larry merlau
Member
- Messages
- 18,741
- Location
- Delton, Michigan
well this isnt really a question but a observation i had last friday..
i have a quilt rack that was asked to be made for a customer.
priced the materials, got a approx time to make it and then asked for a second opinion on pricing..chkd on line to see what the market was and made a decision on cost..
now here is the question.. it would cost approximatly 30 dollars for materials and the assembly time is around 6-8hrs finished..for a price of 150 -175 depending on wood and styling.. so that breaks down to around 20 dollars a hour and that doesnt take into consideration overhead on a shop to manufacture it..
yet in other types of business, like printing for instance a simple 2 color letter head and a run of 3000 pieces would cast around 200 dollars with a material cost of say 30 dollars which is high and total time to do this job is a hour..so that relates to 170 dollars per hour..that is great wages but not much skill needed just load paper and add ink and turn on a switch and watch for registration movements...
now after this comparison, look at your job that you do and see how it compares to the dollars per hour you can get and ask ourselves why is woodworking not profitable????
you have to love the craft to make it worth while in my eyes because it doesnt seem to pay the bills very well in my world at least..
so how things should be different those that do this and are tryun to make a living at it must have some different methods or feel they can live on less and enjoy there lively hood. so what say yee,, what am i missing here???
i have a quilt rack that was asked to be made for a customer.
priced the materials, got a approx time to make it and then asked for a second opinion on pricing..chkd on line to see what the market was and made a decision on cost..
now here is the question.. it would cost approximatly 30 dollars for materials and the assembly time is around 6-8hrs finished..for a price of 150 -175 depending on wood and styling.. so that breaks down to around 20 dollars a hour and that doesnt take into consideration overhead on a shop to manufacture it..
yet in other types of business, like printing for instance a simple 2 color letter head and a run of 3000 pieces would cast around 200 dollars with a material cost of say 30 dollars which is high and total time to do this job is a hour..so that relates to 170 dollars per hour..that is great wages but not much skill needed just load paper and add ink and turn on a switch and watch for registration movements...
now after this comparison, look at your job that you do and see how it compares to the dollars per hour you can get and ask ourselves why is woodworking not profitable????
you have to love the craft to make it worth while in my eyes because it doesnt seem to pay the bills very well in my world at least..
so how things should be different those that do this and are tryun to make a living at it must have some different methods or feel they can live on less and enjoy there lively hood. so what say yee,, what am i missing here???