What is fair wait time for chamber job?

Very few people understand production, and gunsmiths are some of the worst at production because if you really want to turn out perfect work (as close as possible) you have to perfect your entire production system which is extremely difficult to do and expensive most times (how I make my $$ during the day). Not understanding production leads to inefficiencies everywhere, even guys that have their systems pretty tight have small inefficiencies that cost them hours per month and maybe even weeks per year. What we want as customers is perfection and we want it ASAP, the guy we picked does great work and word is out. Then, the more attention the gunsmiths work gets the more work they get, work = $$ and we all love money. Not wanting to turn away money leads to optimistic estimates of completion and underestimation of inefficiencies, that turns into more and more backlog, and there just aren't enough hours in the day to do the work. TIME is the one thing you cannot buy when you are the guy doing the work, and time is the one thing you need most. Pride too, he doesn't want to let anyone down so if he works a little harder he might catch up some, never happens. Then you have a job in line that pays 3 times what another job does, kids need shoes or the truck is broke or whatever, schedules can change. Also, say you have been in the shop for 10 hours without a break, but you need to get more done so you look at the backlog and there is a job you can knock out pretty quickly so the schedule changes again. You raise prices to slow it down and no help so raise prices to OMG levels to try to stem the flow and if anything you get more work because your prices are so high you must be doing great things. It can be incredibly hard to find light at the end of the tunnel so you just keep plugging away doing your best. All the while you are answering dozens to hundreds of emails and calls, all the time spent on that is time not spent turning out product. Most of the calls/emails are tire kickers, but if you treat them like the tire kickers they are now you are just a Richard Cranium and the some portion of the good work that was lost in that mess of tire kickers you didn't find goes elsewhere. Sadly this is the most likely way to get even close to caught up if you do really good work.

If ever I were to get back into a side gig I would take deposits for a spot in line, not much, maybe a hundred bucks. There are X jobs in line ahead of you, my best guess is X weeks or months until your spot, if you want the spot it's a hundred bucks. A couple weeks before your spot I will let you know so you can send your work, my best guess is the work will take X hours/days/weeks to complete without any complications, if there are complications I will let you know. Something like that.....
 
Don't supply the parts, dont pay up front, a small % down for parts if necessary is all. When the smith has his own money tied up in "the Parts" he'll want paid sooner than later. The only thing he has to look forward to is the labor, he'll do that job when there are no more parts to sell.
Respectfully, these smiths, even the really good ones, don't make the money it would take to front parts for every job or even most jobs. Then he would end up with a bunch of work that 'I need a couple weeks' to come up with the money for. Customers are every bit as slow to pay as smiths are to complete the work when they don't have skin in the game so just sell it to someone else? The rifle isn't as saleable as the parts and labor sum unless dipstick A spec'd out the exact rifle someone else was going to commission. Unless I had the parts on hand already I wouldn't front the parts money for anyone and I wouldn't work on or assemble anything until I was whole on the cost of the parts at least.
 
Some people will give a time estimate that they will never make just so they don't lose a job. My gunsmith gives himself lots of leeway and I'm good with that. If he tells me 2 months and it takes 1 1/2 I'm a happy customer but if he was to tell me 2 months and it takes 5… not so happy.
Under promise over deliver.
 
Respectfully, these smiths, even the really good ones, don't make the money it would take to front parts for every job or even most jobs. Then he would end up with a bunch of work that 'I need a couple weeks' to come up with the money for. Customers are every bit as slow to pay as smiths are to complete the work when they don't have skin in the game so just sell it to someone else? The rifle isn't as saleable as the parts and labor sum unless dipstick A spec'd out the exact rifle someone else was going to commission. Unless I had the parts on hand already I wouldn't front the parts money for anyone and I wouldn't work on or assemble anything until I was whole on the cost of the parts at least.
Interesting. I always thought the smith made decent markup on parts and would want to do the job with parts that he supplied. Of course I would not expect him to carry the entire cost up front.
 
There are too many good smiths who take pride in turning quality work around quick to wait much. Now that's not to say some guys aren't worth waiting for who specialize in something very specific, but general chamber, brake, bedding etc there are great guys turning that around fast.
 
Respectfully, these smiths, even the really good ones, don't make the money it would take to front parts for every job or even most jobs. Then he would end up with a bunch of work that 'I need a couple weeks' to come up with the money for. Customers are every bit as slow to pay as smiths are to complete the work when they don't have skin in the game so just sell it to someone else? The rifle isn't as saleable as the parts and labor sum unless dipstick A spec'd out the exact rifle someone else was going to commission. Unless I had the parts on hand already I wouldn't front the parts money for anyone and I wouldn't work on or assemble anything until I was whole on the cost of the parts at least.
They can all order. 20%-30% in parts profit can be a motivator .
 
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Nearly every action and barrel that will be made the rest of the year is sold already and someone is waiting for it. That said, if I charge you 1375 for an action that is listed for 1100 and 530 for a barrel that is listed for 425 (25% markup) are you OK with that? Most people aren't OK with that, now I am trying to hose the customer on parts prices, he should have just bought them himself. Or do I bury the markup in the build? Now the labor prices are out of line or maybe not depending on who the smith is? The average smith isn't getting a big discount on these things, he can't buy enough and there isn't enough out there. Brand name an action, have say Defiance (I have no idea if they make actions other than with their name on them) make actions with your name on them, commit to X actions per year and you are taking them period with a down payment and milestone payments, now you can discuss a discount. A few smiths do this, and I assume it benefits them, but the guy building less rifles a year than the guy getting his brand named isn't going to be able to play in that field and probably doesn't want to scale to the level that he can?
 
. I always thought the smith made decent markup on parts and would want to do the job with parts that he supplied
Why would you think this.....
Being a building contractor(albeit a self employed..self motivated..and not greedy).....I myself charged clients the exact same for materials as I pay for them.....although I do charge for the time in store looking for materials..
sometimes...........
My money comes from production...labor......I'm straight up front with this with clients.....actually..If items are to be purchased at Lowes/HD I persuade the client to purchase because after $1500 they can get a discount of sometimes 15%.....that helps them pay my wages.......
 
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