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I'm wondering if anybody else has experience writing their own Sefer Torah, how long it took them and how much it cost.

It took me about 9 years and about $3,500 to write mine.

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    Were there any costs besides the parchment and ink?
    – Dave
    Jul 22, 2010 at 16:40
  • Also, in terms of time, how many hours would you estimate it took? I know a sofer who would like a new set of parshiyos for his tefillin, but doesn't have the time to write them himself!
    – Dave
    Jul 22, 2010 at 16:42
  • Dave, Besides the parchment and ink there's the cost of the Gidin for sewing it up and the cost of the computer checking. Then there's the Eitz Chaim and the Cover. There's also the cost of the manual checking if you don't do it yourself. But as you said, the major cost is 62 Yeriot @ $50 each. I have no idea how many hours it took. By the time I was done, I could do 11 lines / hour. So "the next time" would (in theory) take me about 960 hours. Parshios thake longer as the writting is tiny and errors cannot be corrected later.
    – Danny Schoemann
    Jul 29, 2010 at 10:38
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    At $20/hr, that would be be close to $20,000. Puts the price of Sifrei Torah in perspective...
    – Dave
    Jul 29, 2010 at 14:26
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    @mevaqesh, it is about the time and cost of fulfilling a Mitzva. It would be more productive for the review queue if you voted to close things with actual support in Meta for the vote.
    – Yishai
    Sep 8, 2016 at 15:25

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It took me just over three years for each that I did. I wrote roughly half an amud(21 lines a day) using a reed. The cost was just over $8k, but I used an exceptionally high quality klaf(better surfaced and no gid marks). For the second it was just over $12K(though that was a nightmare of a sefer to write). I wrote in Klaf Gvil, which costs double the price and then you have coat it with a special substance to keep the letters from falling off, unless you want to dig up a really old recipe for ink and brew it yourself.

Most professional sofrim can write one in under a year. However at the same time they write full time and have special gadgets to help them along.

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    As a note I should add that I typically don't go in for computer checking. Everyone I know who does it charges too much($75 a Yeria) and then it is not that accurate. By comparison I can have an expert Ba'al Megiah from my Yeshiva check for $10 a Yeria and get pointers on how to make my writing more hiddur.
    – Rabbi Michael Tzadok
    Aug 9, 2010 at 13:46
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    "Klaf Gvil" You're aware the Gvil is by definition not Klaf, right?
    – Double AA ♦
    Apr 26, 2018 at 20:03

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