Replies

1. 
   RJT_ | Jan 02, 2001 07:28am | #1

   *
   This is to open up a discussion on the possibility of a craftsman in wood to make a living by developing prototype designs and having someone else produce them in mass.

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   Kim_Carleton_Graves | Jan 02, 2001 11:08pm | #2

   *Hi Richard,You asked me to comment on this question and so I am. However, as I understand your question, I'm not sure I have anything meaningful to say. But here goes.If you mean by your question building prototypes for other designers, I haven't had much luck with a that route. I've done it several times both for furniture and for turned lamp parts. There are a couple of problems: first the clients. Either the client is a big shop who needs something fast and dirty to show a client. They usually have an in house staff but are too busy to do the prototype themselves. So they farm it out. They operative words are fast and dirty. Usually there is no joinery involved. The piece is just screwed together - the idea is that it only has to look good from 10 feet away. The problem is that because it's not very involved they won't pay much for it. And because they want it immediately (some times they call and want something in a couple of days) you have to drop everything to meet the delivery date. Usually I charge extra for a rush job but the budget of these sorts of jobs is so small I can't compete if I do that. And because they are looking for the lowest bid, I almost always loose out and end up doing the estimate for nothing. If I do get the job I make nothing, and if I don't get the job I loose on the estimate. ARG!Or the client is an individual (architect/designer) who has a great idea and wants a prototype to show investors. The problem with that is that they don't want to spend a lot of money either. But usually they want a complete model showing all the detail (ars holes and eyeballs included). The story I've been thrown is that I'll make money when it goes into production. Of course it never does and I end up making something for almost nothing. And to make things worse they usually want you do to several iterations for the same initial fee. It becomes ridiculous. So that doesn't work either. The bottom line is that in either of these situations, either, make your shop rate or pass on the gig.If you mean by your question, making prototypes of your own designs, and then subbing out the production, that sounds like a great idea. But that's a marketing issue. You'll need to sell your own investors on the wisdom of making a billion Tolzman chairs/tables/lamps. Or you can do the traveling show circuit and show your prototypes, get orders and sub them to some production shop (keep me in mind ;-)). In general I think getting a production gig going is all for the good. There is much less overhead in making a production item than in making one-offs. Whether you make the production item yourself or sub it out doesn't really matter at that point. I have a couple of production items and they're really great. I'm all set up to make them and they bring in a steady income. I wish I had more of that work.If you have a more specific question maybe I would have more to say.Best,Kim Carleton GravesCarleton Woodworking

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   splintergroupie_ | Jan 03, 2001 12:01pm | #3

   *My experience echoes Kim's. I'm most often asked to do productions runs of something like a presentation box, with laser engraving of a logo or a certain size, or special interior. I've never gotten a single one of these deals yet, after all the calling around to the laser-etchers, etc. Even if i've told them a firm quote up front, the price is always too high by the end. Taiwan syndrome.On my own production items, i've found that if i do all the work, the quality is high, there are very few rejects, and i'm really fast. If someone else does the work, they take at least half-again as long, and i have to inspect each piece anyway, toss the bad ones. I think if i subbed it out, i would really be unhappy with the quality i'd get at piece-work rates. I once tried to give people who were experienced in a drilling operation the chance to make much better money by doing piece-work. What had been good quality at an acceptable rate became a waste of wood, so they went back to straight wages.Maybe if you had a very simple item, no moving parts...

1. 
   RJT_ | Jan 04, 2001 03:46am | #4

   *Thanks Kim and Splinter for the response. I’ve been involved in this woodworking/craftsman stuff since I started art school in 1965 and have been thru virtually every conceivable argument and attitude on this topic. I’ll hold off for a bit until we have more input. Needless to say I've a point of view on it. &:~)

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   RJT_ | Jan 05, 2001 03:56am | #5

   *The interesting thing about this idea of designing something and having someone else build it for you, and you make money of off your design work is that some people have a so-called moral objection to it, like they are taking advantage of someone else's labor. Another objection is that your are marketing and selling something that you designed, but did not build. Is it yours? Another objection is the idea that a reproduction of your idea isn't going to be as good as your prototype. As for the financial rewards/compensations as referred to by K.C.G. and S.G., ....later.

2. 
   Adrian_Wilson | Jan 05, 2001 04:04am | #6

   *I'm still thinking about this...but the main focus of designing for production, from what I know of it, is to design what machines can do quickly and cheaply. The successful industrial designers (the guys that have a hundred or two hundred chair designs in production, and live very well off the royalties), know this, and live with the fact that design takes a backseat to those production realities. That is the antithesis, in my mind, to what makes a small shop guy tick, and the question is...can you make those compromises. If you can't, your design will not go into production. For that reason, I think a reasonable route is limited production runs, under the direct control of the designer; some economies of scale, and a reasonable level of quality.

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   RJT_ | Jan 05, 2001 04:26am | #7

   *".....is to design what machines can do quickly and cheaply"This is a big statement Adrian. This is the key between success and failure in designing for production. You cannot design something that cannot be manufactured with the equipment available. I have been quite successful in designing a number of products for limited mass production because I was able to design them according to the specific facility in which they were produced. One of which was so successful that someone else designed their facility to produce the product!But you also have to be able to push the facility beyond it's limits. Consider dovetail jigs in the past 25 years. Today a Leigh jig can do work that back then would've been considered handmade. Now you can crank out handmade dovetails on a jig and a router instead of a saw and chisel. What's the difference then between the two if the result is the same? Or if a computer operated machine did it? Or by hand by a bunch of kids in a shop in China for 25 cents a day?

