Pairing Wine with Duck

Brett Luna

Member
Messages
230
Location
Peters Creek, Alaska
Here we go, my first post outside of the Intro forum. I recently landed my first sorta-real commission. After seeing my woodworking posts on Facebook, a coworker asked if I could come up with a stand of some sort for a taxidermy display. Her husband had gone on a bucket list duck hunting trip to Saint Paul Island (way out in the Bering Sea) and had four of them mounted in a museum style setting. The mount itself is pretty nice but the base left a lot to be desired:


Left: male and female Harlequin ducks. Right: male and female Long-tail ducks.
Click for larger image.


The joinery is bad enough to make refinishing a poor option, so I decided to completely enclose it in the stand...and since they are wine enthusiasts, I came up with a design to make the stand multifuntional:



...and to put it in perspective: a short 'walk-around' video

Note: Yes, I know those are wood ducks in my model but the 3D library didn't have any others that would work!
 
Yep, Great design. The mount is interesting, but I agree, the wood on the original leaves a lot to be desired.
:lurk:
 
Just a little behind on documenting my progress but thanks on the positive feedback so far. I got everything roughed out, milled the rails and stiles to final size, and fitted most of the tenons to their mortises:




Just the two back rails to go before I start work on the panels.
 
Looks great, love the wood!

After being in the business for over 20 years, I have to recommend that the wine cabinet has doors on it, two reasons;
One, UV light is not good for wine.
Two, tempreture swings are also hard on wine, if the cabinet has a door then room heating up during the day and cooling off in the evening, will not affect the wine as much.
Bonus round!
To a casual sticky fingered person, the wine would not be on full display and easy to steal, I'm thinking a house keeper, a child's friend visiting etc.

oh yeah, Pinot Noir is the usual recommendation, but it really depends on how the duck is cooked, if you cook it with fruit, and it is sweet, then a Late Harvest Riesling is often very nice.

;):thumb:

Domo
 
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Well, dang! I forgot all about this thread and in the meantime...and a lot of meantime, at that...the project is done. Here's a sampling of progress pics taken over several months of weekend and evening work. All photos are clickable, by the way.





They picked it up a couple of weekends back and now it looks right at home. Not shown in the photos below, is the glass cover...since it wouldn't photograph well...and he likes the way it looks uncovered. The trim piece is removable, allowing the base to drop in, and the glass cover then fits within the trim. I had made MDF templates of the base and cover to check fit during construction and left some wiggle room for good measure. But still, I had small a nagging dread that they'd get it home and it wouldn't work out. But they report that it's a perfect fit and they're delighted with it. Relief.

 
Brett,. That is a fine looking piece of furniture. Love the wood and design. I do know I am not going to show it to my wine swilling friend.
That could be a future project.
David
 
Beautiful work, just out of curiosity, if I may ask, how much did the material alone cost for that, and how much did you charge for the piece (to the customer). I have never done commissioned pieces, but would like to at some point, but I know nothing about figuring the value for estimates, prior to builds. How did go about that...is there a formula some where on projected profit vs cost and work hours etc...
 
Mark, this comes up often. There is no formula. There are too many variables. Your area. Your customers expectations. The discretionary income levels within your area. Those are the biggies for starters. There is no direct correlation between costs and price, except that you don't want to lose money.

There is also the issue of marketing. People won't buy your product if they don't know it is available. And it takes time to build up a reputation so folks are willing to recommend your work to others.

And then there is your competition and how you differentiate yourself from them in the marketplace. Years ago I taught a college class on woodworking as a business. Taught it three years. Only only student actually created his business and gave it up after a couple of years as undoable for a solo operation. And he was a young pup with energy to burn. When I was in the business, if I got to spend 20 hours a week in the shop, it was a good week. But that also meant 40-50 hours a week on marketing, designing, pitching offers, drawing plans, picking up materials, etc. Hard to get paid for those activities.

The biggest issue I found with folks thinking about doing this was their inability to let go of the notion of what they found appealing and valuable, other people did not, and vise versa. Much time was spent 'educating' the customer as to value. That sort of was as successful as lipstick on a pig.
 
Thanks for the kind words everyone. I was pretty pleased with they way it turned out too.

Beautiful work, just out of curiosity, if I may ask, how much did the material alone cost for that, and how much did you charge for the piece (to the customer). I have never done commissioned pieces, but would like to at some point, but I know nothing about figuring the value for estimates, prior to builds. How did go about that...is there a formula some where on projected profit vs cost and work hours etc...

I'm not the best person to ask about that Mark and I think this isn't the best project to to use as a guide. The wood rang up at about $535 but I didn't price this for the market. I priced the piece lower than market rate because the wife in the couple is my colleague and I wanted the experience of working a commission of this size and complexity. I explained that to them and asked them not to share the price because I don't want future clients (if I have a go at it) having that expectation and I certainly don't want to undercut my fellow woodworkers.

In addition to Carol's informed remarks, I'll add that I've read in many places that material cost multiplied by five may be a good starting point. You can adjust upward or downward based on other factors in your market.
 
brett that was fine piece, but the birds are gonna get dusty with no glass on top.. i know i have a few critters and birds done up and birds dont clean easily.
 
Thanks Carrol, Brett. Pretty much what I expected, that's why I don't do it...lol...was just curious...don't know anyone who has a woodworking shop that hasn't had a friend who wanted something built and wanted to know how much they would charge. What I have always done is tell them I am not in the woodworking business and have no idea what to charge, and frankly even if I did, you probably wouldn't want to pay that much, and I work way to slow to make any money doing it..lol...then I tell them what I'll do is let you use my shop, I'll help you, show you what to do, what you'll need etc..you get full use of my shop, with me in it to guide you FREE, you buy the materials, you do most of the work...i.e..something needs to be sanded for several hours, guess who is doing it, some thing needs planing something needs to be cut, guess who...lol.. I'll tell you how, I'll show you how, but you'll be doing it, won't charge you anything other then bring some beer or a cheese burger every so often...lol...9 out of 10 times suddenly they don't really need what ever it was they were wanting...hehe...the few who have taken me up on it, we had some great fun over several weekends. I got some company, free beers, and got to pass on some woodworking tips and knowledge (limited as it might be, but more then they knew) and they got a great piece of furniture at a much lower cost (materials only) and something I feel is much better then they could have bought, because they built it. I think this is a much better way then just making something and selling it.
 
brett that was fine piece, but the birds are gonna get dusty with no glass on top.. i know i have a few critters and birds done up and birds dont clean easily.

Oh, he knows that. These aren't his first mounts. He just wants to enjoy them without the glass for a little while before covering them.

What I have always done is tell them I am not in the woodworking business and have no idea what to charge, and frankly even if I did, you probably wouldn't want to pay that much, and I work way to slow to make any money doing it..lol...then I tell them what I'll do is let you use my shop, I'll help you, show you what to do, what you'll need etc..you get full use of my shop, with me in it to guide you FREE, you buy the materials[...]

I've done a lot of DIY work on the house during the past 12 years. The Wife® has shown off some pictures to her customers (she's a hairdresser) and some have asked how much I would charge to do work for them. Since that's a business I do not want to get in to, she tells them it's a $10,000 retainer, $250 per hour...and I'm really slow, too...they buy the materials, and they have to keep me in the scotch and beer of my choice for the duration.
 
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