How to price it

[Lazurus]

Ok a collegue at work has asked me to make some doors for his newly built cart shed - whilst I have the tools and ability to build them I have no idea about pricing. Been asked for 2x doors similar to the image below from cedar or similar as opposed to softwood, the door frame size is 2.19 x 2.74 m. I have no local supplier of exterior grade timber so ask for any help or guidance on materials and pricing would be appreciated, would like the job but dont know where to satrt as all my jobs are normally in softwood, and easy to work out how much the materials are, then I just bung on a few quid to cover consumables, but this one I would like to do "proper". If not I will pass him to a local company but I would like to see if I can be competative.

[Mark Bolam]

Cedar is a softwood?

[Woodworks]

Think of a number and double it! Seriously dont go in too cheap. I made this mistake time and time again. There is always some reason a job overruns but never one that makes it take less time.

 

For wood I always used joinery grade sawn pine. All the PSE was always a lesser quality and needed more drying anyway. Then when it had dried it warped and needed planing again grrrrrr. Joinery grade pine tends to be reasonably resinous so when combined with some clear wood-preserver they should last a good long time. For more a more naturally durable softwood larch would be good. One of the big sellers of durable softwoods was Capricorn Timber if they are still going.

[Squaredy]

2 hours ago, Lazurus said:

Ok a collegue at work has asked me to make some doors for his newly built cart shed - whilst I have the tools and ability to build them I have no idea about pricing. Been asked for 2x doors similar to the image below from cedar or similar as opposed to softwood, the door frame size is 2.19 x 2.74 m. I have no local supplier of exterior grade timber so ask for any help or guidance on materials and pricing would be appreciated, would like the job but dont know where to satrt as all my jobs are normally in softwood, and easy to work out how much the materials are, then I just bung on a few quid to cover consumables, but this one I would like to do "proper". If not I will pass him to a local company but I would like to see if I can be competative.

Work out timber cost, then add 50%.  Estimate how many days it will take per door and double it and multiply by your required daily rate.  If you are applying paint or any finish add at least a day for that plus cost of the paint.

 

Depending on how well equipped you are and how skilled and whether you do proper mortise and tenon joints etc, I would say it is 6 days minimum and could be much more.  Timber is surely going to be £300 in decent quality softwood or maybe £600 in Douglas Fir or Larch (if you can find it dry which is unlikely) or £1000 in Sweet Chestnut.  Or tropical hardwoods would be ideal if you like de-forestation so consider Idigbo or Iroko.  I doubt any normal joinery shop would do them for less than £1500 to £1800 in cheap timber.

[gobbypunk]

Hi yep about £1500, and you have the fiddly glazing bars to make then the glass cutting the glass to size and putty ,knifing putty in is a bit of an art in itself. I have Doug Fir but not dry .Good luck and do post some pics 

Cheers Mark

[harvey b davison]

As others have said, you're looking at £1800 or there about, especially when you take sourcing the glass etc into consideration. I wouldn't make the glazing bead personally, I would just use some off the shelf stuff .
Is it supply and fit or supply only ?

[Lazurus]

Ok I am going to go to him qwith a price of £1400 hung in joinery softwood. As for the glazing I think off the shelf beading is the way to go rather than trying to rout from scratch - is acrylic better than glass for the glazing? Will post some pics if I get the job.

 

Cheers All

[Woodworks]

Glass always looks better than acrylic IMO as acrylic gets marked far more easily. Mind you if you want some acrylic I have loads of 250mm square sheets of 6mm kicking around still with their protective cover from a canceled job. Plain beading with no moulding is very easy to make if you have a PT. You just machine out some square sections and with the aid of a simple jig on the thicknesser table you can machine angles onto them.