Thread: Making a living..

Looking at the time needed to make quality razors, the various costs involved, and other things, it is very hard to make ends meet with that as a day job.

The general rule of thumb in Belgium is that as a self employed person, you need 250 euro per day profit in order to make a living. This seems like a lot, but as a self employed person, you need to pay for your own pension fund and other things.

If you make razors, and you can make 1 per day on average, that means 250 profit per razor.
Add material cost, consumables and heat treatment, and you have to make and sell 1 expensive razor every day, just to make ends meet.

Originally Posted by MileMarker60

Think of it this way, to make a living at it you have to move a large volume of razors. If your doing something that is different every time there is no volume...lol.
If someone was a "mini" Dovo and use one style and could have those blanks cut/stamped/waterjet/whatever...... Then you may be able to work it but it was still be a struggle at best.

There are several good points that follow mine. Ray has a good handle on it because of what he does for knifemakers and his example of the market for custom knives is excellent. I would say that the same rules are true in the knife world. I know very few who do this without some other form of support. It used to be true that you were no body in the music business until you got your picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone and the blade mags function in the same way. Ray is in a perfect place. When the market for knife engraving dries a little he can flex his business over to other objects in metal and continue to do business. A knifemaker only makes knives.

Once the market likes your blades you have two choices. Either you go very high end and cater to the collectors or you go low end and find an offshore company (Brian's large volume) who will manufacture all those parts of your now famous design and you become a knife assembler. But you won't be able to handcraft the numbers needed to support daily living if you don't. If you go high end and make one or two very expensive items a year, you price yourself out of even wishing range for most people.

The next thing that happens is your designs start showing up on the market without you being able to control the contractor who was the brother-in-law of the guy you have only a little control over. The knife market is also heavily dependent on disposable income. Theoretically you could only use two knives at a time, so you only really need two at most. Beyond that you buy them because you like them and rotate them. But you stop buying when the market is down, or a home project comes up, or at the high end your investments aren't doing so well, something to drain away that little extra for toys.

I suspect these factors apply just as easily to the ebay market when the old razors that the membership here recycles so diligently and effectively. But the prices are rising as well, when the old stocks are being consumed and becoming scarce. Folks grumble about how much the custom jobs cost. And those of us custom guys struggle with not pricing ourselves out of the market but we have to account for the price of everything as Bruno succinctly did the math. Realistically, I've never recovered the cost of the learning curve, the tools or the time.

I really hope the razor market grows. If there was one feature of craftsmanship that I could influence this segment to acquire, I would have the idea of collaborative efforts take a firmer root. All other markets in the world depend on multiple craftsmen/women who become very good at their particular talent. Then they combine to make something really cool. This also means more crafts types can be supported by the market, more families fed. I love making steel and heat treatment. There are a few here grinding those steels and doing the finish work that I don't like much. Someone else could take a blade like that and scale it, not much different than doing a restoration. If I could remember to leave a clean piece for Ray to scribe on, that'd be very cool. The price of each segment of work would remain relatively low but the whole would take on a larger value for the combined best works of us all. The idea of sole authorship is a uniquely American driven problem. I'm not sure it supports a craft as well as a consortium of efforts.

Bruce, I would be wholly encouraging of your desire, but not at the expense of giving you an unrealistic dream either. If you're going to learn this, do it because it's fun and you're going to learn something cool. The rest will make you crazy.

Originally Posted by Mike Blue

It's a pretty simple formula

1. Get a really good paying dayjob, or,
2. Have had a really good dayjob with a great pension, retirement plan, trust fund, or,
3. Win the lottery, then,
4. Make razors until the money is all gone.

So its kinda like the old joke...

How do you make a small fortune in the razor making business?

Start with a large fortune.

I would agree with everything Mike said. I make most of my living in that high end range of the knife market. When the economy went south in 08 I found myself busier than I ever. I even had to raise my prices a little to curb the workload. Even today I am backlogged about a year.

With the overall economy in the tank this made no sense to me. I have a good enough relationship with most of my customers that I can ask financial questions without coming across as rude. So I ask a couple of my customers what was up. They told me that they were not putting as much of their money in the stock market right now because of the uncertainty of tax issues, the markets general weakness, etc. Instead they are putting more of their money into collectibles and artwork. They are stocking up on more guns, custom knives, physical metals, artwork, etc., things they see as having a lasting or increasing value that they can turn around for cash later.

Now whether they are making the right financial decision is a topic for a different discussion but my point is this. Until there is a large enough population of custom razor collectors who view a custom razor as having a collectible value beyond its mere use as a well made tool, it will be very hard to make a living as a custom razor maker. Maybe not impossible, but it would be tough.

Mike's comment about making a decision to go either high or low is spot on. For a good part of this economy the mid price range knife market was hurting. The very low end was doing OK and the very high end was actually thriving but the stuff in the middle was gasping for air. I have been told that section of the market is starting to pick up but for a good while there it was hurting. The reason is the folks who buy in that range are the ones most affected by this economy.

Bruno brought up another good point. You either have to be able to crank razors out at a high rate of production or you need to sell them at a price point where you can make a profit. The knife market has grown enough that I can price my work high enough to make a prophet. At this point in time, my average budget for engraving a knife is around $4k. I have had budgets as high as $10K for engraving a knife. The knife market has grown to the point that it has enough collectors world wide that value the work enough that a really good maker and engraver can demand a high enough price to make a living. I don't beleive the razor market is there yet.

