Stainless fabrication charges

[Goldie]

Farmer Piles, I wish you well as I’m pretty certain that you’d find a market.

I needed a couple of small brackets fabricating from SS -a base of approx 45x20x4 with an upstand of 20x20x4 at the mid point (dimensions in mm). There would have been two holes drilled in the base and one in the upstand and I needed 2 of these brackets. Tbh, I thought it was the sort of job for a quiet period or between big jobs. The price I was quoted by a ‘Marine‘ fabricator here in Cornwall based at a harbour on Carrick Roads was £412 - I didn’t bother asking if that included VAT!!! I concluded that they just didn’t want the small jobs. That was in the winter 2018/19, I hate to think what they’d quote now…

 

[jon and michie]

You're making a lot of assumptions. I have a workshop, I have the welders and tooling - lathes, mill, plasma cutter, pipe roller, sheet metal folder, 2m long folder/press - to list some of the kit.

I wish you had said this earlier - However you now don't have set up costs either so you are already set to go.

 

[Daydream believer]

You're making a lot of assumptions. I have a workshop, I have the welders and tooling - lathes, mill, plasma cutter, pipe roller, sheet metal folder, 2m long folder/press - to list some of the kit. I also have a qualified superyacht engineer that wants to come back home to put roots down. I j ust wanted to get a feel of what rates are like compared with down here. I don't want to under charge or, conversely, sell us short. It will be a joint venture.
We have Rustler Yachts, Cockwells and Port Pendennis - the last being a superyacht yard where you don't get a boat through the door for less than £500K most refits run to £5m plus - on our doorstep. Not to mention all the other yards and marinas. The work is out there.

Then you do not need other people's rates. You should know what to charge if you are that far down the road. As I said , it is determined by what monthly income you need against the productive hours & go from there. What someone else charges is pretty much irrelevant, until you build a decent customer base. No good charging £40-00 because someone else does, when your own break even costs are £45-00
Just because Rustler charge £500K it does not mean that they make any greater % than any other yacht manufacturer. The cost is probably due to the custom work & economy of limited scale.

You look at what you are paying the staff etc & add a profit.

 

[Trident]

Around the Solent its £60-80 an hour

I work with two companies in the area and both charge fixed prices for a job but occasionally we need changes or extras that they then price on an hourly rate

Most stuff now is done with CAD, Solidworks etc so you should become familiar with these softwares if you've not previously used them - if you have then you have no worries.

There's lots of work these days in solar arches etc - these may range from £4000 for a simple monohull price to £10000 for a more complex multihull arch - obviously much more for super yachts etc . A simple bimini or cockpit cover frame perhaps £400 up for standard 1 inch bent tube with slider fittings etc . Oh and obviously mandrel tube benders demand higher prices to not have compression in the bends .

Good luck with your new venture

 

[thinwater]

T&M is fine, but you make less money than well-quoted job rate. On the other hand, you can either lose big time or price yourself out of the market if you quote too high.

Learn how to quote smart. This is one of the most critical business skills. You will lose a little on a few early on, but you'll learn quickly how long thing take and how to move through work at a businesslike pace, while maintaining quality.

 

[Daverw]

for the welders I know and who do first class tig stainless work they would charge around £60 per hour, note that most will have a fitter assisting fir cutting and setting up so this would be additional cost

 

[Daydream believer]

for the welders I know and who do first class tig stainless work they would charge around £60 per hour, note that most will have a fitter assisting fir cutting and setting up so this would be additional cost

But if their overheads are £50 per hour because they only get 4 hours work a week that is pretty low is it not?

 

[Farmer Piles]

Thanks for all the replies, it is very useful having comparative experiences. I take your points Daydream but you do need to know what the market rate is, as otherwise all your costings are meaningless if you overprice and get no work. Equally if the market rate is below your predicted overheads then I know not to proceed.
This was just a bit of a fishing exercise to get some benchmark figures to work up numbers and viability.

 

[Farmer Piles]

Farmer Piles, I wish you well as I’m pretty certain that you’d find a market.

