Can this be built for under $50?

[Steve Clarkson]

I have an opportunity to bid on a job for 300 displays like in the attached picture.

The base is 19"x2"x5" and the frame's outside dimension is 13"x17"x2" (inside is 11"x15"x2") and there needs to be a slot to slide in a piece of clear acrylic (I do not provide).

The frame needs to be finished like the base....I can use any wood, but it needs to be stained dark.

If anyone has any suggestions as to how to get this made for under $50 each, I'm all ears.

[Jack Harper]

Steve,

Look up your local custom mill work company. These companies will make custom molding in almost any shape. By having them run the stock out in the shape you need, all you have left is to miter cut, glue and nail.

[Steve Clarkson]

......and FINISH!!!

[Dan Hintz]

......and FINISH!!!
Would you like us to chew your food for you, too? :p

[Neal Schlee]

I have an opportunity to bid on a job for 300 displays like in the attached picture.

The base is 19"x2"x5" and the frame's outside dimension is 13"x17"x2" (inside is 11"x15"x2") and there needs to be a slot to slide in a piece of clear acrylic (I do not provide).

The frame needs to be finished like the base....I can use any wood, but it needs to be stained dark.

If anyone has any suggestions as to how to get this made for under $50 each, I'm all ears.

Kasdorf does great custom work, mostly in walnut.
300 is quite a few and should get you a decent price.

KASDORF MFG., INC.
1416 1ST ST NW
ALBUQUERQUE NM 87102
ORDER PHONE: 800-545-4448
505-242-7554
FAX: 505-243-5037
EMAIL: kasdorf@qwest.net

Neal

[Scott Shepherd]

You do realize this is a woodworking forum, right? I bet you could find 20 people to make them for $25 each, finished and they'd probably make a good profit on it. Step into the woodworking section and I'm sure you'll get mobbed. I'm not a woodworker and I'd take 300 of those at $25 in a heartbeat.

[Randy Walker]

Steve
I may be able to help if you would like to send me a pm.

Randy Walker

[John Schulz]

You do realize this is a woodworking forum, right? I bet you could find 20 people to make them for $25 each, finished and they'd probably make a good profit on it. Step into the woodworking section and I'm sure you'll get mobbed. I'm not a woodworker and I'd take 300 of those at $25 in a heartbeat.

I agree - sent you a PM. Do these yourself and make a nice profit. Stay busy for a few days, and you could even enhance the final product using a laser to engrave the base or sides! Simple S-4-S (square four sides) design. I see profit written all over this one!

Good Luck - and do it yourself!

[Steve Clarkson]

Thanks for the input guys.....except yours Dan!!!!!! :)~

I'm not a woodworker....in skill....just at heart. So there is no way I could stain and finish 300 of these.....and the dimensions are too thick to laser cut. I don't think my K-mart brand cicular saw could hack up 300 of these either.

There is a small logo that will go on front that I WILL be able to laser cut though.....so technically that qualifies this thread to be in the Laser Forum......but where is a mod when you need one to move a thread to the Woodworkers section??? LOL!

I'll head over there and see what they can do for me.

Thanks again!

[Rob Robinson VT]

I agree - sent you a PM. Do these yourself and make a nice profit. Stay busy for a few days, and you could even enhance the final product using a laser to engrave the base or sides! Simple S-4-S (square four sides) design. I see profit written all over this one!

Good Luck - and do it yourself!
I agree. I'd take this job on in a NY minute (sorry, couldn't help myself) if my new woodshop were up and running. I figure that I'd make enough profit on this little job to not only buy the SawStop I've been drooling over but also purchase a few other desirable goodies. Get your quotes together on the materials (don't forget packaging and consumables like sandpaper, nails, stain, etc.), make a sample or two to see how difficult it is and time your cutting, assembly, finishing and packaging time. If your total bill-of-materials is less than $7,500, then you'll be making a nice $7,500 or greater profit for your time and energy.

