Do you add tool ware and tear to cost

[pete00]

hodwy all

was happily working, when my router bit went zing..snap ..crackle and broke. I got to thinking how or do i add wear and tear to the selling price of pens.

To figure out selling price, some folks take the cost and muliply by 2 or 3. I know if i spend all day working on something i cant add a couple hundred dollars of labor to the project.
Some add a percentage for expenses, is this where its figured in?

Can i use something simple like everytime i have to work with a product add 10% or ??% to cover labor and ware?

Examples
buy a hunk of wood for 1.00, dont do anything to it resell it for 1.50

take same piece run it through saw, add 10 % resell for 1.65
cut again down to size sell for 1.80
drill a bunch of holes sell for 1.98.

using these figures it's comes out to two time cost.
Mabey add 10-15 % each time.

what do you think...thanks pete

 

[jwoodwright]

Pete, this is why Slimlines sell for $20.00. Every time you sharpen, those pretty sparks are steel... You have kit cost, blank cost, your time and overhead (supplies/utilities/tools/lathe)

If you did pen turning full time, you would need all your income from pens and that would be a boatload of pens.[]

 

[pete00]

john
i think i really knew that deep down inside, but wasnt paying attention to it.
do you think my "simple" solution is in line, do i need to add more or less.
thanks....pete

 

[RussFairfield]

There is no "simple solution" when it comes to pricing a pen.

Charging by the hour is an upside-down pricing scheme that gives the higher price to the new turner who takes longer than the expert to do the same thing. There is no way that you can compete as a new woodturner when you would have to ask $60 for a pen that took you an hour to make, while someone else was selling them for less than $10 because they could make one of them in 5-minutes.

Then there is the matter of Market Value. A SlimLine pen sells for $20. It doesn't matter whether it took you 5-minutes to make it or 3-hours, it still sells for the same $20.

There are higher class pens whose kits cost more than the SlimLine, and you might be able to sell one of them for $65. If other penturners are selling it for $65, that is its "market value", and it has nothing to do with how long it took you to make it or what you had to pay for the kit.

Multiplying by some factor only works when the result is close to the market value. If you were to use this method for a SlimLine made from a plain wood, your cost would be about $2.50. The 3x multiplier would get you to $7.50 and you would be selling them for half the going price for the pen.

To use the higher priced kit with a nice plating and a stabilized wood for a total cost of $30. Using the same 3X multiplier would give you a price of $90, which would be above the market value of $65, and you wouldn't be selling any pens. But, if you were to figure out how to make 2 of these pens in an hour, you could sell them at the $65 market value and still turn a profit for your effort.

Each of us will have to find the compromise between quality, quantity, time, cost, and "market value" that suits our own needs. And. don't expect to turn a profit until you have made a lot of pens.