I needed a couple of small brackets fabricating from SS -a base of approx 45x20x4 with an upstand of 20x20x4 at the mid point (dimensions in mm). There would have been two holes drilled in the base and one in the upstand and I needed 2 of these brackets. Tbh, I thought it was the sort of job for a quiet period or between big jobs. The price I was quoted by a ‘Marine‘ fabricator here in Cornwall based at a harbour on Carrick Roads was £412 - I didn’t bother asking if that included VAT!!! I concluded that they just didn’t want the small jobs. That was in the winter 2018/19, I hate to think what they’d quote now…

Just re-reading your post, it's a bit like Daydream said, you have to price at the true cost. I would suggest that it would be a day's work for a man to do this from scratch as a pair of one-offs. Eight hours, £50/hour plus the materials - there's your £412. On the one hand a lot of money, on the other, a fair price for the skills, overheads and materials.
I know from when Father used to do all this type of work, it takes time.

 

[Tradewinds]

IMO there’s a lot of aesthetics involved in marine stainless welding. It’s not just a case of wham, bam there you go. The fabricator has to be aware of this side of things. Good stainless fabricators will always be in demand.

 

[rogerthebodger]

Having done a lot of stainless steel fabrication for my boat and having the skill and equipment I now will not do work for others as the time in finishing / polishing is time consuming and very dirty.

It also can take more time to get the money from the "customer" than to do the job in the first place

Some people will always use excuses to not pay or wish extensive modifications included in the original price

 

[Tranona]

Just re-reading your post, it's a bit like Daydream said, you have to price at the true cost. I would suggest that it would be a day's work for a man to do this from scratch as a pair of one-offs. Eight hours, £50/hour plus the materials - there's your £412. On the one hand a lot of money, on the other, a fair price for the skills, overheads and materials.
I know from when Father used to do all this type of work, it takes time.

This brings back my past of teaching Management Accounting and advising businesses on how to design and use costing systems. You are right that you need to start from market rates if you can get them, but the problem with skilled labour intensive activities on one off custom work is that hours are often difficult to predict and tend to vary from one operator to another, plus each job often needs custom design work the cost of which needs to be recovered on just the one job.

Experience is key here. I have had work done by 2 local stainless fabricators who do a lot of marine work both custom and small scale production work. Both can eyeball a job and give a ballpark figure on the spot for most jobs. Good example would be the juliet balcony railing one made for my house. Individually dimensioned but pretty standard design similar to many he had done before. Quick discussion on specific features out of the options available and a fixed price on the spot. For more complex jobs like this one forums.ybw.com/threads/solar-arch-uk.604211/#post-8359435 post#11 I would guess there was a lot of toing and froing measuring and discussing alternatives with the buyer plus some CAD design work before arriving at an acceptable price.

From the way you have described your set up you have less of a problem than most start ups in that you already have premises and machinery so adopting a marginal costing approach is more appropriate. Can this new activity make a contribution to your overhead costs? That is recover the direct labour and material costs and contribute to the establishment costs. The direct costs give you a "floor" below which you won't go. coming from the other end it is helpful to know what the going rate is as your competitors will be pricing to fully recover their overheads. As you see from the various responses there is a fair consensus that the chargeout rate is +/- £50 plus VAT and probably nearer £60. So your objective with the business plan is to see if you can get enough work at that chargeout rate to make a positive contribution to your overheads. Judging by the way you described what you have in your facility it is unlikely that one person can do enough work to fully cover costs. The fabricator I described earlier has a similar setup and is staffed by the 2 working partners and 3 employees.

I agree with others that there is a shortage of good stainless fabricators and you are well placed geographically to get both marine and industrial work.

 

[Daydream believer]

I do not think that the money is in small fabrication stuff. One needs to get involved in fitout contracts etc. Supermarkets, offices, Balustrading on flats etc. Get some quantity & volume. get a few blokes to do the work whilst you do the admin & look for clients.
Doing little one offs will get you nowhere, as there is not enough profit in single jobs, unless you just want to be a jobbing welder. Doing a £400 job, with all the hassle, for someone & saying you made £300 for a days work with all your overheads. is not really very clever. They say you robbed them & you could have earned as much, with less risk, working for someone down the road.

 

[jon and michie]

Having done a lot of stainless steel fabrication for my boat and having the skill and equipment I now will not do work for others as the time in finishing / polishing is time consuming and very dirty.

It also can take more time to get the money from the "customer" than to do the job in the first place

Some people will always use excuses to not pay or wish extensive modifications included in the original price

And then complain that the price is too high - because they dont understand what goes into the finished product

 

[Farmer Piles]

Similarly, the bane of the rigger's life is the small jobs on £3K boats.