As someone else suggested, see if you can't find a local millwork shop who can make you a run of the 1x2 stock for the frames complete with the groove for the acryllic as well as the 2x5 stock for the bases. From my calculations you'll need just over 1,500 lineal feet of the 1x2s for the frames and around 500 lineal feet of the 2x5s for the bases. If it were me I'd also look for a local commercial painter and see if I couldn't get the milled stock pre-finished so that all I'd have to do would be miter, assemble and package. I smell profit here, probably at a margin of greater than 50%! :cool:

[Mike Null]

Steve

I'm a little unsure about the right forum for this but I think I'll move it to "woodworking".

For the amount of money this will produce I'd think you could buy a decent contractors saw and have at it.

[Steve Clarkson]

Thanks Mike.

Yea, I don't know about that.......the last time I tried to do something myself, I bought a pair of scissors and gave myself a haircut.......it wasn't pretty.

[John Shaffner]

Steve, willing to help, shot me a PM
John

[Anthony Whitesell]

$50 x 300 = $15,000. That's a pretty penny. By my calculations you need 1.4bf per frame for a total of 420bf of lumber, plus a few gallons of stain. For $15,000 I'd get started right away. The unfortunate part of the project is the 2" thick finished stock. S3S finished to 2" or 9/4 or 10/4 rough stock will cost a premium luckily you're talking a few hundred board-feet which will usually get you a discount. If there's only staining involved (ie., no clearcoating or varnishing) then that step should move along. The jigs would be simple enough. The right router or shaper bit for the frame, a dado blade for the groove, a jig for the miters, and another jig for centering the frame on the base while you nail it together.

[Prashun Patel]

I'd buy the stock at 2". Gluing would be a b***h. Pay the mill to plane it all toe s4s. If the frame just needs to be stained dark - and doesn't require that grain pattern, I'd use poplar.

I'd buy a decent mitersaw for $200-300. Buy the best cross cut blade you can. This will avoid tearout and having to smooth corners. Make a jig to cut the miters repeatedly to consistent length. In fact, if you don't need to do miters, then I'd buy a Dowelmax or even a Domino and use butt joints. If you have to do miters, I'd still consider a Domino or a biscuit joiner to make the joint durable.

You might even buy a smooth and block plane from LN or veritas to help true up miters and make adjustments. I recommend these two makers only bkz they are ready to use out of the box...

To finish, I'd use an aniline dye in alcohol (to avoid grain raising). I'd buy an $80 sprayer from Rockler or Woodcraft to apply the dye, then a sealcoat of dw shellac, and finally a waterbased lacquer like Target USL. With this combo, you can color and finish in a day. I'd do it all outside, but if you HAVE to, you can spray all that stuff indoors.

I'm sure you can get this done well under a few k.

Nice thing about buying a Dowelmax, Domino, or high quality planes: you'll be able to resell these for very close to your purchase price.

[Jason White]

I'd find some good (and cheap) 2x framing lumber with as few knots as possible, maybe douglas fir? Then apply a wood conditioner before staining since it's so soft.

You could do these for very short money if they don't mind the "knotty" look.

Jason


I have an opportunity to bid on a job for 300 displays like in the attached picture.

The base is 19"x2"x5" and the frame's outside dimension is 13"x17"x2" (inside is 11"x15"x2") and there needs to be a slot to slide in a piece of clear acrylic (I do not provide).

The frame needs to be finished like the base....I can use any wood, but it needs to be stained dark.

If anyone has any suggestions as to how to get this made for under $50 each, I'm all ears.

[Prashun Patel]

I think the framing lumber will cost more in effort than it's worth. It can warp over time and can bleed. On 300 frames, I think it makes sense to pay for mill time. You can get it all milled flat and square for a few hundred max.

