$225 with plywood front. $500 with book matched panels on front and sides.
Thank you, sir! I appreciate the input!$225 with plywood front. $500 with book matched panels on front and sides.
I agree with Chuck - yours is a cut above the mainstream but needs a few finishing touches - not only stain the inside but pull that sticker and hide those screw heads - maybe add a creative/decorative touch as well - then you'll have something worth paying 'more' for...I think there are some other considerations you should look at between what you made and what is commonly available. Yours is very solid and the construction techniques are very solid so yours will take abuse and still be around in 50 years. Will the others? Are the other ones particle board with ultra thin veneer? Make sure that you are comparing apples to apples.
One thing that I think would improve yours is to stain the inside of the chest too. To me it looks unfinished because of that.
Hi Brian,I agree with Chuck - yours is a cut above the mainstream but needs a few finishing touches - not only stain the inside but pull that sticker and hide those screw heads - maybe add a creative/decorative touch as well - then you'll have something worth paying 'more' for...
It is hard to compete with the import items because their material costs are low even for decent quality materials and of course their labor costs remain very low. When shipped there are so many on the ship that cost per piece is really low. A lot of the construction of these items use the quickest, easiest joinery so they are not the quality product that you would try to build in your shop.
As most of you know a lot of the materials we are using now are imported so we pay for the material(some of it is subpar) plus overseas shipping cost, plus the shipping cost from the port of entry to a distributor. Then we pay shipping from the distributor to the local big box store. I hate to say it but I have bought US-produced materials and they were higher than the imported material but I do need to point out I had to purchase the US produced material because the quality of the available import material was not good enough to use for the high-end project I was building. This is something to consider when pricing a quote for a customer.
Remember woodworkers producing items in their home shop for sale want to produce the best item they can with the equipment they can afford. They want the customer to be satisfied with their purchase and often work with the customer to produce a one of a kind item just for them. We deal with most of these customers face to face so we want them to have a positive experience when working with us where the overseas manufacturer really doesn't care as long as they can sell their inferior products to anyone that has money to spend.
It's the same stuff, if it comes from the poker tables he has shown, Top Shelf pieces of furniture.Holy smoke, Frank.
Do you call that scrap?
I can't imagine your raw material.