Wonder How Long This Will Take

[kmmcrafts]

I've been conveying for a week with some retailer.. ( might be Walmart the way they tried bargaining LOL ) They been trying to bargain with me for a lower price since they want to quantity order some of these.. I think it's a wedding shop.. Anyway I wouldn't budge.. was kinda hoping they'd give up and walk.. well they didn't and now I'm the lucky guy to cut 10 of these.. If I can get my Hawk dialed in maybe a good chance to get some hours on the machine..

 

[daveww1]

very nice

[WayneMahler]

Glad you got the job. I have done similar things with flower shops. They try to talk you down then give in at times. I think it takes a while for it to sink in how much work goes into each piece. Mine started out with just Angels and has grown from there. It can be very inconvenient at times as they don't like to wait. When you have several custom orders waiting to be filled is when they like to call and say I need them by tomorrow  . It's all part of growing though. Wish you the best on this endeavor as it could lead to other things. 

[bcdennis]

Are you going to be able to stack cut them, if so that would cut your cutting time down. 

 

[Scrappile]

A picture of your Hawks you posted on another thread showed 3 Hawk in a row so you should be able to cut at least three at a time!

[kmmcrafts]

30 minutes ago, bcdennis said:

Are you going to be able to stack cut them, if so that would cut your cutting time down. 

 

I probably could stack cut them.. they are 1/2" thick though and I'm not a big one to cut much more than 3/4".. so most likely will just cut each one at a time.. At least it's a fairly easy one to cut.. 

[JTTHECLOCKMAN]

Who's pattern is that??  I would be bored after 2 of them. It is not a difficult pattern. Not sure I would be playing around with a new saw for something like that. Use that time on something where there is no timetable. Now add some wedding napkin holders and you have a real winner and you will not be able to keep in stock. 

[kmmcrafts]

25 minutes ago, JTTHECLOCKMAN said:

Who's pattern is that??  I would be bored after 2 of them. It is not a difficult pattern. Not sure I would be playing around with a new saw for something like that. Use that time on something where there is no timetable. Now add some wedding napkin holders and you have a real winner and you will not be able to keep in stock. 

Sue Mey pattern... Yeah not sure if I'll use the new saw.. I'd like to get it all dialed in.. but keep getting orders.. I've got plenty of time ( 3 weeks ) to get these done.. but I still want to just knock them out, LOL..  Still working on the 36 Ford clock order.. but I'm waiting on that person to get back with me on some details so.. I'll get these done first I suppose..

[bobscroll]

Good on you Kevin! You must be good at poker lol

Bob 

[rjweb]

beautiful work, what did they want to pay you 10.00 each or a used wedding dress, RJ

[OCtoolguy]

I am curious what you ended up charging. Can you say? It might help some of us to know pricing. I don't have a clue and probably over charge. 

[kmmcrafts]

59 minutes ago, octoolguy said:

I am curious what you ended up charging. Can you say? It might help some of us to know pricing. I don't have a clue and probably over charge. 

I don't have a clue on pricing either.. I just wing it  on estimated time it takes to make one.. I've made a few of these over the years and the first one I charged $40 for it.. after making a few more I realized it took a little more time than my estimate.. so I bumped up the price to $50... over the years the price of lumber and cost of other things have went up.. I now charge $64 each.. I forgot how bad Oak stinks when cutting it.. maybe I'm not getting a good seal on my dust mask.. but the whole shop stinks like Oak..  ( did I mention I hate cutting Oak ) I now wish I had charged $150 each, LOL Cutting on my second one right now.. 

[OCtoolguy]

57 minutes ago, kmmcrafts said:

I don't have a clue on pricing either.. I just wing it  on estimated time it takes to make one.. I've made a few of these over the years and the first one I charged $40 for it.. after making a few more I realized it took a little more time than my estimate.. so I bumped up the price to $50... over the years the price of lumber and cost of other things have went up.. I now charge $64 each.. I forgot how bad Oak stinks when cutting it.. maybe I'm not getting a good seal on my dust mask.. but the whole shop stinks like Oak..  ( did I mention I hate cutting Oak ) I now wish I had charged $150 each, LOL Cutting on my second one right now.. 

Thanks for the info. I am making a lot of the baskets that I have shown. I know, you're all tired of seeing them. LOL. Anyway, I have been trying to home in on a price that would be good for me and the buyer. My time is worth something after all. The wood is getting pricey too. Depends on what I use. The first one was poplar and red oak. Not too bad for cost and I did learn a lot from it. I can now make them fairly fast with the exception of the finishing. That's where the slow-down comes. Anyway, I'm thinking in the range of $75 each no matter the wood choice. What I lose on one I might make up on the other. So to speak. I'm like you though. I don't want to be making ONLY these baskets. I like them but I have other things in mind to work on. Thanks again.

