The wife has been downloading some American TV programme called "Million Dollar Contractor". Last night, I watched one. Basically, it's about a brash New Yorker who inherited a cabinet-making business from his father, complete with the skills to carry it on, which had been taught to him by said father. He has developed the business into a sort of custom 'shopfitters' working on behalf of designers, who are in turn working on behalf of punters with more money than sense, who live in multi-million dollar apartments. He has a very well equipped woodworking shop, and skilled staff, and to be honest, the custom furniture and fittings that he turns out are top-notch in that sort of 'elegant but lacking cutting edge style' that typifies American design. Also, his trades are very good, so all in all, not a cowboy outfit.
So, this particular client wants to be able to divide off one end of his living space at will, to create a home cinema area. So laddo comes up with a design for a hinged wall that folds out to 90 deg from one of the apartment's original brick walls. This mobile wall is probably 8 feet tall, and 10 feet across. It's made from sort of 'slat-work' at an angle - think the old louvred doors that we all had back in the 70's - but on a much bigger scale. The wood is something fancy, the name of which I didn't recognise. It has to be made in three pieces to get it in the lift, and these are to be assembled on site. So far, so good. Then he tells us how much. $20k for materials, and $30k for labour to make it !!!!!!
But it gets worse. The site foreman gets worried that it is going to weigh more than the hinges that they've got for it, can take, so he gets some industrial scales to check it, and it goes almost 700 pounds. The hinges are rated to 500 ... So now the boss goes into panic mode and starts bleating that he's going to have to have custom hinges made by his mate the metal fabricator. So we follow on down to this guy's workshop, where we see these marvels of engineering. Basically, each hinge - one for the top and one for the bottom - comprises a plate of 1/2" steel about a foot square, with six holes drilled in it. Welded to the middle - and not actually very well, in my opinion - was a stub perhaps 8" long, of 2" circular bar.
And how much did the metal shop charge him for these ? Seven THOUSAND dollars !!!!!! FFS. What are we all doing charging a few quid an hour for our various skilled services ? It's enough to make you weep ... d :-\
Arfa