I'm trying to start my own fabrication business and i think i have a handle on what i want to charge for most of the things I'm going to do but I'm a little stumped. I have a friend that works at a small European car dealership and he told me he had an emergency and he needed my help right away. Well all i did was patch a small hole in this cars floor pan. Any ways the owner thought i was fair and he liked my work so he asked me if i could do some work on another car. I go in today and its a 1969 Mercedes benz sl 280 convertible, and the chassis has some pretty bad rust on one side. I told him which factory pieces to buy and he asks me if the labor would be under $5k (i was shocked) i had a price in my mind and it wasn't any where near this amount. How do i price something like this out? I'm not used to "body work" and i don't want to take advantage of hie either. how should i go about this estimate?

-thanks

 

charge by the hour?

 

start off with like 30$/hr, thats good for fab and if that job goes well up it to 40 or so.

 

$30/hr? Maybe for someone doing this on the side, but you can't run a business like that...

 

i do it on the side, but damn, my time is wroth a hell of alot more than that. typical charge for tig is 55/hr or $5/inch which ever is cheaper.

 

how much time do you actually think it would take?

Id just say 3,500 and be done with it. That way its clearly under what he had in his mind but ur still getting the bills

 

Fabnewb i think thats a good idea. That way if i feel like taking my time i won't make to guy think im trying to milk the clock. Thanks alot for the input so far!

 

thats why i said start off low and see how it goes.

 

$150hr is A fair price, you don't want to cut yourself short in case you run into problems. Trust me he is not getting it done any cheaper then that anywhere else...there is big money in restoration work...so set the bar high up front with this guy.

 

$75 an hour + materials is going rate.

 

You will always make more money giving a flat rate. Unless you under estimate

 

Thanks a bunch guys. I talked to him and we figured somehtign out. Hopefully i can post some pics later next week.

thanks again!

 

before I got robbed and closed my business I would charge upward of $125-225 an hour depending on how large the project was and material, you will loose money charging $30 an hour trying to run a business

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by tony1 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">$30/hr? Maybe for someone doing this on the side, but you can't run a business like that...</TD></TR></TABLE>
w3rd at least 55 an hour