Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post - Beautiful Pendray knife as well as the price!!

Lew · 3rd May 2007, 06:28 AM

A.G.

I understand that some knives are more work intensive but the smith who wanted to charge me $1200 for a using knife told me it took him a week to make a simple hunter and he broke it down by the hour in which he charged me for the time it took for the blade to cool after each forging 3 days where the blade just sat in his shop cooling slowly. A good knife smith should be able to make a standard knife in 3-4 days tops. Fancy art knives could take months of work and I can undestand having to pay a high price for one. Al Pendray would charge about $650-$800 for the blade so $8,000 just for the hilt and a scabbard is quite a bit much in IMO. There are good smiths here in the states that make good knives at affordable prices those are the only ones I deal with now when I want a good using blade. We have had this discussion at some seminars on custom knife making and feel that $35 an hour is fair for making knives most of these guys use trip hammers so it is quicker for them to bang out a blade. I think we just about exhausted this subject and there are always pro and cons when dealing with modern custom knives I think this thread should be put to rest at this point before it gets out of hand.

Regards

Lew

3rd May 2007, 06:28 AM	#37
Lew (deceased) Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: East Coast USA Posts: 3,191	A.G. I understand that some knives are more work intensive but the smith who wanted to charge me $1200 for a using knife told me it took him a week to make a simple hunter and he broke it down by the hour in which he charged me for the time it took for the blade to cool after each forging 3 days where the blade just sat in his shop cooling slowly. A good knife smith should be able to make a standard knife in 3-4 days tops. Fancy art knives could take months of work and I can undestand having to pay a high price for one. Al Pendray would charge about $650-$800 for the blade so $8,000 just for the hilt and a scabbard is quite a bit much in IMO. There are good smiths here in the states that make good knives at affordable prices those are the only ones I deal with now when I want a good using blade. We have had this discussion at some seminars on custom knife making and feel that $35 an hour is fair for making knives most of these guys use trip hammers so it is quicker for them to bang out a blade. I think we just about exhausted this subject and there are always pro and cons when dealing with modern custom knives I think this thread should be put to rest at this point before it gets out of hand. Regards Lew