For those who have occasion to price their woodworking projects, there is an EXCELLENT, _very in-depth_, article on estimating/pricing furniture projects in the December 2006 of "Woodwork" magazine.
Well worth many times the US$4.99 price of the mag.
If you do any commission work you owe it to yourself to seek out and buy a copy at the earliest opportunity. You will not regret it, guaranteed.
I agree that the article was good. The estimate for a hand dovetailed drawer really made me laugh. Frank Klausz in his dovetail video said that he estimates 20 minutes for a hand dovetailed drawer. This article said you should estimate 8 hours. I suspect that Klausz's estimate is like the programmers who say, "That'll take 5 minutes," and then work through the night finishing.
Mark
A funny thing about the Klausz video. People assume that since the action is taped that it's edited for time. If you'd ever seen Klausz cut a dovetail in person, you'd know that his 20 minutes means 20 minutes - and the dovetails are immaculate. I don't understand how it could take 8 hours to cut the dovetails on a single drawer unless someone took a lengthy beer break in the middle of the job.
I'll make it a point to get the magazine and read the article.
R
Yeah, for Klaus to do the handcut dovetails is taking 20 minutes, and you can bet I would be tickled to sub out the work to him for just the dovetails at that estimate.
But you can also bet that _his_ charges are based on much more time than that for a complete and _fitted_ drawer, which is what the article's estimate is based upon.
The article estimates for the first _machined dovetailed_, or finger jointed, drawer as 1.5 hours, and 1 hour for each subsequent drawer, fitted.
That, like everything else in the article, falls well within my experience.
Well, ol' Frank's been doing this a while. If I started in right now, I'd be lucky to live long enough to get the sheer number of shop hours he has already.
I also recall that he typically does his dovetails wider and few than a lot of people. I may have misunderstood the comment I heard.
rm
I took one of his (Frank Klausz) classes a few years back and I still have the autographed set of DTs he did for the class. (drive by gloat) Anyhow, one of his funniest one liners was something like this.... "after 10 or 15 years of full time wwing, you'll be a pretty good beginner"
Mike
That does seem like a very reasonable estimate for an experienced person. It probably takes me 1.5 hours for each drawer, if you include the time of fussing with the slides, etc. (My skill level is probably below most of the posters here).
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