Episode 059: Questions and Answers

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What’s Going On In The Shop

Kyle – Finished the graffiti table.  Finished the wenge ring base.  New base for the knot.  Worked on the Flower of Life table.  Going to shoot a video at the YouTube Space.

Sean – Still working on the walnut mid century modern bed and night stands.  Played with the Festool PRO 5 sander.  Nonprofit Organization papers sent to the Sec. of State.

Brian – Delivered the Prism table and made a video.  Guest on Woodshop 101.

Main Topic – Q & A with each other and from Twitter

Guest Question: 

Tim Webster – What are our thoughts on a multi purpose shop, e.g. woodshop, metal shop, welding, 3D printing, CNC, laser cutters, etc.  Follow Tim on Instagram.

Listener Questions, Email, and Comments:

Matt – Guys – Great podcast as always.  This podcast is one of my favorites.  I listened to podcast #58, about how to  price your work for the local market.  One approach that you didn’t discuss is “value-based” pricing.  In b-school they taught us there are basically two approaches to pricing:  1) cost plus (labor + materials + mark-up), and 2) value based pricing or what is the value created for the consumer.

There is a good book called “Make Art Make Money”, https://www.amazon.com/Make-Art-Money-Lessons-Creative-ebook/dp/B00EVAAE6A and another good book called “The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World” (https://www.amazon.com/Gift-Creativity-Artist-Modern-World/dp/0307279502) with the thesis of each book trying to explain the economics of selling art and how artists often sell their pieces of work for less than it truly costs and therefore are giving gifts to their buyers.    The first book basically explains what is somewhat intuitive after you read it, but that you can never really sell one-of-a-kind pieces using the cost-plus approach to pricing as it will wind up being to expensive and therefore if you plan to make money you need to plan on making replicas of it to allow you to amortize your design and tooling costs over multiple pieces.

So I would suggest that another approach to pricing to consider is the value based pricing.  When a customer asks you to build a custom piece of furniture, do some market research to see what it would cost them to buy something similar retail that is non-custom.  That should set the floor for what you should price your custom piece due to the substitution effect.  From there you can adjust the price upward based upon the additional value created through the handcrafted process.  Market and position your work more like art and less like a commodity and you should be able to get better margins.

Easier said than done, as people are often price sensitive.

Anyway, great show and my $.02 on pricing

Matt from Team Puffball of Puffball Designs

Bruce Cooper – Hey guys,

The 16×9 shop is a palace compared to my 52 square foot shop. I get by with pretty much only hand tools and a hand held router. I am able to make table top projects and some wood carvings but I am looking at making a coffee table for the house. I am very limited with floor space so all my tools have a home mounted on the wall or in my cabinet.  If I need any larger material cut I can use my back yard or I get the lumber yard to cut it to size. The back yard is hard to use in Canada so for 6 months of the year if it doesn’t fit in my shop I have to wait. I also wait until spring for finishing so I can do it outside unless I have a Christmas present, then the bathroom with the vent is my substitute. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Check it out here.

iTunes Ratings

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Author: Spunjin

I am a woodworker, maker, and DIY enthusiast. View all posts by Spunjin