 

[rjweb]

Ray, your baskets are beautiful and I can see them being 75.00, as long as you have a market for it get what you feel is fair for all, RJ 

[OCtoolguy]

6 minutes ago, rjweb said:

Ray, your baskets are beautiful and I can see them being 75.00, as long as you have a market for it get what you feel is fair for all, RJ 

Thanks RJ, so far, all I have done is make them so my wife can give them away. Everybody thinks the world of my wife. LOL. Me, well, I'm just the guy breathing in the sawdust and looking stupid.

 

[Woodmaster1]

Looks great, I am glad your cutting the 10 not me. They would probably get their order in 2021.

[OCtoolguy]

1 hour ago, Woodmaster1 said:

Looks great, I am glad your cutting the 10 not me. They would probably get their order in 2021.

Yeah, after about the 3rd one, I'd be writing to them to raise the price and hope they told me to pound sand. LOL.

 

[kmmcrafts]

11 minutes ago, octoolguy said:

Yeah, after about the 3rd one, I'd be writing to them to raise the price and hope they told me to pound sand. LOL.

 

When you're broke... and no job.. you'd be happy to do 10 of these and pocket some $$$ for 3 days working in the wood shop.. Many people work everyday in factories doing the same line putting the same screw in something for their whole lives.. I don't mind repeated work for a few days - a week.. but after that.. I'm done with it.. LOL give me something else to cut.. Heck I don't care really if it's the same thing to cut.. but lets do it in another type of wood to change it up a bit.. I always give myself plenty of time to do these jobs.. I got 3 weeks on this one so I can break it up a bit and cut something else for a day or two.. 

[OCtoolguy]

6 minutes ago, kmmcrafts said:

When you're broke... and no job.. you'd be happy to do 10 of these and pocket some $$$ for 3 days working in the wood shop.. Many people work everyday in factories doing the same line putting the same screw in something for their whole lives.. I don't mind repeated work for a few days - a week.. but after that.. I'm done with it.. LOL give me something else to cut.. Heck I don't care really if it's the same thing to cut.. but lets do it in another type of wood to change it up a bit.. I always give myself plenty of time to do these jobs.. I got 3 weeks on this one so I can break it up a bit and cut something else for a day or two.. 

Yes, you are so right about needing to make the money to survive. I could never do an assembly line job unless the situation demanded it. It was bad enough going to work every day but at least I had 5 different routes and I knew that each day was going to be different. Some better than others.

 

[Woodmaster1]

Believe or not I loved going to school everyday for 40yrs. It was a great job. I taught industrial arts and engineering and it was something different everyday. To teach something you enjoy as a hobby adds to the pleasure. The biggest challenge to teaching is not the students it's the administration and parents lack of support. 

[OCtoolguy]

7 minutes ago, Woodmaster1 said:

Believe or not I loved going to school everyday for 40yrs. It was a great job. I taught industrial arts and engineering and it was something different everyday. To teach something you enjoy as a hobby adds to the pleasure. The biggest challenge to teaching is not the students it's the administration and parents lack of support. 

You are so right and I envy you that you had a great job like that. I always wanted to be an industrial arts teacher but in order to get there, I would have had to take a lot of stuff that I could see no value in.

[JTTHECLOCKMAN]

Love the smell of oak. Been using it for so long. I pick my own boards from a lumber yard. I had the opportunity to have 2 very good lumber yards for my wood choices. Unfortunately one closed because of fire but the other still is a  good source. So I can choose wood that is clear and I know what to look for when it comes to color and cuttability. Now that project is about  1-1/2 hour to cut for me and everyone is different and cutting speeds are  determined by the cutter. pricing is always subjective and determined by many factors. You price things by how it is being sold, where it is being sold and some times to whom you are selling to. Since I have been here the only people I have seen here that do this basically for a living is Kevin. Iggy does alot of selling of items but has another job and have not seen others here that do scrolling for a living. So Kevin is coming at this from a whole different perspective than most of us here. So that too will have a play in the pricing as well and also his love for scrolling. I do not love scrolling that way any more. I could make more money these days if I were into selling homemade pens that I do. But even that is not what I would want to do for a living. My point here is determining prices is not easy and many factors play into it. I would not base my pricing on anyone elses pricing. pricing gets brought up many times on many sites and it just is not a fair question to ask.  

