Knife Sharpening Stones

[SeattlePioneer]

I'm picky about having sharp knives around the house, and mounted my sharpening stone on a custom mount to get good results. It's occurred to me that this might make a worthwhile fundraiser.

 

I have seen 3" x 8" size sharpening stones selling for a dollar or two.

 

I make a plywood base that's 12" x 14" or so from 3/4" plywood. Then I cut out two pieces of 3/4" thick plywood the same size as the sharpening stone. Glue the two small pieces of plywood together, then glue those two pieces to the larger board, and spray paint all the wood.

 

Then glue some rubber gasket material to the bottom of the base to keep it from moving around, and finally glue the sharpening stone to the top.

 

Now you can sharpen away without the stone moving around, and without your hands being impeded by bumping into whatever the stone is sitting upon.

 

Works great, and really only takes a few minutes to assemble. In my imagination they'd be easy enough to sell with a decent knife sharpening demonstration, and you'd get $15-20 a hit.

 

 

Comments are invited.

 

 

 

Seattle Pioneer

[Bob White]

I made a call and did some shopping.

 

A sheet of 34 plywood is 38.99 and would yeild 21 holders. a 2X8 stone is 18.99.

 

Even excluding the cost of paint and glue as well as the value of time spend in construction, at $20 each you would lose $40 for every 21 sharpener sets you sell.

 

A scout is thrifty, sell popcorn.

 

BW

 

[frank10]

BW,

I'm going to skip popcorn and sell you plywood... I get 3/4 inch furniture grade maple for $30 a sheet at home depot. not sure of the going rate for pine...

 

[Bob White]

Tell you what lets cut the cost of the pywood by half. You would still lose A dollar on every unit you sold.

 

Now if yo could get the stone for say 10 dollars you could make the same profit you make $9 on every sale. But how many homes would you have to go to to sell 21 knife sharpeners? And once a person had one what are the odds they would need another next year?

 

Thats's why selling consumables is better.

 

To make the money we make in the unit on popcorn he would need to sell about 700 knife sharpeners. I don't see that happening.

 

 

[FScouter]

Sounds OK to me. "A Scout earns his own way." The key would be to find a stone for a dollar. Sounds iffy.

[hacimsaalk12]

"A scout is thrifty. Sell popcorn" popcorn is so expensive its not even funny. ayone who buys that, loses 5-6 bucks

 

i think this would be a good idea, if you worked out a way to make it cheaper. personally in our troop, and area, popcorn doesnt sell at all. 1st, it is too expensive. 2nd most people still have popcorn from last year. 3rd people usually only buy from us because we are scouts.

 

im pretty sure we make more money off beefsticks, than popcorn(This message has been edited by hacimsaalk12)

[FScouter]

"ayone who buys that [popcorn], loses 5-6 bucks"

 

Where does the lost money go? Who benefits? What is the purpose of money-earning events? Why do we do fund-raising?

 

 

[SeattlePioneer]

 

 

 

Great. $2 for wood, $1. for a stone and $.50 for paint, glue and anti skid material. Sell it for $20 and you have a gross profit of $16.50.

 

 

>

 

 

Shop around.

 

 

I should probably make a dozen or so of these up and let the Scouts sell them to see how they do. A little test marketing.

 

 

At present, the Troop sells popcorn in the fall and pizzas we make at a commercial kitchen. They cost about $4. and sell for $8.50.

 

We just got done making 170 of them a few weeks ago.

 

 

 

Seattle Pioneer