KraftyQuote / For bladesmiths
For bladesmiths
Price the knife, not just the steel.
Steel is the cheap part of a knife. KraftyQuote counts the bar you actually use, the belts you wear out, grinder and kiln hours, handle material, your time and your shop’s overhead, then solves for a price that pays you after fees.
Built from a working forge
- Bar stock by length. A bar is bought and cut by the inch, and the quote counts it that way; KraftyStock keeps the part-used bar on the books when the job is done.
- Grinder and kiln rows at hourly rates from the machine hourly rate calculator, which has presets for a 2×72 grinder, a heat-treat kiln and a propane forge.
- Belts and consumables as hardware lines: half a ceramic belt per blade is a cost, so it goes on the quote.
- KraftyFlow’s stage timer logs the time at the grinder and in finishing against the time you quoted, so the next quote starts from real numbers.
The bar stock calculators
The bar stock yield calculator works out blanks per bar for all 13 knife steels, free, from 1084 and 80CrV2 to 14C28N and MagnaCut, using the bar sizes suppliers actually sell. BladeStock, its free companion, goes deeper: forged versus stock removal, tang styles, heat-treat figures per steel, and a knife pricing calculator.
What else is in the quote
- Materials, hardware and labor on every line, with a scrap allowance and your shop overhead spread over billable hours.
- The price that holds your margin after the selling channel's cut: Etsy, Square, Shopify, PayPal and others are built in, with sales tax and a deposit if you take one.
- A customer quote and a shop ticket from the same numbers, as a PDF or an email.
- KraftyFlow, a job board with a stage timer, so the time you actually spend comes back next to the time you quoted.
- KraftyStock, which takes the material off your inventory when a job is done and flags what is running low.
Set an hourly rate for your machine with the machine hourly rate calculator: purchase price, years of life, hours a week, power and upkeep.
What's free and what's paid: estimating, quote and shop-ticket PDFs, and nests of up to 5 different parts are free on every plan, with the cash, Square, Shopify and Etsy channels. Maker Pro adds the other sales channels (PayPal, Faire and more) and quotes your customer accepts online. Workshop Suite adds SVG/DXF import, nesting with no part limit and every KraftyDesign shape but the knife blank. See the plans.
Questions
What should I charge for a handmade knife?
Everything it costs you, then a margin: steel and handle material, belts and abrasives, heat treat, machine time, your hours at a rate you would accept, and your shop’s overhead. KraftyQuote adds them up and works back from the fee your selling channel takes.
Does it handle forged blades?
Yes. Quote the bar you start with; BladeStock works out how much bar a forged blade needs, including the draw on a hidden tang.
Can I track my steel?
KraftyStock holds your bars and takes what each job used off them when it is done, keeping track of the part-used bar.
Is it only for knives?
No. It started at the forge, but the same quote covers laser, CNC and 3D printed work, which is useful when a knife ships with an engraved box or a printed sheath insert.