I’m attempting to make a living doing furniture. I’d appreciate feedback as to how many hours would be reasonable to make the attached two tables.
They are constructed from 8/4 x 16” wide solid mahogany, Tapered legs. All joints M&T, with the upper rails mitred and haunched; mortises (40) cut by machine, tenons by bandsaw. Shelf slats are screwed and plugged. Three coats of a wiping varnish. They’re flawless; silky smooth, not a glue stain or open joint to be seen.
This is my sixth commission. I’m learning a lot as I go on (many thanks to this forum). I know I’m slow as I’m a perfectionist. They took me 65 hours, which doesn’t include the 8-10 hours spent on design and working drawings. In my inexperience and abundant optimism, I’d estimated 18 hours to construct the smaller one. I know I’ve an inflated sense of my worth, but still… the reality is the marketplace and as I live in Mexico City, the appreciation and willingness to pay for craftsmanship has its limits.
Thanks in advance.
Replies
HI ccaughlan, nice tables, 18 hours sounds about right. but the hard parts done
the design is worked out, has you build this style your jigs and work methods are figured out and you will only get faster,at making them.thus more money left over. a fairly good way to guesstimate a project is material cost X 3 FOR EXAMPLE all material cost $200 X 3 = $600 . by far the best way is to figure what your overhead cost are and what you want to make for a paycheck each month plus prophit. then break it down into how much you need to charge per hour or day . best of luck
mark cherry cabinets.
Woodshaver,
I beg to differ with you on you formula of 3 times the material cost. Most of the stuff I build would leave me broke if I sold it for that. Let's take a highboy for instance. I have between 800 and a 1000 dollars in wood and hardware. There is no way I am going to sell it for 3 grand, you couldn't even buy a factory made version in a store for that let alone a true reproduction. Offhand I can't think of anything I make that I would sell based on your formula with the possible exception of kitchen cabinets and even that would be doubtful. And I am not slow by any means . Oh well different strokes for different folks.
Mark
HI professor,the material times three method is just a crude formula , yes it wont work well for fine furniture, its more for kitchen cabinets. my mentor used
this system, I break projects into how many days I think it will take plus material cost,and charge for it. the main thing to consider is will the market pay my price. in my area Id be lucky to get $3,000 for a highboy dresser .
good luck mark
The 'times raw materials cost' will work just as well for fine furniture. You just need to use a multiple a lot higher than three (in most cases). Five to seven times raw materials should be a good starting point for basic 'fine furniture' that does not feature extensive carving. Obviously, a lot of carving could make a plain blanket chest, for example, cost a few thou...
Sounds alot like software programming time & materials estimating. Always multiply the number of hours you think it will take by 3. Unreal how accurate it is in most software projects.
Most of us are naturally positive and a bit over-confident.
Of course it's an ongoing process of refinement. I've mentioned the 'luxury goods pricing theory' on this forum many times, too. Custom woodworking, if presented to the potential customer correctly, easily qualifies as a luxury item. This well-researched and documented marketing phenomenon essentially states that for certain items people actually wish to pay more - for bragging rights if you will - so Muffy can tell Buffy over lunch at the club about the new sideboard that she is having custom made in time for the holidays and oh, it's soooo expensive.
There is nothing wrong with letting human nature work to your advantage.
But you have to deliver the goods.
Yes, I can see building multiples with jigs can reduce the time significantly, but here we're talking about one-offs. Are you telling me that you could have built the first one in 18 hours? It was 40 for me.
I don't think you really have any problem with your time estimating/production methods. I mean, you did an estimate of time and then had the actual discipline to keep track of your actual time. That is a good thing. The fact that it really took you longer then you thought it would is "natural" in my experience. This is a one-off piece and I'd be surprised if you didn't do some re-design as you progressed with the work. That takes time as does all the little details that you no doubt forgot to add in when doing your initial time analysis.
Now the question remains if the piece is "worth it" when you multiply the actual time (40 hours) by your hourly rate then add in material costs, etc. Is the piece worth that much money? Yea, because that's what it took to build the piece. Will anybody actually pay that amount? That will only be determined through experience. People WILL pay for quality. As your career progresses you will find out of people will actually pay for YOUR designs and work.
HI ccaughlan, yes I could build that table in 18 hrs , in my shop, after 20 years
of wood working, you learn to work fast, and accuate .I have my shop all to my self, 4000 sq ft so there is room move .
I have a web site thats still in the works you can see my work at
http://www.markcherrycabinets.com
good luck mark
Mark,
You do very nice work. Thanks for posting your website. I especially like the way you detail your work.
-Ken
HI Ken thank you for to complement.
Hi Mark
It's Dale from Mequon, haven't talked to you for awhile. I still have 4/4 rough Red Oak to sell cheap if you are interested. I will send you out a carving tool catalog along with my buisiness card. I now mainly do studio/art furniture and woodcarving and I am selling off panel bits and templates and other odds and ends if you are interested. I could also pass on a few cabinet jobs to you if you are interested. Your site looks great. Keep me in mind if you know of anyone looking for handcarved mantels or any other carving. I will get the Stubai catalog out to you today.
Take Care
Dale
HI Timber , how are things going ? did you move to your new shop? I would
still like to meet you and see some of your work.
are you going to the lake front art show this weekend ?
take care mark.
Hi Mark
We are on the new property and I will start building the new shop in fall. The plans were to start building the shop now but there was an issue was set back with the city. So to build the size shop I want I will have to take down the garage and start fresh. To keep money coming in I am working out of the garage during the summer then in fall move the machines out into temporary storage. At that time I will rent a small space for doing carvings until the new shop is built. I should be in the new shop late fall early winter. I will be doing all the work myself except for the concrete. I fiqure I have all winter to work on the inside of the new space I just want to get it weather tight insulated and heated by first snow.
Take Care
Dale
The tables are good looking pieces, but spending almost two weeks to build such simple furniture does seem to be excessive. In a decently equipped but basic shop I'd expect to do the pair of them in under 40 hours.
Without knowing how you work, I couldn't begin to offer suggestions as to picking up your speed, but you should be able to do better without compromising the quality of your work. Post some details about how you went about making them and I'm sure you'll get some useful feedback.
John
Thanks guys for your feedback. As you say John, a lot of it is getting bogged down into details unforseen and refiguring design changes, and the time just adds up. My time sheet shows 8 hours for resawing off a 2x16 x14' plank my cut list, cutting eight legs using a taper jig I have and gluing-up the two tops. Then 7 hours for cutting 40 mortises on a machine that I'd put indexing marks on the fence. Cutting the tenons took 8 hours and another 4-5 in dressing all faces.I I finish-sanded all pieces before glue-up. My wood waste/overage ran about 8%. I know I spend too much time trying to maximize my cuts.
What with the time it took and the price I'd quoted, it comes out that I made $8 an hour. I could've probably charged more, but not by much ($400 for the small table).
It'll hopefully work itself out; but this shakedown cruise is taking longer than I thought.
- Craig Caughlan
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled