. Not everyone understands that you shouldn't use a glass or stone cutting surface, or that you shouldn't put your knives in the dishwasher. I have developed a couple of hand outs that I make available to anyone that comes to my booth free of charge. I have to print more regularly. I believe that there is a vast untapped market for sharpening services. How you develop your portion and reach your customers is only limited by your desire and creativity.

Sorry, didn't mean to run on so long.....
Thanks for the opportunity to contribute.
Grumpasaurus

 

[rhinoknives]

Grumpasaurus,
Welcome to the pack and thanks for sharing your sharpening experence.
Another tid bit I can offer to anyone is that I also have sharp loaner knives for my customers.

I tell my customers on the phone when they call that if I need to keep their sharpening work over night that I can loan them a sharp knife so the can make dinner, Breakfast... That way they can bring all of there knives in and don't have to hold any back. I use old chef knives for this that people leave with me when the buy new ones, one of my knives or a production. I've gotten some decent old Henckel, Wusthof, Sabatier etc this way.

I also give some of these reconditioned knives to young people starting culinary school to help them get their start or folks on a budget that come in for sharpening.
This help build goodwill with referrals and returns when they need more sharpening or wish to buy another knife.

I also make some of these recon jobs available for sale to the line cooks that do all the prep at the restaurants around here that don't make much money.
$5-20.00 for a sharp usable knife is a quick sale.

I run a "I buy old knives" Ad on Craig's list and have people moving or getting rid of a old set of knives etc that just want a few bucks for them becuse the don't want to put them in a trash.