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By kl4bidn
#402
Holy crow John! It took me several weeks to make the cover. First time working with leather and making my own pattern. I think now that I've done it once, I'll be able do it faster. I made a few of vinyl sections for fitment because cutting/sewing the leather was nerve wracking. Going to be doing the door panels for that seat soon (with the help of your course). I'll see where that leads me for pricing. Thank you.
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By Bondo497
#403
kl4bidn wrote: Wed May 09, 2018 7:34 pm Holy crow John! It took me several weeks to make the cover. First time working with leather and making my own pattern. I think now that I've done it once, I'll be able do it faster. I made a few of vinyl sections for fitment because cutting/sewing the leather was nerve wracking. Going to be doing the door panels for that seat soon (with the help of your course). I'll see where that leads me for pricing. Thank you.
If your work is going to look that good on your first attempt then take all the time you want, your customers will be pleased you did!!
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By kl4bidn
#404
Thank you very much. Just needed to find the right balance of time and money. Gotta pay those bills!
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By Bondo497
#405
Well you definitely have a talent and like John said, speed will come as the more you do. Your bills will get paid with work like that.
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By John
#408
Yeah @kl4bidn , Same like @Bondo497 said!
The hard part is learning how to do nice work. Once you know how to do that speeding up the process is easy.

No worries. Leather is expensive. I do the same thing when I'm not sure its gonna fit right.
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By BigRig
#419
That seats looks very well made!

I was asked today to give a price on front bucket seat, rear bench seats and door panels for a mustang. I had to honestly answer I do not know. I just spent what felt like hours doing a bucket seat. I am now recording my time put in and am slow.
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By Bondo497
#585
@kl4bidn
I'm looking at that awesome seat you posted again and I'm wondering how you shaped the foam around the inserts, did you round the foam or is that what the foam does once you sew it together? I like that look. Also did you have wierd cuts where there the ends of the inserts borders come together at the 90 degree corners
since the foam is rounded if you indeed rounded the foam? I hope my question makes since.
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By kl4bidn
#588
Thank you for the compliment. I added a new topic under automotive called 'Foam sculpting - How I did it'. Hope it answered your questions.
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By Cale
#2211
I find it interesting that people will pay more for mechanical work and interior work. Thousands for engines, thousands for full interiors but don't want to pay over $600 for a good paint job. :smiley:
Which, is why I am learning how to do interior work.
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By Cale
#2212
I saw that some of you mentioned set prices vs charging straight by the hour, is there a kind of guide line to go by as to what types of jobs can get either?
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By BigRig
#2215
@Cale,

For me on jobs that are almost always the same thing my customers have a set price for a piece of work no matter what the pattern is. I try to stay with the same material but sometimes the job requires WAY more time. For example I went to pick up a seat and it would not come out of the truck. I also had no space to move around in and ended up spending an extra two hours messing with that obstacle.In the end my cover fit amazing on one side and looser on my foam repair side, acceptable but not perfect. I may have made $10.00 and hour on this job.
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By John
#2217
Hey @Cale !! Welcome to the forum! Happy to have you here!

Honestly my experience the Interior guys usually get the short end of the deal because people already spent big money on engine and paint then they try to cheep out on the interior. But thats just my experience. For sure every industry has to deal with cheep, rude, low-ball customers.

Ive have only ever heard of people charging by the hour for jobs. I don't know many customers that would be comfortable dropping off their car and saying "send me a bill when its done". I always give an estimate and do my best to stick to the estimate. If the job goes out side the scope of work you agreed on then I charge more. For example the customer change his mind in the middle of a job or you remove carpet in a boat and find dry rot everywhere.

@BigRig Yup been there plenty of times buddy. At least you made some money. When I did tractor seats a lot I always gave one price to just fix and recover and then one price that included pick up, removal, delivery and install. A lot of them started removing the seats them selves. Witch was fine with me because I hated that part anyways.
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By Cody
#2236
To help me try and figure out prices in my area of the world I’ve called shops local to me and basically ask for an estimate and describe what a person just described to me. I don’t do it in front of the person nor that often, but it does help.

@Cale I agree with you on prices. Being a body/painter for my full job I see it all the time. While you have the paint mixed up can you just fix this rust? Or I was hoping you’d be able to paint my car for $1500. Show quality too. But for the most part I can give a reasonable price for upholstery and most don’t care. Problem is I think there are a lot of shade tree auto body/mechanics competing and lowering prices. Where as less in upholstery. Just my opinion though.
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By Cale
#2246
@Cody I agree with you there too. There are so many back yard shops that don't have insurance, spec paint booths or anything that a retail shop has to have and they lowball and set a low price that sticks with the consumer. Most of these shop also do crap work. Just covering rust with filler and not treating or repairing the damage.

Another issue that happens regularly is that people watch these TV shows and think that a 1-5 man shop can build a $200k hot rod for $38k in about a month.

That I know of, there are only a few people in my area that are doing any kind of upholstery work. And, at that, they are doing it for marine craft. Which then, lowers that number even less for automotive.
By mrcanvas
#2892
Is there a time guide available for automotive trimming? Marine Fabricators Assoc. has a time guide to help figure labor hours on a job. We use it as a reference when quoting. It has been extremely helpful.
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By BigRig
#2894
@mrcanvas
That would be extremely helpful.
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By John
#2917
No there is no standard time guide for auto upholstery. The problem is with auto upholstery there are just so many variables that can drastically vary the time from job to job. I want to create some sort of a guide or resource for estimating jobs but I haven't come up with an easy way yet.
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By Cale
#2982
I have been keeping a log of how long each step takes me for each different type of seat. This way, if/when I get another one like it I can refer back to my notes to know how to charge. I am also making myself a catalog of templates for future use.
By mrcanvas
#2984
Yeah I’ve been doing time studies on each job. We clock in on each job then review our time vs time billed. We’ve pushed our prices up until the market pushed back and we weren’t getting the jobs. It also helps having employees on flat rate so you know they’re putting in their best efforts. It just takes so long to compile this data I was looking for a short cut. Aren’t we all :grin:
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By John
#3000
That's awesome! I try to do this as well but sometimes I get lazy. That data will prove to be very valuable the longer your in business.
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