HT / sanding Question

[Ray Rogers]

Making knives for a hobby and for a living are two vastly different situations. Nearly all full time knife makers are old guys who also have an income from some sort of retirement fund (sosec, investments, 401....something). The few young people (or younger) who manage mostly have some other skill to bring to their knife making that gives them an edge like engraving, jewelry making, or some collector worthy value added type of thing. Maybe a few get along pretty well because they have an 'in' with one of the magazines and get more coverage than they would normally but no matter what there's always more to it than simply making a good knife and selling it.

About 10 years back, I saw some stats that said there were about 3000 knife makers in the USA at the time (many more now I bet). Of those, a few hundred were full time and of those only SIX were full time and had no other source of income but their knives. The 'six' was an estimate but they felt it was fair. I don't know if I was included but I was in fact part of that rare group and I can tell you it was hard for about 10 years. The only way it worked for me was the fact I had a much better starting platform than most people have because I had all my machinery and buildings and no mortgage and no dependants. At that point though, I also had no cash either and had to hit the ground running from day one. Be very careful if you're seriously considering taking that plunge, especially if you have a family to support....

[teejay1980]

I'm very new to knifemaking also and thought that one day I might like to do this full time but I believe that what these guys have said it very true but luckily I'm gunsmithing also which seems to compliment knifemaking very well as I have a lot of equipment at my disposal and the customer base is almost the same. I have tactical gun guys that want tactical knives and hunters who want skinning and hunting knives and then there are the collector's gun guys but I'm not anywhere near collectable knife level yet lol. So ill just keep plugging along with it and if it ever happens that I can make knives full time great if not ill just do both.