Been ask to build one of my trailers

[martinfan5]

Hello guys, well I got a messge on another forum,( not SAE), asking me if I would build him one of the trailers I have sratch built, here is photo of what I am talking about.

And he wants me to build him the lonestar to go with it, thats going to be a lot of work, now first off I take it as a big compliment in my work that someone wants me to build one for the them. But at the same I guess you could say I am bit nervous as well, I build for me, and do or dont do things with my builds that I can live with, but I am not sure I can do that for someone else .

And then there is the cost, how much to do I charge for all this, I am not doing this to make money, but its a big project that will take a lot of time.

Then there is the shipping of built kits , and trying to make sure they arrive in one piece, I know i can do like sub assembly of alot of it.

I have not said yes yet, as i want to do another one for myself as well , but for people that have built for other people , do you have any suggestion's ?

[Johnny K]

Have you considered just selling him the first one - the one he saw and liked enough to want one like? That way, you wouldn't have to be nervous about building another, plus you could probably improve on the first for yourself. Then again, sometimes the first is special, difficult to surpass. At any rate, it should be a little easier to come up with a reasonable and fair price after the fact of the build.

[martinfan5]

I want to keep the ones that I built, its a good idea, but I use them to remind what I want to differently next time, or remind of where i went wrong, if that makes sense.

[Rob McKee]

Congratulations on being asked to build for someone else. I agree it is a real compliment to your modelling abilities to be asked.

Having said that I think it is really difficult to charge enough to cover your time. As you have said you will have to put a lot of time into the model. I guess you could estimate the amount of time you will need, add costs, and determine how much to charge.

[martinfan5]

The person who ask that said that he is dissabled , so that makes me not want to charge him a lot, just for kit and the cost of getting all sheet plastic its going to cost well over $100, then having to add shipping of the kit to me, then shipping to him, and its going to add up.

[Johnny K]

  On 1/19/2012 at 2:56 AM, martinfan5 said:

I want to keep the ones that I built, its a good idea, but I use them to remind what I want to differently next time, or remind of where i went wrong, if that makes sense.

Yes, complete sense and I thought that might be the case. And, as stated earlier, it is a compliment to be asked to build one of your items for someone. Congratulations and good luck.

[Rob McKee]

  On 1/19/2012 at 3:05 AM, martinfan5 said:

The person who ask that said that he is dissabled , so that makes me not want to charge him a lot, just for kit and the cost of getting all sheet plastic its going to cost well over $100, then having to add shipping of the kit to me, then shipping to him, and its going to add up.

That is very cool that you would dedicate your time and effort to do this for him. Just be honest about your material costs up front and there shouldn't be a problem. What I mean by that is don't under estimate your costs. Of course the kit and sheet plastic costs money but don't forget paint and other supplies. Paint is expensive these days.

Good luck with everything.

[Guest]

  On 1/19/2012 at 3:05 AM, martinfan5 said:

The person who ask that said that he is dissabled , so that makes me not want to charge him a lot, just for kit and the cost of getting all sheet plastic its going to cost well over $100, then having to add shipping of the kit to me, then shipping to him, and its going to add up.

It is hard to come up with a price on building a model,much less something scratchbuilt. I've had people ask me to build stuff before and I always tell them that even if I only charged a dollar per hour,it would still add up to quite a bit of money. That's usually as far as the conversation goes. I think the best way to figure a price would be figure up what all of your material and supplies will cost and double it. Then,you should be in the ball park.

[BKcustoms]

I was recently asked to build a sprint car chassis by a member Of the SA board and I am charging twice the material costs, just like Roger just mentioned.

Edited January 19, 2012 by BKcustoms

[Lunajammer]

If you'd love to do it, it should go easy and you needn't be nervous. But if you have misgivings they'll only get worse if you lose interest or energy in the project midstream while the demand remains hanging over you. It could also take the fun away from any other project if you always feel obligated to be working on the involved commissioned project. Do it because it's what you want to do, not for the money or as a gratuity for the nice compliments.

[martinfan5]

Thank you guys for the good advise, I think what I am going to do, is if I hear back from the person is tell what the cost is going to be just for all the supplys needed, and go from there

[Mercman]

I've done some commissioned builds. I now charge a set price for a OTB build. This includes just paint, and Bare Metal. If they want detailing work done, like wiring a engine and the such the price goes up.

This one was a straight price.

This one was more as I had to order paint for it. The paint alone was $45.00. I got factory original paint for it.

Basically if you do, you make up some kind of of contract with the terms spelled out.