[Tony Bilello]

Since you have to ask this question, I will assume you are totally undertooled and underskilled, and I dont mean this in a derogatory way. But if you go into this with your eyes closed, you will make enemies and lose your ass.
Consider the following:
Do you have the space? You will need several carts to move around the cut-to-size pieces. This wont take much space. Then you will need several more carts to shuffle around the assembled glued up frames.
Then a few more carts to re-stack the frames as you clean-up the glue.
Still, not that much more space. Now comes the biggie. Do you have the space to run cables/ropes etc to hang 300 frames on? Thats a lot of frames and space needed to spray stain on each piece and spray lacquer on each piece without overspray. Did I forget to mention air circulation? Regular fans just wont do. You will need large exhaust fans just to keep the air flowing. Thats providing that you dont use any flamable chemicals. I spray nitro lacquer and dont have a spray booth. But......300 pieces is an awful lot of lacquer vapor cloud. If it were me, I would use a friends paint booth for that operation. However, will your friend allow you to run cables/ropes/trolleys to hang 300 pieces?

There were some very good sugestions here. The idea of going to a millworks and have the frame moulding made up is the best suggestion.
Next, I would get bids and farm the rest out to local cabinet shops. You can still probably make $3k for just 'handling' the project. No one has to know you farmed it all out and no one will care. All the customer wants is to 'get-r-done'.
Farming out is a common practice in any business. I have been on both sides of that coin.
OK, enough of that. Lets move on to materials. I would use red oak. It is attractive, relatively inexpensive, easily machined and stable. I would stay clear of pine. Most pine you will find is of a construction grade and extrememly unstable. The money you save by buying this crap you will spend on trying to work it, stain it, finish it, throw away unusuable pieces, etc. etc. etc. and for the next several months, your frames will slowly be coming back to you.
The last time I took on a production job like that was for 1,000 small gift boxes. At the time, my shop was 45 X100' and was no problem. My shop now is only 30 X 50 and I could handle it but it would take several days with a helper setting up. And... it would still be profitable.
I wish you the best of luck and it can be done, just try to consider everthing.

[Tony Bilello]

I think the framing lumber will cost more in effort than it's worth. It can warp over time and can bleed. On 300 frames, I think it makes sense to pay for mill time. You can get it all milled flat and square for a few hundred max.

Shawn is soooooooooo right.
Mills are a lot cheaper than you would suspect. I think it would surprise you. Even the 19" base pieces total up to over 500 linear feet when you include for waste. And the frame material will be 1800 linear feet when we include waste. When it comes from the mill all you have to do is cut and assemble.....no planing or sanding except for final sanding before finishing.

Also when I made my run of 1,000 boxes I kept going until I ran out of wood. I ended up with about 85 extra boxes and sold them to the original client when he came back asking for more about a month later. If you have any leftover stock, use it up. Someone will always want the frames.
I dont save wood for the future. Every so often I go through my lumber scraps and turn them into tables or something. They always sell.

[johnny means]

Since you have to ask this question, I will assume you are totally undertooled and underskilled, and I dont mean this in a derogatory way. But if you go into this with your eyes closed, you will make enemies and lose your ass.




I was thinking the same thing, but with the term "overly ambitious". Has a more positive connotation than "underskilled and undertooled".

I would not even need to run any numbers to know that a job like that, at $50 each, would net me 5 figures. And I would think the person paying that much was a rube.:D

[Mike Cruz]

The way I see it, you save yourself a lot of staining time by using walnut with a clear finish, or save a bunch of money on materials and use pine with walnut stain.

Not sure which would be more cost effective.

But this project looks SIMPLE as all get out. It also looks BORING as all get out, too. At my old job, we took on one of those "build a million for cheap to make a little on a lot" projects. We beat out heads on the walls and drew straws to see who had to do them. The first 10 to 20 to 50 may not kill you...the next 250 may.

But then again, as it was pointed out, with the profit you make, you could outfit a small shop quite nicely...and replace that circular saw. But if you don't know how to use all that equipment, there will certainly be a learning curve.

