"Tony Manella" ndd1 at prolog.net wrote in message

"Ecnerwal" wrote in message

"Maxprop" wrote:

I, an amateur of limited turning experience, can turn a 10" bowl to
completion in about two or three nights of a few hours each session.
While

So let's call it 6 hours, depending what you use for "few". Now assume
that you'd like to make a living on that - remember, before you start
saying "well, I can live like a king on $20/hour" that there's a whole
pile of money you don't see when _somone_else_ pays you $20 an hour,
which you have to pay when you decide that $120 is plenty for that bowl.
By the time you've bought heath insurance and paid self-employment taxes
you're already down quite a bit, and then there's wood, lathes, power,
finish, sandpaper, selling expenses, shop space, etc - pretty soon you
find that you are are working for wal-mart wages (or less) and you've
probably decided that you can't really afford health insurance anyway.

When you consider _all_ the time that you put into a piece, and figure
out a pay scale which actually covers _all_ your costs, and provides a
decent wage to live on, you'll find that $120 looks pretty tiny, from
that perspective.

That was a very good explanation. Don't forget the time to scavenge wood,
cut it with a chainsaw, clean the shop, pack the piece and deliver to the
gallery. Even a hobby turner charging $20 is making very little money.
He
also has to pay for a lathe, tools, electric, sandpaper, finishes etc.

Both of these responses make excellent points. But the laws of supply and
demand seldom takes such considerations into account. My lawn service is a
man with one employee. He recently purchased a new zero-turn mower for
roughly $8K and maintains many other expensive pieces of equipment, not to
mention his truck and trailer. And he, too, must pay taxes, employee wages,
FICA, health insurance, etc. But he still cannot charge more than $30 to
$40 to mow my lawn in this locale. To remain competitive he must charge
what the market will bear. I suspect he believes he works for Wal-Mart
wages at times.

So why do some woodturners believe themselves exempt from the laws of supply
and demand? Please allow me to play devil's advocate, if you will.

Max