4. 
   Kim_Carleton_Graves | Jan 05, 2001 03:56pm | #8

   *Hi Richard,I think Adrian point is (Adrian correct me if I'm wrong) is that today's industrial designer doesn't design for the Leigh jig. They design in AutoCAD and their drawings then get turned into G-code that the CNC router executes. FULL ON production is CNC based. The Leigh jig takes a human operator which is too expensive.Kirk has a buddy who is working for a chair company that we occasionally get asked to make prototypes for. This company bought two high-end CNC routers a couple of years ago. All their designs are big and bulky because that's what the router is capable of.And it seems to me that limited production wouldn't do it for you. For example, if a chair sells for $1000 and you get 10% - $100. If they make a run of 20 you get $2000. For me that's less than a week in the shop and I doubt that's enough time to design the chair and answer all the queries back and forth between yourself and the production facility. Also a run of 20 chairs that sell for $1000 each is a big order. Not many people would spend $20K on chairs when they could go get production chairs for $100 each. It seems to me that what an industrial designer wants is to get $1 per chair on a run of 20,000. That the money is in big production runs, not limited ones.Kim Carleton GravesCarleton Woodworking

5. 
   RJT_ | Jan 06, 2001 02:41am | #9

   *Kim: I would like to know the contract that a designer has on a product that he designs. I know that a number of people who are very good at designing a product, but not that efficient or capable at producing it, can be conned into designing it for someone with a promise of doing a production run. They do the design work for free and then the client takes the design to a shop that can do it 'now' and cheap. I think many people need to recognize that designing and producing are two different businesses, even though the same person/company is doing it. In other words, if someone wants you to design something for them, then charge them for it; the question is how. As an example let me draw an analogy to someone who writes a book. They write it and sell it for a set price, and then it goes into print and sells for 20 million copies and the writer gets nothing? Authors have a contract with the publisher, what is the equivalent business arrangement for a woodworker with a design product that can be manufactured? I don't know, anyone?

6. 
   RJT_ | Jan 06, 2001 03:39am | #10

   *As for the comparison with an industrial designer and the Leigh jig not being a valid comparison, I would not distinguish between a Leigh jig and a CNC router, or whatever means of production, as to the ethical or moral attitude towards the arrangement. As for the financial or efficiency factor, that is another matter. The reason I make the distinction is because it is an issue for some.

7. 
   Lee_Grindinger | Jan 07, 2001 08:42pm | #11

   *Get a grip!No one is going to pay you to produce designs that they can put into production and make grundles of money. Why should they? Copyright laws are so tough to enforce and easily gotten around anyway. Overseas enforcement is non-existant!Let's look at history, ummm, oh, there was a great designer by the name of Thomas Sheraton. He thought he could just tool around town selling lovely furniture designs. Ha, ha, he died a pauper and very bitter, no wonder.Hmmm, modern day? Sure, how about Sam Maloof. Sam is copied so often it's ridicoulous. Has anyone offered him a cent to duplicate his designs? Fat chance! They don't need to. Sam has the best attitude, he's flattered when someone copies his designs, in fact you can call him up and he'll help you with his joinery!Tom Moser has the best formula for making money. Design it yourself and produce it in house. All the sucessful furniture makers have done this, from Chippendale to Dennis to Stickley to Moser.Sorry to burst any DElusions out there but you're going to have to get your hands dirty, design, build and market your own stuff and hope for good fortune.No one makes money on prototypes, no one. The first product, whether it's a pill, a car or a furniture design is a hole you dump money into. Profits come from subsequent runs, whether it's three pieces or three hundred thousand. You can squeek by making prototypes, this was at one point in my youthful delusional haze my goal but I've come to realize that I have to make limited production runs and develop a reputation for A style, not many styles that bounce all over the genre. It's the nature of the biz...Lee

8. 
   RJT_ | Jan 08, 2001 06:41am | #12

   *Lee, I agree, as well as my experiences, as have the others here have said. But someone is doing it! For me the ideal is Hans Wegner and his famous Peacock chair, William Stumpf and Thos. Moser. Of those, Moser, like you said, has the ideal situation, design it and then build it. William Stumpf has his own company as an industrial designer and charges enough for prototypes that other companies hire him to do. I work for a company that does a lot of limited production runs of which I do most of the prototype work, and they get paid no more than shop rate for the prototype plus a healthy charge for the work, but make most of the money on the run. One design however was stolen. What's the big fuss with Napster copying copyrighted material? what the difference between songwriting and designing a carving or a chair? Aren't they both artistic works?

9. 
   RJT_ | Jan 12, 2001 06:28am | #13

   *Okay, just to breath a little reality into this... fact is Moser could care less about anyone copying him. Or Maloof or Krenov. Just the opposite. Why do you think Moser and Maloof have books detailing their techniques and even plans for their work? And why does Krenov pump out Krenovians from his school? Because they are smart marketers. This stuff sells their work. The idea that you have to copyright your work and keep anyone else on earth from ever "stealing" it from you is a self-defeating and pointless effort. And yes, you can do production work on a Leigh jig.