Good luck on the project. Hope all works out well. I'd be surprised to find out you haven't already gotten a handful of offers to do the projects for you with a finders fee coming to you in the mail. :rolleyes:

[Tony Bilello]

I was thinking the same thing, but with the term "overly ambitious". Has a more positive connotation than "underskilled and undertooled".

I would not even need to run any numbers to know that a job like that, at $50 each, would net me 5 figures. And I would think the person paying that much was a rube.:D

Johnny

Generally I would agree with you about my selection of words and phrases, but when it comes to something this important I feel that this is not one of those times to be delicate. Production work can get you into serious trouble. It is also not the kind of thing I would want to do by myself. It could take forever if you had to stop your cuts every 10th cut just to clear your table saw area. The same thing holds true for glue-up and again for finishing. You might also want to check for square by dry assembling every 20th frame just to make sure nothing 'moved'. By doing all of this yourself, you concentration is broken and the time factor will lag. Everytime you restart your cuts there is the chance that you might orient the pieces to be cut in the wrong direction.
Production work is actually a piece of cake, but each stage must be well thought out. This is especially true on the first frame jig, which will probably change another 2 or 3 times for greater ease and efficiency. And most importantly - your finishing area and procedure.
There is a big difference between making 5 of a kind as opposed to 300 of a kind.

Like I said, it is not difficult but must be well planned out. One slight error in squareness is compounded by 300 frames.
I all actuality, if this job is being bid out, the final bid will probably come in at about $40 each or slightly less by a larger cabinet shop in town. The kind that has all of the fancy clamp racks, automatic gluing machines. and wide belt sanders.
I do wish the OP much good fortune.

[Chris Ricker]

Tony B. has some very good advice.

[Darrell Bottoms]

If I had that opportunity, I wouldn't even try to do the actual production. I'd break it down and outsource the components locally. I would even try to get in a bid on the acrylic sheets.

I let the potential producer know that they are bidding on a job and have them bid on the component/material/assembly, not the whole product. Let competition get you the best price.

I would be sure to get in writing that any substandard component would be replaced at the producer's cost...stress quality control.

Also, don't divluge that these are for anyone but you, as you don't want them running in under you on the job.

Concerning material, go for quality and stress that in your bid. Ultimately it's "YOUR" name that will be connected with the work. Just because a customer may not understand the different qualities of various species of wood, doesn't mean that they won't see/feel it in the end product. Nice wood speaks for itself. You produce a product that looks better than the sample they provided...and you'll be investing in future opportunities.

You've got a great opportunity on this one.:D

[Roger Benton]

steve, where in ny are you located? if you are near the city ,i know a yard that has 8/4 maple for around $2 and change per bf, and does surfacing and milling for pennies extra. my shop can rent you weekly bench space and is fully equipped, including spray booth. i know this seems like an enormous project but believe me it's worth it and once you get into an assembly line mode, you will be quite satisfied with your progress. pm me if interested, glad to help.

[Darrell Bottoms]

steve, where in ny are you located? if you are near the city ,i know a yard that has 8/4 maple for around $2 and change per bf, and does surfacing and milling for pennies extra. my shop can rent you weekly bench space and is fully equipped, including spray booth. i know this seems like an enormous project but believe me it's worth it and once you get into an assembly line mode, you will be quite satisfied with your progress. pm me if interested, glad to help.

I would seriously consider this Steve. Even if you do outsource "part" of the project, you can still get in on part of it and make more profit.

I agree with Roger, get into the assembly line mode and run with it. One key component to a successful run on something like this is taking the time to get the setup right. You can build jig's for the cut's and assembly...leave no room for guesswork. Do a few test runs to assure accuracy and it won't be nearly as hard as you might think.

To your original question....$50...easily.

If you don't mind me asking, what are these used for? If these are something that will remain stationary, then the design is good. If they are something though that will be moved about frequently, there is an enhancement you could add for more profit.