From what I can see the custom razor market is about where the custom fountain pen market is. I have a good friend who is a knifemaker who started making hand made fountain pens a few years ago. David is an excellent artisan and make s fabulous pen. David and I have done some collaborations and made decent money but not enough for that to be his full time job. He still makes the bulk of his income as a custom knifemaker. As more and more people have been exposed to the idea of a handmade pen and it becomes more accepted as a collectible artform David's pen business grew. Hopefully it will continue to grow. WHo knows ten years from now David may have to make a decision as to whether he wants to be a knife maker or a pen maker. But its going to be a while before he is faced with such a decision.

Ray

Wow, some really good advice, thoughts and obvservations posted here. Don't have much to add. I will say there seems to be a desire for many folks to make a living doing what they love to do and of course there are countless benefits in doing so. However, one will find out quickly just how much they really "love" it when they attempt to make a living doing it. Best Regards Ken

One of the things that helped greatly was this very forum, meaning the workshop and later on the forge.
If I compare the amount of information available now and in 2006 when I joined, the difference is staggering. Apart from the volume of data, you can simply tell by the number of relatively inexperienced people who have started to make custom razors.

What Mike described could happen here with enough people interested in just making steel, blades, scales, etc. And even then, the straight razor world is nowhere near ready for that amount of razors. And even if it was, Dovo, Boker and TI would eat our lunch from the low end, and people like Livi would eat into the high end.

We are a long way from the point where razor manufacturing becomes a viable business model again.

Another very important consideration: if you get into the customs business, the business has to come first or you're not eating. To make a parallel: the people surviving in the photography world are not necessarily the best photographers or the best artists. Usually it's the people who focus on making money. And to be fair, it's the only way to survive if you are not world famous.

So if razor making is what you love, and you love the artistic expression of making unique pieces, you would probably not be happy if you had to cut artistic corners, or work on things you might not find interesting.

I would only go into customs making if I won the lottery and I didn't have to care about the money.
Otherwise I would probably be miserable because I was scraping to break even while at the same time working to spec.

Originally Posted by Bruno

We are a long way from the point where razor manufacturing becomes a viable business model again.

Do you think this applies to Hart? Are they bucking a trend or are they doomed?

I hope they are in the "niche" and are destined to make it...

Originally Posted by Mike Blue

There are several good points that follow mine. Ray has a good handle on it because of what he does for knifemakers and his example of the market for custom knives is excellent. I would say that the same rules are true in the knife world. I know very few who do this without some other form of support. It used to be true that you were no body in the music business until you got your picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone and the blade mags function in the same way. Ray is in a perfect place. When the market for knife engraving dries a little he can flex his business over to other objects in metal and continue to do business. A knifemaker only makes knives.

Once the market likes your blades you have two choices. Either you go very high end and cater to the collectors or you go low end and find an offshore company (Brian's large volume) who will manufacture all those parts of your now famous design and you become a knife assembler. But you won't be able to handcraft the numbers needed to support daily living if you don't. If you go high end and make one or two very expensive items a year, you price yourself out of even wishing range for most people.

The next thing that happens is your designs start showing up on the market without you being able to control the contractor who was the brother-in-law of the guy you have only a little control over. The knife market is also heavily dependent on disposable income. Theoretically you could only use two knives at a time, so you only really need two at most. Beyond that you buy them because you like them and rotate them. But you stop buying when the market is down, or a home project comes up, or at the high end your investments aren't doing so well, something to drain away that little extra for toys.

I suspect these factors apply just as easily to the ebay market when the old razors that the membership here recycles so diligently and effectively. But the prices are rising as well, when the old stocks are being consumed and becoming scarce. Folks grumble about how much the custom jobs cost. And those of us custom guys struggle with not pricing ourselves out of the market but we have to account for the price of everything as Bruno succinctly did the math. Realistically, I've never recovered the cost of the learning curve, the tools or the time.

I really hope the razor market grows. If there was one feature of craftsmanship that I could influence this segment to acquire, I would have the idea of collaborative efforts take a firmer root. All other markets in the world depend on multiple craftsmen/women who become very good at their particular talent. Then they combine to make something really cool. This also means more crafts types can be supported by the market, more families fed. I love making steel and heat treatment. There are a few here grinding those steels and doing the finish work that I don't like much. Someone else could take a blade like that and scale it, not much different than doing a restoration. If I could remember to leave a clean piece for Ray to scribe on, that'd be very cool. The price of each segment of work would remain relatively low but the whole would take on a larger value for the combined best works of us all. The idea of sole authorship is a uniquely American driven problem. I'm not sure it supports a craft as well as a consortium of efforts.

Bruce, I would be wholly encouraging of your desire, but not at the expense of giving you an unrealistic dream either. If you're going to learn this, do it because it's fun and you're going to learn something cool. The rest will make you crazy.

Very well said. Look, i've owned 2 companies so far in my 35 years. Both in the tech field so I get all that. And i was no implying that the only reason i started to like this hobby was to make a business out of it.

I went to a small art school for my college, as a jewelry major of all things. I left after 2 years for many reasons but 1 being I didn't see much of a future in it. You either sold out and designed crap for like QVC, you got really really lucky and found a good customer base that likes your work and that is enough to sustain you or you spend most of your time traveling around to art/craft shows. None of those appealed to me.

Although I did have a few friends that made it. in each of those ways. I don't want to give the impression I was looking for a business plan, not even close. It was more of a curiosity thing. You start to hang out in these forums and talk to other razor guys and start to think "well everyone should obviously want one of these" then you realize most people don't even know they exist except in history books.