CK5
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would a powered one significantly improve the speed you could get these done?

I don't think so, I spin that wheel pretty darn quick...

But it will allow me to do much bigger stuff, and to use 2 hands on the material, so I think it will allow more accuracy.
 
Oh, I like the gear head one!
What price range are you planning on for all of these at the show?
 
Oh, I like the gear head one!
What price range are you planning on for all of these at the show?

The parking signs will be at the $65ish mark.

The simple highway signs $85-$100 depending on finish.

The gear head one is minimum rolling, but an assload of time in vinyl work. Havnt figured that one out yet. Im making 6 of them...

All the fancy $hit thats gonna have frames are going for mucho more. $130-$150 i think.
 
If I may stick my nose in without being asked, I would like to offer a suggestion (worth about what it cost).

As someone who's owned their own business and/or worked for myself several times (in radically different markets), I can say first hand that folks getting started on products, particularly labor/skill/talent intensive products (and yours certainly qualify on all 3 counts) almost always sell themselves short on compensation.

Just on a very rough opinion, my guess is your low end would be about right, maybe a smidge high, particularly compared to your stated the high end. But no idea what the market may support, so I would absolutely say go with your gut on that price. You can always "cut some deals" on the floor if things are too slow (maybe even use it to attract attention), but it's hard to go up when you've sold out.

But on the high end stuff, I'm pretty certain you are low balling yourself. Again, just a rough guess, and it would be worth some market research, but I think you are at least 40% low on the higher end stuff, maybe as much as 100% (or maybe more) in some cases. And that is without consideration of framing and/or shadow boxing. Well done, that can add $100 easily all by itself. Go to one of the Garage focused forums and you'll see that a lot of these folks are putting some truly astonishing money into garage art, might as well get your part and hopefully build a successful business.

Again, free advice is usually worth about what it cost, and not trying to tell you your business, just speaking from experience as someone who cut his own throat like that more than once.
 
Oh, and I don't recall if this was mentioned, but with your skill, I would print some paperwork for custom work to the show. Put up a big sign (in metal!?) stating that you do custom work. Hand out the custom order form with whatever information you think relevant. Rough ideas would be base costs for panel material by type and size, premium for difficult material selection (steel?), maybe some guidelines for framing/shadow-box (look at sites that do that for ideas on how to estimate), whatever you come up with. They fill out your form, include a sketch, image, URL, something to provide you with the desired design, and you can figure things out at home, then email them a quote. Don't forget, everything you offer needs to provide some sort of margin for you, including materials. Get a professional account to get discounts when you buy, and mark it up to roughly (or a little more) market cost, and that's just materials. If you don't want to get into framing and such on your own, find a local shop that will do it and get a "wholesale rate", which again, you get a margin on. If you can't make something on it, refer them to another business to handle that part. There may be something said to just doing a pass through (no profit) on something (like framing?) just to build your market, or it may just be necessary to get your core product sold (and thus profit). But in general, every really successful business man I know had the general rule of thumb that anything they touched had to provide at least N% profit. If they couldn't get that, they farmed it out, perhaps even facilitating the connections, but what they did always had a profit margin (mark up).

Again, just a few thoughts from the peanut gallery. I see some significant skill there, and would like to see you succeed.
 
I agree. Those fancy ones IMHO should be more upwards of 200.

I think on the smaller ones your pretty close but the detail on the fancy ones takes time. Time is money. Charge more
 
What sucks is the stupid parking signs took almost as much time as some of the fancy ones....

Thanks for the advice guys. I skimmed through it when I got into work.

Ill read through it more in depth on break. No prices are set in stone. I was just kinda throwing out some stuff.

I am just afraid of showing up and having stuff priced so high, that people wont actually purchase anything...
 
I agree. Better to sell a bit cheaper to start. Get some product out their and slowly increase price.

Once you sell some, then those people will show it to his family, buddy's, etc and hopefully you will then generate more business....
 
I think the fancier stuff should be in the 175 to 275 range, depending on how involved........
 
On a side note, most of the rectangular panels are 16x20, and Shannon's dad is in the process of making me about a dozen frames made out of an old barn he ripped down.

Thinking that will add a lot of cool factor. People seem to love old barn wood.

Yep.
 

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