Increase Your Per-Gun Income

We’ve already talked a bit about establishing a fair minimum price per job and sticking to it so that you get paid, even for small jobs. This adds up to quite a bit over a year. A job may call for just a screw, but you have to take the gun apart and spend time finding a replacement screw, so you have to charge for it. If you have to make the screw, the job could run even more than your minimum.

Speaking of screws, keep in mind that a gun screw is usually different in shape and thread from anything that’s available in the hardware store. It’s far more profitable for you to step up to the lathe and turn one out than it is for you to reach into your "assorted-screw bin" and go searching for one. The customer will feel like he got his money’s worth if you had to make it; and you’ll take in more money to help offset the cost of dies, steel, bluing solution, and most importantly, time.

Few of us employ a "bean counter" to keep track of the money taken in for items produced on the lathe. But due to the high cost of the machinery, it stands to reason that the more you use it and charge for it, the better the return on your investment in equipment will be. If you make apart that requires the use of a mill, you can charge more than you would for lathe work.

The setup time required to make the first cut on a mill is longer than on a lathe, and fashioning the part will probably require cutting away a lot of excess metal. And the part will still require some hand fitting, so such apart becomes expensive. If that is what your customer wants’great’but don’t do it cheaply. The average machine shop would charge more than you do for doing the same job, and they probably wouldn’t understand what the part is and how it has to work. Your knowledge is worth money.

Restoration jobs often require more machine work and shop time than the typical repair. Take these jobs if you have the right combinations of ability and equipment, but take them only if you can do the work profitably. Personally, I like making parts. I think it’s the artist in me that wants to take apiece of metal and create apart that can’t be purchased anywhere.

But I don’t want to be a "starving artist." So make all the parts you can, Binder Ad (p/u from page 18, AGM-August 07) within reason, and you’ll get more money for them. Your customer will think you’re a real wizard’which you are’and your credibility will be enhanced. your customer will tell his friends how great you are, and you can’t put a price on the value of wordof-mouth advertising. Of course, when I say to make as many parts as you can, I’m referring mostly to obsolete parts.

You usually can’t charge more to make a currently available part than anew one would cost’unless your customer is in a big hurry. In this case, the extra cost to make the part may be acceptable to him. It doesn’t hurt to say to your customer: "I can order the part and have it in a few weeks, or I can make one here and have the gun back to you in a few days." You might just find that your customer is willing to pay extra for a fast turnaround.

Finally, I can’t stress enough that, although steel and most gun parts are fairly cheap, your knowledge and your equipment have come at a relatively high price. You need to charge enough on every job to get a fair return on your investment in yourself. I