 

Kevin why not make them out of cherry???  Did they specifically ask for oak??  Should have shown them both examples. 

Edited March 30, 2019 by JTTHECLOCKMAN

[Gonzo]

10 hours ago, Woodmaster1 said:

Believe or not I loved going to school everyday for 40yrs. It was a great job. I taught industrial arts and engineering and it was something different everyday. To teach something you enjoy as a hobby adds to the pleasure. The biggest challenge to teaching is not the students it's the administration and parents lack of support. 

Well said. 

[kmmcrafts]

8 hours ago, JTTHECLOCKMAN said:

Love the smell of oak. Been using it for so long. I pick my own boards from a lumber yard. I had the opportunity to have 2 very good lumber yards for my wood choices. Unfortunately one closed because of fire but the other still is a  good source. So I can choose wood that is clear and I know what to look for when it comes to color and cuttability. Now that project is about  1-1/2 hour to cut for me and everyone is different and cutting speeds are  determined by the cutter. pricing is always subjective and determined by many factors. You price things by how it is being sold, where it is being sold and some times to whom you are selling to. Since I have been here the only people I have seen here that do this basically for a living is Kevin. Iggy does alot of selling of items but has another job and have not seen others here that do scrolling for a living. So Kevin is coming at this from a whole different perspective than most of us here. So that too will have a play in the pricing as well and also his love for scrolling. I do not love scrolling that way any more. I could make more money these days if I were into selling homemade pens that I do. But even that is not what I would want to do for a living. My point here is determining prices is not easy and many factors play into it. I would not base my pricing on anyone elses pricing. pricing gets brought up many times on many sites and it just is not a fair question to ask.  

 

Kevin why not make them out of cherry???  Did they specifically ask for oak??  Should have shown them both examples. 

Since I got those fancy timers.. LOL they really bring to light how much time it takes to cut a project.. I did the first two cutting on the Excalibur.. I have the saw set up so the blade is almost straight up /down.. The Oak I'm using is quarter sawn.. quarter sawn oak is a pain to cut.. because you hit many dense spots and then ll of a sudden it lets go and like cutting paper, LOL .. I wanted to cut these from regular sawn Oak.. but the boards I have on hand are not wide enough.. or still not dried out.. I do have a local lumber store where I go and hand pick lumber as you do.. my store is about 25 mile away.. which where I live everything is 15-20 mile.. LOL but its in a town that I just don't go to often.. so every time I go.. it's more of a special trip.. I wasn't going to take the time to make that special trip when I have this Quarter sawn here and plenty of it..  Anyway.. back to cutting times.. The first one I made running the EX too me 2 hours and 3 tenths of an out.. The second one took 2 flat.. I switched to the NEW Hawk just to play around with tuning the saw.. I've got almost 1 hour in and I'm more than 3/4 done cutting.. now... I know that even the same boards have different densities etc.. and I laid out 6 patterns all on this same board once I plained it down to size ( 1/2 ) .. That short parallel link design even set to be straight up down less aggressive cutting.. is still too aggressive cutting this type of wood.. I can feel those soft spots using the Hawk.. but it's not nearly as difficult to cut.. and the table has a lot more support out in front of the blade.. Normally cutting cherry etc.. that aggressive style blade action of the EX isn't an issue.. many times I like that style so I can get projects knocked out..  Anyway.. There is the reason to have both styles of saws.. also a reason to own several saws.. Part of the reason it's taking time on the EX too is.. I've not had much cutting time on that saw... but then.. only have 2 hours on the New Hawk too.. but it's so much like the older one that It comes natural too me.. 

I need to buy a couple more saws... I have ten of these to make.. and only 6 saws to cut one on.. already cheated and made two with the Excalibur. LOL

 

About those hour meters.. Love them for timing my works.. but.. have to say if I was to do over again.. I'd probably not bought all those digital ones.. I like the fact that I can zero them out for each project.. but.. since the 10's digit only changes every 6 minutes.. you could be 5.9 minutes off on time.. at least with the regular meter that I hooked up to the new Hawk. I can see that 10th digit is almost changed to the next digit and round it up to that 6 min.. mark..

 

[Rolf]

Kevin I agree with you I have no love for red Oak, don't like the grain or as you say the smell.  The only Oak I do like is the quarter sawn white Oak that I used for a dining room table insert. 

How long is it taking you for each one.?