Pricing? - Woodworking Talk

hands made for wood · 05-15-2009, 03:13 AM

So I am doing some furniture repair on a table and was wondering what the pricing would be to repair a couple dowels in an antique pedestal table. If you could get back to me on how to price for furniture repair or how much per hour, Thanks.

GeorgeC · 05-15-2009, 07:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hands made for wood

So I am doing some furniture repair on a table and was wondering what the pricing would be to repair a couple dowels in an antique pedestal table. If you could get back to me on how to price for furniture repair or how much per hour, Thanks.

What do you mean by "repair a couple of dowels?" Do they need reglueing or do you have to drill out and replace. Was the joint previously glued and now you have to repair the whole joint.

Can you post a picture?

More information is needed.

George

Jim Tank · 05-15-2009, 08:23 AM

If you are agreeing to repair something that you know how to do, then you can figure the steps you would take and assign them time allotments based on your experience so far. If you have no idea what you are doing, then Welcome Aboard!! That's where most of us started, needing some money and finding someone who was willing to take a chance on us. So you come up with four hours or so, tell your customer you will charge for no more than six. If it takes longer, you are paying for some of your education. As far as an hourly rate, it doesn't matter what the guy down the street is charging, if you can't make it on that. Or maybe he has 7 kids to support, so he has to be very good at what he does to justify his price. You have to figure what it will take for you to live on and then offer enough service and expertise to convince folks your worth it. Otherwise you'll gett alls kinds of testimonials of not working for less than $48/hr and complaints about not being able to get $8 /hr because of the crappy economy. I have found by giving folks a ceiling price and then coming in under that amout give them a sign that I am honest and trustworthy. It's worked for me for over thirty years.... Best of all to you... keep us updated on how this one turns out.

Tony B · 05-15-2009, 09:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hands made for wood

So I am doing some furniture repair on a table and was wondering what the pricing would be to repair a couple dowels in an antique pedestal table. If you could get back to me on how to price for furniture repair or how much per hour, Thanks.

Let me start out by saying that there is a 'going price' for most things in life regardless of how long it takes you to do it.
$50/hour is a fair price for an experienced woodworker that could probably do it in about an hour if it's a simple drill out old dowels and add new ones. So.......... if it's a simple repair, it's worth $50 no mater how long it takes you.
If it's the kind of repair I'm thinking of, it sounds like a 3 leg pedestal. Repair is to the 2 dowels. The original joint was doweled and glue covered the entire contact area. Chances are the leg warped slightly and pulled away from tie pedestal. If that's the case, clean area real well of all old glue, replace dowels and epoxy ( dyed to the proper color) the whole thing in place. Just playing here and making a wild guess based on old pedestal tables I have worked on.

Have a great day

hands made for wood · 05-15-2009, 03:01 PM

Thanks so much for your advice everyone! At the moment i am repairing/refinishing an antique rocking chair for my Dad for his birthday so I think it should help having some pictures of what I have done so that people know what they are getting. I will let you all know how it turns out i am planning on repairing this pedestal table next week, thanks again!