Welding cost increases?

[premmington]

Thing is, it needs everyone to do it and it be accepted norm.

Unfortunately you’ll always get one Pratt do it for pence to undercut everyone else

£75 an hour does not sound/look too far off it - for some jobs we embrace here.

£50-60 is OK for lessor tasks.

I try to tailor the "rate" - inline with the task at hand and the costs involved.

A flat labour rate "across the board" would kill some jobs now.

I need to flexible to the rate I/we charge - to match the job we are facing.

To be competitive...

Not sure I am explaining myself very well here...

 

[Robotstar5]

I try to tailor the "rate" - inline with the task at hand and the costs involved.

I worked for a boss who worked on the principal of "how much can I screw out of them"

 

[Cato]

It starts in school, Not so many years ago when i was a D&T technician every few months we would get a new bunch of yr 7's in for their D&T rotation. Many would be looking forward to making things, Quite often because their older siblings or parents had done it & enjoyed it.
When i started there we made a simple jewellery box, It used 1m of 12mm x 70mm pine & two small squares of 1.5mm ply 150mm square. All of them learnt a few basic skills & got something to take home to mum. Most were pretty grim but some were very good.
But a few years before i left we were told "The project was too expensive" And so the search for ever cheaper & smaller pieces of ****e went on. You could see the poor kids getting demoralized as soon as they were told what to do. As a technician i was on a bit more than min wage, the Lsa's were barely on min wage at all.
Today if a kid takes D&T as a subject choice it is 90% theory with Teacher or Techie doing demo's, they are never allowed to actually make stuff.
In year 11 their last year at school they have to make a final project, this has to have folios of development sketches, drawings, research, cardboard prototypes etc etc, they were given 40 hours to do all this in. The project was then allowed just 8 hours making time out of a whole year.
It was decreed that the Quality of the finished article was irrelevant, Rather the original idea was marked higher. And so a project made out of toilet roll tubes, duct tape & dollops of hot glue could quite likely be graded higher that something that a kid had made with skill.

The fact is practical skills are not taught properly & are not valued.

I remember making a cheese board at school. Hardwood shaped and varnished for the base, shaped glazed and fired a clay tile for the cheese to sit on, used a wood lathe to turn some boxwood for the cheese wire handle, sand cast aluminium curved riser brackets filed to finish, used the metalwork lathe to turn two brass handles to sit between the riser brackets. I imagine proposing something like that now would give the purse holder a conniption fit. I know that sort of stuff doesn't appeal to every child, but most seemed to enjoy the experience.

 

[Cato]

I remember making a cheese board at school. Hardwood shaped and varnished for the base, shaped glazed and fired a clay tile for the cheese to sit on, used a wood lathe to turn some boxwood for the cheese wire handle, sand cast aluminium curved riser brackets filed to finish, used the metalwork lathe to turn two brass handles to sit between the riser brackets. I imagine proposing something like that now would give the purse holder a conniption fit. I know that sort of stuff doesn't appeal to every child, but most seemed to enjoy the experience.

That was at a run of the mill inner city comprehensive BTW.

 

[premmington]

I worked for a boss who worked on the principal of "how much can I screw out of them"

Did your old boss "starve to death" with his set of defined principals.

Working for nothing and loosing money is no fun either.

What you need to find is a fair charging policy!

 

[Cato]

Did your old boss "starve to death" with his set of defined principals.

Working for nothing and loosing money is no fun either.

What you need to find is fair charging policy!

I have what I believe is a very egalitarian pricing policy, everyone pays the same for everything I do.

 

[Robotstar5]

Did your old boss "starve to death" with his set of defined principals.

He lived well beyond his income and would fold companies when the debts got too high, when his 2nd heart attack finished him off he left his family with massive debts they couldn't afford to pay off

 

[Mikes]

15% wouldn't be unreasonable at the mo

Think it depends on how and when you apply the percentage as steel, welding gas, consumables, power etc. have all gone up more than once in the last year. Only way is to work out your costs at a given time and then apply increases as necessary for the foregoing as and when they occur. If people that you are quoting can't accept the increase cost that you quote them then they aren't worth working for. I'd rather get on with one of my many unfinished projects than do work for no or little profit. As has been said, there will always be someone who will do the job cheaper but you can usually see why. There's some appalling work being carried-out by the 'cheap brigade' - definitely a race to the bottom that I won't enter.
A contractor that I used to sub to got fed-up of continually losing work to others so priced one job at cost for material, labour and overhead and didn't add any profit. They were a good sized company so had very good buying terms but still managed to not win the job by a considerable amount. There's no answer when you are in that situation. They had a good turn-over but struggled to make any profit. They were far from greedy and eventually called it a day. A sad reflection on the business climate.

 

[stuvy]

I think the biggest problem is YouTube.

If you wanted to learn to weld college/ apprenticeship would of been your go to.

Now some idiot watches a YouTube video thinks they are an expert, buys a welder, messes it up.

Then expects you to fix it for peanuts.

That tallies up with my place and a conversation we had today

As you say any one can glue two pieces of metal together but a fabricator is a completely different skill set entirely

 

[mike os]

If firms are buying work you can never compete .., but why would you want to effectively pay someone to do the job for them ? I'd sooner stay at home than loose money

 

[Trevorleach]

Weird thing is car dealers charge silly hourly rates yet pay mechs low wages.
Whereas truck workshops charge much lower hourly rates and pay their mechs more!
Obviously most hgv places have no showroom as are business based, rather than people wanting a car they cannot afford.