Been asked to make simple knife sheaths. Please help..

[fredk]

I have an idea  ,  its not always good for me to have ideas, it hurts my brain. This is sort-of adapted from two of my past businesses; a photographic studio* and a vintage vehicle restoration company**

Get a few knives off the chap, and make two or three sheaths, just plain or with stamping. Just basic. Use a stop-watch to time your actual working time; don't count dye or glue drying time. See how those go. Work out a fair price for yourself.

Then tell the chap how much the sheaths are costing him. Allow him to take them home and consider them and the price. Give him 2 (no less) to 4 weeks (about maximum) to either return the sheaths or pay for them. I'll bet you a jammie donut that on the 4 weeks he'll pay up.

Then tell him you'll make three or four sheaths per month, or whatever you're comfortable with, and he can pay for those as you go on. Make sure he gives you a deposit which covers at least the material, then if he pulls out of the deal you are only out time

 

* in my photo studio business I did family and children portraits.  I used to get sales of large expensive framed photos by getting one done first. A gilt framed 20 x 16 looked big in the studio. The person, usually one of the parents, would refuse to buy it. I 'loaned' it to them for 4 weeks or so. I told them I'd get it back off them after that for use in my window or reception room display. 99% of times they ended up buying the photo. They had hung it somewhere prominent, had got used to it and when they took it down to return to me they noticed the big empty space on the wall. I would reduce the price by 10% for them as it had been hanging, it was 'used'. The 10% reduction was already factored into the main price but no one can refuse a bargain. Chink-chink, money in the coffers. Plus; other family members who had visited and saw the 20 x 16 often ordered framed 10 x 8s. Chink-chink, more money in the coffers

So if you let the chap have some nicely done sheaths he'll get used to having them and will be reluctant to give them back. Even if he does, you've had practice and can use them as examples of work done

In a side business which I ran was to re-build vintage cars and small vans. This started out with me hiring in a couple of men to rebuild and maintain my own collection of cars and vans. Soon other vehicle owners were coming to me to do their car or van. With these rebuilds we are looking at, minimum of £3000 to over £100, 000. Very few people were, or can fork out even £3000 for work on their classic car, so I had a simple contract. Basically you pay us what you can afford when you can and we will do work to that value. Most vehicle owners paid us about £200 a month and they got £200 worth of time & parts on their vehicle. This method was painless to the vehicle owner, kept my cash flow, er. . .   flowing and gave my men a variety of different vehicles to work on. On average, not including my own, they had 6 different vehicles to work on.

So, by offering this chap say 4 sheaths a month, that's one a week, not too hard to do. Your work will improve on each one. The chap will have paid a deposit, say $50, your price is $35 per (is that about right people?) at the end of 4 weeks or 1 month he owes you $90. He can 'buy' the next 4 when he can afford to,  same thing,  deposit and final payment when done. No big contract betwixt youse, just an understanding

[SUP]

@fredk, That is a sound plan. If he agrees to pay the 1st deposit, I could follow that. Let me see what he says.

[DwightT]

I know I'm late to the game here, but when it comes to justifying the cost of a sewing machine, one of the things my son will do when he needs a "specialty" tool for a one-off project is he will buy the tool, complete the project, then turn around and sell the tool on the local market.  He sometimes will get the full price that he paid for the tool (typically when he bought the tool used to begin with), but usually he'll sell it for some amount less than he originally paid.  Even then his overall cost is less than it would have been to rent the tool, and the new buyer is happy that he got the now slightly used tool at a discount.

    /dwight