Question Of The Week... ( 2019 week 8)

[ripjack13]

Have you ever taken on a project for a client and wished you would have never taken on that project?
If so, what was the project and why did you wish you would have never taken on the project?












**Rules**
There is no minimum post requirement,
primates, woodticks, wood spinners, and leprechauns are welcome to post an answer.
And of course the and the doc too....

 

[woodtickgreg]

Never, I don't accept commissioned work, takes all the fun out of it for me.

 

[Karl_99]

I worked on a joint venture with someone from Hawaii, where he would provide woods and buy the pen hardware and I would make 2 styles of pens for him to sell. He would pay me a flat rate for each pen style. When he the woods, he also included ivory pieces so that I could add "accents". The first issue was the the ivory was not documented and the second one was that adding embellishments was not in the original scope nor pay scale. We agreed to do the original plain pens. After I started working on them, I felt like an indentured servant and lost the creative desire to make the pens. It became a job instead of fun and relaxing time. We dissolved the partnership in a friendly manner and I bought the pen hardware. I will never do "piece work" again. I do custom orders, but it is my choice and part of my business model.

 

[Mike1950]

Built one oversized coved box that way. Great client- loved box. I hated doing it- too much like what I did for a living- time schedules- specs. rules. Dont need no stinkin rules....

 

[Brink]

Boxes of any kind, especially a large box to hold a small generator. One with hinged top, and front and side panels that opened up.
Hated the project so much, I never took pics of it.

 

[DKMD]

30+ pens made for a MaryKay thing. Some kind of awful acrylic was chosen by the client. I spent forever getting the finish right, and I didn’t charge nearly enough. I didn’t turn a pen for several years afterward because of that experience.

 

[CWS]

I don't do commissioned work very often. When I do I always put a very high price on it, I hate it when they say (sounds good).

 

[David Hill]

Bridesmaid gifts for a friend’s daughter’s wedding. Wanted and got 8 - 8 inch bowls. Only 2 were about the same. I couldn’t force myself to make them all alike——and then “Are rhey done yet?” phone calls. Got’em done in plenty of time, and fortunately she loved ‘em.
I’ll do “A “ custom request but not numbers—- it’s just not fun

 

[Eric Rorabaugh]

I've done a few pens that some people asked for but did it on my schedule. I have a few now that I need to do from sentimental woods. They know I'll get it done but just when I get around to it.

 

[Tony]

Their have been a couple that I hated doing at the time, buy looking back they were good learning experiences. Most notably I built 4 wagon wheels for a woman my wife works with. They were a HUGE PITA, took me forever and a lot of time trying to figure things out. I was miserable doing them, made pennies an hour, but I learned a ton from doing them. I very seldom do commission work anymore and I've gotten much better about saying no. Tony

 

[Sprung]

I have a few, but the worst was stabilizing blanks for someone. He sent me some of his blanks and wanted them stabilized and dyed. He'd seen (and even bought and turned) some of my really awesome blanks. He was expecting the same results from the material he sent me. Half of it wasn't really suitable for dye work. The other half was lightly figured, so it definitely wasn't going to have that pop that he was expecting. And he wanted no two blanks with the same color combination. He was very unhappy with the blanks but wouldn't understand that it all boiled down to poor choice of material on his part. I stopped doing custom dyed stabilizing work for others - and decided from then on that any dye work would be with my own material that I sourced (so I could have control over that) and in whatever colors I decided to do. I will still do clear stabilizing work for others on occasion, but dyed stabilizing work I will only do on my own terms. (And I haven't done any stabilizing in a while, in part because of this - but the chambers are getting loaded up this week as I've got a few gallons of resin to use up and some material I want to stabilize.)

The deadline thing also gets me. Good work takes time. And good work isn't cheap - and I've usually sold my stuff too cheap. But this is just a hobby for me and I often get very busy with family and work that sometimes projects have to get set on the back burner for a while. So I'm doing less and less work for others as time progresses. The last person who approached me about custom work, I actually directed them to someone else who was, honestly, more set up to do the specific task than I was.

 

[Tclem]

Yep. I got married

 

[Tom Smart]

Shortly after I started making end grain cutting boards the manager at the local Woodcraft store told me “I know a guy who wants....”

It was an older gentleman who regularly played a Parker Bros board game called Camelot with a friend. He wanted to gift his friend an end grain playing board for his birthday. Never having heard of the game I should have done some research before agreeing. Took me awhile to noodle through the pattern and inlays required. I wound up making several to get it right. Bottom line is he was happy, I learned a lot, including curbing my enthusiasm for commission work.

Walnut, cherry, maple and the inlays are African Blackwood, paduk, holly.

 

[kweinert]

Nothing to the extent that you folks have but I do have 2 recent experiences.

One was a base block for a set of one-handed salt and pepper mills. I had a nice piece of live edge walnut (without bark) and got it all cut and finished - then he told me his wife didn't like it, wanted it plain all the way around. So I cut a different piece and it was OK. That was just a minor annoyance, really but it really did get under my skin for some reason.

The other was the knife presentation mount that I've posted about here. I really tried to talk him into keeping the bark but he didn't want it. Then I tried to convince him that the natural color would look best. He wanted it a bit darker. So I took the bark off, 'flap' sanded it smooth and mixed some dye with the shellac to darken it down a bit. Damned if he wasn't right :) It really did look better (at least the color - not completely convinced on the bark but the result without bark looked pretty nice.)

And, as usual, I took too long to do it and charged too little but I figured since I learned something it all worked out in the end. If I was trying to make a living off of it I'd be more annoyed but I figure I got my money's worth. The knife guy actually paid me more than I had asked so that part worked out OK.

 

[Blueglass]

I don't try not to get roped into things. I do currently have my first guitar commision but I get to do what I want on my schedule ,which I have wood in my little kiln for, so it will be awhile. The only stipulation is that it is a lefty. I know the style the guy is shooting for which is somewhere between Robbie Krieger and Pete Townsend. Easy they both were most known for playing SG specials with P-90 pickups... I am excited. I have picked Jamaican Dogwood for the top and back and neck, Tropical Almond (a Limba relative) for the core of the body and Sapodilla for the fingerboard. His whole thing allows me to continue in the direction I'm already headed.

 

[barry richardson]

This was a pain in the a$$ commission I did. The lady specified the details i.e. round top, but with drop leafs that turns the top into a smaller square, curved legs, some sort of inlay on top, (I suggested the compass rose and she went with it) and a bartop type finish on top, ugh..... In theory I thought it wouldn't be too hard, but it was a lot of steps, and operations involved, my main regret was quoting far too low of price, was kicking myself in the butt for that. Like some of the guys above said, I've got a lot better at saying "no" these days...

 

[FranklinWorkshops]

The common theme I hear is that it always takes longer than the customer expects and the maker ends up working for cents per hour because we under-estimate the job. I just wonder if the "New Yankee Workshop" is a factor in customers perception of making furniture. Norm could knock out a huge piece in one show, so why can't we do it??

 

[CWS]

Their have been a couple that I hated doing at the time, buy looking back they were good learning experiences. Most notably I built 4 wagon wheels for a woman my wife works with. They were a HUGE PITA, took me forever and a lot of time trying to figure things out. I was miserable doing them, made pennies an hour, but I learned a ton from doing them. I very seldom do commission work anymore and I've gotten much better about saying no. Tony

Sometimes you just have stand up and take a stand. ( oh you were standing)

 

[Herb G.]

Nevermind.