Sharpening Made Easy - Steve's Knife Sharpening Site

I am often asked about sharpening as a full-time or part-time business. Based on my experience here are my recommendations:

Check with the restaurants in your area first to make sure a commercial outfit does not have the market already cornered. Don't forget about delis, butchers and food stores. Is there a food processor in your area? They use lots of hand knives.

Even if the food industry has a commercial sharpener, there is still plenty of business to be found. To find homeowners, go where foodies gather - farmers markets and food fairs. Check places that sharpen other things - lawnmower shops and hardware stores - and ask if they sharpen cutlery. Chances they don't, or do a poor job, and you can pick up referrals from them. Try flea markets and gun and knife shows. One of my best venue is a culinary store where I go for one afternoon every month.

Consider adding household scissors right away. Later you might want to do beauty shears (bring out your feminine side) or saws (bring out your masculine side). These latter two are good money makers but require more specialized training and equipment.

First and foremost, you need to learn the skills. My book, Sharpening Made Easy, is a good place to start. See www.sharpeningmadeeasy.com for details. For more book suggestions, see books.htm If you can, attend my sharpening school.

For examples of prices, open http://users.ameritech.net/knives/receipts.doc For an example handout card open http://users.ameritech.net/knives/card.doc (Requires Microsoft WORD or equivalent software.)

For learning the business aspects, I recommend Robert Young's How to Start Your Own Knife Sharpening Business. You may also want to look at the free Internet course at www.myownbusiness.com There are a few other resources out there, but none that I can recommend. R. C. Cook's $6.95 "How to build a Knife Sharpening or a Knife Making Business" is 12 pages of platitudes on business that can be summarized as "be professional, have a business card, a business phone and address, do good work and treat the customer well." Graham Stuckey's 96 page, $30 "Trade Secret Revealed" tells the story of how he started his Knife Sharpest business. It is also the instruction manual for his $3000 Grambo sharpening system.

If your sharpening interests include saws, beauty shears and clippers, consider subscribing to the Sharpeners Report <sharpenersreport@chibardun.net> or On The Edge newsletter http://www.ontheedgenews.com/ You may also enjoy the discussions at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HowToSharpen/ and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SharpNet/
and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tormekusers/

Click here to join sharpnet

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Videos tend to be limited to one system. Spyderco, Razor Edge, EdgePro and Tormek make good videos that describe how to sharpen using their systems.

Second, you need to pick your equipment. If you only want to sharpen knives, the Chef'sChoice M2000 commercial sharpener is a possibility for about $400. Ask them about their small business setup. They also make a scissor sharpener. http://www.edgecraft.com/

A lot of knife shops use the TruHone, which starts at $650 for the LC model, or $1000 for the heavy duty model. I find it inadequate by itself and prefer the systems below.

For the best manual system, consider EdgePro. You can charge a premium for a hand sharpened edge. See http://www.edgeproinc.com/

If you are comfortable working with a power grinder, there is nothing faster and easier than a set of paper wheels on a bench grinder. They will not do the heavy work of reducing bolsters, repairing broken tips, or sharpening really dull knives. See paper.htm Use the reverse rotation setup I describe in my book and my website for greater convenience and safety.

If you want to add scissors and woodworking tools, consider a Tormek. It is the most versatile system on the market. and it can handle the heavy work of reducing bolsters or repairing broken tips. The Tormek costs about $600 with knife and scissor jigs.

My setup when I do a farmer's market is a Tormek, paper wheels, Twice-As-Sharp scissor sharpener, a bench grinder, some small hones, screwdrivers and wrenches. Knife sharpening starts on the Tormek and ends on the paper wheels, all freehand. Most of the grinding is done by the Tormek, and the honing ans stropping on the paper wheels. This saves wear on the paper wheels and reduces any chance of overheating when removing a lot of metal. The Tormek is also used for reducing bolsters and repairing broken tips,

I still do an occasional pair of scissors on the Tormek with the scissor jig, but recently have gone to a Wolff Twice-As-Sharp for most scissor work, including grass and hedge trimmers. Although it is a dry grind and you have to be very careful of overheating, it is much faster than the Tormek. I added a few specialized scissor tools - a scissor screw tool and a fine hone to polish the inside surface of the shears and scissors - both from Wolff Industries.

The bench grinder is used to reduce bolsters and sharpen shovels, etc. Some garden shears can be sharpened with the small hones but most have to be taken apart and ground on the Tormek. The screwdrivers and wrenches are for disassembling and adjusting scissors and shears.

In my shop I can take more time and my F. Dick SM-111 is used more. Although it can do 400 knives a day when they have stamped blades or have been previously sharpened, it can take up to 10 minutes to sharpen a large forged blade for the first time.

This page has a price list that you are free to copy and use, or download the Word document at receipts.doc. These prices are middle of the range. For more pricing you can go to http://users.ameritech.net/knives/links.htm#services and check the sharpening services listed there.

Click CARDS to download the card I hand out at markets (Word Document)
Please modify and use these documents for your own business.

For more comments on sharpening at farmer's markets. click here.