New knife sheath for friend...

[indypbear]

Scouter,

Got to live chat if you are in the viw mode.

Indy

[PaulakaFrenchy]

Hello Scouter, nice Sheath. Looks like it'll last a few generations! I too often wonder how folk in certain craft related businesses make a proper living. It's just as well that I don't have to make knives and Sheaths for a living and charge proper hourly rates as otherwise I'll never sell anything. The best I can do is base my cost on materials and consumables with some extra for electric etc. Time is definitely not a cost consideration in my case, especially when it comes to making Sheaths as there's no way I make a decent Sheath in a few hours. I don't often get asked to make Sheaths, but when I do, I charge between £35 and £50 depending on size and complexity. Generally speaking few folk appreciate what's really involved in making a Custom sheath, so their perception of worth and value for money tends to be way off target. I used to make walking sticks, but I don't anymore because I could never get a fair price for them and hardly covered the cost of materials. As I make knives complete with sheaths, I figure out an 'all in' costing and things sort of work out OK in the long run. Another problem I encountered when at one time I thought of organizing myself on a business footing is that no matter how good my stuff is, there's only so much as a 'one man band' I can make in a week, month etc. Even as a committed hobbyist I now find that I'm running behind all the time and my turnaround time is getting longer. Sometimes it gets a bit too much and everything becomes a chore and the enjoyment/fun factor ebbs away into oblivion. Another aspect that would impinge on making a decent living is that you never know from one week to the next what orders would be coming in. You could go weeks with no orders coming in and then at other times you get too many to cope with! I'm lucky in that I don't have to rely on orders coming in to get by, but I wonder how many skilled artisans struggle to make ends meet.

To finish off with, here's is a link to a page on my website that shows the sheaths I made for my Damascus 'Puma Hunter' type knives: http://www.customknivesandsticks.co.uk/StickTangKnives.htm I've got to say that I'm getting a lot of pleasure from this forum, picking good tips as I go along. So many thanks to all who are good enough to share their knowledge and experience.